Set Sail On Groove Cruise With Claude VonStroke As Your Captain

All aboard! Music festival experience Groove Cruise, setting sail from Orlando, takes attendees to Island Paradise via Royal Caribbean’s reimagined Mariner of the Seas. The festival cruise boasts an impressive lineup including Claude VonStroke, LP Giobbi, Gorgon City, SOFI TUKKER, Markus Schulz, CloZee, John Summit, No Pants Party, Dombresky, Gene Farris, J Worra and Nala. For anytime in between sets, attendees can engage in artist activities, DJ contests, wear nightly themes and more. The five-day experience is captained by Dirtybird label boss VonStroke. 

Here, he details his plans as captain, his must-see sets, his plans for his Dirtybird label and more.

Lisa Kocay: You’re the captain of the Groove Cruise ship this year. What’s it like being named the captain?

Claude VonStroke: “I used to watch ‘Love Boat,’ so maybe it’s like Captain MacLeod vibes. I’m going to definitely play it corny, fun and have a good time with it.”

Kocay: Do you have any fun things planned for being the captain?

VonStroke: “I have a bunch of different outfits and stuff. I have outfit changes and things like that, and I’ll probably be at bingo all the time. I’ll be everywhere. Probably play some secret after parties.”

Kocay: Do you have any must-see sets?

VonStroke: “I want to see CloZee for sure. I want to see Gene Ferris. I haven’t seen Markus Schulz yet. That would be interesting. I’ll go see that.”

Kocay: Do you have any essential packing items for when you’re on the cruise?

VonStroke: “I bring a lot of flip flops and shorts—you never know what it’s going to be like. I have tons of outfits, tons of different sunglasses. I’ve been collecting sunglasses because it’s so funny to do everything in different sunglasses. Everyone gives me their homemade PLUR [peace, love, unity, respect] bands and necklaces. I end up walking around on the ship with clothes pins attached to my hats and five necklaces and like 18 bracelets that say words on them and stuff. It’s crazy.”

Kocay: What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever been given? 

VonStoke: “It’s got to be one of those laser wood things, like where they laser burn the designs and wood. I’ve been given extremely intricate, Dirtybird wood things—the necklace and stuff.”

Kocay: Switching to Dirtybird, how has COVID affected the Dirtybird label and what are some ways that you’ve adjusted to overcoming these challenges?

VonStroke: “We took a different approach than some people during COVID where we doubled down and released three times as much music as opposed to turning back and not releasing music. And what ended up happening from that is that I realized that the current state of what is popular in house [music] is kind of boring to me at this point. I really want to experiment and go outside of the lines of what’s going on and get into some other stuff. So we’re kind of having a renaissance of changing up the sound at Dirtybird.”

Kocay: Did you have that realization after you did all these releases or was it during it?

VonStroke: “It was during it actually. We did a lot of streaming during COVID. At one point we had like 11 shows a week. Justin Jay was one of the shows and he’s a really, really adventurous producer, even way beyond me. He’ll play Backstreet Boys into hard techno. He’s great. Anyway, we were having these conversations and so out of those conversations spawned a white label series that was not house and that really got the bug going in me. It made it more fun again. We were, I’m not gonna say we were on autopilot, but we were kind of releasing similar music or like the two years before there was no huge difference. I was just thinking, ‘Why do we do record label?’ We’re not doing this record label to make money. We do a record label for fun. You’re not obligated to release a bunch of house tracks.”

Kocay: How would you describe the new sound you’re going to be putting out there? Do you have three words that you can describe it in?

VonStroke: “I do not. There’s only one prerequisite and that is it has to be funky.”

Kocay: Do you have any artists to watch on your label?

VonStroke: “This guy Nikki Nair is super talented, really incredible. And also Nala is really having a great year.”

Kocay: What’s next for Dirtybird in 2022?

VonStroke: We’re continuing all of our festivals. Dirtybird Campout [and] Dirtybird CampINN. We’re still doing our day festival in Los Angeles. I’m actually playing a couple things that are a little bit under the radar, just for my own personal pleasure. Secret party kind of thing. No they’re not secret, but I’m not playing at Academy or something. You know what I mean? I’m just doing a cooler party just for me a few times this year. I don’t really make any money on it. It’s just for my soul.”