Luke Andy is making waves in modern electronic music as an American DJ, producer, and label owner who brings fresh energy to house and deep tech.
Photo credit: Luke Andy – Official
Starting as a self-taught artist, he has grown to perform at major festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival and Dirtybird Campout, while also playing at respected venues from Spybar Chicago to Sound LA.
His releases on notable labels like Dirtybird, Repopulate Mars, and Desert Hearts have earned support from established artists such as Jamie Jones and Claude VonStroke. Building on this success, he launched Groove Motive Records in January 2025, creating a platform for forward-thinking electronic music.
His first release on the label, ‘My Side,’ features vocalist Sophiegrophy. The track combines Luke’s characteristic driving bassline and stripped-back drums with Sophie’s soulful vocals, creating an engaging dance floor track.
In this exclusive interview, Luke discusses his artistic evolution, the birth of Groove Motive Records, and his perspective on the changing landscape of electronic music.
EG: Hi, Luke! Welcome to EG. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us. How have you been? Where are you right now?
Luke Andy: Thank you for having me. I’m happy to be here chatting with you. Currently, I am in Los Angeles working on some new music and making content. Staying proactive and productive in these earlier months of the year before festival season and shows really start kicking off.
EG: First of all, congratulations on the drop of your new collaboration, ‘My Side’! You must be very excited to finally share this one with the world. What has the initial reception been like so far?
Luke Andy: Yeah, this track really emulates the type of sound I’ve been chasing this year. It has been a key song for a majority of my sets the past several months. I tend to spin it either in the beginning of my sets or peak time, and it works consistently on the floor. I’m equally as excited as I am curious to see the types of artists that this song gravitates towards.
EG: So, is there an emotional trigger behind ‘My Side’? What’s the story here?
Luke Andy: Dark and sexy were the only feelings we were trying to invoke when we sat down to produce this track. I wanted a bass-heavy groove that kept listeners dancing and had enough space in the mix to let Sophie’s killer vocals shine. She absolutely crushed it, and I think it was a mission success in the dark and sexy department.
We also wanted to create something for the clubs that felt raw and authentic to the listener, but also resonated with us. In the track Sophie raps:
“Stay sharp, no detour
Always ready, always sure
Break it down, keep it pure
Every step, we secure
Roll up, roll up
Let me show up
Never slow up, slow up
Watch me glow up
I got my homies on my side
We balling living large”
To me this track is about being on your path, grinding to success with your loved ones right beside you.
EG: ‘My Side’ sees you linking up with Sophiegrophy. How did this connection come about? What was the collaborative process for this one like?
Luke Andy: I heard ‘No Drama’ with Walker & Royce back in 2017 and instantly fell in love with the tonality of Sophie’s voice and the rhythm she has when she flows. I would send her tracks over the years on Instagram and would finally meet her in person when she came to LA to visit in 2024. We hit it off, cracking jokes about the industry, talking fashion and UFC. We locked in a future studio session and I remember I sent Sophie 3 tracks, 3 different styles that she could write to. When we met up for our in-person session, we went through each track with her rapping the lyrics, and when I heard the ‘My Side’ verses on the initial (much more bare) beat, I knew it was the one.
“This track really emulates the type of sound I’ve been chasing this year”
EG: ‘My Side’ also signals the first release from your newly-founded Groove Motive Records imprint. Congratulations! What’s the story behind Groove Motive Records? What drove you to create your own label?
Luke Andy: This all started back when I was 18. I had popped my festival cherry at Moonrise Festival in Baltimore, MD, where I saw Claude VonStroke perform. I shifted from producing rap beats to diving into house music production. I spent years perfecting my craft, traveling all over to connect with artists and build my sound.
A breakthrough came for me when my track was played by Claude himself, leading to a signing with Dirtybird Records. Over the next two years, I would tour and even play at Dirtybird Campout multiple times, living my dream and climbing up the ranks of a label that I thought would be an end goal for me. VonStroke was a massive inspiration, somewhat of a sonic mentor that he never knew about haha. I would dissect and analyze how he would mix and work a crowd, listen carefully and critically to all the new songs he would play. And he would never play the same set twice but always managed to take the crowd on a dancing trip. But when he left Dirtybird and decided to take some time off, I felt a loss of inspiration. I spent the next couple of years trying to find a new sound that resonated with me. I tried plenty of labels. I would get some support but not releases. I think being seen as a “Dirtybird artist” didn’t help me either, but that’s a different conversation.
I spoke with a buddy of mine, Chasewest, and he told me how he followed advice from Pawsa, his respective mentor. He would tell him to start his own label and build his own community, so he did. And now he is very deservingly crushing it globally. I saw this happen a lot with artists in Europe but didn’t see much of it from touring acts in the States. We just don’t have the same type of support for each other as artists compared to other scenes in the world. I was skeptical of the idea of having your own outlet for music. It seemed like a workload that could be devoted to just producing more music, and I always thought it would be better to get on a big label to help catapult your success. But I was wrong. I have so much respect for that path because it’s a lonely one, but he was able to do it and create a brand for himself. I’m realizing now there is no right way to do it. There are many roads that lead to your end goal—you just have to keep going and not stop.
And so I took a page out of his handbook. Rather than search for a new home, I decided to create one for myself. In the end of 2024, Groove Motive was born—an artist-driven label focused on building a creative, connected community that loves great music.
EG: And what can we expect from Groove Motive Records moving forward? What is your vision for the brand? What will set it apart from other labels in the circuit?
Luke Andy: You can expect a new track every month and shows to be happening towards the middle to end of 2025. My goal is to bring artists from all over to play shows together and bring forward-thinking music to cities worldwide.
As for how it will differ from the myriad of other labels and constant music being pushed out every day, I think just as we do with our own artist pages, we need to be constantly thinking outside the box and pushing the boundaries of the status quo without compromising our brand’s integrity. With the way that we deliver content, music and social assets, the aesthetic and brand we will build will isolate itself from the masses in the best ways possible.
EG: Will other artists be able to submit music to Groove Motive Records in the near future? How can people get in contact with the brand?
Luke Andy: Yes! As we are building up the label, we are being more intentional with who we release in the beginning. However, if the track fits our sound and we love it, we’ll sign it. Demos@groovemotiverecs.com is where artists can submit their tracks.
EG: Now, on to the state of the scene… What do you see as the biggest challenge for the music industry in the next few years, and how do you think artists can adapt?
Luke Andy: Ah, well, where do I begin. I think these days a lot of discussions are being had about the industry being broken. From the behemoth streaming companies dominating the vast sums of streaming revenue to the main festival talent buyers booking similar lineups, I feel a lot of established artists are finding themselves in a sort of limbo. But it’s all a game. Everything works in a cyclical manner. You release music, market the music, and tour with the music. And then the dichotomy of having to be an artist and a content creator. It’s a sad truth, but you either pay someone to do it or you take hours out of your schedule to conceptualize and implement. The game has changed—social proof and marketing are deemed, I dare to say, just as important if not more than the music if it is to be a successful release. I mean, having a big DJ rip your track and posting it to their feed will help boost a profile and maybe get you some gigs, but if you or your team are incapable of capitalizing on these special moments, it will just be another post.
Routes like Bandcamp and SoundCloud have given artists opportunities to try and build a fanbase for themselves, but it’s a grind that not a lot are willing to take. Consistency and output, but it’s hard when a lot of smaller artists are spending over 40 hours a week at a job they don’t care about to make ends meet, and then having to come home and produce a banger that will get signed and supported.
Back in the day, you could make a killing off of vinyl sales, but now with everything being platformed for streaming, artists make a fractional amount that most cannot live on.
We then pour our hope into touring, but post-COVID it’s harder for promoters to take the risk on more underground artists. It’s more beneficial for a promoter to book a mainstream artist that will sell tickets rather than taking a chance on a smaller guy and not selling out, even if the smaller guy’s music is preferred. Now tack on flights, hotels, and media, and the artists’ wallets are really hurting.
It’s out of my pay grade and mental capacity to help solve this issue; however, when I ruminate on it, I do see a future where a lot of artists will own their own labels or imprints. I’m not anti-streaming, but I hope there is a way to get mechanical value back to artists for their tracks. Let’s bring vinyl back? Sometimes I’ll smoke a blunt and envision a future where we can cut down vinyl manufacturing costs and start mass producing somehow. Then charge vinyl’s base price for 3 to 5 dollars, keep the whole resale Discogs game going, and then start blast marketing vinyl being cool and all the DJs doing vinyl sets—make it a new club standard. And then make digital $25 a track and have different tiers for streaming, maybe a token system where you have 100 tokens with a tier, 500 with a tier, and 1000, and that’s how many plays you get a month. It would incentivize buying the tracks you really love, but when they see it’s $25 for the digital track, then they see vinyl is $5-6, they will buy the vinyl.
Artists and labels should make it a norm to split the digital and mechanical royalties in a much more fair manner. Then let’s say you bought a bunch of new vinyls, Michael Bibi rips a vinyl that you have and it shoots up on Discogs by $100—now you’re chillin’. It would strengthen the buy and resale community. It would be an interesting change, but it would bring a lot of passion and focus back to the music and artists. And you could still rip IDs on a CDJ with USB, but make the vinyl the focal point. With all this AI coming, we are going to have a bigger community of people wanting more authenticity, and what’s more authentic than bringing DJing back to its roots? IDK, I’m sure someone can absolutely steelman why this wouldn’t work, but it was a fun tangent.
The goal of this game is to build a community or join a community where you have a home for your sound and creativity. For any artist, the only rule is to not give up. Keep fueling that engine, because everyone has their own unique road and the destination is always beautiful and unexpected, and you’ll respect and honor that journey way more especially if you knew that you didn’t give up!
“Rather than search for a new home, I decided to create one for myself”
EG: Finally, what’s next for Luke Andy? What new milestones are you looking forward to in 2025? Where can your fans catch you next?
Luke Andy: The next steps for me are to keep on releasing quality music that I’m proud of most of all. I’d also like to branch out and play more in South America and Europe as well as Asia.
For now on the books, you can catch me: March 16 Pomona, CA, March 22 Tempe, AZ and July 5 San Francisco, CA.
EG: Thank you so much for your time, Luke! We wish you all the best for the future. Take care!
Luke Andy: I appreciate you taking the time to interview me. Stay happy and healthy, ’til next time!
Luke Andy’s ‘My Side’ is now available on Groove Motive. Stream and download here.
Follow Luke Andy: Spotify | Soundcloud | Instagram
