Todd Edwards

Hi,

Here is an interesting link. I guess this guy has produced for Daft Punk. He talks a little about his spirituality.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/todd-edwards-the-stylus-interview.htm

Here's a couple snippets

I’m guessing the church was important growing up. What role did it play in your childhood?

Funny you should ask. The honest truth of it [is], the church was the cause of a lot of controversy in my life. My mother was a devout Catholic. The ’80s [were] a time when the term “born again” became almost like a denomination. It’s a term that’s almost caused a split in the Catholic Church, which is too bad.

My church had a small denomination, 100 people, 200 people max, a lot of old people. As a kid, you had to go to Sunday school, and I learned a lot. That was good, because I learned the New Testament of the Bible. But my church was extremely legalistic. My father—I love him dearly, we have a really good relationship—but a lot of our bonding came—I’m sort of jesting [when I say] that we spent a lot of time having religious debates and religious arguments. You’ve got to understand that I grew up in a normal school environment. Obviously, there was a lot of Catholic Christians, but it wasn’t so outwardly shared. You don’t go to a club and talk about religion, and you didn’t go to school and talk about it. I was battling against my father’s view of Christianity and a secular view from school. There are a lot of disciplines in Christianity that are good for you, but you should practice them because they’re good for you, not just because it’s a rule.

At the time, I didn’t wanna deal with it. Again, kids watched certain movies, did certain things. He was being very overprotective of me. It was frustrating; as a kid I rebelled against that. There was a lot that I was grasping by reading the New Testament, but there was another side I was seeing. Going back, in this church, you were dealing with a very old generation of people. It’s not like they had priests—they had elders. There were 12 elders that ran the church, and they told us to accept Jesus every week.

It was hard to fathom people in church who didn’t already believe in Jesus. It was almost like there was a bit of acting; something never felt right with the church, like when you see an evangelist on TV. It didn’t feel heartfelt. I basically had problems with that. By junior year I’d decided not to go to church, and had it out with my father. I didn’t want to deal with God at all. Correction—I dealt with him more on my terms, not in a you’re-the-boss way, but in an I’m-keeping-you-at-arms-length way.

In high school I wrote songs. That’s how I dealt with stress in school, be them bad relationships—not that I had a lot, but you know, it was a way to get the stress out. By the end of high school, my friend, who goes under the Original Filthy Rich, was into club music and introduced me to the club music he was into. At the time was Todd Terry and Masters at Work, 1989-90, I got an education in that, and I decided to get into that. Up to that time I was writing pop stuff or whatever. It seemed like dance music was easy enough to make, do that and break into the music industry. But I underestimated that. Just getting a style and making a name for yourself takes time.

The plan to incorporate talking about God in my work came later. In my 20s, I kind of bottomed out. I hit a rocky period; I kind of threw my hands up. After that, the negative relationship I had with God was healed. I started putting positive messages in; it wasn’t meant to be preachy, but I wanted to share something that helped me and maybe give that inspiration for other people. Even in remixes I would cut up vocals to say spiritual phrases, and if you listen closely you can hear them.


Do you think if you lived somewhere other than New Jersey that your music might be different?

Yeah. There’s a lot of different things that contribute to music. When I worked with Daft Punk, I went to Paris twice. It is an inspiring city. Going to Europe, period—and I’m sure it’s a commonplace for people who DJ a lot more—going there had a really big impact. The architecture alone had a big impact. I’m sure if I was living out in the Midwest you definitely get a different sound. I think it’s proven, whether it’s Chicago or California or whatever, you get different sounds in different areas, in dance or in rap or anything else. But I do think what was meant to be was meant to be. My background is part of who I am and I look at it as God’s plan.

Thanks. God Bless.

Aaron.