Eli, Matt (respectively)
This past weekend, the iconic duo known as Two Friends made a stop in the city that never sleeps to perform at Lavo. Originally known for their progressive house and mashup releases, Two Friends have come a long way since their college days. Consisting of Matt Halper & Eli Sones, they’ve been producing music together since their senior year of high school. Originally based out of California, both would go on to college only to realize that producing music under Two Friends was their true calling. Ever since then, they’ve been making their mark on the electronic scene and evolving their style with each release. With the ability to produce just about any style of music, it’s no surprise they’re a rising name in the industry. The duo has released countless remixes, mashups, and singles throughout their production careers.
Last Friday, the ‘two friends’ (ba-dum-tss) arrived in NYC for another performance at Club Lavo. They would come on right around 1 AM and would throw down a two hour set after wrapping up right around 3 AM. Their set can be described as a little mix of everything. In an industry where mass saturation can sometimes be an issue, it was good to find someone willing to throw down a diverse set that captivated many different genres. However, it would not be a Two Friends show without hearing some of their classic releases. This included their amazing remix of Blink 182’s “I Miss You” and countless originals as well. Playing both their original Blink remix and their newly released VIP remix was a welcome treat for all patrons. The duo would end the night with their remix of Trap King covered by Adriana Gomez.
Two Friends brought their soul house genre to life with their performance at Lavo. Not relying on one specific genre made their performance a welcomed twist for anyone who’s tired of the same old cookie cutter sets. Before their performance, RaverRafting had the opportunity to sit down with Eli and Matt to talk history of Two Friends, music production, and their thoughts on the current electronic scene. After sitting down with both of them for nearly 25 minutes, I can tell you that they’re extremely passionate about what they do and often feed off each other which is quite hysterical to see. It would seem after all these years that Two Friends have still remained the best two friends. Be sure to check out our exclusive interview below and be sure not to miss Two Friends if they come to a venue or festival near you!
How did the project “Two Friends” come to be?
Matt: We were just twelfth graders who were just bored at first. We bought our own software and just start fiddling with it.
Eli: I personally had been making mashups and trying to learn how to DJ and it kind of got to the point where we wanted to make it way cooler. I personally felt I didn’t have a super strong music background. Matt was not only my best friend but I knew he was interested in music, awesome at guitar, was a music theory background, and just had a drive. It just started from there, I told him that I thought we’d be a good team. There was no master plan to start, we were so unsure about it all at first.
Matt: It took easily two and a half years before we were in the ballpark of “if we work hard we could actually do this”.
I know you use a lot of live instruments in your songs, does that come from Matt?
Matt: Sometimes me, a lot of times we produce a rough idea then we decide to add some sort of live instrument later on.
Eli: If it’s guitar, 99% of the time it’s Matt. But I even have a great story about this, two of our song featured saxophones. There’s a saxophone plugin for the software, but it just wasn’t cutting it, it sounded very virtual. We knew some people that played saxophone, but we wanted to get a pro. I googled “saxophone players Los Angeles”. It took me to this website for weddings, but this guy’s resume was pretty awesome. So we tried it and this guy was like 70 years old and he didn’t even come over, we just did it back and forth. It’s funny because he stuck exactly to the reference we gave him and he killed it. We finished producing it and sent it back to him and we told him we put it up and got millions of plays and he was just like “oh cool!”
Your Blink 182 remix is pretty unreal, what went into producing that?
Matt: I would say that one, we always wanted to do a super throwback remix with a song we grew up on. We always loved Blink 182 so it just came down to what accapella was out there and what BPM.
Eli: I think for our generation it’s just a timeless song. Even though we were fifteen years late, that really doesn’t matter. I think especially with SoundCloud copyright stuff it’s kind of hard to choose remixes and then it’s weird if you remix a song one year later because it’s like “hey you’re late”. But if it’s 15 years late it doesn’t matter, it just works.
Most of your releases are under the genre soul house, can you elaborate on what soul house is in your opinion?
Matt: Like a year and a half ago, we were super into progressive house. Then we just didn’t feel super inspired by it anymore, we needed to find our own sound. So we started playing stuff with the piano, bass, and rifts and we were unsure what to call it and soul house came to be.
Eli: I have a vivid memory of when that sort of style was discovered. It was a song we had been working on for several years and we could just never nail down the production. Then Matt sent me a small video of some edits he did of the song and I knew immediately he was on to something with it.
Matt: A lot of the new stuff is so different than that, it’s an accapella soul house.
Eli: A lot of what we do isn’t even house anymore, it still has those soul and live instrument type elements though.
Matt: We do it slowly, we’re not changing our sound like everyday.
Eli: Honestly, so far our fans have been really good about being open to new styles. There were times when we thought we would have to predicate really strong “this is different, but don’t worry!”
Matt: No one really cares about genres anymore.
Eli: Which is great, we just want to make what sounds good and what we like.
That was almost my next question, do you have any preference on sticking to a specific genre?
Matt: There has to be a backbone, so our backbone would be like melodic. We usually release mostly house, but in the next sixth months to a year, I mean as long as it’s melodic, no one cares what tempo it’s at.
Eli: The song for the originals at least, we write or co-write all of our songs, so that song writing aspect will hopefully become a theme that listeners will pick up on. We’ve even had that, like the song “No Money” we did a remix of it, but the original by Galantis, we got a lot of texts like “wow this sounds like something you guys would write”.
I know you guys have performed all around the globe, do you have a favorite location to perform at?
Matt: I would say in general it’s more fun when there are fans that are friends. So I went to school in San Francisco, so that’s definitely one of my favorite places. We haven’t done a lot of LA shows, but LA is amazing, as is NYC. I would say Ruby Sky in San Fran is one of my favorite venues because it’s just a sick venue.
Any artists that you draw influence from in general?
Eli: Yeah, a lot of them aren’t even DJs. Someone like Panic At The Disco, not that they’re necessarily number one, but the song writing aspects and the melodies that they do; even if it’s subconscious that you draw from that.
Matt: Also, in electronic music there are so many producers that are doing cool things. You’ll hear one song from someone who has 100 Soundcloud followers and you’ll just think it’s sick and you’ll want to make a song like they did. Everyone draws influences from everyone, doesn’t matter if you draw influences from the biggest dude or someone totally unknown.
Eli: Definitely when we were starting out, the Swedish guys like Avicii, Alesso, SHM, we would sort of zone in on that sort of style. Now it’s like all over, there’s so many people doing cool things. It’s too many people to count, it’s like we like this guys percussions, and this guys songwriting, and his melodies. So you mix it all together and get something fresh.
Have you ever thought about doing anything else other than Two Friends?
Matt: Since we started to get on a roll, that was sort of the goal to produce music.
Eli: Not that I didn’t have faith, but it was never really our intention necessarily, we were just having fun and seeing what happened. But for the first half of college we were definitely planning on having a back bone and getting into some other industry. It just got to the point where we wanted and needed to do this, we would regret it if we passed it up.
Matt: We graduated college and we were like we’re not going to start another job, it’s now or never to do it.
Do you have any words for anyone trying to make it in the industry, either production or management wise?
Matt: Production wise, we got into it relatively early when it was easier. It’s really hard now, there’s so many good producers. There are 15 year olds out there that are amazing. You need to innovate. You’ll never break through now trying to do something like Avicii’s sound.
Eli: You could be a very technically savvy producer, but you need to do something no one has done before.
Matt: The downside of that, the year 2016 and even 2015, it’s so much about the marketing and the hype. I don’t really love that because it feels fake. Just do what you can to break through.
Eli: Patience as well. You will not get anywhere if after six months you only have 100 SoundCloud followers. Who cares, but that does make it tough because at some point you’re going to need some sort of financial backing. If you just have the mindset of we’re going to be patient and master the craft. There’s a lot of people who want it all to happen right away. You have to realize your first song is going to be garbage.
Matt: There’s so many people who hit us up and want to start producing, we tell them what program to get and we reconnect three months later and we ask them how it went and they say how they were unable to do it.
Eli: You think you need to buy the most expensive equipment right away and have the right plugins and that stuff is great, but there isn’t just a formula. I’d rather listen to a song that is innovative, but a little rough around the edges than a super polished song.
Do you have any opinion on saturation in the music industry?
Eli: I think there is pros and cons. On the positive side, it’s pretty crazy how much the scene has changed in the past 10 years, 5 years, and even 3 years. One example we like to talk about, in our high school Matt and I were pretty much the only ones producing and trying this career. There would be 20 people in bands with their friends, and we’re the producers. Now it’s the total opposite. Matt’s younger brother just graduated high school and he’s one of twenty people that hit us up from our high school trying to learn. It’s cool that it’s gone from being super underground to pretty underground to sort of underground, to now it being a genre.
Do you think there is a bubble in the EDM scene?
Matt: I think the whole idea of a bubble and saturation, for example in the last year the most innovative stuff has happened. Everything is sounding so good, I don’t think there’s a bubble, I think it’s its own genre keeps recreating itself.
Eli: The best producers and most creative will always find a way to find the next thing that will excite people. In a way it almost puts the pressure on you. People aren’t going to settle for mediocre stuff that they can hear anywhere. If you want to push the envelope and make a name for yourself, you’re forced to adapt.
Matt: It’s hard, it has to be great and unique.
Eli: There is going to be more bad music just because of pure numbers, but I think that also has led to more great music coming out the last few years. We listen to songs that we were obsessed with five years ago and we listen to them now and we’re like “wow, if this was released today no one would care”.
Who are classics to you guys?
Matt: Obviously a song like Alesso’s remix of “Pressure”, that still sounds like a perfectly produced song.
Eli: Strobe by Deadmau5, that’s another one. Justdrives home in high schools, if you have like a 15 minute drive home you just put that in.
Matt: Even certain Tiesto songs, just some random bootleg remixes as well from awhile ago.
Anything you guys want to say to your fans?
Matt: Yeah, first thank you so much. Two, we have so much more music, can’t emphasize it enough. Our next single called “Overdose” is coming soon. After that we have a lot of more remixes, we have a ton of new Two Friends originals. We’re trying to push the boundaries and try new stuff.
Eli: When we’re listening back to our new music we’re like “wow I’ve heard this 700 times and I still get the jitters from it”. We want someone else to feel like that, so that’s why we really are excited.
Connect with Two Friends:
https://www.facebook.com/twofriendsmusic
https://twitter.com/twofriendsmusic
https://www.instagram.com/twofriendsmusic
https://soundcloud.com/two-friends
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