Yesterday, The Chainsmokers appeared as guests along with Shaq on The Artist and The Athlete, a podcast with Lindsay Czarniak. The podcast does just what it says, bringing artists and athletes together and charting their rise to fame and their trajectory in the future.
With The Chainsmokers, it’s fairly well-known that we’re waiting on their fourth album, following a year of basically complete silence. They announced a break from social media in February 2020, just a month before the global pandemic, something that turned out to be tough as everyone was suddenly stuck at home. Later that year, in July, they’d play a charity drive-in show in the Hamptons for which they’d be blasted, investigated, and the organizers fined by the NY State Department of Health.
Now, they’re starting to prepare for the release of their new album, updating their social media (however small it was). On the podcast with Czarniak, they talk about the sound of their new album and returning to the sound of “Roses” and “Closer” and the feeling those songs gave when you heard them for the first time. 
“We really lean into the emotion that I think people started following us for in the beginning,” said Drew of the group. “There’s this trend hat a lot of artists including us fall victim to is that you come out with one sound, you get known for it, and then you want to prove to everybody that you can do other things.”
He continued, “Part of that is natural because your tastes as a creative person and your interests or inspiration moves, and you have to follow that. But Alex and I dialed back into that feeling you got when you heard ‘Roses’ or ‘Closer’ for the first time. You know these songs we really had fun making, and strike this kind of nostalgic, melancholy type of feeling, I think that’s our style.
“Every song is really fun. Every song slaps. There’s always a moment that you’re gonna turn your head and you’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re giving me that moment.’ We tried to do that in the past but we really elevated that intention on this album.”
You can listen to the full podcast with Shaq below.
H/T u/GaryOwenYT on reddit | Photo via Rukes.com
