ALSO FEATURING - THE NEIGHBOURHOOD - - TRITONAL - CASH CASH - PASSION PIT AND MORE!
BLACKBEAR
SEP 2015
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 1
PHOTO BY CHRIS MALDONADO 2
Well…There goes The Neighbourhood BY DANIEL ZEWDE We all remember the band who released ‘Sweater Weather’ back in the wonderfully cold winter of 2012, but do we know what they’ve done since then? Well, they’ve successfully released a full-length album, several singles, an acoustic EP for Spotify and a free mixtape with some of the hottest rappers in the game and arguably the heaviest hitting DJ in the south: DJ Drama. Not to mention the fact that The Neighbourhood (The NBHD) is dropping their sophomore album October 30, 2015. Album dropping level for this band: Expert. This appropriately black and white band, hailing from California, recently started The Flood (tour name) with The Bad Suns and Hunny the band that will sail them all across North America and Europe. The tour started mid-September and will run all the way through December…during sweater weather (this article has a few other bad jokes). With Hunny The Band and the quickly rising Bad Suns opening for them, The NBHD has appropriately curated the most unique sound for their tour that will feature sounds of indie and alternative rock mixed in with some heavy hitting bass and kick drums like we’re all accustomed to from California’s rap scene. Opening with a crowd favorite, ‘W.D.Y.W.F.M’ The NBHD had girls in the crowd swaying from side to side, hoping to get a sick video of Jesse (lead singer) to show to their friends or post to their Instagrams later on. Chris Maldonado (@cjmal) and I (@dzewde) had the opportunity to photograph them in Austin at Stubbs Amphitheater and Houston at Revention Music Center, and not only did they bring the tunes, the stage set was incredible with the classic black and white digital backdrop. While I was in the pit, I managed to sneak a look at their set-list, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the crowd was going to get a taste of the whole band and not just the band we fell in love with in 3 2012.
The NBHD played all of their hits: W.D.Y.W.F.M as mentioned before, Afraid, #icanteven, Daddy Issues, Female Robbery, THE WHOLE #000000 & #ffffff MIXTAPE and their newest single R.I.P 2 My Youth. Rocking anything from all black t-shirts to Macklemore-style fur coats and back over to leather biker-jackets, this band’s style is as eclectic as their sound in music.
Most importantly, when opening with a song like ‘W.D.Y.W.F.M’ you’d expect the energy level to be relatively low, but you also wouldn’t expect a singer like Jesse Rutherford to keep a crowd bouncing the way he did. The die-hard fans in the front row had their hands bumping up and down the majority of the show and sang every single lyric to the same tune he did. He danced across the stage the whole night (very well, I might add) and kept the energy through the roof on the Bayou. Not a single person left the concert that night unhappy…unless they listened to the lyrics. *Rimshot* All in all, I’d say that The NBHD put on one of the best shows that I’ve had the pleasure of attending, and I don’t get to say that very often. I’m one of the few people in the world who wasn’t crazy about ‘Sweater Weather’ when it was released, but I was a fan of everything else they released. They’re one of the only bands that I can think of [today] that has consistently released great and different new music. They don’t sound the same today as they did in 2012.
PHOTOS BY CHRIS MALDONADO
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PHOTO BY CHRIS MALDONADO
BLACKBEAR 7
PHOTOS BY DANIELLE ELLIS
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Previously known as Mat Musto - Blackbear is a producer and R&B singer with dark emotional songs often bass heavy with synth. Blackbear released his first full length album titled “Dead Roses” with hit songs “IDFC” and “90210 feat. GEazy” on Febuary 14th 2015. Previously Blackbear released a handful of singles on his Soundcloud last year setting the pathway for his upcoming sound. Check out his music on Soundcloud and itunes.
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Neon Trees: 'Animals' on the Stage PHOTO BY DANIELLE ERNST
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Sun City Music Festival has us BEAMING
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No lies about
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PHOTO BY ALEX AUSTIN
Slander over here!
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TRITONAL
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-What are both of your full names? Chad and David. -How would y’all describe your music for the people that haven't seen or heard you guys before? Sexy. -How long has Tritonal been performing? Off and on for about 7 years now. Been together for about 9 years. -Do you guys ever perform separate or always as a pair? No, not intentionally. There's been times where we've been forced to, Such as a passport not coming in on time. For the most part we try to approach it as a duo because that's who we are. -What inspired the new track "Gamma Gamma"? What made it blow up so fast? It's original dude! We were able to find something creative that's never been done before with that chant. There's so many things that are alike right now. The stuff that connects with people are things that are new, and dope. -If you guys had the opportunity to change something about the EDM community, what would it be? Originality. Honestly everything is really cookie cut these days. If we have a chance to stand out and show that there is other ways to diversify we will do it. You can't just put something out that's just following everything else. -Do you have any crazy stories to share from your music career? One time early in our career we were trance DJs and we had an agent that had us on an India tour and like three days later on an Indonesia tour. We finished the India tour and at like the end of it he waited to tell us instead of going on a 6 hour flight he was like "look, the fuckin promoters haven't connected for Mumbai so I've had to book you in Austin. Through all the stops we ended up having to travel for like 78 hours. -What tracks do you think get the most crowd interaction in your sets? Probably "Now or Never" people love that one. Also "untouchable", we are really starting to see an explosion of that. 26
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-What has changed the most since you started? Oh man. Everything has changed. When .we were coming up it was all about getting into Europe, ministry of sound, getting into the European festivals. What happened was while we were over there making it as trance guys, the explosion of dance music happened in the US. It's gone from being nothing to pop sensationalism. -What is y’alls motivation to do all of these charity runs in the majority of the cities you both play in? We are both pretty healthy dudes, We both like to work out, and giving back it wasn't hard to run a 5k in all the Asian cities. Hooked up with MTV and raised some awareness and some money for people who are struggling with health issues. Dude it's just a way to give back. I think we are blessed. I think all of us get caught up in the competitiveness of the music industry; but at the end of the day we are like able to pay our bills from making fucking beats. That was the dream in the beginning literally I just wanted to pay bills making beats. All the extra stuff is just icing on the cake. For us to be able to run a few miles to give back is like nothing. -Do you think your fans expect too much from you at times? Yes, those bastards! No no, that's a good question actually. We put on a good show I think. The fans now; well I don't think it's fans. I think it's just people. Social media wants to video record, put you on camera all the time. It's like snapchat yourself taking a shit. It's evasive to a certain degree! Used to, you could just build on good music. I feel like now it's being famous on snapchat. I don't necessarily know that I love it, but it is what it is. -What do y’all think about what Apple is doing with music streaming? Well steaming is what's up ya know. I think Apple is a little late to the game. I think Spotify is the main people in town and we will see if Apple can use there millions of people who are locked into iTunes to catch up. They've got the money. But, on a bigger note, people don't want to own anything. Why? It's already on Spotify. I can listen to it. Why would I want to download songs when I can just steam them? It used to be all on out Beatport downloads and iTunes downloads. -Do you guys have any personal or career goals for the next 5 to 10 years? Yes we were actually just discussing this over the past week. It's not necessarily just producing artist records and singles. Like do we wanna do some sound design in a movie, do we wanna produce for someone else, do we wanna write records for a pop star. There's a massive galaxy of things that we could do. -Any news for your fans? Any new music on the way? Yeah! A load of new music! There's like 15 unfinished tracks that are pretty much wrapped up. We snuck a few into the Trionia 100 set in Las Vegas. So when the fans show up to our sets they are going to hear them and maybe various versions of them as we finish them on the tour. We had a record drop today with the Chainsmokers called "Until You Were Gone". The response has been huge on Twitter. 28
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PHOTO BY ALEX AUSTIN
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Cash Cash can take all of our money!
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PHOTO BY GIBSON DINTESMITH
AUDIO PUSH
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RAE SREMMURD
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FETTY WAP
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Fitz will keep you from throwing a tantrum.
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Passion Pit keeps producing hits! 39
PASSION PIT
Photo By Caelan McCulley 40
Police that you actually want to listen to 41
TOKYO POLICE CLUB
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Holychild, Liz Nistico and Louie Diller, began their musical adventure back in 2012. The creative duo met in a dance class at college in Washington, D.C. and what started as an art project later evolved into Holychild. Nistico and Diller describe their style and sound as 'Brat Pop' and hope that it becomes a well known genre in the future. Since starting their art project in college, they have released their EP, Mindspeak, and debut album, The Shape of Brat Pop to Come, both through Glassnote Records. On both their EP and debut album, Holychild addresses the problems of society’s power dynamics and inequality. Along with songwriting and singing, Nistico directed music videos for each song on the Mindspeak EP, which depicts her frustration with social standards. Nistico and Diller loudly speaking their minds, hence the title Mindspeak, and clearly express themselves through art and music. I met Holychild for the first time on their California Summer Tour and did a quick photoshoot with them as well as shooting the performance. They opened with, “Diamonds on the Rebound,” and immediately had the crowd dancing along with Nistico’s fabulous dance moves and Diller’s insane beats. Nistico gave it her all and poured all her emotion into her performance, to the point where she was breathless, laying on the stage after almost every song. Their performance was extremely cathartic and Nistico’s emotions were almost physically tangible. After seeing them once I knew I was hooked and saw them three more times that week. Nistico and Diller have become like siblings to me over the past month and I have been deeply inspired by their art and can’t wait to see what else they create. 43
HOLYCHILD
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OUR TEAM Owner // Danielle Ellis Editor // Daniel Zewde CEO (Boston / LA) // Gibson Dintersmith Photographer (Los Angeles California) // Annmarie Larotonda Photographer Intern (California) // Danielle-Marie Ernst Writer and Editor // Hunter Lohr Photographer // Chris Maldonado Photographer // Ljeoma Onyekwe Photographer // Kimani Graham EDM Photographer // Alex Austin EDM Writer // Jt Van Winkle Photographer // Paige Sarah Wilson Contributor & Photographer (New Orleans) // Rebecca Reece Staffer & Photographer // Stephen Boyles Staffer & Photographer // Luciana Morales Reporter // Kayleigh Wagonon Reporter // Gabriella Jasso Marketing & Public Relations // Rachel Willis Logo By Zach Whitehead 46