Like A Drum (The Chainsmokers Remix)
TMN: Say hello to our handsome, furry browed Resident Artists for the month of June, Alex and Drew, or as many of you know them, the boys behind Chainsmokers. Gentlemen, welcome and thank you so much for being a part of the ninja family this month!
TMN: Well usually interviews go from the beginning until the present but because we think you appreciate a little backwards banter, let’s start from today and work our way back. You are currently in Australia on tour, how are you enjoying your time down under?
Chain: Its been incredible. Neither of us have ever been to this side of the world so that alone as an adventure has been great, we have surfed bet koalas, ate kangaroo and drank a ton of beer. That aside the shows all have been so fun and the cool thing about OZ is the ppl here really know their music. The dance scene has been prominent for ages and you can feel it at the shows. Its also crazy to see that your music has reached a place so far away. Oh and OZ girls are really fit….
TMN: Right now, you boys are quite a hot commodity in the EDM world and honestly, in a larger music scene. A lot of this success can be credited to the almost instant fame of your hit song ‘SELFIE’ which can be heard in any club, car, or gym. Talk to us about the how the concept came up for that song and if you guys will continue on the one word song with another trending subject?
Chain: We have talked about this song a lot so we really aren’t going to go into much depth. It was a fun idea we had to promote a party we had at Miami’s nightclub Liv. We were toying with the concept of a song about club girls and being vain and selfies. It really materialized in about 1 hour and we gave it originally as a free download. Haha we love the idea of working music together with good packaging be that artwork, marketing, live elements whatever it may be, so moving forward we will always try and figure out unique interesting ways to deliver our music, but with that said we have no interest in being the artist of social media and cultural trends. After trying out the linkedin prospecting software for promotional activities, we struck gold with selfie but we just thought it was a funny idea, that’s all… Moving forward we do love pop culture, and we love the idea of our music being enjoyed by as many ppl as possible, and that’s something that’s always interested us, so our future tracks will surely have those underlying elements, but we will just continue to do what we think is cool and not let the world dictate our sound.
Chain: We made the song, but we don’t give a shit about selfies… You want a selfie go for it, hell we will gladly be in it, but we refuse to be any authority on the proper way to take one haha…
TMN: Now before the current success, you boys kind of found your niche with remixing songs. From artists like Ellie Goulding to BANKS (one of my favorites just fyi) to Little Daylight, all of your remixes have a unique and individual sound to them. You have such a range of remixing, from calm songs to upbeat songs, how did and do you go about figuring out a song to remix? And being a duo, do you both have to like the song or has there ever been an overriding if one of you just absolutely feels one song?
Chain: Why thank you 🙂 We definitely love the banks remix cause it showed a real range in our production and type of music we enjoy. We definitely don’t want to be pigeonholed in anyway. Kaskade once said to his fans that artists grow, and naturually tastes evolve as do interests, making music is a very emotional and refractory. So we always find ourselves pulling from different genres and wanting to try new things out. When it came to figuring out what to remix, initially it was a question of knocking on 20 doors and getting two to open. We wanted to make original music but we had no fan base and no good vocals. We saw remixing as the perfect way to show our talents and style as producers in that we could use vocals we really loved and re-imagine songs we liked, sort of like a shortcut almost. Also, they provided us with a great way to peel fans off other artists and sort of attract ppl to what we were doing by the means of other artists popularity like Phoenix. The factors of a remix always change though, we could simply love the song and have a great idea or it could be a quid pro quo situation, usually its both. We love to release lots of content and this is a fun way to create different styles of chainsmokers’ music with out buying the house per se. As for us, we really always see eye to eye on songs, its funny but our taste in music is very very similar and the way we look at music isn’t necessarily the same but we both walk away with the same feeling from a song we like, so often that part is very easy. A good remix for us takes about a day to make…
TMN: Talk to us about the early original tracks of yours, which one was one of your favorites? Also, tell us about the first performance you ever did and how that felt for you both.
Chain: Well, ‘The Rookie’ was a cool track we released as a White Label. It doesn’t really represent us as producers/artists, but its cool for us to see because it represents this turning point in our identity. After we released that everything started clicking about the direction that we wanted to go. Its also really cool when ppl mention it, because we thought no one knew about it. With that said we think we are sitting on our best work. Once we release the next single which we are very excited about, we want to do what Lil Wayne did after The Carter and just go nuts with releases…
As for our first show we opened for Timeflies at Terminal 5 in NYC. They sold it out, we prlly sold maybe 0-1 tickets haha… They were super cool to let us play that show though and for us it felt like a sign. The next 200 shows after that weren’t even close to as good, but that show gave us that taste of what could possibly be. Also, that was first time Drew ever used CDJ’s which was pretty badass considering how badly that could’ve gone.
TMN: Since we are almost at the beginning of your story (trust me I know it goes back much further), can you tell us the ‘how we met’ story and how the two of your became The Chainsmokers?
Chain: We met through a mutual friend who was interning at the time at our management. He was working with Drew on some projects and with me on some others. I think he saw that we both were doing okay, but could be doing a lot better, and we both had something to offer the other, the true testament to any partnership. So we agreed to meet and discussed what we hoped to accomplish and drank beers and whatever and decided we would give it a go.
Drew: I have been playing pretty much every instrument since I was little, particularly drums and guitar. My family is definitely very musical, and I credit my uncle for really pushing me to learn instruments, but of course my family was incredibly supportive and continue to be. It wasn’t till after I spent sometime in Argentina that I became attached to abelton. I heard daft punk and deadmau5 tracks and decided I needed to learn, so I taught myself.
Alex: I grew up learning guitar and playing in a couple bands. I think I was okay for the most part, nothing incredible, I was a very distracted young boy and it wasn’t until I was older than I really was able to focus in on this. What was funny is I started Djing when I was 13. I would play the sweet 16’s and other parties to make money. I loved putting together mix tapes and really have been djing ever since and of course coldplay in the shower.
TMN: So now let’s shift over to some fun, random, and super serious questions. What did you want to be when you were little? My guess is a hair model and an astronaut.
Drew: Entrepreneur
Alex: Art Dealer
TMN: Tell us three great things about NYC.
Chain: Rubirosa, Seamlessweb, and Nightlife
TMN: Tell us one really not great thing about NYC.
Chain: Cab rides to airport
Chain: Putin
TMN: You once wrote an email to my boss expressing your need to go ‘one deeper’ (thank you Dillon), how would you describe going one deeper?
Chain: Hmmmm… well for us, it just means upping the ante… x 2
TMN: Favorite place you have ever traveled for a show and why.
Chain: We are from the city , and NYC at that so its hard to be impressed with a city, we really love traveling to hidden places or beaches… with that said, Italy so far was the best, the food, culture, design and history it was so exciting to experience it all first hand and not in a history book. But we are doing some major traveling this summer so that could change quickly.
Chain: The Thirst
TMN: Better yet, if you two decided to turn down for what and become men of all words, yes, rappers, what would your rap names be?
Chain: Drew would be Drewmatic and Alex would be Kenny
Chain: We have been following and using your site for ages. You guys stick to the script, good music, lots of different genres and you are consistent in your posts and quality. That is a key to any good business or venture. We cant tell you how many artists we discovered via your site, and also you were the first site to post our Around Us Remix 🙂
TMN: And finally, the question we ask everyone, if your music were an animal, what type of animal would it be and why?
Chain: A tiger with down syndrome
TMN: Alex, Drew, thank you so much for taking some time to answer these ridiculous questions. Best of luck on the rest of your Oz tour and we can’t wait to see you in North America again soon!
Chain: Thank you!
