The Chainsmokers

The Chainsmokers Interview – „Musicians are supposed to evolve.“

Im Interview: Das Producer und Dj-Duo The Chainsmokers

Mit „#Selfie“ hatten The Chainsmokers einen Hit. Jetzt erschien mit „Roses“ wieder ein Track, der nochmal so erfolgreich war. Zeit also, sich mit den Machern des Producer-Projeks zu unterhalten.

Aus New York, mit „#Selfie“ schon einen Top 10 Hit gelandet und immer am producen. The Chainsmokers sind in aller Munde. Zeit, dass wir mit ihnen hier über den Hype um ihre Musik sprechen. Darüber, was sie dieses Jahr noch vor haben und warum ich glaube, dass sie sich in einer sehr komfortablen Situation befinden. Lest hier das ganze Interview:

Could you please shortly introduce The Chainsmokers?

The Chainsmokers: „Sure We are Alex Pall and Drew Taggart from the USA. We love drinking Tequila and are better known for our music than our dancing.“

You say that this project is like a journey and an evolution. Which good and bad memories of the journey do you have?

The Chainsmokers: „Well to be honest not many bad memories because they have all taught us valuable lessons and got us to this point in our careers and lives which we are very happy and excited about. With that said, we definitely have played some bad shows and made some poor decisions, but we prefer not to point those out haha…“

And the evolution: Does this mean that you have always to adapt in a special way?

The Chainsmokers: „Musicians are supposed to evolve. Every day we become better producers, performers, more confident and excited about our vision. We are always trying to push our sound forward and challenge ourselves and thus we are evolving from where we started. That’s not to say we aren’t the same guys with the same values and ideas of who and what we want to be, but our experiences have shaped us!“

In which way you will agree that you are very privileged in that what you are doing now?

The Chainsmokers: „Hahah ummm in pretty much every way. We won’t sit here and whine about the fact we are away from our families a lot and some crap like that. Life is beautiful. We both had crappy jobs before this and we can’t tell you how much we value every second of our lives now, and we don’t take it for granted, we push ourselves hard to not get comfortable or take any of it for granted!“

With “#Selfie” you had a hit also here in Germany. How difficult is it to continue this success?

The Chainsmokers: „Haha yeah I mean we were glad selfie was such a success but it also didn’t represent us as artists. So now that Roses is becoming a hit in Europe it’s very exciting for us because we hope that now this song will represent us and people will come to realize we have some great music to offer… otherwise we are just being ourselves and making the music we think is special and not worrying about having hits… that will drive you crazy.“

Would you agree that you were part of a hype the last two years and how did you deal with it?

The Chainsmokers: „Hype to us means something that people talk about but isn’t real. We think there aren’t many acts in our genre even close to as real as us. We write, produce, sing on, and perform our own music. We put our true selves out there for everyone to see and hide nothing. There is no leather jacket fake social media or any bullshit like that… and that’s the way it will continue to be…“

I can imagine that you were in something like a “comfort zone”, right?

The Chainsmokers: „Not really sure what comfort zone you mean. If you’re implying that we sat back and did nothing and road out on the success of a single that couldn’t be any further from the truth. We released over 40 remixes… we have over 170,000,000 soundcloud plays, two platinum US records, was the highest touring artist of 2014, and one of the highest in 2015 of any genre… we sold out our north american tour, and released an EP less than 6 months out of our first record deal and now are following it up with another. We have the hardest working team and no artist takes things more seriously than us…. So if you mean that comfort zone, yes we were very fucking comfortable.“

Which role does social media play for your success as musicians?

The Chainsmokers: „It plays a large role in everyone’s career whether they realize it or not. We think in ours its played a useful role but definitely not a critical one… our following on our pages is decent but nominal in comparison to some others. We certainly take advantage of its use, as any artist who doesn’t is selling their fans short. It’s an opportunity to have a dialogue with them…“

In which way you as deep-house and electro artists have an advantage compared to a “normal indie-band” to get your music market successfully?

The Chainsmokers: „We dont see any difference… We definitely recognize bands have a harder time touring than us from an equipment stand point but otherwise you can market and band the saw way you market a Dj.“

What are your plans for 2016?

The Chainsmokers: „To eat more Schnitzel and make more music…“