W Hotels

Chisholm was born in Eugene, Oregon, and grew up studying music both in school and via her parents’ record collection, which was heavy on the Grateful Dead. She studied classical jazz piano at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Inspired by female producers such as Grimes, she taught herself the ins and outs of crafting dance music. “It was for me, a very, very sharp learning curve to understand sound design and synthesis and Pro Tools and Ableton,” she recalls while relaxing in a suite at W Amsterdam, a day before she will play an event for Amsterdam Dance Event. Eventually she scored an opening slot for the duo Sofi Tukker. 

Since then, she has co-founded the label Animal Talk to release singles, and also co-founded This Is Femme House, a non-profit organization that seeks to create more opportunities for women and non-binary people in the dance music world. During the pandemic, live streamed sets for performances she called Dead House, during which she mixed the music she grew up with thumping dance beats. This led to the opportunity to play after parties for Dead & Company shows.

2023 was her busiest year yet. She toured heavily, often incorporating live piano into her sets. “It just lights people up in a different way,” she says. She also released her acclaimed debut album Light Places, which shows just how much she has mastered her craft in a short time. But the hits keep coming, as she started the new imprint Yes Yes Yes, headlined her hometown festival the Oregon Country Fair, and was hand-picked by Taylor Swift to remix her hit single “Cruel Summer.” It’s been a long, strange trip she admits, and sometimes a challenging one. But she has never lost sight of goals of bringing people together, inspiring the next generation and spreading good vibes wherever she goes.

(This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.)

I know your parents are huge music fans and were especially into the Grateful Dead. What were some of your earliest memories of growing up and listening to music with them?

So we didn’t go to church as a family. Our sort of Sunday service, if you will, was listening to the Grateful Dead as a family. My dad would pull out his vinyl collection and we’d listen to Dead albums or live tapes and dance in the living room, the four of us, me and my brother and my parents. And so that was my first experience as music being a force for community and connection.

Some kids rebel against their parents’ music tastes. But I take it that wasn’t the case for you.

It wasn’t like I rebelled against their music, ever. But growing up, the Grateful Dead was my parents’ music, and I appreciated it, but it wasn’t something that I would ever personally listen to. And I wasn’t necessarily a fan. I was a fan of my parents and I love that they love them. But I hadn’t connected myself. But in the pandemic, when I was really, really missing my family, I ended up with a friend of mine working out of a studio and had got some stems to some Dead songs.

I started doing this Sunday service on Twitch streaming, and my parents would watch from their house while we were both isolated in our own separate homes in different states. Knowing that they were watching, I wanted to give them something, so I started interweaving Jerry’s guitars over some house gospel music. I remember the first time I did it, my mom texted me, “I can’t believe that this is happening. I’m crying….your music and our music. It’s so beautiful.”

I saw their music through a different perspective. I finally took the time to dive in, my own way. And I now have crazy respect for that band.

So you recently remixed Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer.” What was that process like? Did you get to meet her?

No, I did not get to meet her, but the process was crazy. I hope I get to meet her one day because she seems lovely.

She asked her manager to reach out to my manager to see if I wanted to remix “Cruel Summer.” I was somewhere in Spain when I got the phone call and I remember thinking, “Oh, this is really early in LA. Is something wrong?” I picked up and my manager was like, “Are you sitting down? Taylor Swift wants you to remix her biggest track.” And I was like, “What? Is this a joke? What do you mean?” He told me “You have a few hours to do it, okay? No pressure.” I was like, “Okay, I’m about to go play a show. Can I get four hours?”

I sent it in and I sat by the phone like, “Did you like it? Did you not like it?” I didn’t hear anything for a few months and then I was on a flight to Amsterdam and I got a text, “She wants to release it. She’s going to do so in 20 minutes.”

I was like, “Is the mix right? Should I do it once over?” But I was on the airplane, so, you know, it is what it is. But I was wildly honored. And yeah, we had no idea she was going to like, post about it and tag me. I woke up to just hundreds and hundreds of texts.

So what’s it like working as Global Music Director for W Hotels? And what have you learned in this position? 

Well, first of all, working as W Hotels Global Music Director is the best thing ever. I have learned a lot. I mean, it’s another level of professionalism, punctuality, being on top of it. As a DJ, you have a team that is just sort of floating around your schedule. As an artist, sometimes I can feel like a commodity. But getting to work with the W Hotels team and have a seat at the industry side of the table, supporting artists that I believe in with the ability to book them and support their careers, it just fulfills me in another way. It’s a balance that I desperately need in this industry.

What’s your favorite thing you’ve done with W Hotels so far?

One of my favorite things was our roundtable at ADE. We invited some of the top folks in the music industry, artists and their teams, and people from labels and agencies and management companies to have an open dialogue about what we’re working on at W Hotels. We got their real thoughts and feedback on the partnerships that we should be approaching and how we should be approaching them. It was just really fruitful. People were really engaged, and I feel really excited about the programs that we’re going to roll out.

And for me, I wanted to become a producer because I heard that Grimes produced her own records. I was in a band and I was playing music when I had this light bulb moment. I was raised by parents who were like, you can do anything, you can be anything, which is already a massive privilege. But it wasn’t until I saw somebody else who looked like me doing that role that I even thought that was a role I could have. I needed to see myself visually represented. And then I kind of thought like, “Wow, what else do I not think I can do because I’ve never seen myself do it” So I just became dead set on being that for somebody else.

This Is Femme House was just a bigger imprint to do that and build our own community. A lot of business in the industry gets done on the golf course. So we wanted to create a safe space where women are clapping together and making their own tracks and booking each other. It’s grown way bigger than me and than I could ever dream of.

What did you learn making your debut album, Light Places?

I learned what sacrifice looks like. When you really, really love something, what you will do for it to get your best work out of it. I had to turn the album into (her label) Ninja Tune in mid-August. There was this one weekend where I played Electric Forest and I played an after-party, and then I took a jet and flew to New York and played from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. there for Pride. I went straight back to the airport, had a 7 a.m. flight, flew to L.A, played a festival there, got straight back to the airport, flew to Paris, landed, and then I had three days to finish the album. I had written everything already.

I’ve never felt more tired in my life, but I guess I learned just how far I can be pushed, which was further than I thought, although I am a proponent of mental health and wellness. For those few days, I had to push it. But I’m really proud of the product and it was really fun to be able to dive into that.

For more on LP Giobbi, you can visit her website and follow her on Instagram at @lpgiobbi.