Producer, artist, and songwriter Femke Weidema stands at about six feet tall — unless she’s standing
on the leg she broke, because she said few people know, but it’s one inch shorter that her other one. I felt like it was necessary to start with a random fact about Femke, because as I learn more about her and her music, I’m totally floored by the unique nature of her story and how she developed her production sound.
Typically a BTS (behind the scenes) producer for other artists, Femke blessed us this time by busting out all her synths and guitars on her new tune, “Call This”. As a Grammy-winning pop producer and multi-instrumentalist, Femke combines her film-music background with her European sense of pop. She is currently Nashville-based and can be found at her studio at Liz Rose Music, a publisher in Nashville she works with closely for all her country material, recently getting her cuts on Seth Ennis (Sony) and a few others.
For Femke, this song is personal. She says, “This song is really about that moment you decide to say I Love You. After writing it, I realized it’s the kind of song that applies to so many more things and it really just a positive outlook on life. I somehow feel that this is the right time to send a bit more positive energy into the universe, so I decided to step out of the background for a second and release this tune (as herself)”.
GGM: Can you tell me a bit about the creative process of developing it?
“I love making synth sound, I’m a huge nerd when it comes to experimenting with sounds and effects, so I was just messing around with a new synth I just got and it inspired the song to just come out. And after that, it’s kind of one of those moments where you start picking up a guitar, play a bass, make a beat and suddenly it’s 4 in the morning and you’re still jumping up and down in your room feeling super excited. My boyfriend who I wrote the song for mixed it, so it was full circle there.”
GGM: How did you get into music?
“Growing up in a tiny tiny town in Holland with nothing to do, the only thing I had was my music. We had a small music school with a few limited instrument options, so I picked the Accordeon. I ended up playing classical accordion, got into the conservatory, and soon realized I didn’t really want to lock myself in to such a nitch market…”
(Editor’s Note: LOL! ACCORDIAN IS DEFINITELY A NICHE MARKET!)
Today, Femke remains a citizen of the world, as she travels from Thailand to China to the UK to work with any artist she finds that inspires her. She did it. Her back-story includes quite a bit of traveling too. After one year at Berklee College of Music in Boston, the Dutch-native decided to try her luck in the Los Angeles Film and TV music scene. Let’s just say it worked out for her. She won the ASCAP Harold Adamson award, studied with Lin Manual Miranda for a short summer at Chicago’s North Western University with the Johnny Mercer Foundation, worked for Richard Gibbs, Don Grusin while also working at Hans Zimmer’s Prestigious Remote Control studios in Los Angeles. As a musician she sang with Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus on the soundtrack for Fired Up, played accordeon on several indie movies, played guitar and programmed on ABC’s 10 Things I Hate About You and scored a season of Disney’s Binny und der Geist.
Her productions are swiftly gaining international attention with a UK viral chart mention for Four Walls on SYPS and BBC1 and 2 plays on BCMA award winner Jess and the Bandits and indie singer /songwriter Belle Mt. She’s creating a global hub in Nashville, working with artists from Thailand, China, Canada, the UK, Germany and Scotland that either come to her, or she comes to them with her portable studio.
#KeepUpWith Femke
In 2017 she decided to create a platform for the artists she thinks the world needs to hear and this is how LV Music was born. She says, “As a pop artist in Nashville, I couldn’t find a lot of pop-producers at the time, so I decided to focus on production more, ended up producing my own record and started producing other people’s records, I found out that I absolutely love artist development, but I started realizing that when an artist gets disillusioned by so many promises of managers, labels, producers, it really stops the creative process. So, I started a participation based record label. LV Music.”
LV Music is an independent community of artists and creatives focused on great music first, with a unique release model in conjunction with Tonetree Music which serves the music creators above all else. Founded by Grammy award winning producer and songwriter Femke Weidema; early releases from Belle Mt and Lieza are already making noises way above their station with a collective 250,000 plus listens in their opening weeks and premier playlisting on Apple Music and Spotify.
2018 is looking bright for Femke and the team at LV Music.
#KeepUpWith LV Music
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Femke’s Girl Gang Music Picks
Imogen Heap
Dua Lipa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krqYCvZj_ss