Laidback Luke - Dance Department Podcast 115 - Nov 2007

Biography of Laidback Luke

Holland's beloved house music-loving homeboy, Laidback Luke is on an international mission to rock clubs, win hearts and top charts. A producer and DJ with immense talent, tonnes of spirit and a steely determination to succeed, he has been on a worldwide search for the ultimate in dancefloor energy since the mid-1990's.

'Music is an amazing tool that can evoke powerful memories and emotions' says Luke with a smile. 'And I will not rest until I've given my best: I want to share as much music as possible with as many people as possible.' And in 2006, with an incredibly impressive discography of 100+ recordings and a DJ diary that takes him from his studio near Amsterdam to clubs all over the world, including Pacha and Space (Ibiza), Ministry of Sound (London), Industria (Antwerp), and Opium (Miami), it would seem that Luke is well on the way to achieving his goals.

Born Luke van Scheppingen in Manila, Philippines, he moved to the Netherlands with his family at the age of four. A wonderkid who grew up in a musical household, writings songs and learning the guitar, Luke was swift to start championing his own sounds. Passionate about hip-hop, he started out as a graffiti artist but became mesmerised by the addictive energy of house music at a high school party where Dutch DJ/producer Dobre (The Good Men, Chocolate Puma) was performing. Dobre was among the first to recognise the extraordinary potential of Luke, who was still in his teens when he started producing, adopting the 'Laidback' tag after hearing rapper Snoop Dogg's bad boy brawl on the radio. Now most artists have 'a sound' but Luke has proven to have many. Deeply inspired by DJs such as Todd Terry, DJ Pierre, and Carl Craig, and by artists everywhere who pushed the boundaries of electronic music, he was initially stirred into action by a cocktail of house, acid house and techno from New York, Chicago and Detroit. With his 'Loud Flava' series in full swing on Groove Alert, Luke turned many more heads with his 'Act The Fool' single, released on Touche in 1995. This was followed by a massive remix of Green Velvet's Stalker, which garnered major support from techno overlord Carl Cox and plaudits from the UK press when it was released on Music Man Records in 1996.

The thriller from Manila started DJing professionaly the same year (96) and was instantly hooked. In the years that followed, as he tore up venues across the globe, it was clear that Luke's skills were way ahead of the pack. Whether rocking 150,000 people at the Park Pop festival in Holland or 150 at an intimate afterhours club, he wowed dancefloors by giving 200 per cent and re-mixing the music live in such a way that always made sense to the crowd. In addition, his killer turntablist skills allowed him to cruise through a phase of breakbeck transitions as he mixed up to 40 tracks per hour, from tech-house to electro-synth-pop and beyond.

Luke is more relaxed with his programming these days, however, since returning to his house roots, bu he still found himself competing in a Dutch DJ battle called H2 in 2005 even beating Dutch DMC champ at his own game!

Luke has procuded a prolific amount of music during his decade of dance and a variety of labels such as Plastic City, Twisted, Virgin, Stealth, Cube Recordings, and United have supported his output. He has released two studio albums: 'Psyched Up' (in 1998/99) and 'Electronic Satisfaction' (2002), as well as a mega-successful mix album 'Windmill Skill' (2003). He has also created a chart-topping Dance Valley anthem, 'We can not get enough' a treasure trove of gems that have been picked up by industry heavyweights such as Carl Cox, Roger Sanchez and Pete Tong; and scores of remixes for artists like Daft Punk, Junior Sanchez, Murk, Oliver Lieb, Tom Stephan and Victor Calderone. What's more, in 2004 Luke founded his own label, Mixmash, which gave life to even more music, including 'More Than Special, F**k the Revolution/Pass the Fury' and his Jahmirrahman pt II EP.

In 2006 Luke has been bang into the hot sounds of the 'Swedish house maffia'. Discovering that he shared many influences with Steve Angello, the two hit-makers first met on the www.laidbackluke.com forum in 2003, trading MP3s online before finally meeting face to face at the Miami WMC in 2004. They have remained buddies ever since and Luke's remix of 'Sexy F**k' for Steve's label Size and his cool collaboration with Steve titled 'Otherwize Then' (unleashed on Sebastian Ingrosso's label Refune) have been hammered by top jocks around the world. Indeed, Luke is on fire right now and is preparing for further collaborations when he returns to Stockholm at the end of the year. So watch out for the even bigger sparks in 2007 as the Flying Dutchman continiues his international house music revolution!

http://www.myspace.com/laidbackluke