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THE METROPOLITAN | THE EXTRAORDINAIRE | THE TOURIST | THE ARTIST | THE CRITIC | THE DINER | THE CRAFTMASTER | THE HIGHROLLER | THE GLADIATOR | THE YOUNGSTER | THE SHOWMAN | THE NIGHTOWL | THE THINKER
LAIDBACK LUKE
GETS REAL
Arizona won’t be any different. “I never come prepared,” he says. “I’ll usually figure it out in my head on the day, or even on stage. This is the old school way of approaching a show and it keeps it super exciting and organic for me. “This way, I can always play what’s exactly needed on the moment and, in my experience, this will always be essential to grab the moment and take it to a higher level right then and there.” Halloween is celebrated differently in Amsterdam, but Laidback Luke says he loves playing holiday-themed festivals in the States. He enjoys dropping Halloween-themed tracks for the costumed audience.
took off in the mid-’90s, the chart-topper is a kung fu world champion—and that’s not a Halloween prank. Born Lucas van Scheppingen, Laidback Luke competed with more than 10,000 pros from around the world and walked away with six medals at the Kung Fu World
Championships in Hong Kong. In September, he revealed on Twitter that he passed a major kung fu test, earning him the title of Sifu, an accomplishment he notes as one of the highlights of his life. For him, there are parallels between kung fu and his music career, especially when it comes to determination and perfecting the art. “(I’ve learned) how to deal with the pressure of performing, but (I) stay grounded and humble,” says Laidback Luke, who comes to Rawhide for BOO! Arizona on October 14. “Kung fu helps me deal with stress, and I take this onto the stage as well.” On top of his kung fu and DJing career, Laidback Luke is also an avid vlogger on YouTube, keeping his fans in the loop on his daily life. “I’ve always been very open to my crowd and for a long time, I steered away from the fancy after-movie-type of footage where DJs step out of private jets in slow-motion to continue and perform at festivals in slow-motion. I wanted it to be more real,” he says. Like his vlogs, Laidback Luke keeps his performances natural, and prefers not to have a setlist planned. BOO!
boundaries on Somethingness Vol.1, its first new music in five years. Raine Maida’s falsetto vocals remain, but Mazur, bassist Duncan Coutts and drummer Jason Pierce explore new territory. “We try to do something new and something that sounds fresh and exciting to us,” he says. “We want to feel excited ourselves. We don’t want to repeat what we’ve done before. Some would say maybe that’s not wise. If it sounds that way, one of us will say we’re not on the right track.” The songs were written during the last five years, with “Nice to Meet You”
one of the last songs to be penned. The single, “Drop Me in the Water,” was revised last year in a recording studio owned by Jackson Browne. “It sounded so good in there,” says Mazur, calling from EastWest Studio in Hollywood, where Our Lady Peace was working on Somethingness Vol. 2. “Then we started jamming on it. That was the impetus for the chaotic part. It has been fun.” Our Lady Peace will continue to be creative. “Our job is pretty awesome,” Mazur says. “It’s not a threat for us to go out and
play the old tunes. I don’t know what it feels like to be sick of certain songs. At least I don’t feel that way about any of ours.”
Dutch DJ compares performances to kung fu
Melissa Szenda » The Entertainer!
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ontrary to Laidback Luke’s name, there’s nothing chill about him. Aside from his fulltime DJing career, which
BOO! Arizona w/ Laidback Luke
12th Planet, b2b, Crizzly, Zomboy, KSHMR, Bro Safari, Valentino Khan, Bonnie X Clyde and Monxx, Rawhide Event Center, 5700 W. North Loop Road, Chandler, relentlessbeats.com, 5 p.m. Saturday, October 14, $49-$85.
ONE BAND ARMY
Our Lady Peace marching into State Fair for rare appearance Christina Fuoco-Karasinski » The Entertainer!
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anadian rock band Our Lady Peace thrives on being artistic and creating new music like its recent EP Somethingness Vol. 1. But that doesn’t mean the band is tired of playing hits like “Innocent,” “Superman’s Dead” and “Starseed.” “We definitely always want to play the songs that got us to where we’re at,” says Michigan-raised lead guitarist Steve Mazur. “We play as much new stuff as possible at shows, but we have a good palette of the old ones as well.” Our Lady Peace—who flies to Arizona from a tour date in Boston to play the State Fair on Wednesday, October 25—will also include new songs at the show. Our Lady Peace stretched its WWW.ENTERTAINERMAG.COM
Our Lady Peace
Arizona State Fair, Veterans Coliseum, 1826 W. McDowell Road, Phoenix, 602.252.6771, azstatefair.com, 7 p.m. Wednesday, October 25, $40-$60, includes reserved seat and fair admission, free with fair admission for general admission seating.