The Reinvention of David Guetta: EDM Giant on His Surprising New Sound
Eating sushi in Atlantic Records’ Manhattan office, David Guetta couldn’t be more excited: 30 years after he began spinning club music and five years after he changed pop with EDM hits like “I Gotta Feeling” and “Sexy Bitch,” the 47-year-old DJ halted production of his latest album, Listen, so it could include one more song – a ballad. “It’s such a statement song,” he says, speaking proudly and wearing a leather vest covered in zippers. “For a DJ to make a ballad, it’s a bit surprising.”
After three years of work, several major revisions and a well-publicized divorce from his wife and business partner Cathy, Guetta says he intended to a create the most – maybe even first – introspective record of his career, starting with “some personal stories” and turning them into songs. Slowly working through lunch, he broke down this unexpected new direction, explained the existential crisis that led to it and recalled how Daft Punk got him his first record deal.
How did the album change over three years? Was the finished product the album you had expected to make?
Oh, yeah. The reason why it took me so much time is that I wanted to come with something that has not been done and I wanted to reinvent myself. One Love made me famous for that combination of urban and dance that was new at the time, but it’s been done so much. I really wanted to do something else and it was a little bit, like, a moment in my life and my career: What type of life do I want? Do I want to play it safe and apply my recipe and be like, “OK I’m at the top of my game”? And look at like a younger generation like [groans in a way that suggests the panic of losing his edge to newer artists coming up behind him]? I don’t want a life like this, you know?
When you’re a little bit at the top of the game, what is left except being afraid to go down? I never want to feel like this, so I thought that the best way to avoid it was to kind of start from scratch again. Until today I was always starting with the beat and then writing the song on it. This time I was starting with piano, voice and guitar, then producing around the song. I’ve really changed everything, like the way I was working, the people I was working with – everything. I’m really happy, because the result of this is that I’m here with you, doing the interview, and I’m excited.
What did you learn from this process?
I spent way, way more time on songwriting. It’s probably my most personal album. Until today I was doing lots of songs about happiness and love and sexiness and just having a party – it was basically my life, you know? And lately, my personal life has been a little more difficult, so it reflects also on the album, on the things that we’re talking about, on the type of chords. I’ve never done this, because even for me it was all about making the people dance.
Will this affect your live show, or will you play different mixes and keep the same atmosphere?
This album would be amazing with, like, a live band, but that’s not really what I want to do. I know how to DJ and I think many, many people are better than me when it comes to performing with a band, so I don’t want to go in competition with amazing rock bands that can do this better than me. Why do something average when I can be really good at what I’m doing? I don’t want to say, “Oh, I want to be an artist, and I don’t want to be a DJ anymore.” I spent my life working for DJs to be respected as much as artists, so now that I’m successful, I’m not gonna say, “Oh, now that I’m big, I’m just gonna stop being DJ.”
How much people’s attitude toward DJs changed since you started out?
I started to DJ even before house music. I was playing funk and disco, New Wave. I was like, one of the most indie DJs, but absolutely no one knew the name of DJ in a club. The concept didn’t even exist of a famous DJ, of a DJ making money. None of us were making money. I always felt like our music was not respected the way it should have been, and I’ve always done everything I could to change this. I think I’m part of the people that made a change, but I never thought it was gonna be that big.