What do you get when you mix a Great Dane with a Flying Dutchman? Ida Corr and Fedde Le Grand came together and created the explosive international smash "Let Me Think About It." A follow-up collaboration, "Mirror," served as the theme for Live Earth. Now with her new album One, Ida Corr is ready to attack dancefloors. The diverse range of genre-busting electronic sounds will definitely make you want to ride her tempo…
DJ Ron Slomowicz: You're new album is called "One" – is that because it's your
first album?
Ida Corr: No, it's One because some of the songs I'd written four
or five years ago; some of them are new, they were written one and a
half years ago; and, I think the last period of my life has been very
hectic, also in some good ways. The album sort of just gets it
together, like a diary, for me. That's why I called it One.
RS: That makes sense. Did you write all the songs on the album?
Ida Corr: Yes, I did.
RS: What's your musical background?
Ida Corr: My father is a musician as well – so growing up, we jammed
a lot in his apartment. There were a lot of friends and uncles, and so
music was a very big part of my life. Then I started playing drums
when I was six years old, and started bands and groups from then on,
and then just continued that way. So music has been a part of my life
from when I was a little girl.
RS: Do you have a big jazz background?
Ida Corr: No, actually not. My father listened to a lot of reggae,
so that was the first kind of rhythmical music, and then I had a lot
of Michael Jackson. But no jazz, absolutely no jazz.
RS: Really? Because I feel a lot of jazz on the album.
Ida Corr: Oh you do? Well, all the music that I've listened to, and
from watching TV and just being in this musical environment – you
cannot help but get some jazz influences. But I haven't been
listening a lot to jazz, no.
RS: Are you a big James Brown fan?
Ida Corr: Absolutely. I am, I am.
RS: What was the inspiration to do the song "Mr JB" about him?
Ida Corr: The city I grew up in played a lot of funk and a lot of
soul. That was the kind of music that was very much the thing in that
town. James Brown was just one of the first big, big soul funk men I'd
heard. I was so blown away the first time I ever heard him. He's been
like a big inspiration all throughout my musical history. I just felt
like writing this tribute to him and just showing the love for James
Brown, and for the younger people who might not have had the
experiences with him yet.
RS: Are you also a big fan of Tom Jones?
Ida Corr: I haven't listened that much to Tom Jones, but I think he's
done some amazing things.
RS: OK. Because "I'm Your Lady" sounds like a response to his
song "She's A Lady. "
Ida Corr: Ah, OK, I've never thought about that actually but yes,
when you say it, yes.
RS: Do you have any country music in your background?
Ida Corr: When I was growing up I did a lot of covers. I love doing
covers of all kinds of amazing stuff, and around four or five years
ago I listened to some Dolly Parton and it just made sense to me. She
did some amazing things. And then I started listening, just a little
bit, to country. With music, you can find all these different genres
and you can keep on finding new things. I think that's one of the most
amazing things with music in general. And I think that mixing all
these different kinds of genres makes very much sense to me. Country's
absolutely One of my newest.
RS: Very cool. I love this song "Do You Believe." What was the
inspiration, what was in your head when you wrote that?
Ida Corr: Actually it's about being in Denmark. We have this saying –
we call it gendalow. It's like you don't have to feel that you're
better than nobody, you have to be content with who you are but we
have to think about that. We have to be able to be happy with who we
are, and with the powers and the meanings and the energy that we can
spread, and believe that we really do make a difference in every day.
So I question gendalow. I believe in being humble and being loving of
life, but I don't believe in being – what do you say – when you put
yourself down in order to be accepted. I don't believe in that, and I
question that in the song "Do You Believe."
RS: So you're from Denmark. How did you meet up with the Dutch Boy
Fedde Le Grand?
Ida Corr: That was actually through my publishing in Denmark, Lifted
House, where they've been doing a lot of house music, a lot of this
and that genre. And, as you can hear from my album, I love mixing
genres. I've mixed everything from rock to reggae, to pop – all kinds
of different stuff. I heard a little bit of this house, and I was
very intrigued. They played me some video bits of Fedde, some of the
tracks, and said that he wanted to do a remix. I was just blown away
because it was so funky and so sexy, so I started playing a little bit
with that. That was how we came to work together, from Lifted House.
They introduced us.
