One has an album out today with Patrick Gemayel (a.k.a. P-Thugg) and three other albums of electro funk under the moniker Chromeo. The other was the youngest champion of the DMC World Championship, one half of groups Duck Sauce with Armand Van Helden and Low Pros with Lex Luger, and co-founder of Fools Gold Records. The thing many people do not know is that both Dave 1 and A-Trak are brothers. These two super talents of the musical realm grew up together in Montreal and have shared insight together in a Rolling Stone interview on their relationship in music and what that it has done for one another since they started.
They start the interview with a miniature origin story of how David and Alain (A-Trak) were sucked into music. Although they listened to tons of music, the brothers did not live in a musical-instrument-playing household. Rather the music that both Dave and Alain began to partake in stood out from their life as a “regular middle-class Jewish family from Canada.” David learned to play the guitar at age 9 while Alain picked up his first set of turntables when he was 13 (about a year before he became the youngest DMC World Champion). They went into how their parents initially had minimal interest in their music, but how that transformed into one-hundred percent support to this day.
David and Alain delve into their lives as brothers and how it differs and resembles their business lives. Their life as brothers allows them to say and do things with each other that many others may not approach or consider. According to A-Trak, “I think we find the best in each other,” whereas Dave 1 says “We’re critical,” when it comes to responding to the other’s work. They also were asked if they piggyback off the other’s successes between themselves. They responded by saying that although their scenes stretched far away from each other, now their scenes are under one umbrella and are both making more music that can be played together and bring their fans together.
Finally, the question many Chromeo fans have pondered was asked and answered. Where did the name White Women come from for Chromeo’s new album? Dave 1 explained how it came from the same book title from photographer Helmut Newton. When he was in Paris, David went to a retrospective gallery of Newton’s works and saw many of his book titles. When he noted White Women, he imagined it with the album cover of the Strokes debut album Is This It and the hilarity that would ensue from that combination. Although P-Thugg thought it was rather silly, A-Trak really pushed the idea for White Women should be their forthcoming album’s name. David made it clear that this album is not a one to bring up racial or gender issues. According to Dave 1, “But semantically and semiotically, we had fun with [the title]. It allowed us to have fun with all those tropes.” A-Trak ends the interview saying how this new album poses a new look for Chromeo not being taken seriously as music saying, “So whether it be a statement like, this is a band that deserves to be on the main stage at Coachella, or, this is a band that can backup a controversial album title, lately there’s been an opportunity for them to rise to the challenge. And it’s working.”
In short, this interview displays how Dave 1 and A-Trak have always been involved in the other’s music and we will most likely see more formal collaborations between the two in the future. Also check out our upcoming review of White Women here on Your EDM coming soon.
Source: Rolling Stone
(Photo courtesy of Pitchfork)
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