What’s your favorite song to perform live?
Alex: Young broke ass! [hands Chester microphone]
Chester: That’s a tough question actually. Personally I’d have to say “Flashing LIghts.” It’s super epic every time. Whenever we do “Lemonade” it’s also amazing.
Matt: I’d also have to say “Lemonade” because we always play it live and that’s the song we literally play way faster than we physically can, we literally just die after. It’s a lot of fun. And, the way we just stop and start in the middle of the song–like no count ins or anything–it’s off the cuff kind of like, “Let’s go!” So, it’s definitely pretty fun.
What albums in general have you been into besides hip-hop releases?
Matt: I’m really into this guy–actually we all are–we actually me him at a Brooklyn show, this guy Jerry Paper. He’s amazing, it’s really cool, weird synth stuff. He has a really neat voice, like, just really catchy and with almost like cheesy, tongue-in-cheek synth things. Yeah, and ever since My Bloody Valentine reissued all those albums I’ve been listening to those EPs a lot too.
Chester: I recently got the Charles Bradley album No Time For Dreaming and it’s amazing. Also, Jerry Paper.
Alex: I’ve been listening to that Tree mixtape Sunday School, it’s fucking awesome. And big-ups to Chicago since we’re here. It would have been really cool to meet him. Yeah, we’ve just been busy. Uh, oh yeah, I can never pronounce his last name, Michael Kw–I think it’s Michael Kiwanuka (pronounced: Key-wah-new-ka). It’s awesome. I apologize Michael, but his album is amazing and he has an amazing soulful voice. (Chester: Awesome production too.) Yeah. And, we just recorded at a studio in Brooklyn and we listened to a lot a tapes and soul. I don’t know. There’s so much music out there, everyone is putting out music now. Actually, fuckin’ 2Chainz and T.I. definitely down with that track. And, Matt actually just played me some of the Lil B Myspace collection that I’d never heard before. That was amazing too.
MySpace Collection?
Alex: 650 songs. Aww yeah.
What’s the scoop on BBNG3? Is it going to be purely original stuff or some covers?
Alex: I guess, like, we’re trying to focus on a Canadian based collab, you know, trying to get Celine Dion, Shania Twain and um, Gordon Downie, Chad fuckin’ Kroeger, um, [laughs] Nah. Nah–I guess we’ve been doing a lot of things recently. So, I guess our ideas on what we want to do has been changing recently a lot in terms of production stuff. But, I think the main focus is just going to be a full original album and really try to get a lot of collaborations with emcees and stuff like that. And, really focus on not making it the typical project. Basically we want to make something with musical features and emcee features and hopefully some singing features and stuff like that. Colin Stetson if you’re reading this please contact us at….
Matt: But, I guess the main thing we’ve been really thinking about and consciously want the album to be is a featured collaborative album that’s not just your slapped together kind-of-thing. Like, something that’s not where, like you hear the music, you hear lyrics–
DJ Khaled–
Matt: Yeah, but something where the lyrics and production goes back and forth, everything is processed and everything comes together and comes full circle. It’s going to be kind of hard because if somebody writes a verse for you it’d probably be pretty awkward to say, “Ah, well I like it, but can you change this and that,” but at the same time I feel like if you put the right kind of attitude towards it–it could be really cool and they’d be like, “I–you know what? Maybe that’s not the right feel, I’ll rework it.” So, it’s going to be amazing. Juno, Polaris Prize, Grammy we got it. [mumbles]
Chester: Also, like we’re sort of conscious about sonically how things sound rather than just what the music is. Especially in the recent days where we’ve been recording at this amazing studio we were at. The tape, literally two microphones on the drums sometimes. We’re becoming aware how good things sounds without a lot done to it. I think also this album will be a lot–be like a–sonic breakthrough for our band.
What was it like performing in the UK and working with Giles Peterson?
Alex: [shouts] Sonic Boom! Young heat stroke on the mic! [passes mic to Matt]
Matt: Yeah, Giles is super nice. He hooked us up with studio time he’s hooking us up again and we’re going to play this festival in France this summer and also the Dollar festival which will be really cool. London is beautiful is probably one of the coolest places we’ve been to.
Alex: And not only that one of the coolest things I noticed about the UK audience is that they get down and get into everything. We went to a festival and the lineup was eclectic and everyone was enjoying every act equally. It was opened with this legendary jazz, open participation group, The Pyramids and then they had Michael Kiwanuka play, then Thundercat, then jaime xx, then Subtract and then we ended up closing the show. Hudson Mohawke deejayed…the vibe was so right. I guess it’s because everybody knows that Giles is definitely known for playing such crazy eclectic music from all genres. It was really exciting to play for such an amazing audience. The bass player from The xx came into the crowd because he was excited to see what we were going to do, so that was definitely really cool. And, he was really nice.
Do you guys still go to college?
Matt: Nah, we all dropped out. We are no longer enrolled in school. We’re definitely grateful that we have the opportunity to go do shows and we know a lot of people don’t get this kind of opportunity, so we’re thankful. It’s amazing that people are receptive of what we’re doing. We’re definitely thankful and positive.
What was on the pizza that’s seen in the Tyler the Creator vids?
Alex: [laughs] [Tyler] likes his Cinna Stix.
Matt: What was on the pizza? I think it was just cheese wasn’t it?
Chester: I think it was cheese and sausage probably.
Alex: Bacon, it was fucking bacon probably.
Chester: Tyler got like two boxes of Cinna Stix.
Alex: Man loves his cinnamon. Can’t blame him.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Matt: Thanks to Potholes In My Blog, you guys are awesome, keep killing it.
Chester: Chicago is amazing. The crowd was so energetic, sound was good…it was awesome. It was a lot of fun, thank you.
Alex: Shout out MC Tree. Shout out Jerry Paper.
