Five years ago Leon Erickson began his development in composing electronic music at the Houston Dze L K’ant Friendship Centre, when the society received funding to provide a software music production program.
“I started off on the demo version, just running through tutorials. And then after we got the full version, I started working on stuff fully all the time,” said Erickson.
In 2014 Erickson was recognized by DJ Kwe also known as Crystal Favel, a spoken word artist and DJ, and added by her to the facebook community for Indigenous artists. After submitting some of his work, DJ Kwe asked him to be a featured artist on her page, Aboriginal Electronica.
Erickson said it was thrilling receiving his first royalty payment from Wax Warriors Record Label.
“I was jumping and slightly screaming inside. Basically when I got the deal for the album I thought, this is where my career starts,” commented Erickson.
The origin of DJ Lou-D, Leon Erickson’s business name, was inspired by a combination of elements. Erickson’s nickname, Lou, his uncle calling him Loudogg, and his interest in all things loud.
“It’s kind of a play around with different things. My uncle had given me a nickname when I was younger, Loudogg. I originally had that as my SoundCloud username, but it didn’t really sound like a good DJ name. So when I made my first track we spent about an hour toying around with different names. What about DJ Loud? I like loud. Cause I love loud music, and I’m kind of loud person. But DJ Loud was trademarked. So Travis said, ‘I got it! Put a dash in between and you can be Lou-D,’” relayed Erickson.
This year Erickson got paid to perform at the Midsummer Music Festival, an annual festival held in Smithers over the July long weekend, and received payment for his first album, 140 and Beyond.
Erickson will be performing at the Multicultural Harvest Festival on Oct. 1 and is currently finishing up his second album, The Revolution, which will be released at the beginning of October.
If you are interested in checking out Erickson’s music, you can find his work on iTunes and SoundCloud under DJ Lou-D.