Photo Credit: Matt Pitman
Course Studied: FdA Music Production, BA Music Production
With over 100 million streams on Spotify and a Platinum record to boot, Eden burst onto the scene with a series of inspired reworkings of hits by various artists including fellow Leeds Conservatoire graduate John Newman. Maintaining a fairly mysterious public persona, Prince began leaking his smooth, club-ready covers of songs by Michael Jackson and Britney Spears, among others, around 2015. Since then, Eden has been invited by Jonas Blue to play at Cream Ibiza.
We caught up with Eden to learn more about his musical approach and experiences of studying in Leeds.
What skills did studying on the BA and Foundation Degree in Music Production provide you with?
As a relative beginner in music production at the time of starting the course, it allowed me to become fully immersed into a musical environment, with all the equipment I needed and expertise at my disposal to take my skills to the next level.
What persuaded you to study in Leeds?
After visiting Leeds during an open day for Leeds Conservatoire I immediately found that it was an exciting and friendly student city with a buzzing music scene. I couldn’t have asked for a better city to have spent my time in whilst at university.
What’s your approach to creating a remix or a reworking of a hit?
I usually start with the acapella and try to come up with an alternative chord progression than the original. Once that’s done I experiment with sounds, beats and rhythms until I’ve come up with something that puts my own unique spin on the original song.
How do you build up trust with artists to let you use their original material?
This is just something that happened with time and a lot of remixes made! As my remixes started to perform well on streaming services, it became easier for artists to trust me with their original songs.
How does this approach differ to say creating your own original song, such as Obvious (ft. Cassie)?
With remixes you always have a solid idea to build around, but with original music you’re usually building something from scratch. This can be more difficult but also more fun depending on your perspective.
You’re extremely active in the Ibiza scene. What’s that experience been like? What makes this destination so unique for music?
Ibiza is an amazing place to experience and completely immerse yourself in dance music. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to play so I was delighted to be invited by Jonas Blue to play at his event at the Hi Ibiza Club.
How has having perfect pitch helped you in your musical development and creation?
This gave me a head start as a musician as I found it easy to play music on instruments just by hearing it first. After my music teacher discovered I had perfect pitch in secondary school, he persuaded me to pursue music further, which became a major factor in my decision to become a music producer.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to break into the industry?
I would recommend going to a conservatoire first and foremost as it is one of the best ways to live and work in an environment that is all about music. I learned things about music that I never thought possible, and I was able to put on music events with the help of the Students’ Union, collaborate with other talented musicians and learn how to release music projects such as EPs.
How do you seek to continually develop musically?
I do this by always listening to music as much as possible. Being inspired by listening keeps things exciting and allows you to stay driven to keep creating.
Some of your tracks have over 12 million streams on Spotify. To what extent have streaming sites helped you build your fan base?
Streaming has been a massive help to my career. People have found my music through playlists and gone on to follow my social media accounts where they stay up to date with all my music and touring.
What has recent developments in music technology enabled you to do now, that were perhaps difficult when you first entered the industry?
Programmes like Splice allow me to find and use virtually any kind of sample that may have been difficult to find or create in the past.
