Todd Edwards at Lido Festival

We speak to The Godfather of Garage, Todd Edwards at London's new Lido Festival

Transcript

00:00I am Todd Edwards. I'm known for being the godfather of UK Garage, one of the inventors,

00:05and I'm also known for my work with Daft Punk. So those are two major things I have

00:08under my belt, and I've been in the industry for about 30 years now.

00:11I'm playing a back-to-back with Bullet Tooth, which I'm really excited to play. He's a great guy.

00:16We did a couple tracks together, and I'm really looking forward to those coming out and working

00:19with him some more. With back-to-backs, I always try to follow the lead of, you know,

00:25the other producer DJ, because I'm just a nice guy. So if Bullet Tooth plays a little darker,

00:31I'll play a little darker with him. I always like to slip in some of my own music as well,

00:35but really I just try to read the crowd and see what they're into and stuff. So, you know,

00:39England is my biggest market, so I have a tendency to, because they know my music,

00:43and I'm known for my music even more so than my DJing, I'll always test the waters and play,

00:48you know, some of my own stuff first, see if they respond to it. If they're there to hear my music,

00:53I will play a lot of my own stuff during my sets. But, you know, like I said, I'm a people-pleaser,

00:59so I will do my best to try to keep the crowd inspired and interesting. You can feel the energy

01:04when it changes or if it goes down or if it goes up. So I basically will play, I mean, obviously,

01:09you know, festivals react a little bit differently than if you're playing in a club. So, you know,

01:15I don't want to say it's mainstream, but definitely like harder tracks that are more typical of festivals.

01:20I play a lot of edits that might use Tech House and I'll add vocals to it or add some of my own

01:27musical style to it. I always try to incorporate myself in whatever I'm playing. Because, I mean,

01:31the thing of it is, is when you're just DJing, you know, and you're not a producer, you can pretty

01:37much play anything. But as an artist, I kind of, it's not selfishness, but it's like you want to

01:41promote your own music, you know. So, and I have a label coming out called House of Todd Hot Records,

01:47which will be launching this summer. So I'm really excited to be getting out new music

01:52that's like my main focus right now.