“We don’t want to self categorize, people just throw out all these crazy different genre’s cause there’s probably pieces of everything.”
As Mixmag recently pointed out, SOFI TUKKER are on a path that will be taking electronic music to the next level in 2016. From their eclectic international sounds to their eclectic and international instruments (see watermelons & books discussion below) this duo brings a whole different light to music creation. With the success of two original tracks under their belt, SOFI TUKKER are a duo not to be looked past.
Interview and Photography by Mike Greene
Transcription by Montana DZurella
Mike: Where are you both from and what got you both into music initially? Was it friends, a family member, etc.
Tukker: I’ll go first, mine’s a lot simpler than Sofi’s. I’m from Boston Massachusetts. I grew up loving music, my parents listened to oldies and disco among others when I was really young in the car and then I started playing the drums and was in a garage band in middle school with some friends. It was basically like a Sum 41 cover band similar to every other kid in the world. It was awesome, despite not being very good, but then I ended up having to put music on the back burner because I played basketball competitively, and in college. It wasn’t until I got sick, and sort of had to lose the game and then re ignite my passion for music.
Sofi: I am not exactly sure how to answer the question where I’m from. I was born in Germany and then moved to Atlanta Georgia, lived there for 10 years, in a German immersion school, so it wasn’t exactly your typical Atlanta experience, and then I went to high school as I said in Canada and a boarding school in Italy. My grandparents live in London, my parents live in The Netherlands, and I’m not really sure what my national identity is but I have an American passport, and I speak Portuguese just because I have a fascination and infatuation with the Brazilian language; I went to study there for 6 months and I learned the language and studied the guitar. And the other question was how I got into music? I just feel like it’s a natural part of me that would’ve come out no matter what. My mom always jokes that I was dancing and doing cartwheels in her stomach, everyone knew that I was going to be a crazy child, but I was in choirs forever and I did musical theatre in middle school and my parents are really into jazz and classical music and also we listen to a lot of Buena Vista social club and Gypsy Kings and a pretty collective mix of music. So I grew up in these international school communities, so everybody around me came from a different musical background, so what was cool was that I just listened to a lot of different genres of music growing up. I remember I used to do middle school projects where instead of doing a book report I would turn the project into a song creation. So I’ve been writing music and singing and tapping rhythms and making shit forever.
Tukker: I did that too while I was in high school, but like making a cd, I don’t know how I convinced the teachers to do that
Mike: Was there any specific family member that kind of pushed you along more than anymore else? Someone that truly believed in you like every step of the way, and said you were going to be big one day.
Tukker: My dad, for sure. Not in a “you’re going to be big one day”, but like it goes back to basketball, he was at all of the home games that I played, and he would come to away games too. We traveled the country together through tournaments in high school and in college we were playing all over the country and he would come and is just a huge supporter and my biggest fan. He has definitely instilled a lot of self-belief in me. I mean my whole family has but definitely him in particular.
Sofi: Yeah I would say my whole family as well, and I would say my dad also because he would always set up these little performances, like I remember there was a teacher’s conference at one of the school’s he was the head of, and there was a talent show, and he had me perform a Nora Jone’s song, and this happened several times, yeah I use to make basically Bossa Nova exclusively, influenced certainly. I’m still really into Bossa nova.
Mike: Was there any specific musician that you or your family listened to while growing up, that kind of influenced you and affects the way you produce today? Sofi, would that be Bossa Nova for you?
Sofi: Yeah, I could so say so many different musicians but…
Tukker: I don’t know if I could say one specifically, and I think that’s what’s nice about where music comes from. There’s so many conflicting influences that one just can’t be named. Like even for us, we’re just coming from such different influences and backgrounds and all knowledges of music, and types of music… that’s why I think our music is what it is.
“We’re just coming from such different influences and backgrounds and all knowledges of music,… that’s why I think our music is what it is.”
Mike: So how did all of this translate into the type of folk dance indie music that you guys create?
Tukker: We always had trouble with genres…
Mike: I clearly just named 3 different genres (laughs)
Tukker: (laughs) It’s funny everyone says different genres, which is kind of interesting. We don’t want to self categorize, people just throw out all these crazy different genre’s cause there’s probably pieces of everything. It really just came from our two minds coming from different places, mine coming from a really deep house sort of dance background at least with my production and my performing, and hers from a more acoustic worldly collectic…
Mike: So with your recent release of Matadora, was there anything different this time around with production wise? I feel like it has a different sound…
Tukker: There’s a lot more. It’s a lot fuller, it’s like a bigger sonically bigger sound than “Drinkee” was..
Mike: Yeah I was going to say your singles have different sounds; Drinkee’s more funk and Matadora is has more of a Brazilian sound, and has that like flair to it.
Sofi: It’s actually a Bolivian andean instrument that a friend of mine was playing, called the charango – it’s a traditional instrument that she was recording with on an iphone, and I heard the recording and showed Tukker and we were like holy shit that is so unique sounding, so Tukker took it and played with it…
Tukker: I chopped it up and made the progression made it sort of different and made our sound. Sofi immediately took it and started writing and coming up with this idea of a poem she’d been wanting to use for awhile..
Sofi: We actually started writing this.. So I was in a wheelchair for 4 months and I was in The Netherlands and we were writing over skype, so we started the horn part over skype and we were sending things back and forth, like while I was in the wheelchair..
Tukker: Then we added the charango and then the poem, we’d been trying to use in other demos but just weren’t quite right, and yeah it just came together. We had this thing that was “Sofi Tukker” and didn’t show anyone yet because she was healing still. It was cool, it literally was the first day we saw each other when she came back from the Netherlands; we saw each other in the airport, met up in Florida, she was in her wheelchair and that night we worked until the morning, and we listened to “Matadora” and loved it.
The difference with Drinkee, back to the original question… Once we started performing, we realized we loved the high energy stuff, it’s more fun for us as we’re both very active, athletic and we like to jump around and like she’s a really big dancer and loves to dance, so we wanted to make a song that would have the energy and the excitement and Drinkee, we felt was more like a low key feel cool type of vibe song, and we wanted one that was a little more hyped up, you can see it in a bigger crowd, especially being played over a larger group of people. Drinkee is a little more intimate..
Sofi: There’s something more ecstatic about Matadora. I would also say this a stretch but after four months of being on hold and full time healing I think we were really ecstatic about finally being back and getting rolling and it’s not an accident that Matadora is such a huge an ecstatic song.
Tukker: We hope it comes out that way at least …
Mike: Oh it does! It seems like you guys don’t really stick with traditional instruments you know with the charango, and then when I saw you guys at Webster you guys were playing with books. That’s probably like my favorite thing of the thousands of shows I’ve been to, that’s literally next level!
Sofi: We tried playing with watermelons but it got too soggy…
Tukker: We tried so many things, it’s just more fun to like make an instrument and to sample whatever we want and do something different rather than, you know cause it’s only two of us so we can’t play everything in the song all at once, but we don’t want to just dj and sing and Sofi rips guitar but we wanted to make it still unique. We just tried something funny and it was cool, really cool. We’ve been pushing the idea further and further too but on this tour we’re using a similar thing but it’s kinda much bigger and I really go ham on it.
Mike: Are you talking like a science class skeleton?
Sofi: Bigger, it’s bigger than Tukker.
Mike: Woah!
Tukker: Yeah it’s really big and we can’t just play it together…
Sofi: I think we’re gonna be experimenting with playing a lot of different random absurd things because we can.
“The most successful process for us is just being in a room together and, I think the line is super blurred between who is doing what …”
Mike: I think for more and more artists now a lot of them are doing the whole live thing but I think what sets you guys apart and what’s kind of like refreshing about your shows is that you’re messing around with books and watermelons and sculptures to play, and it brings the live show to the next level.
Tukker: That’s cool, and that’s what we wanted to do..
Sofi: We also want to do what’s fun for us, cause that’ll come across.
Mike: And it shows in the crowd when they’re like what is that, is that what they are playing? Did I just read that book?
Sofi: I was actually hitting the book of poetry as I was singing..
Mike: That’s really funny though that’s cool. So how do you guys really both collaborate together? Do you both have different skill sets, strong points/weak points, where the other one kind of picks up the slack?
Tukker: Yeah, we definitely have things that we’re best at but we end up doing everything together, like I’m not the singer but I’ll help with melodies, and she’s not the drummer but she’ll make beats and we just like always… she is a drummer actually but yeah.
Sofi: The most successful process for us is just being in a room together and, I think the line is super blurred between who is doing what and that’s when our minds really create something we like. No song has been the same in terms of process, and in terms of who does what and what order, it’s just whatever we feel inspired by, we just run with it
Tukker: A lot of articles write like “Tukker the producer DJ” and “Sofi the singer songwriter”, but we’re basically both the songwriters and both the producers and we’re both the ears that puzzle everything together.
Mike: Here’s a shoutout to Ben and Jpatt of ‘The Knocks’… What have you guys learned from them? What’s it been like working with them, and how are they as teachers?
Tukker: I think what we learned from them the most doesn’t really have to do with music but more from being friends with them and being included into their gang and their world when we moved here, their inclusiveness and their non competitiveness and their willingness to open their arms to us. Coming from sports, there’s a lot of competition and people are always trying to beat out the next person and we’re all trying to be successful in music and it’s so cool that they support us so much. We’re all friends of each other and we all will be friends and that’s what I would take most from them. Their attitude I think.
Sofi: Yeah I think that was an excellent answer actually, I just echoed that to be honest.
Catch SOFI TUKKER on the Route 55 tour with ‘The Knocks’
1/22: Mod Club Theatre – Toronto, Canada
1/23: Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
2/8: The Boardwalk – Orangevale, CA
2/9: The Independent – San Francisco, CA
2/10: The Independent – San Francisco, CA
2/12: The Casbah – San Diego, CA
2/13: El Rey Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
