Catching up with Fedde Le Grand

by Jackie Willson

International DJ, producer, and remixer Fedde Le Grand is one of the worlds leading dance artists, with the most talented mind, successful pieces of work (including the infamous “Put Your Hands Up For Detroit”), and surprisingly humble and modest take on the world of music.

Le Grand, who comes from the Netherlands, started making music when he was a teenager, and relied on his passion and drive to become successful in a world with so many aspiring artists. Having an unprejudiced and progressive view on what music should be and how it should be perceived is one of Le Grand’s biggest advantages and probably what allows him to still be so successful.

We caught of with Fedde at this years Digital Dream Festival where we chatted about what he’s been up to (a lot as usual), how he feels about the present and future of dance music, and of course, why he loves playing for Canada.

Jackie Willson: Who inspired you to want to become successful in music? 

Fedde Le Grand: That’s a good question. To be really honest, I never had one particular person who had inspired me, but if I had to choose it would be my best friend who I started Flamingo Records with. Especially back then, when we just started no one wanted to sign our music, no one booked us. So we decided, fuck this, we are going to do everything ourselves. We started our own parties, our own label, made our own music. That is how the success kind of grew naturally. It was not certain people, it was our own selves and it worked out well.

JW: Speaking of your label, what do you want most for the young artists on it?

FLG: I really want them to have their own vision, there own view on music. I just love to sign young artists that do similar work to ours. You know, a lot of the bigger labels don’t get their music because it’s different; it’s not the same as everything else. Especially if you are a huge label, it is a big marketing guide. There is a corporate element that comes in that is not always good for the creative side. I just sign everything that I really like.

JW: What do you think is the most noticeable change in EDM music over the past five years? 

FLG: Mainly, I think that this side of the world accepted EDM as a culture. I think the biggest change was when pop music got interested in dance. It just opened up that whole world right away, which is mostly good. It just means that so many more people get to notice music and I think some artists might complain that it got so commercial, but on the other hand that’s where people start and if they really like it they will go and they will listen to something completely different from when they started. I think its good, the more people discover this music the better.

JW: What do you think is going to change in EDM music in the next five years? 

FLD: Oh wow, a whole lot. In general if you look at music, it kind of has a big change more or less every two years. At least genre wise, usually there is a new genre or a reinvention of a genre that pops up, so I think music right now it is going to slow down. I think it is going to get more housey again and less of the really hard stuff.

I also think that it is going to be tougher to get dance music into Top40, because pop music is slowly moving away from dance music, I mean there are still some elements., like hip-hop is back with the trap stuff, and they are really jumping on it. You never know, but if you look at history, all of the genres, would have been drum and bass jungle, dub step, and now its trap, it usually lasts about a year and a half – two years. Always when there is a new broken beat, everyone jumps on it and then usually it is gone and I think that’s going to happen now again.

JW: You just released new single “Love Never Felt So Good” featuring MJ. You said you only had three days to create this song, did you feel a lot of pressure when releasing a song that paid homage to such a legendary artist? 

FLG: Yes of course. I think the trick to kind of not think about the fact that it is Michael, just shut that out. Actually my manager kept saying “this is the most important!”, and I kept saying “shut-up shut up! I don’t want to know.” You have to make it small because then your creativity doesn’t get blocked by your anxiety.

But it was pretty scary, my first reaction of course was like “oh my god!” because I have been a huge Michael fan forever, but my second reaction was sort of like, “Its Michael so there is nothing you can add and nothing you can change.” I was almost about to say no, but then I spoke to my nephew who is 12 now, I asked him if I should do this and he was like “who?” and I thought well I have to do it, there is this generation gap. So that’s what I kind of tried to do, make a bridge between them.

JW: How do you feel about the song now that it is out? 

FLG: Pretty much what I expected. All of the young kids, and everyone that loves dance, absolutely loves it. It has actually been played a lot on the radio, I don’t know about here but at least in Europe. But, the true MJ fans, they critique and that’s what they should do. And they are right, I would probably be the same way. I really tried to do the song justice, and personally I feel like I succeeded so I’m very happy.

JW: You have been doing a lot of collaborations recently, who would you love to work with right now? I know you’ve mentioned Tiesto and Green Velvet. 

FLG: Actually, the funny thing is the collaboration between me Tiesto, I started on it, and it never got finished. The one with Green Velvet never took off because we could never agree on the vocals that we did, I thought they were not cool enough. But it might still work out.

I am actually more looking for vocalists right now then collaborators. I’m doing something right now with Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike. Also, I can’t say who it is yet but the track is pretty much finished. It is a duo as well and they are girls so if you can guess it…they still have to come up with the vocals.

JW: In honor on Canada day, what do you like most about playing in Canada? 

FLG: You guys are educated, man. Its great. I mean, I think at the moment, America and Canada have the best energy in the world. But I think the big difference is that Canada is more educated in dance music. It is awesome.

Photo by Chelsea Werner, courtesy of the artist