We recently got the chance to sit down and talk with legendary producer and DJ Fedde Le Grand before his show in Los Angeles at Exchange LA. The Dutch luminary talked about some of his highlights for 2017 as well as looked ahead to 2018 with us. After more than a decade of making dance music, Fedde has pretty much done it all. However, that doesn’t mean he’s slowing down anytime soon. Fedde also shared with us some old and new artists he’d like to collaborate with in the future. Fedde also revealed that lasting in the game is a lot different than making it in the game. Here’s what he had to say.
We’re bringing 2017 to a close; what were some of the highlights of the year for you? What have you accomplished, what are you really proud of and what’s stood out?
“I think in general, I’m pretty happy on the production side of things. Did several things, also switched the back end of the label to Armada, which has been great. To cap this year off we did the celebration mix of ‘Let Me Think About It’, which it’s been 10 years, that’s kind of nice. I did another track with Ida Corr and just got interesting opportunities, re-doing the I Need a Miracle track for ‘Coco’s Miracle’. Because also, she [CoCo Star] finally got her rights back after like 10 years. It’s kind of a sad story, because she never got anything from the record, so it’s a little bit of justice now, which is cool.”
In retrospect, when you look back at your career and what you’ve accomplished, what are you proud of and what else would you like to accomplish as a producer and DJ? What else is there to do for you?
“I think in general the thing I’m most proud of is to be able to survive the always changing landscape. It’s one thing to get into the game, but it’s another thing to stay in the game, totally different things. To be honest, I’m pretty content. I always have personal goals, things I want to do in the studio, people I want to work with. I think that’s the great thing with music, you never know exactly where it’s going to go. There’s always something new to learn and something new to discover. For me, as long as everything keeps moving, I’m good.” 
Who are some dream collaborations?
“That’s hard, there’s so much talent out there. I think in terms of collaborations, I actually re-discovered an English DJ named MJ Cole, I’d really to like to do something with him. I think he’s still amazing. There’s obvious things, like to try and do something with Rihanna maybe. There’s an artist from Germany, not sure if the track did anything here in America, Alice Merton, ‘No Roots’ is the name of her song, amazing. She’s on the top of my list now.”
What are your coping mechanisms for staying grounded when you’re on tour?
“I’m pretty keen on my travel schedule, so I try to have at least a week between long tours. Although this time it’s been hard, we had only three days and just came from Australia, here and then back to Holland, so that’s tough. So in my opinion, there’s two ways to do it, either you make sure you’re drunk the whole tour, because as soon as you stop you just fucking crash. Or the other way around is just to basically live like a monk, eat healthy, work out, go to bed early, which I normally do, don’t make it too crazy and you’re fine. I’ve found out it’s one way or the other.”
What are some highlights for you when you visit Los Angeles?
“First off the weather, that’s a huge difference for us. It’s mainly rain, gray, cloudy stuff, and drizzle, so it’s not that interesting. I do have a lot of friends here, so that’s great. There’s so much good food here, but I think my favorite restaurant in the world is Bazaar. We just went today, my tour manager has never been there, but I think I scored some points. I think Japan has really good food, L.A. and Sao Paulo, and New York of course. But I think Bazaar here is my favorite place.”
What do we have to look forward to from you in 2018? Any surprises?
“Yeah, I don’t want to say too much about it, but I did some really big shows in Holland [last year]. I was super content with it, we wanted to travel, but it was too expensive, we had like 70 people running around backstage. I’m going to do a new show, so that’s the one that’s going to travel. That’s going to be a really big thing, everything is there on paper. We have a little version of the booth, we’re talking to the content guys now. I think we found some really interesting techniques, let me put it that way, to incorporate into the show that as far as I know, haven’t been done before. I think that’s the thing I’m looking forward to the most, and I hope to have the first show around the end of summer. Musically I have a few interesting collabs coming, and some solo stuff. That’s all I can say.”
Check out the Celebration Mix of Fedde and Ida Corr’s classic “Let Me Think About It” below.
Check out Fedde’s 2017 Year Mix, too!
