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Hey Louie, how are you? Pretty good. I've recently moved to Barcelona with most of the No.19 crew and my girl, plus I have a bunch of my closest friends here such as Miguel Puente, Robbie Akbal, etc.
I’ve read you’re not nervous about the release of your new LP, "Autophobia," just excited. Now that the release date is so close, are you still feeling the same? So far I've just felt excited and anxious for it to be released since it's been too long. Maybe when the day comes and I'm just hours away to see its release I might feel a bit nervous, but we'll see...
The first track on the album, "Misunderstood" feat. Aquarius Heaven, has a lot more Latin flavour to it than your previous material. What brought that about, and how was it working with Aquarius? I was touring in the UK at the moment and me and some friends were driving to a pretty dope buffet in Birmingham, and one of my all time favorite songs "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" came on the radio.
I had just tattooed the word "Misunderstood" on my forearm a few weeks earlier, so it got me a bit excited, and as soon as we came down to one of my boys' house (and when I say "house" I mean a proper MTV Cribs mansion) I just looked for the song, sampled it and finished the instrumental that day.
As usual, I sent it to Jonny with a bunch of other tunes and he loved it and sent it to Brian, without knowing that me and Brian had planned during a trip to Tunisia to work on a track together. We both loved what Brian brought to the table and it definitely became one of my favorite tunes from the album.
Was the album named after your track with Luna? If so, what made you decide to name it that? The fact that I left a big chunk of me on that song, more than on anything else I had done before, made me want to use it as the name of the album. Plus that song reminds me so much of my mom and I wanted to dedicate that to her.
You’re obviously a fan of dark, groovy music. Where do you think that comes from? I think the fact that I grew up listening to bands such as Aphex Twin, Portishead, Massive Attack, and Nine Inch Nails sculpted my take on music.
I understand you performed some of the lyrics on the LP. Have you done that before, and what was that experience like? I used to play lead guitar and do back up vocals on a band when I was just a teenager, and it was always a bit nerve wrecking to be honest cause I've always been a bit on the shy side.
I still don't think I'm ready to do a live show where I play and sing all my stuff, but I'm sure it'll happen eventually, and I'm sure that experience will be very gratifying - at least for me!
With the "Autophobia" single, you first branched out to the slower, more experimental sound, but with the LP, tracks like "So Good (Interlude)" and "Hunter-Prey" really shined through. Is that a sound you’ve always wanted to experiment with more? I've actually started doing this kind of slow experimental music around 14 years ago but I went into the 4/4 dancefloor as soon as I became a DJ. House music and techno haven't been my influences, so that's why I wanted to do something closer to me, the kind of music that I used to love and do back in the day.
For instance, the "So Good Interlude" is a track I did for a film score almost 8 years ago, I've just added the samples and some FX.
Can we expect more of that kind of sound from you in the future? For sure. As soon as I'm settled here in Barcelona and I have a working studio ready I will definitely start working on a second album, which I want it to be more experimental than this one. I'll leave the dance floor stuff for the EPs.
Finally, now that your album is finally out, what’s next for you? Just keep working on new music and keeping shit tight with my No.19 crew. I'm also really excited about future gigs such as DC-10 in August - that's really something I wasn't expecting yet.
Louie Fresco's "Autophobia" is out digitally on No. 19 Music. July 5th.