Published in the December 2009 Issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 22 - Number 12
By Emily Tan

By now, everybody in clubland is familiar with Fedde le Grand’s tasty electro-house hooks. Since 2006, irresistible burners like “Put Your Hands Up for Detroit,” “The Creeps” (featuring Camille Jones) and “Let Me Think About It (featuring Ida Corr) have blasted out of the underground scene, eventually making their mark on the worldwide pop charts. And, in those countries where club fare competes for radio play with R&B divas and boy bands, the Dutch DJ/producer has become known as a genuine hitmaker.

It’s a status he shares with only a few contemporaries. Like David Guetta, le Grand seems to accept the responsibility of spreading club beats around the world via pop-music avenues. And one can’t help but draw further similarities between the two. Both le Grand’s artist album, Output (Ultra), and Guetta’s, One Love (EMI), boast big-name commercial collaborators like Black Eyed Peas’ Wil.i.am. Both albums are deeply song-oriented—neither are simply a collection of club tracks. Also, Le Grand and Guetta have spent years promoting and DJing their own parties, Le Grand with his “Flamingo Nights” and Guetta with his “F*** Me I’m Famous” spectacles. Both hold their DJ roots dear, as they still enjoy playing down-and-dirty parties, as well as the massive festivals.

Guetta has had more Stateside success, but le Grand’s sound has left his stamp. Electro-house remains a favorite and, according to le Grand, one of the cuts that helped push genre to new heights (“Put Your Hands Up for Detroit”) was not the track that initially interested labels. Le Grand was turned down left and right, but he believed in the song, released it himself, and the rest is history.

During a photo shoot on the five year anniversary of his Flamingo Recordings label, Fedde Le Grand spoke with DJ Times about DJing, production and the state of global dance music.

DJ Times: Did you record your album, Output, in a home studio or commercial studio?

Fedde Le Grand: I have quite a good studio at our office and I’m a bit of a control freak, so I did everything myself up until the pre-mastering. The final mastering was done by someone else.

DJ Times: Were any of these tracks released previously?

Le Grand: Only “3 Minutes to Explain” was released before.

DJ Times: Because of the timing of both releases, guest appearances by Wil.i.am, and the proper song construction, I can’t help but draw comparisons to David Guetta’s studio album, One Love. Are you hearing that a lot?

Le Grand: Well, yes, partially, but I think in my case the album has definitely a few records you can compare. But I like to think that my album’s a bit of a broader perspective. There are a few things on it which are more tech-y, more underground. Like “Output” is not too radio-like—it’s a non-vocal track. Especially the first two or three tracks, they’re not even house music. They’re on the dance side still, but they’re not house-oriented. I like to think I took a broader perspective.

DJ Times: Were you making a conscious effort to focus on proper song construction on Output?

Le Grand: Yeah, because in my opinion, especially with an album, the albums I always really enjoyed when I was younger and even now, was stuff from Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk or Faithless. I like in the Jaxx tracks that they’re all straight-to-the-point stuff. Because on an album, it could be something you listen to in the gym or car or at home, so I didn’t want to do endless intro and outro beats. Especially from a producer’s point of view, it’s nice when you do straight house music 24/7 to do a break and have some more choice to play around than four-to-the-floor tracks. You have more freedom when you choose proper song structure. Normally, a producer would say something else, but the thing with house at the moment, it should be one really clear hook and nothing else and just repeat it for six minutes and that’s it. When you have song structure, you have more freedom, like on the track with the Stereo MCs; it has a piano solo that you wouldn’t do so quick in a soulful house track. In my case, it gave me more freedom than just to have four to the floor.

DJ Times: You’re not turning your back on clubland, I hope?

Le Grand: No, definitely not. Because I do four-to-the-floor house tracks all year. For me, it was fun, and that’s something else. I wouldn’t want to do this 24/7, either. They’re still going to be released as club extended edits.

DJ Times: What’s your main studio setup?

Le Grand: I’m a straight Logic guy. I don’t use Ableton Live or Fruity Loops. I only use Logic. I run it on a Mac. I have some external stuff like the [Logic] Duende, which has quite nice EQs. I use a lot of Waves [plug-ins], especially the [Ultramaximizer] L1 to L3. I just bought the Waves Maserati bundle and I’m very excited about it. It’s several plug-ins, but it’s really easy to use and straight-to-the-point stuff, which is perfect for vocals. I love the vocal plug-in of the Maserati bundle. It’s really smooth. Everything flows. I have a [Universal Audio] UAD card in there on my computer. I’m working on a new website where I can do my own video tutorials. There are so many questions I get asked about a lot of things regarding gear. Like, telling people about the acoustics in the studio. Your production is still going to sound like shit if you don’t have good acoustics in your studio, no matter how expensive your equipment is! I’d rather have people knowing what they’re doing so we can have proper dance music.

DJ Times: Are there any live instruments in your studio?

Le Grand: I have a super basic MIDI keyboard, which does nothing else but bring notes to my computer. I have the Access Virus TI Snow [synthesizer], the white one. I also have an original, old reel-to-reel tape recorder that my father gave me.

DJ Times: What other analog gear do you have?

Le Grand: I kind of sold all my analog stuff. I used to have proper MIDI studio with samplers and floppy discs and the [Roland] JP-8000 [synthesizer], but I sold everything. The Virus is the only thing that’s hardware now, but it works with the internal software Virus.

DJ Times: What’s your DJ setup when playing live?

Le Grand: I use quite standard gear—all Pioneer stuff. The Pioneer CDJ-1000, although I’m definitely looking into the CDJ-2000. I’m looking more into laptop stuff, but just as an add-on to cue vocals or loops. I can’t get used to playing only from my laptop—mostly because I think it looks crap! Especially if people put it up straight in front of them. It feels like handiwork with CDJs. I’m using four CDJ-1000s. I might loop one of my tracks, use two for mixing, and one for extra vocals. No effects units. I use the internal effects. I’m quicker that way. The mixer is the Pioneer DJM-800. I played with vinyl, as well, in the old days with Technics.

DJ Times: Would you say that doing tricks is more important to you than programming, live?

Le Grand: I think more manipulating tracks live, definitely. You have to do more than just the proper old-school way of playing a whole six-minute track. I’m in between. I’m very keen on the build up of my set, so in that way, I’m old school. Still, you have to have a bit of excitement to keep people going. I hate people who play tracks of only one minute. I’m in the middle. When you’re into house…they have this thing in Holland where they have 15 DJs in one night and it’s called “guerilla lineups” and they each play 30 minutes or shorter. Every track is really short and you’ll hear the same hits 15 times onstage. There’s hardly any mixing. Unfortunately, people liked that, but it’s changing. You can only take so many peaks in one or two hours! They must’ve invented some amazing new drug…

DJ Times: You started Flamingo Recordings a few years ago with Funkerman. How are things going for the label?

Le Grand: We’re having our five-year anniversary. Funkerman is my partner. I already made music before I started the label, and Funkerman, as well. We’d start out sending tracks to labels and hear, “It’s not my cup of tea,” as a response. We did releases on other Dutch labels, but we didn’t like how they handled it. The new track I made was, “Get This Feeling,” and no one liked it, so we thought, “Fuck it! We’ll just do it ourselves.” It was the same with “Put Your Hands Up 4 Detroit,” as well. We sent it to dance labels, but they were like, “There’s not too much happening with this track. It doesn’t sound like this or that.”

DJ Times: That one kinda worked out.

Le Grand: Now we release tracks ourselves or have a good partnership with labels. I’m not saying every label does this, but they match a new track that sounds 90 percent the same as the others. The labels seem more like marketing guys than people with ears. If you really believe in your product… the cool thing for us is it’s not us only, it was the crowd itself that proved everyone else with some power in the music industry wrong. That’s the most funny thing about it. Because the track went crazy in Holland, and then England heard about it, then a year later the label signed it and acted like they were genius. [laughs] But that’s all good. In England, it reached No. 1 in the overall charts, not just the dance charts. It was played a lot in Ibiza and people had good memories of it. That’s funny when the crowd decides, instead of a major-label guy. It ended up getting released on CR2, then Ministry Of Sound for the U.K., but it’s a different label for every country.

DJ Times: As label chief of Flamingo Recordings, what new producers are you excited about?

Le Grand: We signed a really young guy called Franky Rizardo. He has a fresh look. He combines things of tech-house, minimal, electro in a really nice mash-up of things.

DJ Times: Your track featuring Ida Corr, “Let Me Think About It,” was licensed like crazy. Do you ever have an ear set on licensing, or do you just concentrate on doing your own thing and wait for licensees to find you?

Le Grand: That track’s also been in a movie, as well as lots of TV licensing. That’s more what labels want to do with it. I find it hard to sell my own music. In Holland, we say it’s “ostrich politics,” like put your head in the sand. It works the best for me. I don’t read any reviews of my album because I don’t want it to affect what I do next time.

DJ Times: You also host a party called Flamingo Nights. What’s the concept behind that party?

Le Grand: It’s the same reason we started the label. We wanted something chic, but also that represented the down-and-dirty, as well. We thought it was cool to choose a bird, because it means to be as free as a bird. We just want to creatively be free to do what we think is cool and nice. It’s a nice way to stay in touch with the crowd. Because in general, you can think whatever you like, but it’s the people who come to your parties and buy your records that make it possible for you to exist at all. We started in Holland to try to make a nice format for parties, which ended up with a lot of visuals.

DJ Times: What kind of visuals do you use for your live shows?

Le Grand: We have a huge LED screen. We usually have at least one live artist blended into the night, as well. We did the Mysteryland big festival in Holland and we had the Stereo MCs playing with their own live band. We have live vocals. Sometimes, you have to take a bit of a risk. At least people are out of their comfort zone and it’s good because it makes them pay attention again.

DJ Times: Do you bring the LED setup with you everywhere or only near home?
Le Grand: Of course, it counts on which countries I’m in. The two ways to do it are to travel with your whole rig, or rent it close by. The good thing about LEDs is you can divide the LED parts but still have one picture. You can break it up into smaller pieces and have it divided over the room itself which makes the projections come to the crowd—especially if you have a good team, with the visuals guys collaborating with the lighting guys.

DJ Times: Do you generally like being lit up onstage, or do you prefer being in the dark?

Le Grand: I think it’s a bit of both. It should be about the music. The video bit can really reinforce the music more than music alone, sometimes. It works the same on any given club night. If it’s not too much all the time, if everyone picks his moments, it works very well. That’s why it’s important to have visuals and good light guys who feel the music, as well. It’s a plus. One of the important things is when you do it somewhere else and you don’t bring your own crew—it’s important to sit down with the guys at the club and make them understand it’s a team effort! It’s always a team effort of the club, from the bouncer to the person behind the bar to the DJ to the light guy. All the people together can only create the best circumstances of a good night, and the crowd has to do its part, as well.

DJ Times: The music video for “Let Me Be Real” is cool. Have you tried recreating that video when playing out?

Le Grand: It was done by quite a young guy. I think he’s 20-years-old or something. That’s what I liked about him so much. It reminded me of when I started—I was really hungry and wanted to do something. His name is Oscer Poort. The video’s a concept from the both of us. I don’t like to force my ideas on someone else. We were brainstorming and this idea for the video evolved.

DJ Times: What are some of your favorite clubs?

Le Grand: One of my favorites is Sankeys in Manchester. This is a super, old-school box with five lights. Cocoon in Frankfurt is one of my favorite clubs because it’s like a spaceship. It’s out of this world. There’s no other way to describe it. Of course, Pacha in Ibiza. We’ve been there all summer. I like Pacha in New York, too. I like Mansion in Miami. Opera in Montreal and also Guvernment in Toronto.

DJ Times: You’ve played your share of festivals. Do you prefer playing the big festivals or smaller, more intimate clubs?

Le Grand: Well, Sankeys is quite small. The main room’s about 500 people. I think between 500 and 700 people is what I like most.

DJ Times: How much do you adjust your programming when playing large outdoor festivals versus intimate venues?

Le Grand: My programming definitely changes. I did a few [of ID&T’s] Sensation [White] big indoor parties in Europe which holds 50,000 people. It’s ridiculous! It’s impressive. It’s definitely not the same as playing smaller clubs and you don’t really see who’s in front of your nose, but it’s a great thing to do big parties. I definitely wouldn’t do only these shows, though. I have a friend in Holland who owns a small club which holds 500 people. I call him up when I have a day off and I play there just to do something. It’s back to when I started, no pressure, just fun with your friends. I’m also a big sucker of outdoor daytime festivals. I don’t have to be on the main stage, but I like to be outdoors. That always affects your set, as well, if it’s sunny or rainy or dark. I don’t prepare too much for my sets. The more you prepare, the less spontaneous you are. You have an idea of the direction, but sometimes after the first track, I see I have to change direction.

DJ Times: Some DJs say they feel pressured by the crowd to play their own hits and the crowd lets them know it when they don’t. When it comes to programming, what makes a perfect night?

Le Grand: For me, a perfect night is when one of your own hits is maybe the last record or last two records. When people just go for the music in general, and if they get that extra hit on the end, it’s the cherry on top. That’s what I like most.

DJ Times: How has the global economic crisis affected you or your bookings?

Le Grand: For me and guys like [David] Guetta and Tiësto, it didn’t hurt us too much. It hurt guys in the middle, because they maybe don’t guarantee a full club, even though I hate to say that. Then again, the people just underneath them, who are not too expensive so they’re not too much of a risk, did fine. It depends on where on that scale you fall. The middle guys got hurt the most, if I looked at it from a promoter’s point of view.

DJ Times: What’s your take on the American dance music scene, right now, compared with the rest of the world?

Le Grand: The interesting thing at the moment is that a lot of people from pop music are really interested in dance music again, which in the first place is a good thing. It makes things interesting again. But I do think we have to be a little bit careful not to get the ’90s effect we had in Europe. Dance was booming at a certain point, but then you had a lot of people copying and copying and doing the same stuff over and over again. That put dance back into the corner of, “It’s not musical; it’s just copied hooks.” It’s important, maybe even more for the people on the pop side who are interested in dance that they still try to maintain a good musical quality. We have to be careful that it doesn’t get cheesy and that dance is in one or two years selling itself out again. It might sound weird coming from me because I had crossover hits, but I’m trying to get the quality as high as I can. That’s why I chose to do an album in the way I did it, with some three or four house heads and some weird left and rights on it. If I would have to do music and just copy myself, for me, that’s just working behind a conveyer belt. That would kill me, creatively.

DJ Times: What’s next for you?

Le Grand: I’m touring ‘til the end of the year. I’ll be doing a lot of remixes, too. I’m remixing Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You.” I also did a remix for Cassius for “The Sound Of Violence,” and currently I’m working on a German artist who has this big band. I’m grateful to be where I am, but you can never stop going.