If you haven’t heard of The Chainsmokers yet, it’s about time you do. Aside from topping the Hype Machine charts this year with their electro-pop-infused remixes of killer indie tracks, sassy East Coast natives Alex Pall and Drew Taggart are very cool customers, flawlessly operating the enigma that is the NYC club scene.
Although they claim to still be “figuring out” their sound and image, The Chainsmokers’ popularity has earned them residencies at prestigious nightclubs across Manhattan and Long Island. These twenty-something year olds aren’t biological brothers, but the agreeableness and dynamic banter between the two might suggest otherwise. We were lucky enough to sit down with them over double-fisting beers and commandeered raspberry tarts before their set at Roseland Ballroom for a private MTV event.
Read the informal interview below to learn about The Chainsmokers’ early beginnings, favorite gigs to play, love of music blogs, yoga pants, and what their plans are for the future.
How’d you guys meet? I heard it was through Chatroulette.
Drew: That’s for us to know and for you to maybe never find out.
[I was later told that “that’s they’re story, and they’re sticking to it.”]
Since you both went to great colleges (Drew – Syracuse University, Alex- New York University), have you been putting your degrees to good use?
Alex: Not really. I studied Music Business. It certainly applies to what were doing in some regards. I think we’re smarter than most, of the DJs in the world…
Drew: Smarter than most people.
Alex: Between us, we have like, a half a million dollars of education. So just think about that.
What do you do for fun when you’re not DJing?
Alex: I’m totally whipped by my girlfriend, so… being a slave to her.
Drew: Well, we both like to look at yoga pants on Instagram. We love yoga pants.
Alex: You have kind of yoga-ish pants on. They’re like a step and a half away from being yoga pants.
[They were jeans, not yoga pants, because I don’t wear yoga pants out of my house.]
How long have you guys both been living in Manhattan for?
Alex: I’ve been here for a long time, so I’m like a native. I think we both agree that it’s one of those cities with a cheesy saying, where you want to “make it in Manhattan“, because it’s a big accomplishment. It’s true to some extent, but… it’s also stupid how expensive it is to live here, and everyone is not that interesting. We were in LA for like, 2 hours, and I met more interesting people. We met the guy who made Duck Dynasty. In New York it’s just a bunch of PR girls and like, promoters, essentially. Which is cool, I love PR girls. They’re so nice.
When did you both decide that you wanted to start producing music?
Drew: The end of high school, I had to do a senior project, where I had to pick something to do. I chose music, and I just kept doing it. I thought I wanted to do real estate, or be a talent agent or something else. And then I got good at producing music, and I was like, “well I guess I’ll just do this“. I worked in the music industry, and if you work in the music industry, you have to be a bitch for so long. I just didn’t want to work my way up like that. I thought it would be quicker for me to move up in the music industry if I use my talents in producing.
Alex: We read so many stupid bios, like, “at the age of 3, he was inspired by music, he like felt he was raised by it“. It’s like, I used to make mixtapes and shitty VHS tapes, and was like, “oh man, these are fun to make, I wanna buy better equipment to do this with“. Then you throw a party, and you play at the party, you know what I mean? I don’t think anyone is like, well… it’s not some magical experience. Everyone does love music. Who hasn’t had a close relationship with music their whole life? That’s stupid, when people make it sound so fucking amazing.
Drew: Fuck all the other people!
Alex: They pretend they’re all fucking magical and special with the way they discovered their music.
Drew: I can do magic.
What kind of tricks?
Drew: Well if I told you…
Alex: Actually he can do a cool cigarette trick.
Do you guys always produce your songs together, or do you have a different system for producing music?
Drew: We hang out all day together and just make shit, and bounce ideas off each other.
What was the first electronic dance music show you ever attended?
Alex: I think I saw Digitalism, to be honest with you, which was pretty cool. In England, actually. That’s what really got me into the electronic music scene, because they’re already way beyond what we’re doing here. They’re all over Disclosure over there. They’re like, “whatever, Disclosure’s wack, we’ve been listening to them for like, 4 years!“. They’re so ahead of the curve in music, and it just felt really fun.
Drew: I remember seeing The Bloody Beetroots in like, 2008, when “Warp” just came out. And I remember I saw Deadmau5… I’ve been a Deadmau5 fan, and Deadmau5 is like, the reason I started producing electronic music. When I heard “Faxing Berlin” with those big, trance-y plucks that he has in that song, I was like, “okay, that’s the shit“. I saw him the same day I saw Bloody Beetroots, but they opened. They’re insane.
What have been your favorite gigs to play so far?
Drew: Well, the first time we ever played together was in September (we’ve only been Chainsmokers for like, 7 months). It was my first time using CDJs, and I’d literally been on them for like an hour, because I’d learned how to use them the day before. We opened for Timeflies at Terminal 5, and it was one of those shows that was sold out the day of. We got there at like, 6pm, it was an early show, and literally like, 2 seconds into when they opened the doors, the entire place was full, and that was our first show.
Alex: Since then it’s totally gone downhill in terms of live performances.
Drew: It’s just fun to play for an audience that’s so young and so crazy. We play at clubs mostly. We played at Marquee Vegas and that was insane too, cause it’s like, one of the best clubs in the world, and like Opium Barcelona, also a huge, really good club. It’s all about the kids going insane. If there’s like, people there that really want to be there, and really want to party, that’s what makes it fun.
Alex: Now, our music is being appreciated, you know, it’s spreading more. We have a lot to look forward to as far as like, festival-style shows. We’re going to Syracuse tomorrow to play more of a concert-festival show, versus doing the nightlife circuit, you know?
Drew: We have a lot more original music now.
Alex: It’s cool, I think it’s strong that we know that. Because I think a lot of people that only know the festival scene go into a club, and they’re like, “oh my god, what if I don’t mix fast enough?” and we can play any genre, and mix every ten seconds, so we’re really comfortable. If anything festivals are weird for us because we kind of just sit back, and let people enjoy the song.
Do you guys follow any music blogs?
Alex: Oh, I’m a huge blogger. I mean, I definitely read White Raver Rafting. 100%. You guys always post good music and good articles, and it’s frequent, which is the most important thing. But I’m all over, I spend like, 2 hours a day…
Drew: He doesn’t miss anything.
Alex: Hypem’s great. It’s not just about house music though. Obviously, our songs are heavily indie-influenced, so generally when we’re sitting at home, we’ll play a house song and be like, “woah, this is serious“, but if we’re just chilling playing video games and stuff and hanging out, the last thing I’m trying to listen to is like, those crazy Showtek songs on my computer speakers.
Who do you idolize in the music world, aside from Deadmau5?
Drew: Pharrell. Cause he’s just the man. He’s the man. Drake, the man. Diplo. Guys that just do their own thing, and just keep killing it. They don’t stop killing it, and they go so many different directions.
Alex: Like Steve Aoki, I don’t know if that guy even makes music anymore. But you feel like he’s making music.
Drew: Down with his brand.
Alex: Yeah, exactly. People that are really creatively talented but have a strong foundation in business… that’s what we kind of hope to achieve.
So guys like Aoki and Diplo have a certain image. Are you guys working on an image like that?
Drew: We’re still figuring out what it is. Same as we’re figuring out what our sound is. We know what stuff we like, and that’s different than everybody else, but we’re still working on how to make that something that shines through. So people can go to one Chainsmokers show, and be like, “woah, that was unique, that was cool, I love their vibe, I love their music“, that whole thought process.
Alex: We have a lot of people telling us to be the “downtown indie guys“, like, “be them“, and other people are telling us to “be like Steve Angello and wear leather jackets and be cool“, or to “be like generation X, and don’t give a fuck and fuck shit up“. It’s just like, we kind of do all of that. I wear leather jackets sometimes. I also get fuckin’ blackout drunk sometimes. Sometimes I wear skinny jeans. I don’t think we need to identify with anything, we could just be who we are. It’s more than most artists can say, really. Also, we’re really into doing short videos…
What are you guys listening to right now?
Drew: Ohh, the new Nero “Into The Past” song.
Alex: That one other guy too, who had the song “Hustler“.
Drew: Oh, Josef Salvat. This dude is the fucking man. Everyone’s on this dude’s nuts right now. He’s got like one single, but everyone’s flipping out about it. He’s got like 2,000 likes on Facebook but it was like number one on Hype Machine, and he’s already signed to William Morris. Every label is on this kid’s nuts.
Alex: Lemâitre is pretty good, I don’t know if I pronounced that right. Lemâitre is pretty sick. I mean, that’s the stuff we really enjoy. Like Bastille. We wanna collaborate with guys like that. Guys that have those type of voices.
Well, the past 7 months look like they’ve been going pretty well for you guys overall.
Drew: It’s going great. The past few months have really been… especially like, the first 3 months that we started working together, we were still trying to figure out what we were gonna do, but then in the past 3 months, we got like 4 songs go top 5 on Hype Machine, and 2 went number 1. So people clearly like our music, so we need to just figure out how to keep doing that, and then turn that into something that’s bigger than remixes…and just increase the amount of blowjobs we get every week.
Alex: And it’s also… we’re at like a 3 on the dick scale, we want to be at like a 7.8, and then we’ll be like, really happy. Because everyone loves a dick, you know what I mean? But we can’t completely be dicks yet.
Drew: Yeah. We want to be able to be meaner.
Alex: Like, be cool dicks, you know what I mean? Like, we’re nice, but also dicks. Kinda like Diplo.
Drew: But much more sinister.
A big thank-you to The Chainsmokers for sitting down with us before their set at Roseland Ballroom. We truly enjoyed our chat with you, and hope to follow up soon. Enjoy free streaming and downloads on The Chainsmokers’ Facebook page.
Now, we have a question for you, WRR readers. Are you #teamALEX or #teamDREW?
Photos courtesy of The Chainsmokers MGMT.
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