LATEST STORIES

How did an old guy end up writing and producing EDM?

A few years ago, my wife and I lay sunbathing on a beach in Malta. Most of the people there were middle aged or older, although there were a few youngsters about. A small boat pulled up with some young guys on it. They started playing this music track over and over again. I don’t think they were specifically trying to annoy the older people on the beach; more just wanting to make a statement about their youthfulness. While most of the people on the beach were not amused at having to listen to this track, I found myself developing a liking for it.

When I got back home to Scotland, I tried to find the title of the track. Eventually, I established that it was called “Levels” by an artist called Avicii. I checked out some more of his stuff and some other similar artists such as the Swedish House Mafia and David Guetta. I especially liked a David Guetta track called “Titanium” which had apparently been a UK number one single. I had discovered EDM and that was the start of my journey.

I had been writing songs for a while and belonged to an on-line songwriting teaching site called SongU. Until that point most of my songs had been written in the sixties and I was trying to get a bit more up to date as well as reviving my retro stuff. I tried writing some EDM tracks and got a lot of help from the professional instructors on SongU.

In 2020, I entered one of my tracks, “To Andromeda and Beyond”, into the EDM category of the UK Songwriting Contest. To my absolute surprise it was chosen as a Finalist, one of a short list of six tracks. In the end, I was beaten by a young Australian guy sixty years my junior. He had previously been shortlisted for the Eurovision Song Contest, so naturally I was very pleased with the performance of my track.

I followed this up by writing more EDM tracks and here am I on the verge of releasing my first album. I must admit at being astonished at how I got here.