One would be hard-pressed to find a duo with more mixed opinions of them than The Chainsmokers. Prior to January of 2014 however, this was not the case. Everybody, especially those in the blog world, loved them. They were consistently netting plays well into the millions on every new track and were easily one of the fastest growing artists of 2013.
That’s when they released what, for many people, now define their careers. “Selfie” is not a good song. It was a fad and they took advantage of it. They were already popular at the time, but that song pushed them into the mainstream. As one tends to do when thrust into the spotlight as they were, they had a slight misstep. Taking to the stage of American Idol was, in hindsight, probably not the best thing to do on their part. They took a lot of flak for that and they took it in stride. Jokes were made about it both before and after it happened and they fully acknowledged how lame it was.
For those who have disdain for The Chainsmokers, the above paragraph seems to be why. Early 2013 was a long time ago and not everybody was around for that. Totally understandable. If all one knows about Drew Taggart and Alex Pall is that they made that one viral song and then went and performed on American Idol, they might not be huge fans. That should not be the case though for most people and especially those people involved enough in the scene to be reading this. They made fantastic music before “Selfie” and they are doing so after it. While taste in music is subjective, there is a threshold where a song can not be labeled as poor — at least to those who enjoy that specific genre — and The Chainsmokers reach that threshold on almost every track of theirs. They have released a song or two that is not as good as their others, “Polkadots” comes to mind, but very few artists reach the level of quality and consistency that The Chainsmokers deliver.
Music wise, they’re pretty good. Personality wise, well…they’re jerks. At least that’s what I hear from people who have called a track of theirs garbage and they for some reason didn’t react kindly to it. Or also people who have sent negative comments to them and got a negative comment back. Or maybe those who have written posts saying that “Selfie” was produced by Adventure Club when it quite clearly was not, and then wondered why they were not liked by them.
Not everybody is in a position in which they can casually speak with The Chainsmokers, so it is likely that many people might be in the dark as to how they are as people. I got a chance to speak with them recently, as people, just three guys talking about whatever three guys talk about, and it got a little crazy. They are fun to talk to and incredibly genuine. At the very least, I hope this interview opens the minds of those who dislike The Chainsmokers. For those who are fans, prepare yourselves to learn things about Drew and Alex that you never thought you would.
Well, let’s just get right to the important stuff. Say you two are at home wrestling late one night when you look out the window and see Soulja Boy on a pogo stick going half speed. Wanting to say something, but not wanting to get his crew after you on the streets, a simple “you’re the man, Soulja” is shouted out the window. He didn’t hear, but what you two heard was a phone call from T-Swift. She wants to hang out with one of you, and only one of you (cause she’s classy), but is letting you guys pick who. Which one of you goes on the date and does that person try to either A: get her to let you produce her next single (T-Swift feat The Chainsmokers) or B: lock it down?
It’s funny you mention Soulja Boy cause we were actually on a flight with him once and were all is that him, we weren’t sure but then his boy from his crew walks by and is like yes that’s him… So then we spent the next 3 hours of the flight building up the courage to say what’s up… and we did, and he was all what’s up back, it was tight.
Yeah no kidding it sounds tight.
Yeah.. it was tight. As for T Swift… you know, I think Alex would vibe better with her, but we would have to send Drew in to hang out. Honestly, that’s like the hardest question that’s ever been posed to us. Musically, we love her so much, she is so dope, but she is also such a babe, but from what we know, which isn’t much, she eats nails. It’s all work for this girl, so rather than being another dude passing through her life, working with her seems like the best move… but it’s sort of a trick question because either would be dope…
According to the bio on your site, “17.34 combined inches”. That’s just too big. Honestly, 5 is really all you need haha but for real though, I’ve been thinking about you guys in the shower for a while now. Like almost every time I’m in there. It’s cool though. Would you rather be 17.34 – 2, so 15.34 inches each, but own a really profitable deli (together, 50/50), or have the power to see through clothes at will, but each time you use it, one of your top 50 friends becomes impotent for a year?
Wow.. this is our new favorite question ever. We would take the 2 inches off and own a deli. For as much good food as NYC has, it doesn’t have a fucking decent country deli, with a good kaiser roll, some thin cut meats and a small but well thought out selection of chips and candy. All delis in NYC looks like money laundering fronts for something… Like I ain’t never seen the meat being delivered to a deli. They just appear out of nowhere. Plus at 15.34 thats still above average and we can just hit girls with free deli meat…
What were your first impressions of each other when you first met?
Alex: When I met Drew for the first time, he had that undeniable fresh out of college, “I thought I knew it all but I am quickly realizing I don’t” feel to him. Same vibes from when you go to college as a freshman. It was like he was the man from where he was coming from, but now he realizes he’s gotta start all over.
Drew: Alex was goofy and chill, but he smelled funny, and by funny I mean terrible. Turned out it was cause he just had surgery and the scar leaked some nasty shit that smelled terrible… felt kind of bad about saying that once I found out…
As far as Disney princesses go, the sisters from Frozen are pretty freaking attractive. With that said.. you know.. when one is alone.. no gf.. it’s like 10:40pm on a Tuesday.. kind of cold outside.. the person in this scenario then goes back in time and becomes the female lion from The Lion King.. the voice actor I mean.. would it be responsible for an individual such as that to warn of future disasters or really, what should one do in a time travel situation?
Hahaha honestly time travel movies except for hot tub time machine are wack. We are excluding Back To The Future because that started it all with Bill and Ted, but recent time travel movies all suck… What’s funny is you always say if you could travel back right now, you would get rich, but honestly thinking about it, yeah like we could invent Google first or Instagram but still I have no idea how to put that shit together and write code… I would still need to assemble a squad…. a pimp squad. I’m not even sure going back in time would make picking up girls any easier, other than maybe potentially being super rich…
Drew, you jump a lot during a set and often quite high. Technically, they’re great jumps. Is it something you trained to be able to do or are you just gifted?
Honestly, I was always athletic but the jumping thing never dawned on me till we captured it on film. I have yet to really bust my ass doing it either… I just kinda close my eyes and wait…
Alex, walk me through your first time.
Dude… I used to date this super athletic girl alright… she was basically the most badass chick in the county… and we were in my basement… I had not a fucking clue what to do besides the porn you watch so to me, sex was supposed to be like that, some like crazy intense shit. Needless to say, once it started going down, I was totally weak sauce and nervous as hell. It wasn’t climactic in any sense. I remember just asking if she was okay a lot (cause you know 17.34 haha wooo!) and being super hyped to tell my friends…
NyQuil tastes pretty good these days and if there’s two gentlemen who have good taste, it’s Ja Rule and the current host of The Voice. Music wise, you guys are alright I suppose, but one thing that many fans of yours are probably wondering, is why you have never collaborated with another producer. Any plans to do so and why have you yet to?
Wow, an actual music question. We were happy to just talk about various sexual topics and deli meats…
To be honest, we are at the moment in the works with a bunch of collaborations. Initially, we wanted to set ourselves up as producers who could stand on their own. We still have a lot to prove to ourselves and everyone else we are sure, but we think we have done a decent enough amount of remix work that people are aware we know what we are doing. That being said, we released 2 singles last year. One was a joke that got way out of hand and the other a song we love, but was sort of a transition from that joke into more musically based stuff…
Now that it’s all over, we are excited to really move forward and become the artists we initially set out to be. We are inspired by so many genres and styles that we are looking forward to really getting into it in 2015 and showing people what kind of artists we hope to be. No one puts more pressure on ourselves than us. As for collaborators, we are working with a ton. Won’t name any yet, but some are our good friends and some are just super talented and we hate them but they make good music…
Great answer guys. Sorry about the music question though, I had to ask at least one other wise I would lose all credibility as a journalist, because that’s what music blogging is… journalism.
No problem… totally understand… blogging is definitely journalism…
Yeah… yeah it is.. Let’s get back to the good stuff though.
Everybody knows that girls prefer cut to uncut – in terms of the intros and outros on a house track. They like to get right to the good stuff. I’m not really sure if that’s even true, I don’t talk to girls, no time, but recreationally, what are your thoughts on listening to the intro/outro outside of a live environment. Also, what’s the answer to the most asked question from your female fans (like when you are one on one with them)?
We aren’t really sure we even understand this question entirely…
Just do what feels right.
Okay… so we are talking about circumcision and intro/outro drums, we think…
Ummm, no… I meant more along the lines of “hey big fan can I take a picture with you”, or “can you sign this part of my body that is usually only touched by the person in which I share intimacy with”, but I like where this is going. Continue with the circumcision talk.
Okay we will then. In kind regards to circumcision, we ain’t got no issues with one or the other. We love both. We would guess girls prefer cut, we know we can’t enjoy a good porn when the dude is uncut… wow, cant believe we just said that…
And as far as the other thing you asked about in sneaky way to have us speak about circumcision… I think most people would sadly agree that you can tell if a house/progressive/electro song is good by skipping through it in 25 second intervals and listening for like 4 seconds at each break. As far as intros/outros, bigger drums the better, we love when you have the energy building up in them, but as far as listening to them, there isn’t any point. It’s just for us DJs to use live.
You know how sometimes a guy comes home.. plays Halo 2 for a bit.. eats a pistachio, then his friend he met like a day and a half ago comes over. She has really pretty eyes but even so… should it always be reciprocal? No, clearly not. But anyway, the hypothetical pretty eyes girl, let’s call her Tyrone. Say she’s over at the guy’s house and the guy asks her when he can FaceTime her crazy ass but it turns out she doesn’t own a MacBook. That’s a deal breaker.
So, I guess my question is, what’s more important in a relationship and why: owning a MacBook and/or iPhone, or personality?
Haha it’s so funny… anytime we see someone not using a Mac or they have some Gateway desktop, it’s a red flag. We know Macs are expensive, iPhones too, but it says a lot about where you stand with technology and in your heart, what you put priorities on. Everyones got different situations in life, so no disrespect there, you make do with what you can, but girls who I know can afford a Mac but choose otherwise, same with an iPhone, it’s a bit suspect… like what are they doing… what’s going through their minds… but don’t think that would stop us from hooking up, you just put a little red post it…
Tell me the funniest story you guys have involving you two.
The first one that comes to mind is when we were in Mallorca (an island in the Mediterranean if you didn’t know…) playing a show with NERVO. They finished playing and hung out for a bit and got us super drunk. Now listen, we cannot stress enough how drunk they get you at this spot. It’s 50 dollars entry, and free booze all night. The club itself is insane but the crowd is 100 trillion times crazier. Anyway, we were playing till about 5:30AM and we were both shit faced, drew ended up crowd surfing and losing his phone. He actively tried to find his phone in this crowd of like 3000 people and comes back empty handed. He comes back all pissed off and Alex started laughing about it saying well don’t crowd surf with your phone, which was sort of dick head thing to say at that time. He got really pissed and pushed me (Alex) and then we started choking each other other. Drew ends up head butting me cause I had him locked up and then I started bleeding all over my face. Then we stopped fighting and started cracking up about it. The club promoters and owners were all there and saw the whole thing, they were terrified. Pretty sure they said of all the years they have thrown that party, they had never seen anything as mental…
You guys should become comedians, cause that was hilarious!
We’re all tired here and you guys gotta catch a plane next week, so let me throw a couple short answer questions your way and we’ll wrap this up.
Do what you want, we’re down for whatever…
Okay… weird thing to say… but yeah, I’m going to list a few things, and I want you to tell me if they are cool or not cool.
Male-female hand shakes: cool
Peeing with the door at like a 45 degree angle: very cool
As a guy, making a deep personal connection before taking it to the next level: cool
Asking for an amount of money greater than $5: not cool
Performing on American Idol: haha wow… not cool… jerk
You guys often upload “puppy previews”. Are those your dogs?
Nope. 🙁 Alex used to be a golden in his past life so he has this strange obsession with making everything about dogs…
Is three fingers too many?
You need to clarify… shocker is acceptable, the other way, not really unless it’s a one off…
To wrap this up, what message would you like the people on your Facebook page that you don’t even know, man, to hear?
Be open minded and please forget the “Selfie” BS… please!
Also! Since this is for Your EDM, we would just like to mention Skrillex and Diplo… so this post gets a lot of hits… 🙂
