’Lane 8 – Hot As You Want ft. Solomon Grey’
Among the new wave of House producers who have popped up recently, Lane 8 has stood out as a favorite of ours for quite some time now. The Bay Area-bred, Germany-based producer’s style spans across sub-genres of House, from progressive to bass, all the while displaying an appreciation for genres outside of electronic music. In the last year, Lane 8’s been picking up some serious momentum crescendoed by a performance at Coachella’s DoLab. Following that crucial career moment, Lane 8’s poised to continue what’s been a breakout year with his upcoming debut album, Rise. The singles from the album thus far, “Hot as You Want” probably being our favorite, have seen his sound mature and fill out wonderfully proving some of his strongest work to date.
We had a chance to chat with Lane 8 about his musical background, career trajectory and the making of Rise among other topics. Check out the full Q&A below–you can purchase Rise now here.
TMN: Being from the Bay Area originally, how did you end up living in Leipzig?
Lane 8: I was living in San Francisco and I fell in love with a girl—a German girl—and it was getting to the point about a year and a half ago where I was playing most weekends and starting to get some decent bookings. It seemed like everything was pointing in a positive direction and I was ready to take that leap so we decided to move to Germany and give it a shot here.
TMN: Has living out there had any impact on your music? What’s the scene like in Leipzig?
Lane 8: Yeah, Leipzig is kind of known as the little Berlin, or some people would call it a better Berlin. The mentality can be sometimes a bit similar and the music scenes are quite similar in a way. They’re very techno focused at the moment. It’s not so much being in Germany for me but being in Europe in general and playing these cool little shows that I would never have gotten to play being from San Francisco that has influenced me the most. A lot of the music I play in my sets that I really like at the moment has been coming from Europe so it’s good to be out here and kind of rub elbows with people.
TMN: What was your first musical memory?
Lane 8: My dad is such a music nut. He has thousands and thousands of records. So, I literally had no choice but to be exposed to music from when I was born because my dad listens to music constantly. I have a weird memory of playing the cello in my garage and I know that must’ve been one of the first ones because the first instrument I ever tried was cello. Then I took up piano and that was what I stuck with. So, yeah, garage cello.
