Fresh off a flight from another show, EDX rolled into the media village prepared to throw down fire at his Tomorrowland 2019 set. We got the chance to catch up with him before his set to talk about his massive year of releases. And what a year 2019 has been… from ‘Who Cares’ to the most recent release ‘Ubuntu’, EDX has amassed millions of streams across all listening platforms and played shows around the world. We talked about a range of topics from EDX’s upcoming releases to his set at Tomorrowland. We also got a chance to discuss his recent Grammy nomination and what it feels like to realize your dreams.
Can you tell us more behind your most recent song ‘Ubuntu’?
It’s just a new track we produced, actually about a year ago. It was like this idea we use steel drum, melody and we were a little bit late for last year so we were like okay it’s like very summer-ish melody. Let’s just hold back for a few months and come out soon as the summer is here. So we did. This year went back into the studio like in April and was like, “okay let me look if it’s still up to date.” The drums needed a little bit of work, they were a little bit like they just … And it’s been a very good release.
I’m getting a lot of love from a lot of DJ’s. It’s a club record more for kind of the summer Ibiza season. It’s really interesting how the DJ’s love it. It’s my third single this year and just about to release the next single in August which is called ‘Stay’. It’s like a fusion between a club record and a vocal record.
‘Off The Grid’ was a big release for you this year with Amba Shepherd. How did this collaboration come about?
Amba Shepherd record is a cooperation, we actually were talking about this since five, six years. Amba is like one of my favorite dance music feature singers. I always feel that these feature singers there’s a couple of them. They never get the credit they really need because it’s always like Hardwell and Amba Shepherd, or Epsilon and these.
Yeah, even Matthew Koma you know. Even like the cooperation with the artist, it’s always the artist having the one that gets the most credit. Even when it comes to song lyrics, most of the time a singer takes the lead of writing the song. We do the music, the singer most of the time has to lead on the vocal. But here, it’s a collaboration you can both write it and you fix stuff together. But I just feel like they never get the credit they deserve when you look at their touring and also their Spotify monthly listeners, you know. Just like for their own stuff when they release own stuff they’re kind of unheard you know?
It took us a couple of months going back and forth. She lives in Australia, I was touring that period between the U.S. and Switzerland. I’m pretty happy, you know. Always like can’t believe this type of records, they have a longer life so we release the record I believe in April, and after Miami Music Week. We will see where we’re going to end up with this record. I think next year in January because it’s more radio targeted and it’s a lot more love and momentum you know.
You recently received a Grammy nomination, a huge accomplishment. Can you tell us what that meant to you?
You know, Grammy nominations one of these dreams that every kid has that starts working music. Not like we need a Grammy but like just being nominated for a Grammy.
We’ve been like really focused on trying to get this nominee if you go back when we did this remix for Kaskade‘s ‘Angel on My Shoulder‘, which was really big, but dance music was not ready in the U.S. back then. So we didn’t get the love we deserved. Since then we actually have just one foot into the U.S. market and we’re really targeting and trying to do the right stuff and the right. The music that we really kind of follow, like this is a big record. This is a great remix, you know.
I’m getting a lot of requests to do like remixes for big artists including Coldplay and stuff like this, which I would love actually always to do. But at the end of the day, you know, I go into the studio and if the vocal doesn’t kind of go along with the EDX chords or the speed. Especially in this case like these records a recorded 80 BPM and we need to bring it up, and already they use a lot of words in a sentence on 80 BPM when you put it up it just… doesn’t convert the right way so we have to say no to so many remixes and just like always very heartbreaking. For someone that’s always has a dream like remixing big records.
So, definitely being nominated for a Grammy was something really special. We went all together we had a great time. Was fun and new experience and you know I’m still very young so I still have many more opportunities to be nominated again, maybe even to win a Grammy.
What can you tell us about your Tomorrowland performance? What do you have planned in the next hour?
Well Tomorrowland is actually always one of the highlights of the year especially if you are playing a big stage. When you play a set time during the streaming, It’s like super cool, you know?
I don’t really prepare my sets, you know. Before the summer I somehow a little bit put together records or like festival tracks. It’s different to play a pool than to play a festival, you know. It’s definitely a completely different set vibe.
Check out EDX’s full Tomorrowland W1 set below!
