PILLOW TALK | The Chainsmokers

We had the opportunity to sit down with Drew Taggart and Alex Pall from The Chainsmokers before their show in Vancouver last week and talk about their success so far and where they’re headed next, musically. The guys are so much fun and super laid back, which made it easy to get some raw and honest answers from them. If you haven’t heard the song #Selfie, you’ve probably been living under a rock, but hopefully this interview can open your ears to some new sounds from The Chainsmokers, as well as give you a bit more insight on who they are as artists.

At the bottom of the interview you'll find our video highlighting the best moments with these two legends.

What was the initial moment that you clicked and were like, wow we have to work together?

Alex Pall: I think we met at our managers apartment and we were just talking about what we wanted to achieve, what we had going on, none of us had a clue at the time, you know but you don’t really know, we just both knew we wanted it to be bigger than it was, like go big or go home. We started working together and it was weird, we weren’t doing anything just sitting around coming up with ideas about how we could gain fans and make an impression on people and it didn’t really work for the first 2 months.

Drew Taggart: But we did that until we figured out something that was natural and that we really enjoy doing, and for us that was remixing indie bands, we really enjoy that music and no one in dance music was remixing it so that’s kind of how we started. I remember the first three months we had no idea–

AP: Yeah we just dressed up like hot dogs. We did really stupid things. But it was all in the name of the brand.

DT: Our sense of humor hasn’t changed, just how we execute it has.

AP: I wish we had more time to do some of the stupid shit that we actually come up with. We just need a videographer to follow us around, once we make a little more money it’ll be on.

You guys mentioned how branding is so important to artists. So what was the planning behind the Chainsmokers?

DT: It’s not as conceived as that, we are very brand conscious because it’s fun for us and we feel like we are building something that is inherently who we are, and always finding that compromise between what’s going on in the world and what you’re doing artistically and making them work together so that you can be yourself as an artist but people will still give a shit about what you’re doing. That’s something we talk a lot about. And we know what music we like, we know what we think sounds good, what TV shows we think are funny, what girls we think are hot, what food we like, and that all plays together into the output of The Chainsmokers.

AP: People really pick up on it, too-- when you’re not doing things genuinely, or when it’s not even you doing things—we learned that the hard way recently. Not that hard, but we definitely saw a decrease in positivity, so it’s really important to be hands on and in control of everything you’re doing.

DT: Yeah we became a little less active on our Facebook page, and just personally I felt less connected to this entire thing.

AP: The whole brand changed dynamically, I mean we had a hit song, signed by a major label, we went from 3 people to 300 people directly involved in our decisions and it just made it a lot more complicated, like illusions of how big we should be, where money should be spent, what you do post, what you don’t post, and there were a whole lot of rules.

The great thing you guys do is that you take top line vocals from indie tracks, which are so much more meaningful, and combine them with the power behind instrumentals of EDM, that’s what makes you guys so unique.

DT: We knew we wanted to do vocal tracks; we didn’t want to do instrumentals.

AP: Yeah that’s exactly what the whole game plan was, as young producers we were saying we need great top lines. And you can’t work with really good artists when you’re nobodies, unless you have some friend that’s like incredible, and even then it’s much easier to take a band that’s up and coming, like Daughter, and apply that to them.

With the success of Selfie, how are you guys going to balance what fans are expecting of you- your fun and silly side—with originals that you want do?

DT: In terms of our sense of humor we’ll continue to do that- we won’t do another song like Selfie because that’s not what we’re trying to do musically- we will do more funny shit though, and there will be some people who don’t like our new shit and I really appreciate our fans but I’m not scared of them, you know like I’m going to make music that I think is good and we’re going to post stuff we think is funny and if some stick around, the more the merrier, but if you want to leave and write nasty shit on our Facebook we’re just going to block you.

So Drew you’ve been producing since high school, and Alex you started mixing when you were young- you both are incredibly talented so what made you guys decide to work together instead of pursuing your own careers individually?

AP: There are definitely differences and drawbacks between working with someone else and working on your own, from like a financial standpoint and stuff but to me that’s less important and for me we just clicked, I loved his productions, every day it’s so much better, we think about the stuff we made back then, like our first song, “The Rookie”, that no one knows about. Which goes to show that nothing really goes to waste ever but I thought he brought a dynamic to this, he works super hard and wants this just as bad as I did, and for me that was it.

DT: But having someone else just to get you out of your own head or tell you when something’s good, you know like Alex is the A&R of The Chainsmokers, like every collaboration and every remix, that’s all shit that he found and was like let’s listen to this. I think that we did so well so quickly because we had two of us doing two completely different things.

AP: Yeah I don’t sit in the studio one day and go let me rock out on this keyboard, like in the studio session. That doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention, it’s not like we’re disconnected and he shows up and is like I got 10 new songs, it’s like every day all day. And that’s another thing for up and coming producers, you have to work on this all the time and it takes a lot of work, for the past year we’ve treated this a as a full time job, we get together at 10am and stop at like 7pm if not longer and when we travel for 2 weeks on the road and we’re back for 2 days, we usually spend those two days working still, you just have to imagine everyone wants to be in your position so you just have to work your ass off to keep it up.

When you guys are working together in the studio, how do you handle artistic differences?

DT: I mean, we’re pretty much on the same page for the most part, I’m very, I’ll admit it, you tell me something I’m doing sucks, I’ll think it sucks. If people say something negative about a song we put out, even like “Eh this one’s not that great” I’m like, I worked really hard on this…We sent in our new song after Selfie, and I truly believe it’s a smash, and I might be wrong, but I really like the song but there’s some people that I sent it to that were like “Eh, not feeling it,” some were like “Yeah I agree with you, this is awesome”, so right now I feel like I have to stand strong, like this is what it is, this is what we should put out, I mean everyone has their opinion.

AP: Yeah everyone has to give their five cents. The music industry isn’t a yes man industry, everyone feels like they have to give their part, like Selfie, when we sent it to pretty much everyone they were like “ehhhhh," they were not into it at all.

DT: Yeah like “Ok whatever guys, just put this out for free, and just get it over with.”

AP: And now look! So at the end of the day, we’ll send it to someone and they’ll be like yeah its ok, and we’re like “Did you make a hit song?” And I don’t mean that in a cocky way, but it’s like, everyone is going to have their opinion, and once it’s a hit everyone’s like “Of course it is! This is a smash since I first heard it!”

DT: What people respond to more than anything is authenticity. And if you can stand by, if you come by at the right time and it feels all natural, comes off really naturally, its released naturally, it’s going do well, but if you let your label take care of the release for you, and it’s only them posting about it, and the communication between your song and your fans is somebody else's voice, it’s not going work.

So Drew why did you stop going by “Andrew Winter”- is it because it sounds like a stripper’s stage name?

DT: I was going use that name, I still might.

AP: Like Magic Mike

I read somewhere that you guys don’t plan your sets before your shows, but that was from an interview like a year ago. Now that you’re playing bigger places with more production, has that changed?

DT: I mean we don’t have our own show yet, maybe that will change once we have our own super elaborate visuals but the venues we go to don’t really—we’re playing clubs and festivals—and they bring in all their main production for the most part. We completely winged our main stage set at Ultra.

AP: But we want to keep it fresh. And for us, like, sometimes we’re at a huge show and we have so much stuff, and we hone it in, just so it’s like organized, because you want to be able to move quickly, you don’t want to be up there searching for shit, you want to be performing, but you get bored of it so you want to throw something new in. There’s nothing more exciting than playing a new song that you’re excited about playing

DT: And he’ll make a bootleg that I haven’t heard yet and just start playing it and I’m like “dude what is that?”

AP: Honestly we talk about it all the time; dance music is in a very fragile state. It’s not going anywhere, it’s going keep growing and it’s huge, but the big drops and big kick stuff- with these festivals you just stack these DJs, and playing after Carnage or something, Carnage is just like fucking rocking the main stage. And then you get up there and play our vocally stuff like Foxes, and you’re up there like “Oh my God should we just play something big kick,” and we know how to do that, too. So we’re excited to develop our show more.

DT: You learn how to sneak records in that no one else is going play, something with a softer down tempo, have this other nostalgic quality that everyone’s going to really relate to. That being said, fuck open format sets in festivals. You’re playing fucking, like, “Jump around!”, that shit is like fucking—

AP: Basic

DT: Yeah, basic. Thank you I was going to say many more offensive adjectives. It’s so stupid; if you can’t make your set flow together and you’re just jacking records one after another, get the fuck outta here.

AP: That’s why you gotta respect people like DeadMau5 and Eric Prydz and Alesso—you know what I mean, you listen to Alesso’s set and he builds his highs and lows, and different feelings. The big kick shit is like being at a death metal concert for dance music, you know what I mean its just like constant—and I love that shit, sometimes that shit is fucking aggressive and fun as hell.

DT: I think the one thing that holds back DJ production is like, it’s so easy to make a lot of money if you just go up and do basic ass shit, people will keep coming. It’s up to a couple people that are like, ok I have enough now let’s put something back into this. And there are also some people, I won’t name names, that are spending a shit ton of money on their production and it’s whack. It hasn’t done anything for their show, they bought visuals and bought a whole stage setup and it didn’t really improve the experience so much.

You mentioned how EDM is in a fragile state; you clearly have roots in Indie music, so how do you feel about bands like Arcade Fire coming out like they did at Coachella?

AP: They actually didn’t—I read up more about it because I was initially, not offended but like, oh that’s unnecessary but apparently when they brought out Daft Punk and said that thing about live instruments, I don’t think they were taking a shot at dance music that was just saying, “Shout out to everyone here playing real instruments.” And yeah fuck DJs, they have this huge Sahara tent and it’s like I can see how it’s harder to be in a band.

DT: Plus Arcade Fire is the shit, so they can kind of say whatever they want.

I feel like a lot of what you’re doing is bridging the gap between Indie and dance.

DT: We hope so, but a lot of people are distracted still by Selfie. It’s great when we meet people like you two who know our stuff and have been with us for a long time, because a lot of people just see us as a hack. We made this track and that’s the only reason people know us, and it’s really frustrating at times but we have to keep on doing what we believe in.

I would just leverage it, I mean you have such a great fan base now and people that are dedicated, and maybe they know you for reasons you don’t’ want to be known but just play that to your strengths.

DT: Yeah we’re playing for more people, more people see our posts, and honestly some of those people that wouldn’t have heard of DJs like us without a song like Selfie, we can now convert them into being fans of DJs like us, so overall it helps the scene. Anytime anyone makes a massive dance track, it helps the scene, it gets more people aware of it, more people into it, and just naturally all the guys that are now in this deep house wave- like now it’s the cool thing to be into deep house—don’t get me wrong that shit is awesome, but yo we remember when you motherfuckers were into Swedish House Mafia when that was the cool shit. People progress, I guess is my point. So let’s just bring as many people into this scene as possible and lets educate them.

Alex I read you shit your pants in your Mom’s Toyota Land Cruiser when you were ten, true?

AP: Where did you read that? Cause it’s totally true, I haven’t shit my pants since then.

DT: You almost shit your pants yesterday in the terminal. We got off the plane and were waiting for our bags and you were like, I gotta go.

#chainsmokers #edm #coachella #interview