Chris Lake Talks Holy Ship and HOWSLA in iEDM Exclusive Interview

Lacy Bursick | July 16, 2017

Chris Lake may not be a name you know, but if you like house music, you've heard his tracks being played over and over this year. His track "Operator" is even known as the Holy Ship anthem this past year.

He has become a king of house music, and even Skrilex asked him to team up on a special project under his OWSLA label called HOWSLA.

iEDM got the chance to sit down with Chris right before his set at Electric Forest weekend 2 to talk about his success.

iEDM: What do you have planned for your set tonight?

Chris Lake: You know, I'm not sure. I try not to plan things out too much or else it gets too linear for me and I like to keep it interesting for me, so there's a better chance it will be interesting for everyone else. I'm sure there will be a lot of records similar to what I played last week but it depends, I might feel different on the stage and I might end up playing something completely different. The only thing I do is make sure I put on the records I've worked on this week in the studio to try them out.

iEDM: How did you get connected with Skrillex for HOWSLA stuff you guys have been working on?

Chris Lake: Yeah, well I've known Sonny for years, I got introduced to him by Deadmau5 years ago and he is a super super creative guy. He is genuinely one of the most talented people in the industry and I think his position at the top is full deserved. He is up there because of talent and because of work ethic. I've been in contact with him for years and then he contacted me about doing this HOWSLA compilation and he asked me to help curate it and I jumped at the chance. It was nice to work with something finally with Sonny and I am happy with how it turned out.

iEDM: As a fan, I am happy with it too. So you always launched your own label this year, tell me about that.

Chris Lake: Kind of. It's in the works right now but I have released one record on it, "Operator." That's how it all started but honestly I set the record label up three days before the track. It was a knee jerk reaction, but it works.

iEDM: And the track blew up!

Chris Lake: It did! It's nice to have the technology available now to be able to make a record. We didn't actually promote that record, we just put it up and hope for the best. And it worked.

iEDM: Speaking of "Operator," it was known as the Holy Ship anthem, how does that make you feel?

Chris Lake: It was great because I had heard lots of things about Holy Ship and the Shippers but I didn't quite grasp how passionate these fans were until I was on the boat. It's special, that's for sure. It was nice to get the feedback on the record hearing how much it was getting played and then over played and over played and then being featured in all the fan videos, so it was fantastic. Now when I play, so much of the crowd are Holy Shippers, it's crazy. They're passionate lunatics, I love it. The right kind of lunatic.

iEDM: Your career has been sky rocketing recently, and you had a Grammy nomination with Deadmau5, what was your role in that?

Chris Lake: It's kind of like a Grammy nomination but proxy, but we wrote the record "I Said" together, which is one of the main ones on the album. So I was part of the album. We wrote it a long time before it actually came out though. We wrote it in 2006-2007, it came out in 2010.

iEDM: And the nomination was 2012. Wow that's years later.

Chris Lake: A lot of my records, parts of them are continuous. Like "I Want You," I wrote that vocal 7 years ago.

iEDM: Wow, and now it's blowing up everywhere. So why do you think house music has been growing in popularity again?

Chris Lake: I don't know if it has been. I think maybe the opposite. It's like in some areas there's less attention on it and that's a good and bad thing. The people going to the shows are super passionate, it's still a great crowd going there. But it's not as big as it was years ago. In America, I think bass music has completely taken over. But there is still a healthy scene and it's nice to be involved in. I am passionate about house music. I love it. It's nice to be known as one of the house guys and I like being able to try and influence where the sound is moving forward in the next couple years.

iEDM: So what tell us what you have coming up?

Chris Lake: I just announced a North America tour today and I've got a lot of new singles and a lot of remixes. I've been writing like crazy. Lots of new music.