Going way back with Laidback Luke

The Dutch producer, who was already ten years into his career when he co-produced some of the very first tunes by Swedish House Mafia, celebrates the scene’s vibrant history while sharing some of his most memorable stories.

Luke has been everywhere, made any style of electronic music you can think of, and knows everyone – and that is why he’s the best guy to talk to when you want to find out about the history of dance.

Here’s how he experienced its many mutations, from early beginnings down to his present, more centered phase of his career.

Let’s try to go as far back as we can. Tell us about one of your favourite memories from when you just started out as an artist? 

“Sure! This was in 1999 when I was an up-and-coming name. I was nervous to play an early slot for a huge crowd. I was ready for it though, it was the right timing. I turned the whole place upside down and I felt in control. It was incredible.” 

You’ve always been a guy with one foot in the underground and one in the mainstream dance scene. How have these two worlds evolved over the years, in your opinion?

“It’s more complicated than it seems. Because  my career is so long, I’ve seen lots of cycles of trends coming and going and then coming back again. Techno was huge in the ‘90s, then fell off most people’s radar, and look how popular it is right now!

Similarly, I saw the whole arc of EDM coming up, and what you’re seeing now is that the sound is giving way to genres like tech house and drum & bass.” 

What are some of your favourite early memories of underground electronic music?

“My great mentor Gaston Steenkist, known for his works as Chocolate Puma with René ter Horst, introduced me to titans like DJ Pierre, Carl Craig, and Carl Cox, and all of those people are ingrained in my DNA. I used to buy their records and now I follow them on Instagram. Kenny Larkin is someone I love to follow and interact with as well. I love Kenny’s dark and funky Detroit techno vibe.”

How about the more commercial stuff from back in the day?

“Haha, well, I once pissed off Gaston, because I knew him and René from their massive crossover hit, ‘Give It Up’, which they released as The Good Men. I sat down with him once and asked him: What does it take to score a hit like that? Are you guys commercial? And then he got mad, because they never intended it to be a crossover hit.”

At some point, you switched from playing and producing darker stuff to making more cheerful music. How did that happen?

“I came up with people like Adam Beyer, Marco Carola, and UMEK. At some point I felt like I was going too much underground. I blame my Filipino side for it, because my Filipino side wants cheesy music and sing-alongs. My Dutch side was thriving in techno, but I couldn't do it anymore. I just wanted to make different music and this turned out to be more commercial than the techno I previously made.”

You were already doing the happier stuff when you first met the Swedish House Mafia guys. How do you look back on collaborating with them on their first releases?

"Oh, it was incredible. I always say they triggered a second revolution in my sound. Mind you, I was already a decade into my career, but producing had become a very elaborate kind of process. It would take me two weeks to finish a track.

Once I’d sat down with Steve Angello in his studio in Stockholm and saw what he did, how he processed his sounds and made them sound really fat, my production process went from two weeks to four hours for one track. So it was like Luke on steroids from that moment onwards.” 

Having seen so many trends in music come and go, what have been your favourite styles of electronic music so far?

“Back in the day in the Netherlands, between about 2006 and 2009, we had this sound we used to call ‘sneakers’. I’m talking about the time before the Dutch sound developed into an international sound, before it crossed over to America.

No one used to call it EDM. Dutch DJs like myself, Chuckie, Afrojack, Hardwell, and Gregor Salto all played that music. No one outside the Netherlands knew about it, but ask any big and professional Dutch DJ about the sneaker sound, and it will unleash a ton of memories.”

During the first few years of your international success, you were one of the biggest global electronic artists. Then other producers and new genres took over. How have you dealt with this? To what extent do you follow trends?

“I wish I had an answer for that, but I don't. In my experience, it has always been good to keep noticing the trends.

I used to always be able to predict them two years before they came up, so it was easy for me to dive into them real early. But before that, in my early years, I was doing my own thing and I broke through for being me.

So I'm now at a point in my career where I'm embracing that again. I'm going back to my younger me, and I'm saying, screw all the trends. I'm going to make my own trend.”

What are some of the recent developments in dance music you’ve been getting excited about?

“I had a little stint of being interested in harder techno about two years ago. It wasn’t that fast back then, maybe 140 or 150 BPM. But then it got out of control and I fell out of love with it. Now I feel it's way more artistic to drop some drum & bass, like a lot of the big guys are doing right now. But speaking for myself, I'm going to focus on that sneaker sound I mentioned earlier.” 

Now let’s try to predict the future. Where is electronic music going at the moment and where will it lead us in the next few years?

“Chase & Status went viral on TikTok, right? That’s been a huge influence, so you'll hear everyone drop a ton of drum & bass this year at Tomorrowland, that’s for sure.”

And how about further into the future? 

“There have been whispers that because techno is so uptempo now, hardstyle will finally cross over into other scenes, so we'll see how that pans out. But I know for a fact that a lot of hardtechno people are already flirting with it on a massive scale.”