Chris Lake Brings the ‘Chemistry’ To Dance Music In His Debut Solo Album | Music You Should Know | Billboard News - video Dailymotion

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Chris Lake released his debut solo album, ‘Chemistry,’ and he sits down to share why he titles his album ‘Chemistry,’ playing at Coachella with Fisher, the boisterous backstory of “Savana,” and how the Gotye remix of “Somebody” came to life. He also dives into his work ethic in the studio, working with Bonobo and more!  What do you think of ‘Chemistry?’ Let us know in the comments!

Transcript

00:00I'll give you my number, but I'm giving you one shot to give me something great.

00:05And if I don't like it, I'm blocking you straight away and I'm never speaking to you again.

00:08Dance music producers are kind of like that.

00:10You can literally give us like a scrap of vocal from a great artist and we'll just like

00:15loop half a second of it and make it sound like a whole song.

00:20Well the best thing about the album is you've absolutely got a choice of whether you want

00:23to listen to it or not.

00:24So I wish I had a really fancy explanation for why I called this album chemistry, but

00:37it just felt like the right word for the collection of the songs.

00:43It was one of the songs on the album, chemistry that I made with Vera Blue, one of my favorites

00:48and I just thought it had a ring to it, so I ran with it.

00:54For like the last seven or eight years, I've been on a really good run with my songs and

01:04my tracks and they've become really like effective in the clubs and like, but also like increasingly

01:12more simple and less and less and less like melody involved in them.

01:18It works really well in clubs but I just had a vision of what I could be doing instead

01:23and so that was one of the missions that I had for the album was I really wanted to reconnect

01:29with the musicality that I often write but don't release.

01:36I got to work on that with Amber Mark.

01:43That was one of the songs I didn't actually work in the studio with the artist.

01:48There's not that many of them.

01:49I got given the acapella by a couple of the writers that worked on that vocal with Amber

01:56and as soon as I heard it, it was an R&B track initially and I kind of begged them.

02:01I was like, please give me that vocal.

02:02I got a vision for it and I spoke to Amber and she agreed and allowed me to mess around

02:09with my vision on it and yeah, just kind of, the vocals are bop.

02:13It's really, really fun and yeah, just kind of like locked in on a groove and just sent it.

02:27That was one of the other ones that I wasn't in the room writing the song.

02:31So I was actually reminded of a quite funny story about this.

02:34So, you know, in dance music, there's a lot of great artists that are, you know,

02:40writing songs to try and get the songs used by other artists.

02:45So I was over in Amsterdam last year and I was at this big drinks mixer or whatever.

02:52There's loads of people come like, you know, into England, you know, meeting,

02:55introducing themselves.

02:56And this woman comes up to me and she says,

02:59Hi, I represent a bunch of singers and songwriters and producers and I've got some unbelievable vocals

03:08and I'd love to get your number and send them to you.

03:10And I was like, I don't know why I was feeling really boisterous at this time.

03:14And I said, okay, I'll give you my number, but I'm giving you one shot to give me something great.

03:20And if I don't like it, I'm blocking you straight away and I'm never speaking to you again.

03:24We were just having a laugh and she's like, okay, challenge accepted.

03:29And she sent me Savannah.

03:31That was the acapella she sent.

03:33I was like, okay, I've got an idea.

03:35And then I lay down the tracks.

03:37Pretty funny how I was really a cheeky piece of shit to this woman and it worked out okay

03:42and I didn't get punched.

03:43Ease my mind.

03:51That is completely the other end of the spectrum.

03:54That song was an absolute bitch to write.

03:56Am I allowed to swear?

03:58Fuck.

03:59Shit.

04:00Testing.

04:01Okay, cool.

04:02We're good.

04:03No one's arrested me.

04:08Ease my mind was such a fun journey to work on, but it was really, we did a lot of days

04:16of work on that one to get it to where it ended up being.

04:19I worked with Abel Balder on that.

04:22He's the singer.

04:23He does the guitars and a couple of other bits of production on that.

04:28And he actually, he was with a friend of mine in Malibu like a year and a half ago.

04:34And my buddy said, well, my name came up in conversation and he contacted me and he's

04:40like, Abel's in town.

04:42He wants to work in the studio with you.

04:44So I was like, okay, great.

04:47Can he work tomorrow?

04:48He's like, no, he's actually leaving tomorrow midday.

04:51I'm like, get him to change his flight, which he did.

04:54So he changed his flight and stayed.

04:56And that's when we wrote Ease my mind.

04:58He was really like, he was like loosely into the dance stuff, but he felt like,

05:03a lot of the beats in my scene were quite heavy and overbearing.

05:08He's quite a man with a guitar kind of guy and was looking for something kind of dancey,

05:15but not too, not too intrusive.

05:17And that's where I was like, okay, I've got an idea.

05:18I made that beat, put that all together.

05:20And he was like, and I just watched him go from kind of like, like timid and nervous

05:26and a bit unsure if, if he was going to, if he was in the right place and doing the right thing,

05:30being in that room to just opening up and just feeling like, okay,

05:33I've got a vision of what this can be.

05:35And, um, and the song just flowed from there.

05:38We got asked to play, me and Fisher got asked to do our back to back at Coachella.

05:51This was in 2023.

05:52We were asked to close the outdoor stage and we were really excited to be doing this.

05:58This is something that we've wanted to be doing for a while.

06:00And we were, we, we normally up until that point,

06:05the shortest set that we'd done together as a back to back was like three hours.

06:09And we didn't plan anything, but because it was Coachella,

06:12we begged to allow them to, for us to play an hour and a half,

06:16which is kind of not normal at the time.

06:19Um, they agreed to the hour and a half, but that we, we realized

06:23we're going to have to do a bit of work to actually condense what we normally do

06:27into such a short timeframe.

06:29So we, we did a lot of work, uh, preparing the show for that.

06:32Um, and we were, we were working on some moments and there was a, there was,

06:37I'd heard of a version of, um, the Gauthier, the Gauthier track.

06:43Somebody that had been done by a kid called Sante Sansone.

06:46I don't want to live that way.

06:49Feed him into every word you say.

06:52I really liked it, but it was sort of,

06:55it, it needed, it needed some work to kind of, to, you know,

07:01to sound great on a, on a big sound system.

07:04And so, um, we, well, Fisch and I, we, we contacted Sante and asked if it'd be open

07:10for us to work on the project, if it'd send us the project and we could, um,

07:14basically redo it.

07:16We said, well, that's what we did.

07:17We said, we, we redid it all and we got the original stems from Gauthier.

07:21And then we played it.

07:22We played it at Coachella.

07:23It was a massive moment in the show.

07:25And then we were approached by the label if we would be open to doing it as a,

07:30as an official, um, remix and get it all properly cleared.

07:34That's how it came about.

07:35But it was, it was initially as a DJ tool and edit.

07:46It's pretty relaxed.

07:47Well, when I'm working in the studio, it's pretty relaxed.

07:48I'm kind of, I'm always pretty goofy.

07:51Uh, you know, that's, that's part of my character.

07:54I, I, I work with a lot of people.

07:56Um, I probably like 50% of the time I'm working by myself.

08:0050% of the time I'm working with, uh, musicians, other producers, singers,

08:04uh, all sorts, depending on what I'm working on and what I'm trying to achieve.

08:08And, um, yeah, I just, I goof around until I, until I lock onto something

08:15that just feels exciting to me.

08:16And then I, and then I get a little bit possessed.

08:20And lock in and work very, very fast and move from point A to point B.

08:26Um, with a lot of intent.

08:29And that's normally when people say that it gets a bit intense in the studio,

08:33but I don't notice that I'm focused on something else.

08:35You were talking earlier when you got here about your wife.

08:37How often does she come to your show?

08:39Less and less. I think she's over it.

08:43Um, she, she comes to the, she comes to the main ones.

08:48And, um, but she's obviously still heavily involved in, in the music making process as well.

08:54She's fantastic. She, she, you know, she just...

08:57What's easier for you guys, working in the studio together or deciding what's for dinner?

09:01Deciding what's for dinner.

09:03I like the, I like the initial part of working in the studio with my wife.

09:09The initial part.

09:12It's in a healthy state.

09:14Currently.

09:15Um, I think there's fantastic beat makers out there.

09:21There's, there's great DJs.

09:23There's what, there's some unbelievable shows being put on.

09:25There's a, there's a whole world and culture built around.

09:28So the music, the scene, you know, the like press will talk about music.

09:35Whereas I remember being, you know, being here in America, no one was talking about dance music.

09:39No one was, no one was interested in doing an interview with a, with a DJ or a producer making a house record.

09:45That would, that wouldn't have happened.

09:46And those things exist now.

09:48Um, on a, on another level, um, I think like this may be kind of,

09:57kind of, there's a little bit of work to be done.

10:00There's, there's maybe just not as many musicians making original music.

10:06There's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, remixes and rehashes and, and that's like, it's very rewarding short term,

10:15but it, it, it, it sort of, um, it, it could definitely do with more people, maybe writing something original.

10:24I got to work with, uh, Bonobo on the, uh, on the closing track of the album, uh, on the track called Falling.

10:35And he's one of my favorite artists.

10:38Uh, he's probably my most listened to artists in the last 10 years.

10:42So that was really fun, uh, working with someone that I thought would hate me.

10:48So, um, that was great. Very, uh, proud and thankful of my career.

10:52I, I, uh, you know, I'm English, but I, when I started getting into music production, I was, um, a teenager in Scotland.

11:00I was living in Scotland at the time.

11:02I lived in a very remote part of the, of the country.

11:05Um, I had dial-up internet.

11:07There was no real clubs around me.

11:09And my, my love and obsession of dance music really developed via the internet and through message boards.

11:18And listening to very, very low quality, uh, music via dial-up internet.

11:23And, um, so I was kind of like very disconnected and quite voyeuristic in like my learning and understanding of, of music.

11:30And I genuinely cannot believe that I somehow figured out, uh, or just stumbled into having an actual career where this is my life 24-7.

11:42And that's what, that's what it is now.

11:43And, uh, it's, it's my passion.

11:44It's been my passion since my early teen years.

11:47And, uh, yeah, it's actually pretty mental.

11:49This would be, uh, my 14-year-old me.

11:53Very, very happy seeing this.

11:55The worst part is that, um, people might hate it.

12:01But, you know, if you do, honestly, fuck you.

12:07And that is the end of the podcast.

Chris Lake Brings the ‘Chemistry’ To Dance Music In His Debut Solo Album | Music You Should Know | Billboard News

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