Lido (Norway) on returning to Australia, creating music in a fast-paced environment & more

With Splendour in the Grass now days out from drawing thousands of live music fans to the east coast for a weekend of antics, chaos and surefire memorable live shows, there’s going to be a few pre-parties going off on Thursday night, just to make sure everyone’s Splendour Benders are off to an appropriate start.

The Triffid in Brisbane takes the reins for those in Queensland, throwing a party featuring sets by Years & YearsLido and Moonbase Commander, while Byron Bay is holding it down with an exclusive pre-event of their own courtesy of The AvalanchesThe Kills and more. For Norwegian songwriter and producer Lido, this week and all craziness that stands to follow is only one of the exciting elements of the Australian return he’s been anticipating for some time now.

“I’m super, super stoked to come back,” he enthuses, when we catch up for a calm-before-the-storm chat. “Some of my best friends are Australians; I always bring it up, but one of my absolutely closest friends is Alison Wonderland. She’s like my sister, we even lived together for a few months.”

The influence of Australian musicians within the wider global music community is also one Lido (real name, Peder Losnegård) enthusiastically calls on as we discuss his return to our shores.

“Australia is really important to me,” he furthers. “For a lot of reasons. It’s a very, very important place in terms of the music that I’m making; I’ve been very influenced by a lot of artists from Australia and I think some of the best electronic artists that we have right now are Australians. That’s definitely a big influence on me. ”

At the rate Lido’s 2016 has been travelling so far, it’s lucky we’ve been able to catch the musician (definitely one of the more in-demand names in the industry at the moment) in this brief period of quiet time. Quiet time for Lido though, is rather non-existent, with new music always on the go. Describing the hectic pace his life has been travelling at currently, from club to festival stage and back, he credits his upbringing when it comes to keep his head in check.

“I want to respond with something like, ‘I don’t keep myself in check,’” Lido laughs. “I’m not much of a party dude at all, to be completely honest. I grew up in Norway and we’re notorious for being very quiet and careful and hardworking, in general. I’m very much from that and I think I keep myself in check by making music; I make a lot of music and I usually prefer going back to my hotel and making music on my laptop, rather than going to the crazy after parties.”

“I just got an apartment in LA which is pretty far from everything else,” he says.  “There’s trees, there’s families walking around, there’s dogs…I’m trying to stay away from the chaos and the craziness. The truth is, I kind of party for a living, you know? I get to visit all these places where people go incredibly hard and do a lot of drugs and have a lot of fun; I definitely enjoy it more and more and I definitely have been going harder lately, but I think it’s just a combination of where I’m from and how passionately I love music over everything else.”

His latest single “Crazy” has seen Lido further climb the charts recently, though the release of his much-anticipated debut album is one he’s itching to make a move on. His Coachella set saw Lido treat fans to an insight of what he’s been working on and as he describes, the shows Australian fans will be treated to will be representative of quite the personal creative project.

“I’m so hungry to get this album out.” he says. “The label was like, ‘No – we’ve got to do it right. We have to set up all these things, we have to write these contracts and get our lawyers in check…’ and I’m like, ‘Yo – the album is on my computer, how about I just upload it tonight?’! It’s frustrating, but that album has been done for a little while now and I’m incredibly proud of it. It’s an emotional and personal project so I’m both nervous and excited to put it out.”

Known for his remixes and work with other artists across genres, Lido comments on the need to be constantly on his game and making music that is quality enough to be capturing the attention of hungry music fans trawling the online sphere, were music is so accessible.

“Things are changing so rapidly and so dramatically,” he says. “You can’t really lean on the days off anymore. You can’t really just glean all your sounds; you can’t find one drum kit that everyone else has and just make songs on that for a couple of years, you know?”

“It’s always interesting to me, to take a look back,” he continues. “If you look at music historically, you would say that, ‘This sounds like the 80’s,’ and the fact that there was a sound, there was a trend for a whole decade?! It didn’t change! You had a specific sound for an entire decade and if you go back further, you could say, ‘This sounds like it was written in the 1800’s,’ – a hundred years even had a specific sound! Now, it’s like, ‘That sounds like it came out in January or February…’ – it is so fast now that you have to stay on top of things and you have to make music and stay relevant.”

Photo: Instagram (@lidogotpix)
Photo: Instagram (@lidogotpix)

Looking ahead to the release of his album and getting back into the groove of working with some other artists on music that will no doubt have a strong hold over the now loyal fan base he has amassed across the globe, Lido is confident that 2016 is going to be it’s own unique beast to handle.

“It’s fun,” he says. “It’s such a stimulating environment and there are so many cool things happening all the time, it’s almost over-stimulating. I just want to be on my laptop and make new stuff all day. It’s a weird time for the world in general and a very, very time to make music in, I think.”

Lido plays the official Splendour in the Grass pre-party in Brisbane on Thursday night, July 21st. Tickets are limited for this 18+ event at The Triffid, hurry and grab yours HERE!

 

 

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