Leo Leonski is a Swiss born artist, now based in Mexico, who also runs his own Night Heat Records imprint. We caught up with him recently to talk about his new single ‘Canto Da Sereia,’ the pros and cons of running a label in 2024, and his hopes and dreams moving forward in the future…

WWD: Hey Leo, great to meet you! Introduce yourself for those that don’t know your music?

Nice to meet you! 🙂 To keep it simple and easy, electronic music is what I play, love to produce and listen to for years and years. But I actually started with blues, rock, indie stuff. Playing in the garage with guitars, old beat up drums and experimenting in the studio with simple gear. Eventually the sounds kinda mixed up, which brought up the song “August Heat” a couple years ago during the pandemic. I guess that’s what we love, to create those sounds and experiment, don’t we?

WWD: What’s been your best DJ set this year and why?

Probably the Mezcal Amores set in Oaxaca (Mexico). A good crowd and really good production in general from the whole team. Plus, it gave me a lovely push careerwise as well.

WWD: What makes a good one to you? Do you look back and assess your performance each time?

I wouldn’t say I look back and assess a set each time, because everything depends on the day as well. If you play at the beach but you have a rainy day by bad luck, it’s gonna be a tough one but you still can have fun. We all have bad days no matter what we work on. But therefore you’re even happier if there’s a massive crowd full of fire and you deliver hell of an energy!

WWD: You run your own label Night Heat Records. What is the sound and style?

I created this label for two reasons: to release on my own, literally anything I want. Because there are so many big labels that just choose their friends to release things or a way to make money and commercialize stuff, it has nothing to do with music really. Which then brings me to the second reason: to help anyone that has never released anything yet and would love to make this happen. This said, I’d say the focus of Night Heat Records is definitely more towards indie and underground stuff 🙂

WWD: What is good and bad about running a label in 2024?

Good is for sure that it gives you the freedom to choose your own sound, in this brutal commercialized market nowadays. Bad is, to really spread the music as you have to succeed on platforms like Spotify, which isn’t easy at all to enter the big playlists when you just start and come as an indie label.

WWD: How do you judge success? Sales? Support? Or just whether you like the tunes?

I think you can tell if somebody is talented, knows music, plays instruments, knows how to produce and also, knows how to perform. Such talents will make their way somehow to success. As they say: legends are made, not just born. I find it hard to say someone is successful just because they have tons of likes on social media but never really produced a song. Music wise, that doesn’t make them successful (or very respected) to me.

WWD: Tell us about ‘Canto Da Sereia’ coming on the label. What inspired it?

Oh that song I had since a while laying around but never finished it, there was something missing. I was in search of some good, female vocals. Which I then found with my friend Bruna from Sao Paulo. I was sure the lyrics and sound of it would match the beat I had already. So we met up one afternoon at a home studio, recorded the vocals I wrote with Bruna and it really worked out quickly, in the first session. The whole idea was to give that kinda sensual feeling of a latin voice talking over the sounds, to tell a little story. Which ended up being the story of the siren. And Bruna’s accent from Sao Paulo was the perfect match.

WWD: What hopes and goals and dreams do you have for your career going forwards?

Honestly, one artist’s dream might be playing Glastonbury one day, no? At least for me, that would be one hell of a goal, to make this happen.

WWD: Where does most of your inspiration come from?

I run a lot. There is barely any better moment for me to escape with my mind. Dream and float to music, when I just run. A field, a forest, the beach. Doesn’t matter. Running and listening to music really inspires me.

‘Canta Da Sereia’ is available here