Joe Goddard

Joe Goddard has been thinking about thinking. For the past few years, the producer, songwriter, and all-round polymath of UK dance and indie music has been trying to get more in touch with his own intuition. “This idea of trying to divorce your conscious mind from the music-making process – not trying to force meaning on the music or your collaborators, allowing that process to be very empathetic, and just making music purely on your natural emotional response,” he explains.

It may come as no surprise to hear that this mindset naturally emerged – where else? – during the pandemic. At home, Joe reflected on his three decades of making music, two decades of marriage, and decade-plus of raising children. But it was only after opening Relax and Enjoy, his new East London studio with Hot Chip bandmate Al Doyle, that he truly understood the degree to which his outlook had shifted. “We’ve been working there producing a lot of other bands,” he says. “Looking at the group psychology of the people that come into that space, the creative process can be completely derailed by someone wanting to assert themselves and control the process. I’ve been guilty of being that person myself in the past. Sometimes you get this aggressive urge to be the person that leads the decisions. I’ve been working on my ability to turn that off.”