Mark Stefanos
From his lush home in Ibiza, Guy Gerber paces as he speaks. The DJ, producer, instrumentalist, and now visual artist asks if the camera movement from his walking is distracting. It’s not, it’s pretty fitting actually — Gerber has built a career on journeying, meandering sets that search and build while they suck you in.
Later in the interview, Guy Gerber disappears mid-sentence to hand beers to a friend arriving at his home. He’s smiling and pacing through his house while talking about the anxiety that still overtakes him before nearly every set he plays. Even after decades in electronic music, Gerber says he walks into performances unsure whether he’ll find the right emotional thread.
“In general, I totally improvise,” he tells LA Weekly. “And every single time, I regret it at the beginning. Every single time. I’m never saying, ‘Oh, wow, that’s what a great idea to improvise.’ And then I’m terrified.
Guy Gerber (Courtesy of Guy Gerber)
“My friend said I have imposter syndrome — like I’m really thinking, ‘What am I doing? Who am I?’ — And then at one point, I emerge. I think what people hear is the journey, kind of like I’m almost falling, and then I come back.”
It’s this edge that has turned Rumors, the party series he launched in Ibiza in 2013 before bringing it to LA’s Chinatown a decade ago, into a sensation. What began as an underground beach kickback in Europe evolved into a legacy electronic music event across the globe and here in this city, and in the process, established Chinatown’s Gin Ling Way as the quintessentially-LA outdoor block party venue that we know and love.
This Saturday, May 16, he brings Rumors back to Gin Ling Way, marking the 10th anniversary and the final time the party will be held in LA at this location. Joining him are longtime collaborator DJ Harvey and Midnite Mary.
“I like to do special things. If it becomes for everyone, I have to find something different,” Gerber says about the decision to bookend the Chinatown Rumors run, an appropriate finale for an artist who has spent much of his career balking at formulas and predictability.
Gerber talks about DJing less like a technical skill and more like a psychological state. Usually he arrives with a loose playlist and lets instinct take over. He often opens performances with restrained, melancholy selections rather than obvious crowd-pleasers. “In my DJ sets, I cannot start strong. It’s just not me as a person. I just like to put a first track to change the narrative and start a new story. And then I just follow it.”
He has come to embrace the tension. “A sad song is usually not a strong song,” he says. “And usually, I feel a slight amount of doubt in the crowd, and this is usually when I thrive.”
Throwing the trend of tightly programmed festival sets and instant gratification to the wind, Gerber prefers gradual emotional movement. The crowd has to be patient, and Gerber has to believe in himself. “I know that if I stay consistent, this moment will arrive. It will get born.”
The payoff for him, he says, comes from discovery. “When I find it, I don’t want to stop,” he says. For his audience, it’s a thrilling experience to be along for the ride as the seasoned craftsman hits his stride in real time, often translating into rollicking marathon sets.
Gerber launched Rumors in Ibiza in 2013 during a period when much of dance music was leaning toward harder, maximal sounds. “It was kind of a pioneering party,” he says. “Everybody back then was very ravey and strong.”
Rumors gave a contrasting vibe, by design — set on a beach, and launched with little promotion, early flyers didn’t even include Gerber’s name. “There were 500 people, then 700, then 1,000,” he recalls. “At some point there were 4,000 people on the beach, legs in the sand.” Just like the name would suggest, the party earned its word-of-mouth following, and the crowd eventually included celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Kate Moss, though Gerber says the spirit of the event remained intimate. “The DJ booth was in a chiringuito, like inside the restaurant, you would not even see the DJs,” he says. “So I would personally play for like 200 people that I saw in front of me, but in the venue, there was like 4,000 people.”
The LA version emerged after promoter Adam Gold approached Gerber with the idea to do a block party in Chinatown 10 years ago. Chinatown had a history of banging music, with the punk rock/new wave hotspot Hong Kong Café welcoming bands in the late ‘70s and early ’80s. But it was Gerber’s Rumors that would take the party into the plaza and establish the venue as a cherished sojourn for dance music lovers.
“George Yu gave us permission, because they wanted to attract more people to Chinatown,” Gerber says of the owner of the Far East Plaza. “We couldn’t believe it. Back then it was impossible to do a party like that.” Since then, the space has come to host an array of DJs, mini-festivals, and block parties like KCRW’s Chinatown Summer Nights.
Guy Gerber’s Rumors in Chinatown (Photo: David Gallegos / @sababa_man)
Gerber still sees Rumors as occupying its own lane. “A big part of those parties is the crowd,” he says. “It’s a very mixed crowd. House music lovers. It’s not druggy. It’s not pretentious. Just normal, cool people coming to listen to music.”
That atmosphere matters deeply to him. Gerber returns to the idea that dance music has changed dramatically since he first started. “When I got into DJing, it was about finding songs nobody else knows,” he says. “So you dig and you try to find something. Also there were no MP3s, so only the DJ had these songs. If you wanted to hear the music, you had to go to the club and hear the songs.”
Today, he says, many audiences arrive wanting reaffirmation. “People expect to hear the music they heard at home so they can show they know the songs,” he says. “I respect that, but I don’t feel comfortable giving them exactly what everybody else can give them.”
That resistance to predictability has made Gerber an enduring cult figure in dance music. He says he is still chasing the emotional wave. “I try to find songs that are cool, sexy, emotional, heartbreaking, interesting and not so obvious.”
Guy Gerber’s Rumors in Chinatown (Photo: David Gallegos / @sababa_man)
Beyond the booth, Gerber is entering a new chapter. He released the Misirlou EP in March, stepping away from the deep melodic house and techno that defined much of his catalog, instead drawing from a range of sounds like rock and rockabilly. He plays guitar himself, a return to an instrument he loved before electronic music took over. The title track is a cover of the Eastern Mediterranean folk song — its earliest known recording dates to 1927 and was later popularized by the Dick Dale version in Pulp Fiction. The first recording carries a haunting quality that fascinated him.
“I promised myself that I’m going to make a guitar album,” he says. He is still finishing that full-length project, alongside some remaining club-oriented records, but the change of pace feels liberating. “I’m doing a little shift, because I’m still releasing more electronic music. But my real passion is guitar.”
Parallel to the music, Gerber has embraced visual art. His solo exhibition Separate Ways opened in New York in September 2025 before traveling to LA during Frieze Week. The show combines photography, paint, and handwritten text. For Gerber, art offers a different kind of creative release. “When I make music, it is a very emotional process,” he explains. “When I make art, it is a very intellectual process. So to give birth to my songs is very difficult for me. In the exhibition, it’s more conceptual. I do feel exposed, but not as much when I make music.” He says he’s enjoying visual art more than music at the moment.
He laughs about his lifelong aversion to preparation. A self-described poor student who frustrated teachers, especially in math — “The math teacher thought I was an idiot,” he says, “she knew the truth” — he still resists rehearsal. This extends to planned live shows incorporating guitar. “My live show is kind of the same, but it’s better because at least I know the story already.” He wants audiences to sense the tension of something unfolding in the moment rather than polished perfection. “I refuse to surrender to that world,” he says of today’s highly produced music industry. “I feel like I have to be like an island of truth when I just stand there and protest. And my only way to show it is without preparation.”
His live show is slated to arrive in LA later this year. Until then, he will be helming a new residency in Ibiza, every Wednesday at Cova Santa. And after this weekend’s Chinatown run, the rumor is Rumors will be back in LA next year at a new venue with new surprises.
Surprise is the key idea Gerber keeps returning to as the conversation winds down. “I just feel like I have to make it more interesting,” he says. For the thousands who have danced at Rumors over the last decade plus, that uncertainty has always been the point.
Guy Gerber’s Rumors Chinatown Block Party is this Saturday, May 16. Click here for tickets and more information. Follow Guy Gerber on Instagram @guygerber.
