Richie McNeill

As part of our commitment to capturing and sharing great Australian music stories, the Australian Music Vault asked some of the country’s most influential trailblazers and unsung heroes to open up about their lives in music.

Richie McNeill is an innovator and force for change in the Australian dance and electronic music scene who has helped put Melbourne on the world stage as the leading city for rave culture. Starting with his first Hardware rave party on New Year’s Eve in 1991 at the Mercantile Rowing Club in Melbourne, McNeill has built award-winning events and festivals including Apollo, Two Tribes, Stereosonic, and Festival X which have supported local artists and showcased the biggest names in electronica.

McNeill has performed locally and internationally as DJ Richie Rich, managed Mushroom Records’ dance department, and helped develop the Victorian Government's Code of Conduct for Running Safer Dance Events. In 2011, he won an ‘inthemix Lifetime Achievement Award’ for his contribution to dance music in Australia.

In this interview, he discusses DJing as a teenager in Melbourne during the 1990s, developing a role for Mushroom Records as the leading distributor of electronic music, and creating Stereosonic, the largest single day festival in Australian history.

Interviewer: Jane Gazzo

Location: Bakehouse Studios, Richmond, 2022