We had the opportunity to hear great Pillow Talk at Sea Dance Festival. Luckily we meet Sammy, Mikey and Ryan, spoke with them and got to know them a little bit better.
First of all guys, thanks for your time. And for your performance, I really enjoyed it. I’d really like to hear your story. How it all started for you and how did you met and started to produce together?
Sammy: It all started in the kitchen and continued through the iPhone app where we recorded our ideas. It’s true, really.
Mikey: How did we met? Oh, we met in San Francisco because we all live there. We were on the same scene, the underground. We were throwing events, Sammy’s been singing for a while and I have been producing. Ryan was writing songs in his head and in the kitchen.
Ryan: Mikey started DJ-ing when he was 12! Everything was kind of a young start. But we formed pretty late, around 2012.
Mikey: It was 2011. Ryan is not good in math. Hahaha. Neither am I, but we’re gonna make hell out of the keyboards!
What would be the common misconception about you and your music? how would you describe your style? Is it boogie, funk, house?
Sammy: We love our artistic freedom so we can do whatever we want.
Ryan: Well yeas, we like to relate our tracks to other genres. We grow up on dance music of all styles. But we like to relate it to all genres of non-dance music. So we really can make or do what we feel.
Mikey: Yeah a lot of influences. Reggae, Dub… We try to incorporate our influences in what we do. Our friend coined a phrase – DAG – which stands for ‘destroy all genres’. That is like our moto, and that is our band.
Sammy: We approach music from a non-genre perspective. And if there is even a hint of genre we would destroy it.
You had your album last year. It’s solid and one-styled. Remixes album is out as well with a lot of artists featured. So far you really worked with a lot of artist so far. What can you tell me about that? And your new remix of legendary jazz guitarist Leonard Cohen is out…
Sammy: So the Leonard Cohen remix is blowing apart! We had an early morning session and we were just bored. I watched True Detective night earlier and I said “Guys If we don’t do it, someone else will”.
Ryan: And he was right. Somebody else did also remix a theme song about eight months earlier.
Sammy: But it’s shitty. Hahahahah just kidding it’s goo.
Ryan: It’s really funny how it started. Sammy was like “I just want some finger snaps and a kick”. So I said I just can’t add only that and I made some beats. We chopped it a little bit, you know. Original song is about 3 minutes. We made an intro and outro for it. We wanted it to be playable so we made a nice middle breakdown in it…
Mikey: It was Ryan’s idea and he said we can do it in under an hour! And it took us 55 minutes exactly!
I heard you like to come earlier to a place where you perform to try to feel it. So how do you like it there and what is the crowd like?
Ryan: I think they were focused on people under the umbrellas. But me, I focused on people far away in the water for all this kids jumping and swimming. I thought, we are at sea dance festival. And in fact, people were dancing but they did it in the water instead of dancefloor. Our friends also danced in the water.
Sammy: It was too hot to dance. Impossible.
Mikey: I was blown by it. We needed two fans on the stage. But people danced in the water and everything. So Sea Dance fits perfect for a name.
Sammy: Yeah you are seadancing over here.
And one last thing, what can we expect from you in the future? Are there some upcoming releases? Maybe and album?
Mikey: Well we are sitting on a shit load of tunes!
Sammy: We have super bombs.
Ryan: We are constantly writing on the road, we have a couple of dance releases and we finished a bunch of remixes as well. It’s going to take us a minute but we are basically doing a sketches for an album. Hopefully we are going to sit down and get it finished up for December. Last time we went to Portland, we spend a month going through what we have prepared so far – no gigs no nothing. Studio only.
Mikey: That’s the time for us that is easiest to really gather all of our sketches. And we write a lot in the hotel rooms…
Ryan: What we do during summer is we make studios out of our bed rooms. Every time, instead of going out we practice.
Sammy: Not every night, that’s an exaggeration.
Mikey: Yea me and Ryan, we stay in our room and write music.
Sammy: Don’t listen to them, they are irrelevant.
Ryan: And we have a studio in New York. Over there we clean it up and wrap it. We do the mixing and go through the whole process. You know, album is done when it’s done. There is no rush.
So when can we expect an album? 2016?
Mikey: Probably February, yes.
Sammy: You are so nervous, I like it. How do you like doing an interview? (Takes over the microphone and starts interviewing our journalist.)
Well yes I am. But certainly less that you have been during your first performance.
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