‘NEW TERRITORY’

Zouk resident trio Cash Cash unleashes new music at last

BY BROCK RADKE

Time flies when you’re having fun programming some of the hottest club parties on the Las Vegas Strip. Jean Paul Makhlouf, Alex Makhlouf and Samuel Frisch—better known as New Jersey-born electronic outfit Cash Cash—have been doing just that for close to a decade, including multiyear residency gigs for Marquee and Hakkasan Group, and now, Zouk Nightclub and Ayu Dayclub at Resorts World.

“We almost bought a house in Vegas, because we’re there so much but never followed through. There have been times I wished we did,” Jean Paul Makhlouf says. “It’s a very different market, because of all the people from all over the world, not just people who are there for EDM or as Cash Cash fans or dance-pop fans.

“And we know now how to cater to the Vegas audience and make sure everybody has a good time.”

Cash Cash has already kicked off a month full of shows at Zouk (back on March 9) and Ayu (March 17 and 24) and the trio was one of the first acts locked up by the Zouk Group when it debuted its clubs on the Strip.

“Zouk makes sense for us, because we do a lot of tours in Asia and we’d always done awesome shows at Zouk in Singapore,” Makhlouf says. “It was huge for them, right when they opened up, to say, ‘We gotta have you guys,’ because especially after the pandemic, nobody knew what was happening next. I remember texting other DJs and asking what they were thinking about doing, and then it felt like everybody went to Zouk.”

The dawn of 2023 marks significant change for Cash Cash beyond the ongoing COVID comeback. Building on smash singles like “Can We Pretend” with Pink, “Take Me Home” with Bebe Rexha and “Too Late” with Wiz Khalifa, the group signed with Ultra Records last year and then dropped its first single in almost two years, “Anyway,” in January. Co-written with singer and songwriter RuthAnne (who has worked with One Direction and Britney Spears), the feel-good track is destined for some spirited singalongs at Ayu Dayclub this summer.

“The biggest reason it took a while to release new music was just business,” Makhlouf says. “Through the pandemic, we were writing a lot of new music, but we had finished our previous record deal and were kind of in no man’s land. We had to figure out what would be best for us … and this is kind of the best of both worlds, because Ultra is part of Sony Music but it’s also been such a moving force in dance for more than 30 years.”

The deal “rejuvenated” Cash Cash in the creativity department, he says, and the trio’s excited to push more new music out the door quickly and make way for more production.

“I think it’s going to be a big departure from [other] music we’ve put out. It still sounds like Cash Cash, but it’s definitely new territory—new lyrical concepts, a lot of stuff we haven’t tried.”

CASH CASH

March 9, 10 p.m., $20-$30+. Zouk Nightclub, zouk grouplv.com.