American duo Two Friends experienced a massive breakout in 2016. Their tour crisscrossed the United States, making stops in an impressive amount of cities. A remix for The Killers‘ “Mr. Brightside” and records like “Overdose” with Exit Friendzone are just a few of the successes that Matt Halper and Eli Sones can point to. Of course, these guys have no plans to slow down as the calendar flips over to the new year. New music is on the way, including an extra-special EP in partnership with Spinnin’ Records. This interview gets into a little bit of everything, so enjoy everything from the favorite Gasol brother to favorite production plugin.

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First things first, Pau or Marc Gasol and why?

Matt: “Gotta go Pau, we’re Lakers fans.”

Eli: “At the time, that was an unreal trade for the short term needs of the Lakers, and it got them two rings. Right now though, if you’re starting fresh I think you go Marc. But Pau has 2 rings and Marc has zero, so end of discussion.”

I see you guys are kickin’ it in the new studio, how’s that been?

Matt: “It’s been really fun.”

Eli: “Yeah, its been good. It’s been a little over a month maybe? 2 months? Really nice to get out of a cramped bedroom and have some space to produce. Got the new desk set up, and a new vocal booth room, which is huge.”

I’d imagine you guys wanna bring some more friends to the new digs. Along that line, dream collab outside of EDM?

Eli: “We get this question a lot. It’s a good one and were always switching it up. Theres some people whose songwriting you just appreciate so much. A lot of those like pop/punk sort of guys would be cool, you know like Panic At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, those type of guys.”

Matt: “If I had three, there’d be a super range of vibes, you know. But I’d probably say Blink 182.”

Change up. Best rapper in the game right now?

Eli: “Chance has been killing it, he’s dominated this year. But, with that being said, I love J Cole.”

Matt: “I like Big Sean a lot too. I’m not like super into it, like I really do like rap, but I don’t keep up on it as much.”

So we were just watching the “Overdose” music video, where the hell did that come from?

Matt: “Oh, man. So, basically, for that one, it initially started in a brainstorm sesh with the director like, ‘what can someone overdose on that would be funny.’ So we kinda settled on this overdose on love thing. But we definitely didn’t want it to be like super cheesy, girl running, whatever.

Yeah, none of that Chainsmokers b.s. (sarcasm)        

Matt & Eli: “Hahaha, exactly.”

Matt: “But we wanted to go super bold. You know, so like people would be like ‘what the hell?’, and I don’t know why I got chosen.”

Eli: “Yeah that’s what I was gonna say is like, I feel lucky cause one day [the director] was figuring out some final details about the script and all that, and he was like ‘alright Matt, you’ll be the friend; Eli, it’s gonna be your mom’. And at the time we didn’t think much of it, we were like ‘OK yeah cool’, but I was like barely featured in it and Matt has to like—”

Matt: “—then filming day comes, and the director is like ‘OK with this shot we need’ – and this is like, you know, I don’t know, like a middle-aged woman from kraiglist, like an acctress – ‘Matt, we need you to lick her finger’. But it was fun though. You know, it was like my acting debut. I had to go for it.”

So, we were checking out your recent tour dates, and you guys have been playing a lot of college shows. Which one has been the craziest?

Eli: “Some of those southern SEC schools go really hard. Like Arkansas, or Ole Miss. Bucknell was a really fun one that we did.”

Matt: “Yeah, its also been really fun, like, playing at our alma matter. I went to Stanford and Eli went to Vanderbilt, so when we get to go back and play with our friends its awesome.”

With all the shows, and touring, and new studio and collabs, what’s the next big thing for Two Friends? 

Matt: “We cannot wait to share this EP with everyone. The songs on the EP span the map, but all go back to Two Friends – our goal has always been that listeners will capture that Two Friends spark, no matter the genre or tempo of a song. We didn’t want to keep holding on to these songs and playing the waiting game, so we thought an EP would be a perfect, special way to share what we’ve been working so long and hard on.We’re gonna try to put out a bunch of remixes too, but even after the EP we have so much more coming. Sound wise its totally all over the place too. Some pop, electronic, some of the stuff we’ve been releasing, so were pretty excited to get in that new step of hybrid-electronic, but still Two Friends.”

And would you ever try to work it into an album, something a little more full length?

Eli: “You know, at some point, sure. But right now were kinda just going one song at a time. If we were gonna do an album, we’d really have to sit down and make sure it all makes sense as one project. So for now were gonna go sorta one at a time.”

Matt: “Or like, EP, but still trying to you know release stuff one at a time. But its a way to get new music out there faster. And its hard, if you’re not signed exclusively to a label – which at this point we probably don’t want to be – it’s hard to get a lot of originals out there, unless you’re giving it out for free.”

OK random question, what are some of the go-to things on the Two Friends rider?

Eli: “We recently added one thats been funny. Its optional – if its like somewhere super legit, you know doesn’t have time for it, we don’t wanna make them spend time – but we ask them to leave a handwritten joke. The college ones especially have been hilarious though. We just played one last weekend and they had two full pages of handwritten jokes, most of which we can’t even tweet about cause they’re very inappropriate, but other than that we’re pretty low key I think.”

Along those lines, drink of choice?

Eli: “Before a show, vodka red bull probably just to get a little hyped up. But on a non-show just bar night—”

Matt: “—probably like Moscow mules.”

Eli: “Wow, I was gonna say that too.”

Matt: “Well dude, we’re two friends.”

Favorite plugin?

Matt: “Instrument plugins, our go-tos, I would definitely say sylenth (pron. suh-LENTH).”

Eli: “And just for the record, I used to call it sylenth (SIGH-lenth), but Matt has me saying it weird now. It’s definitely [pron. SIGH-lenth]. But we use protools, which is not the most common one, but theres a plugin for protools called minigrand, which is a piano plugin, and so we use that a lot. It’s not necessarily something where its like you need it, its a pretty standard piano one, but if you do cool processing and cool layering, its one that we kinda use a bunch.”

Matt: “Yeah and we use a lot. For instruments we use a ton of plugins. And we record honestly, at this point, like half our instruments.”

Eli: “Yeah, anytime you hear a guitar or saxophone, or like harmonica, those are gonna be real instruments. Matt records a lot of guitar.”

One last question. If you had one or two sentences to say to Kurt the Bar mitzvah DJ that curved you guys on email, what would you say?

Eli: “Well, you know what, I don’t wanna be mean to him. Cause he does have a good heart.”

Matt: “Why does he have a good heart?”

Eli: “Well, he didn’t respond to that email. But he did DJ my bar mitzvah and my two brothers’ bar mitzvah, so he’s responsible for a lot of good memories in my family. I’d almost approach him with me being proud, like as if he was my father, like ‘Guess what Kurt, we did it!'”

Matt: “And he’d be like, ‘what’re you talking about, who the hell are you guys.'”

Hahaha who’s laughing now, Kurt?

Eli: “I’ve done this all for you Kurt!”

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Be sure to stay on the lookout for the Two Friends EP, releasing on Spinnin’ Records soon. Also, check out their remix for Tove Lo‘s “Cool Girl” for free download below.

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About Thursday Thoughts:

At Dance Rebels, we strive to bring our readers as close to their favorite artists as possible. One of the best ways to make that connection is to discuss a wide range of topics with the biggest names in the dance music scene. If there is an artist that you think we need to talk to, reach out to us on Facebook or Twitter!