Liam Eunson gives us a rundown on the London-born producer’s rise to the top…
If you’re a hardcore techno fan or even just an avid music listener, it’s impossible to avoid the name Fred Again everywhere you go. Even if you don’t recognise his name, you have definitely heard his music, with Fred Gibson producing countless popular songs for British music icons, such as Ed Sheeran, Stormzy and Rita Ora. Since 2020 he has been slowly rising in popularity within the genre of techno, releasing his own projects.
Since 2020, Fred Gibson has been releasing his own music under his new-found name, Fred Again. He has used his skills of music production to push his own solo career and overall produce very creative projects. It was after the Covid pandemic when Fred Again began pushing his style as his own artist making music consisting of speeches, quotes or anything he found in real life, releasing a successful chain of 3 albums named Actual Life.
The 29-year-old producer was born in 1993 into a well-off family in Belham, South London. Both of Fred’s parents were British Peerages. Fred was sent to one of the most prestigious private schools in the UK, and despite being within top-tier education with the school’s alumni consisting of people like Kate and Pippa Middleton, his concentration was always on producing and despite not having the old fairy-tale career of coming from the bottom he has definitely made a mark within culture.
Since a young age, Fred Again has always had both an interest in and a skill for producing. He began his musical creativity in an acapella group at Brian Eno’s studio. From here, he caught the eye of Eno who brought him under his wing. He began producing songs for artists in 2014, and by 2018 he had helped create countless successful albums for UK icons. During 2019 almost 30% of UK number ones were produced by Fred, with his success finally leading to a Brit Award in 2020 when he was crowned producer of the year. Since his first number-one hit, Shotgun by George Ezra, and becoming the youngest producer to win a Brit he was able to make his mark becoming one of the most sought-after producers in the UK.
It was during his success as a producer he began to create his own masterpieces. His first single was Kyle (I Found You), using samples he found on social media to create a techno-style song. Using samples, he followed this technique throughout his early work, using everything from speeches online to recordings he took on nights out, using beautiful words and imagery to be paired perfectly alongside a dance-style beat. A release of singles throughout 2020 lead to his first album to be realised in 2021 named ‘Actual Life (April 14 – December 17 2020), playing the role as more of a portfolio of music he created during the previous year rather than an authentic studio album. Following the style of his previous work, he returned with a single Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing) featuring vocals from Marea Stamper known as ‘the blessed Madonna’, making a song surrounding the Covid lockdown and the urge to go out. A follow-up to his first album came in 2021 being the second addition to his Actual Life series, ‘Actual Life 2’, this was shortly followed up with the final addition to the trio of album, ‘Actual Life 3’.
From producer to techno artist, to now selling out Maddison Square Garden, the rise of Fred Again is clearly different compared to a normal EDM artist. He first appeared on the mainstream after his Boiler Room set on the 29th of July 2022 where he quickly became a sensation due to an interruption from a fan accidentally stopping the track followed by a grin from the artist and re-correction to the performance, quickly becoming the most watched clip on Boiler Room’s platforms. His debut tour running from October 2022 to February 2023 fully sold out across all 15 dates, touring through Europe, America, New Zealand and Australia with selling out artists dream venues like Madison Square.
His ability to keep people engaged under his techno spell hasn’t only propelled his own career, but the whole genre of dance as a whole with a sub-culture within music that used to be considered as an under-ground, drug induced sound for ravers now being pushed into the mainstream. The future of Fred Again is looking bright, and with the artist just wrapping up his debut tour, future projects are promised and will only get better.