Giorgio Moroder Talks New Single “Good For Me” & His Upcoming Projects: Interview

Robbie Daw | November 11, 2016 5:03 pm

Popular music is fickle, as we know. A chunk of years goes by and music trends change, often leaving a bulk of name artists to become replaced by shiny new players in the aftermath. But some musicians remain eternally relevant and forever cool. (See David Bowie and Leonard Cohen, both of whom we sadly lost this year.)

Giorgio Moroder, who’s had the rare fortune to alternate between careers as both an artist and a producer for nearly 50 years while winning Grammys, scoring soundtracks to Hollywood blockbusters, nabbing Oscars and working with everyone from Bowie to Britney, is one such being. Following his 2013 resurrection by way of his featured homage on Daft Punk‘s Random Access Memories, the 76-year-old Italian legend has reinvented himself as a global superstar DJ and is once again back in demand as a producer for a whole new generation of singers, having released last year’s star-studded Déjà Vu LP.

In September, while Moroder was in New York to play music at the I Feel Love event — billed as “an immersive music in an abandoned factory in Brooklyn” — I met up with Giorgio at his hotel in midtown to talk about some of his material, both recent and upcoming. One such project we discussed was the song “Good For Me,” a collaboration with 24-year-old UK singer Karen Harding that was released as a single today (November 11).

Let’s talk about some of your upcoming collaborations, because I see you’re recording with Sistar. GIORGIO MORODER: Yeah, that’s quite funny because they asked me to write the song for them. You know K-pop pop — it’s so huge, right? So I wrote one song. I had to give them more than one idea, and they liked the last one, so I sent it to them and everything is ready. I’m waiting for them to sing. We’re also coming out with my new single, called “Good For Me” with Karen Harding, who’s a new, great British singer. Really good, young, beautiful, very talented. [At the I Feel Love event] I’m adding another song which we just roughly mixed two days ago, which is with a guy called Prince Charlez. He’s kind of famous as a writer, and it’s called “Champagne, Secrets And Chanel.”

You’ve done some work with Kylie Minogue, as well. I toured with her, and that was fantastic, I did give gigs in Australia. She filled up the 8,000, 10,000 capacity venues, and that went great. I did a little bit of a talk in one of her songs in Italian, a sexy introduction. The song didn’t do anything, but she is absolutely fantastic, a great singer and performer.

Would work with her again? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

You also executive-produced the Class Actress EP Movies that came out last year. What is it about an artist that makes you think, yes, I want to work with this act? Well, Class Actress was a little different from what I usually would do because she has a very, very precise idea of what she wants. With Karen, it was much easier because she co-wrote the song with Karen Poole, a songwriter who’s worked with Kylie — so it’s all six degrees of separations. Karen takes great advice that you tell her. We did it on a Sunday evening. Instead of dinner we recorded, and it was done.

Do you think we’ll ever see some of your older albums get a re-release? Actually, it’s interesting because [my current label] Casablanca, they also own [also own the older material]. I don’t know? Maybe one day. I have From Here To Eternity, Knights In White Satin, I have an experimental one called Einzelgänger, which I completely forgotten until somebody told me about two years ago. So there is some stuff. I think it depends a little bit on how the next single is doing, or the next next one, because right now, I think it’s not that easy to get somebody to re-release. I think you may have to re-master it, clean it.

Does soundtrack work still interest you? I just did music with a friend of mine, Raney Shockne, for a very successful series on USA called Queen Of The South. It’s a little bit of a Scarface situation where a Mexican lady becomes a big drug dealer, and the show was just renewed a week ago, so that’s one. And I did a movie with Walter Hill. It was called Tomboy but now they changed it and I forgot the name, the new one. [Editor’s note: The film is now called (Re) Assignment, and is due out in 2017.]  It’s going to be a cult movie, in that it could become one of those movies that they play at midnight. By the way, I’m not saying it’s not a great movie — it’s a good movie — but it could become a cult movie.

Giorgio Moroder’s new single with Karen Harding, “Good For Me,” was released today. Pick it up on iTunes or stream it on Spotify.