Gold Coast-based producer Luude’s ascent to the top over the past two years has been meteoric to say the least. The Tassie-born sensation’s immersion into the genre of drum & bass leading to some of his most important records to date. 6am, ‘Land Down Under’, ‘Big City Life’ and more, it’s safe to say Luude and DNB are a match made in heaven, and judging by his recent winning of ‘Best International Artist’ at the 2023 Drum & Bass Awards, we’d say the world agrees.
The latest single from the homegrown producer/DJ sees him double down on the high energy brand of drum & bass that’s catapulted him into the stratosphere in recent years, turning it toward 2003 classic ‘Turn Me On’ by Kevin Lyttle with the help of MC extraordinaire, Bru-C. The result is one of Luude’s most magnetic DNB tracks to date, and trust me, it absolutely goes off live.
To celebrate the new single, we caught up with Luude in the LWA office to get the drop on his new single, his explosive Mixmag set and more. Check it below.
Pretty intense. I just finished a New Zealand tour with Netsky. I didn’t realize how big he is over there. He was selling out literal stadiums, so I got to support him on that run. Overall it’s been pretty much nonstop for the last year-and-a-half. Finally, I get a two month break now.
DNB is on pop radio in New Zealand. It’s all through the charts over there, which doesn’t really happen in Australia. And then you’ve got the guys like Netsky, and Sub Focus who are selling out 5,000 plus venues every night of the tour. So it’s weird. It’s very tricky because drum and bass is just so big over there and not as commercial in Australia.
With ‘Land Down Under’, I originally made it as a joke because I thought would be funny to play at the end of sets in Australia, just as the original song is the unofficial national anthem. So I put that out, and it definitely changed my life. After it blew up, we did 40 shows in Europe and 32 festivals. It was fun because you got to go over there and just hang out with all the other D&B artists from the UK. So it was good to hang out with all the lads, all the legends.
Well, we just did a remix of ‘Big City Life’, and that blew up, which was super lucky. I think that’ll hit a hundred million streams in the next couple months. But to be honest, I just want to put out bangers and club music now. I want to focus more on the actual show instead of putting out songs for radio.
Jimmy Barnes? [laughs] I think a few other people have jumped on the older Aussie remixes trend now, so I don’t know. Everything’s probably been done already.
Well, before I did ‘Land Down Under’, I was making solely club music, more trap-focused stuff, but that was all. I was pretty much just making club music. Then once ‘Land Down Under’ blew up, everyone suddenly wants you to start making music for radio as opposed to the club. But at the end of the day, I love making club music.
So it’s just trying to not veer away from that, but it’s obviously so easy to jump on a music trend that’s happening right now. So, it’s very hard to try to differentiate yourself from what’s popular, while not going so far left field that no one cares anymore.
Haha yeah it was insane, everyone was chanting the words and having fun – which is what the record is about.
It’s just such a fun feel good tune – as soon as the label sent it over saying we could use the parts I was pretty keen to mess with it and in the DNB format it has that bit of extra energy for dance floors.
Me and Bru have actually hung out a fair bit on tour and we’ve been trying to find the right tune to work on together. Kevin and Bru are both from St Vincent so when the idea came up it was just a perfect fit getting him on the tune.
I love it. Bro just brings a modern take to the record and it works so well. Plus, Kevin’s chorus is so iconic and sounds as fresh today as ever.
It was so sick to see how many people wanted to get down there, especially on a school night. Jagermeister helped us put that together and it’s definitely something I want to do more of in the future. There’s just such a good buzz around doing random pop up shows like that.
(Check out our full gallery from Luude’s Mixmag set here).
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Yeah I was fucken nervous – because it’s getting recorded you only get one shot at it. I definitely had a few nerve calmers beforehand haha.
Yeah we’re working on them already, the next one will probably be in the UK but we are definitely going to came back and do more secret shows in Australia.
For sure. Australia’s always been such a wicked market for me. I was so lucky when I made the switch to DNB. Obviously, some people were pissed off because when you make one solid genre and you switch to another, some people feel left behind. But no one really seemed to care, especially in Australia.
Then in terms of overseas, we did a ticketed show in Estonia and sold 2,500 tickets, where the population is 1 million. Stuff like that really trips me out. I’m just like, “How does anyone even know about my music?” I guess the mullet probably gives me away [laughs]. Just knowing people in Europe and the UK actually know you and your music is such a humbling feeling.
After this next US/EU/UK tour – The next phase is definitely to build out the show and do something different. Definitely keen to work on music with more people too.