Laughing with LMFAO

From onstage to backstage, the guys of LMFAO bring the party with them wherever they go! Spreading their energy all around the world, the L.A. duo’s electro hip-hop club music has created a musical movement, empowering people to celebrate every chance they get.

We caught up with Redfoo and Sky Blu on their Vancouver tour stop (opening for the Black Eyed Peas and Ludacris). Between all the joking around, we got the chance to talk about Canada, family and their Motown pedigree.

YT: How do like being in Canada?
RF: This is one of my favourite performances because Canada is probably our No. 1 market. As far as the passion that they give back to us from the audience, from the cheering and when we say, “Party!” people, they scream loud and that is just amazing!

YT: How does it feel to be called a Grammy-nominated artist?
SB: It feels great, but you know what it does, it puts more gasoline on the fire before it becomes a big explosion. It’s great to be called nominated, but it’s better to be called a winner. So for us it’s like, “Wow, it’s amazing to be in that room,” but now it’s definitely taking it to the next level, you know what I mean?”

YT: Party Rock has been out for about a year now. Aside from deciding to create an album that celebrates living life to the fullest. Can you tell me more about the writing process?
RF: The writing process happens at any moment in time; it usually gets triggered by an emotion that happens in real life.
SB: Well, you know, my girlfriend she was very controlling. We were starting out our music and stuff and she was telling me that my music wasn’t working. And every time I danced and I did my thing, she would laugh and she would say, “No, I’ll get you a job” and all that stuff. So I left her for music basically. I said, “I’m leaving you for the groove; I’m leaving you for music.” And one night I’m sleeping, and I was going through all this stuff and I wake up at four in the morning and go into my garage and just started writing a song and stuff, and that’s where it comes from.

YT: Anyone who has followed your career knows how much hard work you put into this album. Do you think this has made you appreciate your success more?
SB: You know, it’s funny… we don’t even stop to think how successful we are. We always look forward because once you stop, that’s where you’re going to stay. We’re the same dudes just like, “Man we gotta do this and we gotta do this.” We’re always onto the next thing that we want to do. Right now it’s the next album, so we’re focusing on that you know.

YT: Although you are close in age, you have an uncle-nephew relationship. How does that affect any of the big decisions made for the group?
SB: I think it makes it easier because I grew up looking up to Foo, you know what I mean? He’s taught me everything I know about music, everything, so you know the decisions that he makes are really the decisions I agree with. It’s very simple because we think the same; we have the same philosophies in life so every decision is basically logic.
RF: Yeah that’s what we like to do, make logic the boss. We got that from our grandfather – logic is the boss! Whatever makes sense is the bomb and that’s it!

YT: Growing up with the founder of Motown records as a family member [Berry Gordy – Redfoo is the son of the Motown Records founder and Sky Blu is his nephew], you must have been immersed in the industry from a young age. How do you think that shaped your view of the music biz and your dreams?
RF: That’s a great question! It’s a Catch-22 because we heard stories of how it happened. Growing up we were friends with Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Rick James… so that was fun to just be around that and see how they are off stage, like Smokey is a comedian and stuff. They always advised us not to get into the business because it was a dying business; the sales were dropping and all these things, times were different. It wasn’t like the old days, but what happened was being exposed to it so much it couldn’t stop us because we had heard it growing up and it was easier for us to do it because we had been in videos and seen concerts at five years old with Rick James. We tried not to do it. Sky went and played basketball, and he went to skateboard. I went to play tennis; soccer and we tried our hand at panhandling, literally.
SB: I think we’re like Luke Skywalkers and the force is always like the music for us, but we were always like nowhere – going to do this and going to do that – and then it’s like destiny, like the force.

YT: What artists have influenced you the most?
RF: Wow! Well, I would have to say Rick James is a big influence and Michael Jackson is probably one of the biggest influences – not because we hung out with him so much… I mean we met him a couple of times here and there, but I feel like for me personally, I was just a fan of that dude. And I mean wearing his jacket… there was not really an artist that I really wanted to dress like besides Michael. That’s why we have zippers on our sh** now. You should change that to “stuff” for the high-school kids…
SB: They need to learn how to cuss properly at some point.
RF: S. H. * .T.

YT: You guys have your own clothing line, “Party Rock,” and you’ve talked about having you own web TV show and a feature movie. Is branding the route artists are going to have to take to find success these days?
RF: I love that question because I’m very involved in that question and that subject. And you know it takes money to produce products. We make a lot of money touring and we make a lot of money with our songs selling stuff like that. But, it is often hard to find money to produce a movie. I mean, that’s like five million dollars and up, or even a TV show, it takes money to shoot.
Since we have such a powerful brand, it’s one of our next goals to have corporate sponsors and things of these natures fund these TV shows. Like we want to create a network on the web, and have a web TV show and do a movie, and we ‘re just figuring out that we can make a deal with like five corporate sponsors.

YT: What do you have to say to people who view perfumes and clothing lines as selling out?
RF: Selling out would just be… for instance, if they said to us, “Hey, you would be doper or more accepted if you dressed in suits,” and we like to wear the zebra and the animal look and if they said, “You’ll be more famous dressed in suits,” you know what I mean? If they said change your image, or if they said, “You guys have wild hair that’s not the average demographic. If you guys cut it up and did a Mohawk, you would be more accepted.” The point is we want to do what we want to do.

YT: If you weren’t famous today, what would you be doing with your life?
RF: I would probably, honestly, be some kind of stand-up comedian, you know, or maybe a street performer in Venice selling our own stuff.

YT: Can we expect a new album any time soon?
RF: You can! You can expect a new album around September-ish.