Growing up in places where the music scene inspired them to create something of the unthinkable, soulful duo THEY take you through a twist on acoustic vibes in their music.
Interview by Montana Rain
Photography by Soug Sim
Montana: Since producing music that radiates melodic tones, what factors influenced your emotions while creating the concept for your track “Motley Crue”?
Dante: This inspiration with “Motley Crue” came from a personal standpoint, just living in L.A, a lot of times you ride down the sunset strip and see very propt up success, it’s one of those kind of moments you sit back and realize I’m here and I’m out here… not necessarily “I made it”, but where I am meant to be. No matter what I go through, I am with my people and I am out here pushing towards that. Melodically I think we always tried to keep it simple with guitar lines, that’s very simple, the vocals have a simply melody, we didn’t try to do too much. A lot of times we feel if you try to much it kind of hides the message. I think that’s the main two elements that went into the thought process for that record.
Drew: I think it worked out kind of harmoniously because, it’s simple melodies, simple pattern and the message we are trying to portray is really complex. I think those two elements kind of clashed in the right way and it just made sense.
Montana: So how did you guys both come together, and realize you wanted to pursue a career in the music scene together as a duo?
Drew: I remember Dante was doing a lot of pop releases, and I was doing a lot of songwriting for R&B artists at the time and when I met him we came together through my manager at the time which was his best friend, and that’s when we both came together to do some placement work and collaborate musically. We were both trying to get some money at the time and then after awhile of doing that, Dante showed me some of his secret beats that were in the closet, that he didn’t really bring out that often, so he showed it to me and I was like “Wow this is amazing, let me do my thing with it!”. So we did a couple of tracks and after we did that we fell in love with it and said “Let’s make this a thing! Let’s run with this and see where it goes!”.
Dante: I remember the time when we were making these first initial ideas and it was kind of a slow period. He hit me when I was hanging out with my family and was like “What if we did a group?”, “What if we made this like a thing?”, I remember I was like “why not?” (laughs) Let’s run with it and go 100% at it, and just see what happens.
Drew: Our music was different enough, and I felt like it was good enough to compete with everyone else. I felt like people could grasp it and relate to our music.
Montana: Tell us a little bit about how life on the road is, how has opening for Bryson Tiller changed your music career?
Drew: The road is really dope, it’s demanding, definitely physically and mentally. When you first want to go out on tour you’re like “I am so excited”, I was excited, and I still like doing this stuff, but I mean you have to start to learn on how to pace yourself and take care of yourself. Each place has different people and different experiences, and things like that you learn about. Just being on tour with him, and how he’s taken over the industry the way he has, it’s a great platform and opportunity for us to able to do what we always wanted to do so I’m ultimately thankful for it.
Dante: I think one of the biggest things for me being on the road is just the fact that I have always been used to just sitting behind the computer and letting it go from there. Now it’s like when you’re actually performing it’s a whole new thing for both of us to analyze. It really gives you a good insight to what people react to and what they don’t react to. That’s my favorite part is trying out new records, and seeing how people react towards it.
“I think that the main thing for us is that we are both brutally honest with each other… We have the freedom to be like “no that sucks man”.
Montana: As a duo, do you ever get nervous right before going on for a live performance?
Drew: I was expecting to from the jump, but I don’t think it has happened so far. I think it’s because we’ll take a few shots right before we go on stage and that definitely gets rid of the butterflies really quick.. It doesn’t happen for me, how about you Dante?
Dante: No no, we have a little warm up process. If you saw it from an outsider’s point of view it looks like we are getting ready to play a football game, we do chest bumps, we hype each other up and get ready to go. There’s always those little jitters, but I think it’s like as you get more comfortable you realize the ups and downs, and you just got to go out there and do it.
Montana: What do you want your audience to take from the songs as you perform, is there a certain message you want the world to know about “THEY.” ?
Dante: I would say the first thing I would want the world to know is the “project agenda”. To blur the lines between what the song was supposed to sound like and what you’re supposed to do, and how people think you’re not supposed to mix this with that, rap over guitars, or sing like this you know? We want to just open up some of the lengths and mix of genres like that. We’re doing this from an authentic place, I know I’m not the only person who hears beats the way I do and I know he’s not the only person who hears melodies and stuff the way he does so it’s like hey if we spark a new movement it’s dope.
Drew: As much as Dante and I love the urban scene nowadays, it’s definitely into the phase where non lyrics is, you don’t even have to say too much, but I definitely wanted to bring back the importance of having lyricism and bringing back the importance and having a melody, different things like that. I also wanted to change the way people do listen to music, and make it okay to be able to stretch the boundaries a little bit.
Montana: In two words, how could you describe the journey so far through your music, everything from touring, to the crowd, to producing tracks, what words come to mind to sum it all up?
Dante: Life changing.. I feel like we’re ground zero, we are just getting started. This is just the very very beginning of what we are trying to do. Hopefully we have decades more to go, I feel like we have the foundation, but we are building something right now and that’s what’s important.
Drew: It happened really fast so quick..
Montana: Are there any factors that inspired you from back home that influenced you to produce music?
Drew: Yeah definitely, for me just growing up in general I was counted out a lot from a lot of different friends and I was always on the outside looking in as far as wanting to pursue music. I know a lot of different people try to do it, and I know a lot of different people necessarily believe in what I was doing, but that motivated me to do more and now I’m on my way to this platform and it makes me want to go even harder to prove to everyone.
Dante: I’m from a unique place, I grew up in Denver Colorado. There was a black population there, but it’s not necessarily known for the black music scene,a lot of the bands that I grew up with and listened to were like “One Republic” and “The Fray” and stuff like that. It’s interesting because that was a lot of the music I grew up with while also listening to hip hop. I definitely kind of draw from that whole experience while being in Denver listening to that music, and incorporating the hip hop into it.
Montana: Talk us through on how the creative process works on collaborating ideas on a song, does one person write the words while the other produces the sounds, or do you both collaborate together?
Drew: Sometimes we will have already started the beat, skeleton or something like that. I’ll come in chime in and be like “ohhh i love this”, and he does 99.99% of the productions, but as far as on the writing end of things, usually I’ll let whatever he’s doing inspire whatever I’m thinking. I’ll start to write some things, and hum some sounds, and melodies and things like that. I’ll tap his brain and ask him well what do you think on this song, and the beats? Then I’ll start tailoring around with the lyrics around there, then we just start bouncing off ideas of each other, and then bam there’s a song.
Dante: We usually bounce melodies back and forth, try this try that. I think that the main thing for us is that we are both brutally honest with each other and if I have a melody down he’ll be honest and be like “that’s terrible take it off”, and I can do the same thing for him. We have the freedom to be like “no that sucks man”. We just chip away at it and try to tell a story where everything makes sense. Even in productions it’s slow, and we try to mold it and texturize the version of the song until it get’s to that perfect point.
Montana: The visuals for your song “Bad Habits” and “Back It Up” is of two angels falling while holding on to each other. What is the message you want listeners to take from hearing the songs and seeing the visuals all together?
Drew: A lot of times, especially in L.A, since it is the city of angels, I think the two angels for us kind of represents our dynamics, where he represents one spectrum of the dynamic and I represent the other, and I think it’s also an inner battle between yourself, and the doubt and wanting to pursue your dreams. Also the fighting, should I be doing it or not be doing it? It’s always like a constant contrast between battles within yourself, that’s what it portrays for me and I think music portrays the same thing.
Dante: It kind of ties back into the New Religion thing just a little bit, where it’s like here in L.A you’re going to battle with a lot of temptations and a lot of different things like that and the fallen angel I always think of it as one is rescuing the other, reaching out to try to save him. That could be the music, that could be each other, a support system.
Montana: Any particular artists that ultimately inspire you or that you both admire?
Drew: I’m a huge Missy Elliot fan, Pharrell is my favorite of all time, I like John Mayer a lot, Sam Smith, and Ed Sheeran. People like that. You also got the urban people nowadays, I love Drake, Chris, Jerimiah, it’s kind of from all different places I pull inspiration.
Dante: I have a lot of different inspirations too, I’m a big Nirvana fan, Prince, R.Kelly fan. So I’m just all over the place. In high school around the emo era, I listened to a lot of emo music like Taken Back Sunday, Fallout Boy. Just like that hard core scene at that time, I was really into that.
Montana: What’s your style inspirations?
Drew: I don’t get a chance to read a lot of magazines and stuff like that but I watch a lot of videos, and look at a lot of photos. I like the way Chris Brown dresses, and I think Jaden Smith’s style is really dope.. I like the way Zayn dresses a lot also, people like that I try to draw from.
Dante: Recently, I’ve been really into 90’s fashion, early grunge fashion at the same time, you know that late 90’s stuff. I’ve been wearing a lot of jersey’s and starter jackets, and even just simple flannels, denim jackets, and I’ve been drawing a lot of my inspiration from that. I watch a lot of 90’s movies series like Fresh Prince and Tarantino movies.
Montana: What has been the most unforgettable moment or experience so far throughout the whole journey?
Drew: I think the first time stepping out on stage, never having performed at all, let alone together on a stage in a sold out show come out there with our first song and people rocking with us from the jump. From there on I was like “I love this”. I knew I wanted to keep going and do this on over and over again.
Dante: One of the best moments for me is we got to fly out and work with Timbaland and we got there and I wasn’t even expecting him to be there, and he was there, he is actually like my favorite producer of all time, and we were playing our stuff and he literally knows all the words, since someone sent it to him. It was a surreal moment just seeing a legend rocking out to my music, was one of the best moment for me.
