Easy does it: Sonny Fodera

“Simon just tweeted me saying, ‘I love your record, follow me back’,” he explains. “And then he got me to do a remix, and I’ve been working with them ever since.”

In person, Fodera has the relaxed, easygoing charm so often found in people who grew up blessed by copious amounts of sunshine and an idyllic beachside locale. When he recites a potted history of his career so far, you get the impression that everything’s come with relative ease. Is there a tough, steely determination lurking beneath his breezy exterior?

“I do have goals and put a lot of time into things in the studio,” he tells us. “But I think you can get too stressed about stuff and try to force things. I’m easily approachable, and so much in this industry is making friends and getting along with people.”

With a vocalist on every track, (Yasmin, Janai and Kwame all make an appearance) and a warm pop sheen to proceedings, ‘easily approachable’ is also an apt way of describing ‘Frequently Flying’ which dropped earlier this month. Citing Smooth Radio and Jazz FM as influences, alongside the more obvious house touchstones, the album is classic Defected fare.

“Defected are known for great vocal soulful house,” explains Sonny. “So they really encouraged me to work with more vocalists and musicians, and makes things more soulful on this record.”

Thoughts, though, are already turning to his next big project.

“The last track on the album is in more of a SBTRKT vibe,” he says. “So I’ve got another alias where I’m going to put out more music like that. And I’m really into Drumcode and people like Marco Faraone so I’m working on stuff like that under another name.”

First of all, though, there’s one small problem: just which museum did he leave his mum in?

'Frequently Flying' by Sonny Fodera is out now on Defected