When Chicago EDM duo Louis The Child takes the stage at this year’s Breakaway Music Festival in Grand Rapids, expect the unexpected.
Breaking out their “Playground Set,” where DJs Robby Hauldren and Freddy Kennett play whatever they feel like in the moment, the spontaneous experience will focus more on fun than showcasing their own discography.
Louis The Child will join co-headliner Slander, and over 10 other acts on the first day of this year’s Breakaway Music Festival on Aug. 16 at Belknap Park. The duo first appeared at Breakaway back in 2019. They last performed a Playground set in West Michigan when they played at the Electric Forest Festival in 2022.
Hauldren and Kennett first met as teens, at a Madeon concert in 2013, bonding over their love of music. Their first-ever single, 2015’s “It’s Strange” featuring K. Flay, received the endorsement of none other than Taylor Swift, and has since gone gold. Their smash hit, “Better Not” featuring Waifa, off their 2018 EP “Kids at Play,” has gone platinum, with their total streams having now far surpassed 2 billion.
Ahead of the release of their upcoming new album, The Sun Comes Up – their second full-length album following 2020’s Here For Now – Louis The Child just released their latest single, “Slow,” last month with Laszewo and Pluko.
REVUE had the chance to find out more about everything the duo has going on, and more, when they sat down and answered a bunch of our questions AMA-style last month. Here’s our full interview:
REVUE: What are you personally most excited about playing at this year’s Breakaway Festival?
Robby Hauldren: It’s been a little while since we’ve done a Playground Set at a festival so I have a lot of new music we’ve made and music I’ve discovered recently that I’m excited to play. It’s also been a few years since we did Breakaway in Grand Rapids so I’m excited to be back in the area.
R: You’ve performed at the Electric Forest Festival here in West Michigan many times over the years as well. What are some of your favorite memories from Forest, and just how different is the experience for you as an artist to perform at a city fest like Breakaway versus an experiential fest like Forest?
RH: Oh man, so many good memories from Forest over the years. One of my favorites was in 2019. We went to the festival that year just as fans with our whole crew, and an artist had flight complications and couldn’t make their set so they asked if we would fill in cause we were already at the festival. It was at the Carousel Club stage, which we hadn’t played before (I actually hadn’t even been to that stage before). This was back when that stage was a big enclosed tent with palm trees in it. It was the last set of the whole weekend and so spontaneous, the vibe was awesome. We had a bunch of people on stage and brought up some friends to DJ with us too. I just remember it being such a party and people to this day still bring up that set to me every time I’m at Forest.
The vibe at any camping festival is a bit different than a festival in the city. They both have their pros and cons. I think the camping ones have more of a community feeling in the crowd because everyone is braving the elements together and is usually there for more than one day of the festival. Sometimes if you play on Sunday of a camping fest the crowd might be a little tired from the whole weekend though. The festivals in cities have more people that might just be coming for the day, so a lot of times that means that they really want to soak it all in and give all the energy they got for the little time they have there. City festivals have more of a venue after party culture too whereas camping festivals are usually more of a renegade/campsite after party culture.
Freddy Kennett: Forest has always been one of our favorite festivals. There’s a beautiful feeling in the air, you can sense everyone in the crowd and all the artists are on the same wave. The first time I saw the Forest lit up at night my mind was blown, and I’m still amazed every time I see it. The art installations, the layout of the festival, the lights throughout, the stages, the people, everything is always such a dream. We love getting lost in the forest and making our way to different shows. We usually stay for the whole weekend and enjoy the festival. The last time we played forest, the night before our set, I got a crazy cramp and couldn’t sleep all night in stomach pain, then in the morning was rushed into surgery to get my appendix removed lol… I was sad because I love playing E forest, and Rob had to play alone while I rested in the tour bus. We enjoy all types of shows, we always have fun with it. I grew up going to Lollapalooza Chicago, and love the city vibe festival as well.
R: You’re also headlining your own festival, Alter-Ego, in Brooklyn on Aug. 17, which you founded back in 2022. What does it mean to you as artists to have created and developed a festival of your own?
RH: It’s really awesome that we get to do it and that artists are down with the concept. For those who don’t know, at Alter-Ego we encourage all the artists to try something new, or perform a different style of set than they normally would. It’s really cool to see artists we’re fans of flex different creative muscles. Like last year I really enjoyed the Snakehips (Bassline Garage Set). It’s something I wouldn’t expect from them, and that I don’t know if we’ll ever see again. It’s also a fun challenge for us to come up with something different each year to perform.
FK: It’s fun to curate a specific identity / expectation for what a festival or event means. With Alter Ego we want to create a mood of boundary pushing, free experimentation, spontaneity, personal growth. Robby has even been doing live stand-up comedy. Last year at alter ego was his first time ever performing stand-up and he crushed it.
R: How different has the experience of performing live been since the pandemic? Does the energy feel different? Have your crowds reacted differently to different songs or different elements of your music?
RH: We did a tour right after the pandemic in 2021 and the energy then was pretty wild. You could tell people were ready to let loose and enjoy being at a concert again, but there was still a bit of caution that you had to take, and you would see some masks in the crowd. Being at festivals this year it seems like everything is back to how it was before. I’d say the crowd reactions now reflect a general shift in music taste that’s happened over the years. Before the pandemic you wouldn’t have crowds reacting to drum n bass or UKG in the way that they do now.
R: You guys are continuing your residency at the Resorts World in Las Vegas this year. What impact has that residency has on you both as live performers and how you explore your songwriting and sound as well?
RH: I wouldn’t say it’s changed much about how I write music, but it keeps me finding lots of new music because I always need to have something new to play to keep me excited. I’ve discovered more music since starting the residency than ever before, and I feel like Freddy and I have gotten better at DJing together because of Vegas. All of the sets there are 2 hours and we freestyle pretty much all of it so it’s good practice for us.
FK: It’s fun to find music and freestyle DJ, we always switch up the vibe of each set in Vegas based on what we’re excited about at the time, and that keeps it fresh.
R: This fall you’re launching A Day In The Sun, with a series of outdoor daytime shows. Why did you want to put together those shows? As performers who often play at night or inside dark clubs what do you enjoy most about playing out during the day under the sun?
RH: Our upcoming album revolves around blue skies and these Cloud Monster characters, so it felt very fitting to give people an experience that mirrors the album aesthetic and vision. I really like performing in the day because there’s a different level of excitement. I don’t know exactly what it is but you feel it in the air. The first few years we played festivals it was always during the day and I miss that vibe and energy. It’s something we haven’t been in touch with lately so it has me excited.
R: I know with your Black Marble project you wanted to explore more of that late night, darker, clubbier vibe. What side of your sound do you plan to explore more with A Day In The Sun?
RH: We plan to play a lot of the new album and just give people a different experience than they’ve been used to from us. I view the Black Marble project as a dance film that we made a soundtrack for. We wanted to shine a light on some dancers in different cities and let them show their dance styles along with some abstract, late night dance music. A lot of the time in music videos for music artists, the dancers barely get talked about, you never know who they are, so we wanted to credit each dancer clearly and introduce some of our fans to them. The new album has our classic vibrant indie dance hop style that people expect from LTC. We also wanted to push this album to be more electronic dance focused than Here For Now.
R: You both love so many genres and have mixed and matched and blended so many sounds and styles together. At this point, how much do you push yourselves, or each other, to explore even more, or push the boundaries or limits on what Louis The Child can be? How would you describe how your sound has evolved over the years?
RH: There’s so much music out there and so much more being created every day that it’s impossible to ever feel like you’ve even scratched the surface. We always try to make stuff that we enjoy and that makes us happy. I think because there’s two of us we’re always gonna be pushing and pulling each other in different directions based on whatever we’re each into at the time. We’re never 100% on the same wave, and don’t have 100% the same music taste, which is good.
It’s interesting to think about how our sound has evolved over the years because I feel like it’s reaching a bit of a full circle with this next album. We’ve tapped back into a lot of the “OG Louis” sounds, tempos, and pockets but with more years of experience and newer technology. At the same time though, there’s plenty of things on the album that we wouldn’t have done back in the day. Over the years we’ve gotten more into sampling and house music so I feel like those are noticeable evolutions to our sound since we first started. We still make so much different shit that never comes out though, so a part of me feels like our sound hasn’t changed at all ‘cause we’re always making everything.
FK: We’re constantly trying a million things out, experimenting with different styles and ideas. I think our best music is made when we don’t think of style before songwriting. If the Melodies, chords, instruments, and vocal / words are meshing together to create a singular emotion and story, that really strikes a chord. It’s fun to experiment with style as the finishing touch. But in general, we enjoy getting specific about styles when it comes to putting together a project. When we set out to make a new body of work, we work together to create a specific vision for the energy we want each song to have.
R: Your upcoming new single, “Slow,” is so great. How did that song come together, and how much do you feel like it encapsulates what Louis The Child is right now?
RH: Pluko and I have been roommates for the past few years so this one just happened on a random night when we were cooking up at the crib. The majority of the production was made that night and a week later Freddy and I were in Vegas for this big writing camp that a publisher was putting together. It’s one of the situations where they put you in a room with a bunch of writers you’ve never met before and you see what happens. Luckily, everyone in the room that day was fucking awesome and we all wrote the song pretty quickly. After writing it, one of the first voices that I could hear on it was Kiki from Laszewo. My little brother put me onto Laszewo a while back and I had just seen them perform in San Francisco so I hit them up and they were down! A big goal of mine going into the making of “The Sun Comes Up” was to make an electronic album. I feel like "Here For Now" leaned more indie, and there weren’t a ton of “drops” on it if you will. I feel like “Slow” really hits the nail on the head of the type of songs that I was hoping to make for this album.
R: I have to ask about your single “Believe It” with Madeon as the two of you famously met at a Madeon concert when you were teenagers. What did it mean to you both to work with him on the song, and what did you learn from working with him directly after being influenced by his music all these years?
RH: It was really great! We’ve been friends with him for a while and have made music together in the past so we were already comfortable with each other. Hugo wanted us to bring in some ideas that we had already started and then just write over it with us, so it wasn’t a typical session you might expect from 2 producer-centered artists. We really challenged ourselves to write a strong and meaningful song without many words. We focused a lot on just those chorus lyrics and making each line as impactful as possible. It feels really awesome to have something out in the world with him.
FK: Madeon has always been someone we look up to, so to finally have a song with him feels amazing, and I love the song so that makes it feel like the perfect full circle moment. To me at the moment, that song means that you should never lose a sense of childish wonder and curiosity and belief in yourself.
R: I also wanted to ask how you both feel about AI. Have you played around with it much as something you might explore? What do you think about what the technology could bring to music, or how it might change the world of music?
RH: Freddy has messed around a lot more with AI than I have so I’ll let him dive deeper into it, but I’ll say that I’m very welcoming to it though. It’s a new tool, and like any great tool there’s going to be people who use it for good and people who use it for bad. The possibilities are really exciting though, and feels like the biggest shift in music creation that I’ve seen in my lifetime.
FK: I’m pretty excited about it. I love creative tools that open up new possibilities for everyone. I’m excited for the collaboration between AI and producers. Not as excited for 100% ai music if it isn’t guided and expanded upon in a creative way.
R: Last year marked your tenth anniversary as Louis The Child, and next year will mark ten years since you released “It’s Strange.” How do you look back on going from being high schoolers uploading music online, to getting mentioned by Taylor Swift, to playing at huge festivals all over, to now hosting your own festival and racking up billions of streams? Does it all feel surreal sometimes, or does it feel like ten years of hard work is continuing to pay off? Or is it both?
RH: It’s crazy to think it’s been that long. I feel like the pandemic did a whole time warp on everyone cause it doesn’t feel that long to me. I’m always looking forward or trying to be in the present, so I don’t think back too much on it, but when I do it’s always with a sense of gratitude. I feel so fortunate to have found Freddy and our team and to have been given the opportunities we’ve been given. It’s funny because the further you go the harder you have to continue to work. So while those years of hard work have gotten you to the place you are now, it’s also granted you the opportunity to do more work and the challenge to push yourself even further.
FK: I love thinking back on all the amazing memories we’ve made over the past 10 years, it’s been an amazing journey, I feel so lucky, and we’ve had so many good times together. It’s crazy how quickly time passes. I love all the new music we’re making and am excited to keep rocking and making new fun memories over the next 10 years.
Breakaway Music Festival
w/ Louis The Child, Slander, Mashmello, Alison Wonderland, and more
Belknap Park, 30 Coldbrook St. NE, Grand Rapids
Aug. 16-17, 4-11 p.m., $50+
Breakawayfestival.com, louisthechild.com
