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The Chainsmokers on new music, touring, & Trump

Larry King NowMay 09 '16

EXCLUSIVE: Electronic/pop duo The Chainsmokers join Larry for their first-ever longform, on-camera interview to discuss their rapid success, new music, performing at Coachella, and their disdain for Donald Trump.

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QUOTES FROM THIS 'LARRY KING NOW' INTERVIEW WITH THE CHAINSMOKERS:

*Posted Online on Ora.TV on May 9th 2016:


“It’s exciting. It’s a real honor. From an artist's perspective, that’s the festival you want to play. It’s one of the only festivals in the United States that can validate any kind of success that you’re having.” —Drew Taggart on playing for the Coachella Music Festival


“That wasn’t an easy process. Obviously everyone wants to play [Coachella] as Drew said, so I think that as a brand of musicians, we kept improving ourselves and Paul T. who books the festival and Goldenvoice were kind enough to invite us. I think that a lot of work went into it. Our agent spent months and months convincing and I think that everybody ended up really happy.” —Alex Pall on how they had to work hard to get booked at Coachella


“We met after Drew graduated college and I was working in an art gallery and our manager put us together. He was working with us individually and thought we would compliment each other really well. I was more of a DJ and Drew came from more of a producer background. Obviously we didn’t know each other at all and it was like, ‘You guys meet and see if you hit it off and share the same vision.’ The next day he moved to New York and I quit my job and we went full steam ahead.” — Alex Pall on how the Chainsmokers duo came to be.


Alex Pall: “When we started, we were having success kind of on the indie side of things with our remixes. That’s where we started. And then we had that song ‘Selfie’ which was very much a novelty record.”

Drew Taggart: “We meant it to be about the kind of bizarre girls that we see in the clubs and we wrote about a tangent: one girl was going on about some guy she wants to sleep with.”

Alex Pall: “It’s very tongue-in-cheek and it was a crazy big song and I don’t think we were ready artistically for all the success we had from it then. But it brought us to a new level and we worked really hard to overcome that song and that’s when ‘Roses’ came in and that really turned the corner for us.” —Alex Pall and Drew Taggart on their hit song ‘Selfie’ and how it paved the way for them to make music they wanted to make

QUOTES FROM THIS 'LARRY KING NOW' INTERVIEW WITH THE CHAINSMOKERS:

*Posted Online on Ora.TV on May 9th 2016:

“Truth? I smoked a lot of weed at one point in my career. Well cigarettes, weed, whatever. It wasn’t. The same way you wouldn’t expect something to stick so hard and then you find yourself on Larry King getting asked the question. But it works and we had all the domains and people like it and it’s funny and memorable.” —Alex Pall on how he chose the name ‘Chainsmokers’ for the duo


“It’s a new outlet for people to consume music without having to buy each single. I think it’s a positive thing though.”— Drew Taggart on streaming sites like Pandora and Spotify


“What we have found is cultivating your creativity is one of the hardest things to do as an artist. And when you have an idea, you have to write it down and if it’s good enough you have to build off of it as quickly as possible before you lose that momentum. So whenever we have an idea for a chord progression or a lyric, we will grab a guitar or piano or whatever then write down the lyric or sing the lyric and every song we have ever written has just progressed naturally from that.” —Drew Taggart on their creative process.


“I think the best story is ‘Third Eye Blind,’ where we were drinking in some 90’s throwback bar in Baltimore on Friday before our Sunday performance and ‘Semi-Charmed Kinda Life’ - their big song - came on the radio. Then [Alex] hit up his friend - whose brother was the bassist for the band - to come out at Coachella. And by Sunday they said, ‘We’re going to do this,’’ and by Sunday they flew out and it all happened so quickly and was just so spontaneous.” —Drew Taggart on getting ‘Third Eye Blind’ to come out on stage with them at Coachella


“At a show in Italy this girl in the front row was staring at us while we were performing and she just pulls out a hair buzzer and just starts shaving her hair. Like long hair and starts messing it around on the stage because it was kind of a small crowd. Then when you think it couldn’t get any weirder, she starts eating the hair. Then she disappeared before we could get any answers.” —Alex Pall on their craziest fan encounter


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