L: Then in 2015 they asked me to come out and jam as they were trying to start something new. They invited this cat but he didn’t show. But one of the guys said “If I were ever to start a band, I would get that guy Dave. The stuff he makes is just crazy” and I just needed to meet this cat. We were all the way in Ontario and it turns out that [Dave] lived just around the corner from my house. A match made in heaven. We sat down and had some tacos one night and shared some urban souls and influences and got started
CU: How did you meet your fellow band mates?
L: I was getting myself ready to be singing again so I got into a gospel choir and these gentlemen were playing bass and drums with them. So I made friends with them and let them know I had a project that I was working on and when the time came they dove in head first. They’re good men.
D: Not only good, they’re phenomenal.
CU: You’ve said before that you come from different musical backgrounds. What’s the chemistry there and what do each of you bring to the table?
D: I’m like the super obscure guy and Loren’s a bit more polished but we have a lot of shared influences as well. Growing up in Michigan I was around a lot of soul and Motown and Loren had a lot of family in Michigan too. So we share that.
L: There are a lot of shared connections but mostly, it’s the mentality. His mind just sees music with a different set of lenses. He sees colors and kicks and snares and I see emotions. The emotions I speak with are different than the emotions he creates with so trying to find a home for them is challenging but overcoming those challenges is what gives us our sound. It’s what gives us our identity.
CU: What would you say your biggest influences are?
D: Definitely A Tribe Called Quest on the hip sop side but there’s also all sorts of soul. SmokeeRobinson Is still a staple for me. A more relevant influence would be UMO’s [Unknown Mortal Orchestra] early stuff but there’s too much to list. My library is just ridiculously huge so to sum it up is really difficult.
L: The artists that shaped me when I was young were Rage Against The Machine, James Brown, Sublime and Incubus. They shaped me the most and made me want to create. But then now as I’ve grown up and started becoming a lyricist and a wordsmith it’s Jay Z, Kendrick, J Cole, Lauren Hill. They all touched me but there’s so much
D: I also should admit though that Modest Mouse is one as well. I probably listened to them for like three years straight with no breaks [laughs]
CU: Would you say that you have any influences outside of music? Such as literature, film or anything like that?
D: We can draw inspiration from almost anything really. For me I love colors, light, the way light shapes things, architecture, painting, and even other countries and other cultures.
L: Yeah culture is a huge influencer but there’s also film. Like the way Hanz Zimmer paints a film. There’s also E. E. Cummings and Alan Watts that really help me think outside the box.
CU: Do you have any activities outside of music that help you in your creative process?
L: Yeah, I ride my bicycle a lot and I also play basketball. Those are the two things that help exercise my creative process.
D: I definitely do enjoy exercise like hiking. But also switching up the routine is critical. Just breaking routine and breaking habits but also coming back to it. Keeping life fresh and having no standard approach to anything.
CU: What was your creative process for your latest EP, Rise? How did that all come together?
D: Loren was working with his guitarist from his old band then we got introduced and I just flipped the script a bit.
L: Yeah he did. Originally I had this vision about what I wanted to do and when I met Dave a lot of things changed as far as what was going to be next, where our sound was going to go and how far we could push the limits of creativity and what was going to happen when we started blending our vibes. There was a lot of smashing clay together. We’ll see what happens. For our next release we really want to evolve and shape it a lot more and polish it. It’s going to be wonderful.
D: We’ve had a lot of time to get to know each other a lot better but we still bump heads and it really adds to our creative process. It’s what makes us work harder for it.
CU: What would you say was the biggest challenge in writing Rise?
