![Being Her Most Authentic Self, Fredy Lane [Exclusive Interview]](https://theelectrichawk.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/fredy-lane-press-wide.jpg)
Welcoming our community to the playful, bubbly, and talented personality that is Fredy Lane. From getting constant recognition from labels like IN/ROTATION, Thrive, and recently Hau5trap to becoming a massive advocate in destigmatizing mental health in the music industry with her podcast Alone Together. Fredy Lane has been an active member of the industry. Earlier this month, Electric Hawk got to sit and chat with the steller personality for an exclusive interview to get a deeper insight into who Fredy Lane is.
seradopa: Let’s dive into the remarkable and honestly inspiring origin story of Fredy Lane! Especially for our audience unfamiliar with who you are! So where did it all begin, Fredy Lane?
Fredy Lane: Where did it all begin? Growing up, I was a vocalist. I recorded my first demo in third grade and spent most of my free time singing, training with vocal coaches, etc. I was pretty active in music up throughout high school. And when I was getting ready for college, I explored different music colleges and musical theater programs. During that time, a lot of external voices were telling me that making it into music would be difficult. And I decided to listen to the fear and explore the opportunities I had that would provide an easier route to success. One of those was working for my uncle, at the time the producer for Playboy. At the time I was attending Auburn University for a dual major in Marketing and PR, but I ended up dropping out of school to move back to LA to take a job with him.
I was 21 at the time, this was back in 2015, and I started working in the Marketing Department at his company. We had just ended our contract with Playboy and signed on with Maxim Magazine. So my first project when I moved to LA was creating the brand The Maxim Events. Also being the only person at the company with a nightlife background, I began learning the production side of large-scale pop-up nightclub operations. In 2017, I was starting to have the itch again and was missing music. Since I hadn’t finished school, I decided to apply to Icon Collective. I got into the program and graduated in 2018.
seradopa: Oh wow! That’s an extensive resume from you!
Fredy Lane: Yeah and about a year after I finished Icon, my uncle and I ended up starting a company together called Cinematic. We started that right before the pandemic; it was pretty successful. After the pandemic, we went back to work, and I started taking a look at my career and life. At the time, I was dating an electronic producer and starting to get re-introduced to the scene. At the end of 2021, we broke up. I realized how much I was resenting him for pursuing music in the way I wish I had been! But that’s not why we broke up.
[Laughs]
At the time, I was super unhappy with myself. I didn’t truly know myself. So, I started doing therapy, and it changed my life. I started waking up every single day and asking myself, if I could live my perfect life, what would that look like? So, I started asking myself that question daily, listening to my body, and making changes one by one to start creating the dream life I imagined. In May of 2022, after six months of therapy, I decided to leave my company to pursue music. I sat down with my uncle (and business partner) and said:
“I know that the goal has been for me to take over and become CEO, but I have done a lot of thinking, and I feel like I’m not going to be happy in the long run pursuing this career. I’m going to pursue a career in music.”
I was planning to leave completely, but instead, I stayed part-time for a while and began my project. Then in December, I officially parted with the company completely to pursue music full-time.
Over the past two years, I’ve continued getting closer and closer to what my dream life looks like. Now, I’m fully focusing on music, which is amazing. It’s been a crazy journey. A lot of people think I came out of nowhere and had no music experience, but music has always been my passion. Pursuing my passion and purpose has helped me get a real handle on my depression and that’s something I’m excited to start sharing more about.
[Laughs]
A big part of pursuing Fredy Lane and creating the brand was me just exploring my inner child and letting that part of me live out through all the colors and vibrancy. My sets are super high-energy and fun and they reflect the parts of me I thought I had to shy away from for a long time. I feel like I found myself through the process of creating Fredy Lane. Fredy Lane has allowed me to reclaim my power and has shown me the version of myself that I want to show up as in the world. And I hope to let that shine through my music, my content, my interviews, everything. I want to create a space where being authentic and vulnerable is cool, sexy, and fun. That’s just what I’m about.
seradopa: You are a massive advocate in helping destigmatize the mental health conversation within the industry – what have you noticed as an artist that made you want to help start this movement?
Fredy Lane: About six years ago, I attempted suicide. Mental health has been such a taboo subject and a lot of people think if you’re struggling with depression or suicidal ideation, that you’re straight up crazy. If you were to meet me and sit one-on-one with me, you would never describe me as crazy, you know what I mean? You would be like this girl is really intelligent, sharp, and has built multi-million dollar companies. So much of the time, people don’t realize that everyone has mental health struggles, and it just might be on a different scale from person to person. I see how many people we have lost in the music industry to suicide or substance abuse because they felt they couldn’t speak up and ask for help due to the stigma, which breaks my heart.
I believe the strongest way that we can change the industry and destigmatize mental health is by having conversations and showing people that it’s safe, cool, and sexy to have feelings and to admit to them. And it doesn’t make you crazy. People feel like they have to struggle in it alone, and they don’t.
ust normalizing it and having conversations around our struggles. Social media, especially, is such a highlight reel of all the greatest things happening to us. Not a lot of people are sharing the struggles that they’re going through. Although it’s getting better, I’m starting to see people share. I love to see people taking the time to work on themselves and sharing that publicly with their audience.
But I wanted to push beyond just artists. I want fans to feel safe to speak up about it – I want artists to feel safe to talk to other artists about their struggles. I’m trying to create a safe space for people to feel like they have a community and can lean on each other. There’s a lot more planned for that and how the community will be built beyond just the podcast, but that’s where I’m starting.
seradopa: Is that what inspired you to create your podcast, Alone Together, to help have a safe space for artists and friends to be vulnerable? How did the podcast start and everything?
Fredy Lane: At the couple of festivals that I had played in the last year, I had done multiple interviews with Insomniac Radio and started getting to know the team there. So I was already familiar with the team. The podcast had been an idea I was tossing around for a while, but knew having someone like Insomniac behind it would help my reach, so pitched the concept, and they loved the idea.
Insomniac is just an incredible company, and I’m excited that they love the concept and are supportive of continuing the conversation about mental health as much as I am. While the radio show only has 15 minutes of our artist interviews, I dive a little deeper with the artists on the podcast, which is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. On March 29th, I’m going to do my first solo episode, so that one will be my own mix, and I want to use the opportunity to dive more into my story and background.
seradopa: You’ve built a massive love through a multitude of imprints such as Do Not Duplicate Recs, IN/ROTATION, and Thrive! How cool must it be to watch all the different audiences groove to the music you are making currently?
Fredy Lane: It’s awesome! There are a lot of artists who build a wall of separation between themselves and fans. I’ve tried my best, while still having boundaries, to break that wall down between me and my fans. I know it’s not something I’m always going to be able to keep up with, but I try my best to keep up with it now. I have fans in India that I talk to daily who listen to my music! It’s awesome to see people all around the world, regardless of our different cultures or backgrounds, connect over the music I’m making. It’s so insane and cool.
Seeing people’s reactions to my music has been so cool. When creating “Tefe,“ for example, there are no lyrics, but when I made that track, I wanted to get back to the feeling of my roots in the real grimy rave culture, but in a beautiful atmosphere. I imagined everyone raving to it out in the Amazon rain forest, in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. As I get further into my project, I’m starting to pour more of my personal experiences into my music, and I’ve started to feel so much more connected to it. Honestly, I constantly feel grateful to be getting to put a piece of myself out into the world through my music.
seradopa: You teased it a bit, but you have a new single with Hau5trap called “Chew Me Up.” First of all, that’s an honor; I’ve been listening to it all morning! Tell us more about the single!
Fredy Lane: I’m really stoked about this song! This was the first top line that I wrote about an experience that I had. At the time, I was working through a situationship and feeling, how do I explain it, you know when you’re in a relationship, and it feels like – oh, this person only wants to hang out or put in effort when it’s convenient for them. But you’re into them and so caught up in it that you almost don’t even care because you’re blinded by lust and passion.
The lyrics are, “Chew me up because you like the taste, oh baby, you’ve got me going crazy.” We tried to create a metaphor of being chewed up like bubblegum while it has its flavor, but as soon as the flavor is gone, you just spit me back out.
I wanted it to feel like that relatable feeling of, I’m here at your convenience. But then it also has this sexy, confident vibe of “You’re treating me like crap, but I want you anyways.” I think that is something that is just so relatable. I wrote it with Tyler Graves, and she has this sexy, sultry voice. She just crushed it! I’m excited for it to come out because it’s the first track I’ve released with a storyline that stemmed from my own personal experiences.
seradopa: Hopefully, everyone’s streaming it now by the time this article comes out!
Fredy Lane: Yeah, it’s a fast vocal. It’s not something that I feel people are going to resonate with until they hear the backstory. I’m somebody who, on Spotify, opens up the lyrics when I listen to a track. And the people who care enough about diving into the story are going to. Then, the people who don’t will bump it because it’s a great track with a lot of energy.
seradopa: From everything that I’ve heard, your biggest advice for someone is very much manifestation and believing in yourself first instead of envying/comparing yourself to others. Is that still advice you tell others wanting to join this industry?
Fredy Lane: I think that my number one advice is to live authentically and live in your truth. That is something that feeds into manifestation, you know? You can’t manifest without being truly authentic to what you want and dream about. Believing in yourself is so important because I truly believe that the only person who’s ever standing in the way of anything you want is yourself. And I personally don’t believe that you would be capable of having a dream if you weren’t capable of accomplishing it.
When it comes to manifestation, people sometimes have difficulty realizing that, say, I want to be an artist, but I have trouble embodying that. I believe so much in energy and that you attract the energy you put out. I had the confidence in myself to wake up every day and say, I’m an artist when I first started pursuing music. I’d go out to every show and be like – hey, I’m Fredy, and I make tech-house; I just showed up like that. I wasn’t like oh, I’m an aspiring artist. I make music. To me,
I don’t care if you haven’t played a show or if you haven’t released a track. If you make music in your fucking bedroom or if you write songs on your guitar by yourself and sing them in your room every day – you are a fucking artist in my heart and my eyes. No one can take that from you.
You know we all have our paths and struggles, and we’re all fucking faking it till we make it! None of us had this blueprint laid out for us. Everyone has a different path, and everyone’s path to success is different. Once you realize that, it makes starting something less scary. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to work your ass off for it, but that is the way to start anything!
seradopa: You have had a wild journey, and it’s just the beginning! I’m very intrigued if you thought about it since you mentioned you did all this for your inner child. What would you tell that little girl now if you were to see her?
Fredy Lane: There’s a lot of things that I would say. But, if there’s one thing I have to say, it’s that you are worthy. You are worthy. You are going to be okay. For so much of my life, I felt unworthy and unloved, which kept me from believing in myself. I tell people the first step is believing in yourself because I don’t think that anyone or anything can stop you once you have that relentless faith in yourself. If you have a dream and you want it bad enough, I don’t think anyone can stand in your way except for yourself. So, knowing how worthy you are and how deserving you are. Yeah, I would tell her that. That took me a long time to figure that out, but I’m glad I finally did.
seradopa: As we reach the end, I wanted to go a little lighthearted. Can you describe your perfect day?
Fredy Lane: Like my perfect realistic day or my perfect unrealistic day?
seradopa: Ooo unrealistic! I would love to know that!
Fredy Lane: My perfect unrealistic day? I would wake up in Paris and go to my favorite bakery, Mamiche, and get a pastry. Then, I would teleport back to West Hollywood and do a heated room class (my favorite workout class). After I would teleport over to Italy! Spend the day on a boat when it’s super freaking hot outside, in my bikini. I’m drinking a spicy Mezcal margarita while on the boat, jamming, and playing a little b2b. I love day drinking and being out. I’m such a sun child!
Then, maybe going home. I love it when you go home after being out in the sun, having a couple of drinks, and then you take a shower. It’s just like the nicest shower. After getting ready, I’d pop over to a festival and have sushi for dinner. And I end up in my bed! [laughs] Having a nice sleep in my bed with some incense and playing meditation music to sleep too. Yeah, that would be my perfect day!
seradopa: Lastly, from all of Electric Hawk, happy early birthday! What are you doing to celebrate your 30 Flirty and Thriving year?
Fredy Lane: I am having dinner here in LA with all my friends the night before my birthday, Tuesday the 19th. After dinner, I’m going to the airport to fly to Miami to play a show on my birthday. So, I will be in Miami playing with EDM.com and probably hitting Space and Factory Town with some friends. Then, after Miami, I’m flying to Atlanta to spend the weekend with my family!
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Looking for new music? Keep up with our weekly Spotify Playlist, Fresh Hunts. Updated every Friday with all the latest releases. Whether it’s the newest drops from Fredy Lane, all your favorite artists, some old-school, or underground…we just want you to hear it.
