House Music Hits Atlanta at Sets At Sunset Music Festival: iEDM Exclusive Interview With Festival Founder Cody Chesneau

The 80s were full of new styles. Fashion and music were booming. Chicago got down with the disco and gave birth to what we now call “house music” By the early 90s, these drum machines and hi-hats were being heard throughout the nor.theast and even made their way to Europe.

Now, Cody Chesneau wants to bring more of it to the Atlanta area. His first official music festival  "Sets At Sunset" is set to make its debut on April 29th, taking place at the Lake Lanier Olympic Venue. He took a few minutes to tell us what’s in store and why he chose to take a focus in house music.

iEDM: What sparked you to create Sets at Sunset?

Cody: Well, I run a weekly live stream called Spin n’ Chill, where I interview different DJs, and then spin some music together. I've been doing that for about a year now. Last year, after his live stream, I was sitting with Patrick Morgan eating some food and talking about some ideas of what direction I should take for the show.

So, as Patrick and I were eating, he goes 'You know, you should really just have a lake party. Get some DJs, put them on the dock, and live stream it. The longer I thought about it, the more I thought that’s totally what we need to do. I've lived on Lake Lanier for 26 years of my life, and there has never been an event on Lake Lanier that has gotten me too excited. Most cater to families and the 40 and 50 year-olds who just want to hear a couple of bands.

So, last year around June or July, I did a test run of Sets At Sunset. I invited around 50 to 100 people, set up my live stream equipment, and had a couple of DJs on the dock. It went really well! I received a lot of positive feedback from those who attended. I thought, “You know, I've always wanted to plan a festival. So let's do it. We've succeeded with the experiment, let's do it full scale, a real venue with actual headliners.”

iEDM: What should we expect from Sets At Sunset?

Cody: The venue is gorgeous! I fell in love with it. Great location as well. There are many people in their 20s and 30s, in the North Georgia area that want to listen to this type of music but don’t want to drive all the way to Atlanta. On the flip side, there are a lot of people in the Atlanta area who want to get away from all the clubbing. So, they have a little beach day here. It's perfect for both sets of people. You can even drive in on your boat! We hope for good weather so that we can provide all of this along with one of Georgia’s beautiful sunsets.

Cody: There are a lot of really cool things that we're bringing to Sets At Sunset. I think the biggest thing that people are going to really appreciate are the amenities that the facility offers.

The infrastructure essentially has everything you need. The venue is right on the waterfront and the stage is almost on the water.

We can seat as many as 2,000 people. We will have a meet and greet for those interested in meeting and taking pictures with some of the artists. On the opposite side of the street, there is a public park with a nice white sandy beach that anybody can access as well as grills and picnic. So if you get a re-entry pass, basically you can go and explore.

It's an hour outside Atlanta, there will be camping and hotels about 10 minutes away. We're flying in George Acosta and Mario Ochoa, house legends. We have one of the most diverse lineups bringing in 4 different groups from Atlanta - The Wild Pitch crowd, Alley Cat Crowd, Buckhead crowd, and the Unity Squad.

We really want to form our own niche as a festival here in Georgia, not focusing on the trappy and hip hop vibes. We really want to provide a place to go to have a good time and have chill vibes on the water. We want to bring you the house music.

iEDM: When were you introduced to house music?

Cody: I probably would say Miami - I was interning. Some time ago when Sony used to host their own thing like iTunes. I found that they had a huge collection, and I just started doing some digging. I ran into house music there on that website. I ended up buying one hundred dollars worth of music on my parent’s credit card - they didn't really like that too much. I got banned from doing that but then I went to Miami my sophomore year of college and it really turned up for me! Miami is the mecca of house music. So, I went out to a few clubs and really got down into it there.

iEDM: So, was it worth it. The one hundred dollars?

Cody: It was worth every penny! I now have a bunch of oldies and other tunes, but I had to get more creative on how to get more music. That was right before the big boom of online blogs and other things like SoundCloud, etc.

iEDM: Do you have a favorite sub-genre of house music?

Cody: I've been really focusing on deep house and techno. There's a lot of cookie cutter songs out that pretty much follow the same recipe. So, I feel that some of them have taken the mood out of the music. There should be more emotion in music, and I think that’s what house and techno add.

iEDM: Add some tone to it! Agreed. You're a DJ right? So, is house music what you play?

Cody: Yeah. It's some of what I spin. I play deep house for the most part, but I guess the last 2-3 months I've been playing relatively chill sets, but I do have the ability to go hard when it's required. Lookup Echobreaker. You'll see me on Spin n’ Chill every Monday at 7:00pm EST. Check it out!

iEDM: Will do! Thank you Cody, for your time. I can’t wait to be chillin’ on the waterfront bringin’ down the house!

Thanks for chatting with us Cody! For more details, watch the video below. To pick up your tickets, click here. Don’t miss out on the fun. See ya at the lake!