X5IGHT Talks About Their Growth, “Small Room House” & More [WRR Exclusive]

While many Chicagoans may already know of X5IGHT, Brandon Levinson and Jerry Kurty are ready to take their status to the next level. This electro/progressive based duo have grown significantly throughout 2013 after receiving support from artists such as Krewella, 3LAU, and Pegboard Nerds. Since the release of their first EP-The Radiance, this duo has already shown growth in their sound and overall style. They even released a new track TODAY!

I was able to sit down with these two Chicago natives before their headlining show at Spybar in Chicago. They shared how they started, the struggles of producing music while juggling college, “small-room house,” and what fans can expect for the future. It’s time to get “X5IGHTED” about X5IGHT.

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You just got back from playing SnowGlobe Fest, how was it?

Jerry: It was awesome, a great experience. The crowd was awesome. The hospitality was great. The stage setup was amazing. Overall a great experience.

Brandon: Overall it was a good experience and it gained a lot of exposure for us. So I think going forward it should definitely be a huge boost for us. It’s a great thing to throw on a resume for future shows and other things like that. We were really impressed with everything.

Since both of you are from Chicago, can you tell me the story of how you two began collaborating?

Jerry: We actually met each other at a club when we were playing the same night and after that night we kept sending music to each other, back and forth, and eventually Brandon was like, “Would you be interested in putting together a duo?” I said, “Sure lets give it a try and see what we can do with that.” Ever since then we’ve been together and it’s been good.

Brandon: Yeah (laughter) thats exactly how we met. Playing the same club but as individual acts. We shared a very similar vision and while our musical styles are a little bit different, I think we had a good vision of where we can meet in the middle. So far it’s been fantastic.

How did you come up with the name X5IGHT?

Brandon: Well we actually kinda went back and forth with stories behind it but there isn’t really a whole lot behind it at all. It was actually a name that had belonged to me when I was an individual act and his solo name actually had a “X” in it too. It was kinda a similar name so ironically it all worked and tied together. While at first it can be kinda hard to read or pronounce once you make the mistake, kinda like Deadmau5, you’re not gonna make the same mistake twice. It really sticks from a marketing perspective. I think it represents our style and our sound. We generally have a very aggressive, upbeat style so being “excited” and having that energy is something that reflects us.

Was djing/producing something you both planned on doing with your careers or something that was a hobby turned career?

Jerry: Yeah, at first it was more of a hobby. For about a year it was a hobby and once we got together it sort of became an everyday thing that had to be done because it was so much fun. Producing and making your own music that you like is a lot of fun. You never know what you can make.

Brandon: It started out as a passion and the passion will always be there but whether you take it from a hobby to a full-time career, that’s just up to how much work you want to put into it.

Is it hard to juggle with college? What is your average work week if you’re producing music and are in the studio?

Jerry: Yeah, it’s definitely hard. The hardest part is finding time to produce when you have a lot of studying going on but we manage to do that via Skype or sending files over the internet. Pretty much we just send things back and forth and that has been the best way to get things done when we’re in school.

Brandon: Yeah, it’s obviously always going to be a challenge juggling academics and the musical stuff, but we have gotten to a point where we kind of have it down to a science. We know when we’re both home over break and back in Chicago together. We know that we both have to work really hard and get as much work as we can done and kind of finish up some other projects on the side while we’re at school.

While I was listening your Soundcloud I noticed a lot of your early work was mashups and remixes and then you transitioned into producing your own music, was that a difficult transition?

Brandon: I think a lot of producers get into the whole production thing because they like the mashups and remixes. I think it’s the easiest way to get involved initially but I think to actually make it a full-time career, original production is the way to go. Which is kind of how we developed into that. We still love remixing songs and I still think it’s a fun thing for not only us but for people to listen to. But I think original production is a natural transition from that and overall it really wasn’t a tough transition.

How long did it take to produce your most recent EP-The Radiance?

Brandon: Ha, that took forever.

Jerry: It did take forever.

Brandon: We started actually with “Sundial,” which is actually one of the most popular songs on our EP. It was literally one of the first songs we had ever worked on together and that was back in November 2012 and the EP wasn’t released until June. All of the songs in between took months, and months, and months, because we originally started with FL Studio and switched over to Ableton. So that whole process took us a couple months to get used to. Even now looking back at the production of those songs, I think the ideas were really good but the production of those songs, quality wise, is just not there. I know we’ve grown a lot as artists and it’s something we were even talking about the other day…maybe we’ll go back and remake some of those songs…

Jerry: Not all of them, maybe one or two.

I’m sure you’re working on some new releases right now, a little birdie may have told me about a new trap and vocal track….Can you give me some info on that?

Brandon: We have a lot of stuff actually. A couple months ago we released the Katy Perry trap remix. We’re not really trap producers and our hearts will always rely on the house genre but we wanted to go outside of the box and try something new. We felt that trap was really cool for that remix and going forward we still feel that we can incorporate that somehow into our sound. So we actually did a remix of “Make It Rain” by Travis Porter. A very strange song to remix but we did it. It starts off being a very hard, “festivaly” intro but goes into a trap 128 BPM. I personally haven’t heard any trap at 128, so it’s something experimental but I think it will get a pretty good response because of its originality and uniqueness.

Do you want to talk a little bit about the vocal track?

Brandon: The vocal track is still in the process of being completed. The whole layout is done, we just need to send the track over the vocalist so he can do the vocal writing and such things. Once that’s done, we’ll put it together.

Who is “he?”

Brandon: Ah, can we reveal that…well actually we can reveal that. We haven’t figured out all of the details yet but we’re looking at a few vocalists. One is actually a female, Alexa Lusader, who is in Detroit. The male vocalist is out in L.A. and his name is Jeff Sontag.

You recently released a tutorial titled “How To Make Small Room House,” what triggered this idea?

Jerry: It was very random. Brandon called me on Skype and was like, “Dude, dude, dude instead of big room house, lets make small room house. Like everything is small. The melody will be crazy. We’ll have a small kick in it.” I was like alright, we’ll mess around with it and see what happens. We did it for fun.

Brandon: We tried to do the exact opposite of what big room is. We have nothing against big room, we still play some of it in our sets but it’s just getting to a point where it’s over saturated. There is too much out there. While there are some good big room songs, I think a vast majority of them have no creativity. There is no innovation. We’re obviously not gonna start small room house (laughter) We decided to do something thats tongue and cheek, just overall funny.

Where can fans find you next? Any future shows or festivals?

Brandon: Right now we’re playing a show later on tonight at Spybar in Chicago and in a few weeks we’re going to Bloomington, Indiana to play a show with Figure. That will be really fun! As far as some future shows, we’re working on a lot of stuff for the spring. We can’t really say too much about it at the moment but definitely expect us to be busy in the spring. As far as the summer goes, we’re definitely hoping to get on some of the major music festivals and making sure we hit up the circuit this year.

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Grab X5IGHT’s first release of 2014:

Connect with X5IGHT:

Twitter: twitter.com/X5IGHT

Facebook: facebook.com/X5IGHT

Photo Credit: HebeinPhotography

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