Stretched out on the sun-dappled balcony of his fancy LA rental, Fred Gibson looks every inch music’s go-to super-producer. Even dressed down in an embroidered oversized sweatshirt, Gibson’s Zoom screen-dominating smile suggests things are going Quite Well. Having overseen hits for everyone from Stormzy to Rita Ora, Ed Sheeran to AJ Tracey, Gibson was responsible for a third of 2019’s UK No 1 singles. A year later he won the Brit award for best producer, before launching his own dance-leaning artist project, Fred again.. in 2021, the same year as spending 15 weeks at No 1 via two Ed Sheeran co-productions.
But looks can be deceiving. When I suggest he got the better deal vis-a-vis interview locales the 29-year-old south Londoner replies with a misty-eyed “I long for where you are”, which is too nice a thing to say about the south-east London suburb of Brockley. He balks, too, at the super-producer tag (“That’s quite gross”), while mention of his Brit is met with a polite shrug. “I’m not really fussed,” he says. “I don’t want to shit on something that matters to people but it’s just so not why I do it.”
