Henry Fong Lends His Talents For Latest Your EDM Mix [Interview]

For our latest volume of the Your EDM Mix series, we have longtime friend and contributor Henry Fong laying down a sultry and powerful 56 minute mix!

Henry Fong is celebrating his first #1 with “F.E.A.R.,” a collaboration with Halfway House and Sanjin on Fly Eye Records, and we thought a fresh mix would be the perfect way to thank fans for their support!

First of all, congrats on the #1! Describe what it feels like when you hit that #1 Beatport spot for someone who has been ‘in the game’ so long.

Thanks!! I’ve actually never hit #1 before haha. I’ve came close a few times, but this one is the first time! It feels awesome to check that off the list now!

How did “F.E.A.R.” come about? Sanjin is most well known for his collab with DVBBS on “Pyramids,” did they recommend you to each other?

“F.E.A.R.” came about from me playing around sampling the famous dancehall riddim “Coolie Dance.” When I was in high school, I’d always hear the Nina Sky, Sean Paul, and Pitbull versions cut on that riddim and I just thought it would be cool to find a way to bring that beat back into dance music. It’s such a strong, familiar groove that everyone can dance to so I went in and added a bunch more elements over it and arranged it into a DJ tune.

I linked up with my buddies Halfway House too on this. I signed these guys to my label Banzai last year and it was awesome to work with them, very talented kids! The last piece after the production was done was to find vocalists, we knew it was going to be hard because so many versions have been cut on the coolie riddim, but we immediately thought of Sanjin because I love his work on “Pyramids” last year. His voice fit perfectly over the track!

What lead to this being release on Fly Eye? Do you have plans for future releases on this label?

Calvin Harris had been supporting a bunch of my music over the last two years or so. He actually premiered my track “Wine Dem” live and was a huge supporter of it. I’ve always wanted to work with him and his label Fly Eye, so I wound up linking up with him and his label boss Charlie and sent them “F.E.A.R.”. I was so stoked when he wrote me back that he liked the track and wanted it for his label! Calvin has been in the game for a while now and just makes incredible music, so he’s someone I’ve always looked up to when I started producing. Would be awesome to do another release with them!

Any big upcoming shows that you’re excited for?

I’m really looking forward to my upcoming show in Los Angeles at Create this Saturday! I live in Southern California so it’s going to be cool to have all my friends and family come out which is rare! Also looking forward to playing some parties during Miami Music week, that’s always a great time of the year!

Tell us a little bit about the mix. How do you choose what songs to include in a mix like this, and does it reflect recent live sets or are they two separate things for you?

I really wanted the mix to be diverse and showcase all the tempos and genres that I’m into right now. It’s funny I used to be a Top 40 & Hip Hop DJ before I was a producer and did dance music, so I’ve always been into the more club oriented music…. Those sets require playing different tempos and genres. It’s only this year that I just snapped out of the 128 bpm thing and started to explore more tempo ranges. It’s been awesome having that flexibility experimenting in the studio and my next two releases coming out are 80 bpm and 100 bpm. I’m still finding my sound and maturing as a producer, since I only started producing 4 years ago!

Thanks for your time, as always, do you have anything you want to say to your fans and/or aspiring producers?

Thanks for having me, and of course thanks for the support on my stuff since the beginning! You guys have been posting my stuff since I was annoying you with terrible mashups years ago haha.

My advice for aspiring DJs and producers is spend as much TIME as you can honing your craft. Learning production is extremely time consuming and it’s something you need to do every single day in my opinion. It’s one of those things where in the beginning your music sounds really bad and everyone tells you to quit and it’s really discouraging, but you just hit this curve where everything gets exponentially better and boom it all happens! It’s also important to spend time on things outside of production as well (if there’s even any time left) like networking, meeting artists, marketing yourself and your social media presence!