Making happy sounds

DJ DUO Louis the Child will make you delightfully giddy with their brand of sound when they take to the Good Vibes Festival stage at The Ranch, at Gohtong Jaya, Genting Highlands, on July 21 and 22.
In an age where music is becoming increasingly fluid, the young Chicago-based boys – 21-year-old Freddy Kennett and 22-year-old Robby Hauldren – describe their music as “happy”.
And to be honest, it’s exactly the emotion you feel when you listen to Louis the Child’s songs, like its latest banger Better Not, featuring Australian singer Wafia.
From the strikingly vibrant dancers decked in primary colours to the bubbly tunes reminiscent of a classic video game, Better Not is a perfectly wrapped bundle of joy, especially with its positive message.
In a recent interview over the phone, Kennett, who used to produce music under the alias Fatboy prior to forming Louis the Child, said that it’s all about meaningful lyrics that resonate with people.
He explained: “We definitely want to make music that can connect with people on a much deeper level.
“I think songs that really can carry a strong meaning behind them, and have a good story, in my mind, always have a better life to them.”
The song is relationship advice served sunny-side up, from a friend gently nudging you and telling you it’s all right to pursue that conscious coupling, because “it’s true love, don’t waste it”.
Kennet said: “It feels very special to us ’cause it kinda has a very signature Louis the Child sound, but still like a newer kind of version, like an updated version of our classic sort of sound.
“Just lyrically, it’s a story of how we’re really connected, you know, the kind of storytelling [in the song] of a friend talking to another friend, explaining that the love they have for someone is real.
“They’re happier than they’ve ever been, and you cannot second guess the love that they have, which I think is a really positive message.”
Louis the Child wrote the track with Wafia in a matter of hours, and the music video even features the boys’ adorable debut dance skills (and their manager’s dog Bowie).
Expressing a long-held interest in dancing in one of their videos, Kennett said the choreography including them materialised after “seeing a lot of videos online of people doing dances to our songs”.
“So I think that actually kind of changed [into] a desire to do something different and you know, just have fun,” he added.
“That was our first time that I remember, like being in the video, where we had to go and learn the dance and practising, and moving up and down [which] was really fun as well with all the other dancers.”
Besides their latest collab with the Australian singer, the pair also joined forces with rapper Joey Purp, and EDM singer Ashe, demonstrating “our willingness to try new things, especially while we’re in the studio”.
Kennett added that experimenting with sound not only helps them make their “craft better and better”, but also leads to every song feeling different while still being distinctively them.
He said: “I think it always has the same kinds of emotions that we love, matching different styles, using different sounds, just so long as, you know, it still feels like us, it feels good to us.”
Meanwhile, the Good Vibes Festival will also be a musical playground of sorts for Louis the Child, which Kennett said will be “trying out a lot of new music live [and] a lot of unreleased stuff”.
He added that festivals provide a chance to re-imagine some of their own material, as well as provide a fun experience for people to hear variations on their songs.
Having played festivals all over the world, including major ones like Coachella and Ultra, Kennett said he and Hauldren are hopeful for the upcoming performance in July.
As he put it: “I feel like every single time we go out of the country, we’re surprised by how amazing all the fans are around the rest of the world, so we expect nothing less from the Good Vibes Festival.”