Artists
Easy does it: Sonny Fodera
We find out how Sonny Fodera became one of the biggest draws in house – while remaining chilled out at all times
Sonny Fodera has been hitting it hard. It’s ADE week in the Dutch capital and he’s been trawling famous venues for the last two days.
“I’ve been hitting up all the museums,” he tells us as he arrives for lunch at the plush Pulitzer Hotel. With his mum and girlfriend in town, the 30-year-old Antipodean has been taking a slightly more relaxed approach to the five-day industry soirée than some of his contemporaries. “I find it so inspiring going to art galleries,” he tells us. “My girlfriend has just finished a course at Central St Martins and the graduation show blew me away! I really want to do something where I combine my music with a conceptual art piece.”
The Australian DJ has every right to take a brief respite while he’s here. This summer saw him hold down a bi-weekly residency at Sankeys Ibiza for Redlight, playing gigs everywhere from Beirut to Brussels, Mexico City to Marbella, all the while putting the finishing touches to his second album. He’s clocked up so many air miles in the past few years that he’s decided to call the record ‘Frequently Flying’ in reference to his penchant for working on music mid flight; and not, as Mixmag jokingly suggests, in reference to the hedonistic nature of the world he inhabits. “Well maybe that too,” he laughs.
Yes, over the last few years, Fodera has steadily, and without a huge amount of fanfare, become a pretty big deal. On Beatport he’s the second-highest charted club DJ in the UK and Europe, and number one in Australia, while he’s recently mixed his first Essential Mix for Radio 1 and already clocked up nearly 300,000 views on a Mixmag Lab stream he did from Hideout this summer.
Sitting down to lunch, he orders a Heineken and begins to deliberate over whether to order a salad or a burger. At 6.3”, and dressed in an oversized blue T-shirt, long black hoodie and trademark baseball cap, Fodera looks in rude health for someone who’s spending more than a fair amount of time on the road. Settling on a Caesar Salad, he begins to tell an anecdote about working out with an ex-military friend of his (“he pushed me so hard, man! I think I’ve put my shoulder out or something”), before beginning to dwell on how long it’s been since he’s had a gig in London. “Man, it’s been the best part of a year! I’ve been away so much. That’s too long. It’s my home town now.”
