Beat Connection - Interview
You may have noticed, we are quite fond of hometown heroes Jordan Koplowitz and Reed Juenger of Beat Connection. According to their Facebook, they were formed at the exact moment "Justin Bieber hit puberty," which I guess I didn't realize had happened yet. If you haven't picked up Surf Noir, their free EP, I suggest you do so now. As is our new policy here at BCB, when we like something but can't find much about it, we pry (a.k.a. interview). I recently traded emails with both members of Beat Connection who are as warm and sincere as their music. We talk about
BCB: How long have you guys been making music together?
Reed: We both started out messing around in garageband, making loopy tunes and general shit during sophomore year of high school, so thats our roots I guess. We met in the summer of 2008 at the University of Washington, where we started making beats together in dorm rooms and other places not very condusive to music. If you are really proactive you can find some pre-BC music on myspace [Ed. note: proactivity]. Before that I had been doing a pretty hood job of being a mediocre DJ and we kind of combined forces doing that for a while to make some money and throw some parties.
Jordan: I actually started playing guitar freshman year of high school (exclusively Metallica). By senior year I was into more reasonable music and created a band with some friends. When me and Reed started making music in the dorms I had my guitar and he had his crazy broken electronic machines...we combined a made some crazy music.
BCB: Reed, I know that you do a lot with sound and music for school, DJing at the radio station and creating epic audio/visual projects. How has that influenced your own music creation? Is there an academic side to Beat Connection?
Reed: Well, thats kind of a tough question because all of those things are very intertwined even though they probably shouldn't be. I'll try and tackle them one at a time: DJing definitely affects the music, from both the radio and the club setting it has definitely influenced the way that we make music. A lot of it has to do with being really conscious of how songs fit next to each other. Thats why the EP has tracks that flow into each other and thats why there are songs that kind of tie together disparate styles into a holistic package. The radio station work I do has exposed me to so much awesome and crazy music and has affected my tastes a lot, broadened my horizons etc etc.
As for DXARTS and that stuff, the program is really focused on "high art" by this I mean very challenging and sometimes well, hard to understand and appreciate. I'm talking like art thats based on shit thats based on shit that most people can't appreciate or understand (myself included). It's super academic in nature, and something like Beat Connection would be immediately dismissed, but that's not to say that Beat Connection isn't academic.... But Beat Connection is not explicitly academic, its more like explicitly party music, thats what its meant for, I think people will probably (I'm retrograde ironic and contentious by saying this) read into the implications of a Beyonce sample on an EP like this, but hopefully not too far.
BCB: How did you decide on your name?
Reed: Well, we kind of got our name from LCD Soundsystem, a band we really love. Beat Connection is the B-side from their (in my opinion) classic debut single. Who the fuck starts an amazing career in their 30's with a song about fading away? LCD does.
Jordan: Anyway, before that we wanted to be called Yours Truly (hence the reference on track 6, Theme from Yours Truly) and we even released a mix tape under that name, but little did we know that there was a way legitimate website called yourstru.ly which pretty well blew up right when we decided on that name.
BCB: Oh yeah I have that mixtape. Its really good stuff. I still listen to that Biggie/Washed Out track pretty regularly. And yourstru.ly is one of my favorite blogs and they definitely like you guys too. You guys also run a blog so are you constantly critiquing other people's post about you?
BC: Thanks man! That mash up is gonna be the closer for volume II of the mix tape series, which we are pretty excited for. Yeah I think that Yours Truly was pretty flattered by the name drop in our song title, and we were flattered and honored to be on their blog.
As for our blog: That shit is defunct. Man we are no good at blogging, I wish we were, I love music, I love talking about music and sharing it with people, but I mean we didnt even post about our release on our own blog. We basically suck. We don't really critique peoples posts haha, though I kind of felt like dissing on our name was a little silly considering most band names suck. Vampire Weekend? The Beatles? Sunn o)))? Oneohtrix Point Never? The xx? Band names are fucking tough to come up with man. At least we weren't BEAT CONNEXION!
BCB: What made you decide to release your EP for free?
Jordan: We just really wanted everyone to listen to it. Not many people pay for music these days, unless it is a band they already love or it's on some special format (cassette or vinyl). We figured if people found an EP that was free, there wouldn't really be much of a reason to not download it.
Reed: There are so many opportunities for new bands to go ahead and write some songs, produce and record their own music and then market themselves however they choose, it has to be a labor of love, and for us it was, so in the end putting something out for free was the only logical step.
BCB: Are you guys playing any shows yet?
Reed: August, BC extravaganza in Seattle, we are gonna play our debut show and then there will be an after party where we go back to our roots and DJ disco and house music. We are pretty stoked.
Jordan: We have been spending a lot of time in my sweltering hot attic sweating through our songs so that we can go live, it's a pretty tough change of pace from producing all of your tracks and then working backwards to figure out how to play em live.
BCB: What is your plan for you music? Is this a career move?
Jordan: Hopefully...I've never really thought about music as a way to support myself. Not that it can yet, but now that we've had this release and have been asked to play shows around the country I've been thinking about how much I would love if it did. Although in the end, I really just want to be involved in the music industry in anyway possible. Talent finding, booking, managing...really anything.
Reed: For me, I just really love music, essentially I love sound, and when sound is arranged aesthetically into catchy music, I tend to really, really love it. I will be working on music, even if only for my own private enjoyment, for as long as I can, I mean maybe I will one day fall out of love with music, but right now I'm in it for life. As for making a career out of this...I mean, I don't really like going to work and school everyday, so if I can swing it, I would love to do this for a living, it's gonna be tough haha.
Jordan: Hopefully...I've never really thought about music as a way to support myself. Not that it can yet, but now that we've had this release and have been asked to play shows around the country I've been thinking about how much I would love if it did. Although in the end, I really just want to be involved in the music industry in anyway possible. Talent finding, booking, managing...really anything.
Reed: For me, I just really love music, essentially I love sound, and when sound is arranged aesthetically into catchy music, I tend to really, really love it. I will be working on music, even if only for my own private enjoyment, for as long as I can, I mean maybe I will one day fall out of love with music, but right now I'm in it for life. As for making a career out of this...I mean, I don't really like going to work and school everyday, so if I can swing it, I would love to do this for a living, it's gonna be tough haha.
BCB: You guys have been getting a lot of great press recently. How has that affected you?
Jordan/Reed: "We hear about alot of bands saying they try and avoid reading their reviews and what people are saying about their music cause they would be crushed by one negative comment and would be unreasonably bolstered by the positive ones. Well, we pretty much obsessively check out blogs that send us traffic, just to get a feel for what they are like, and what people are saying. We had people hate on our name (understandable) and we got lumped in with chill wave (also understandable, lets be real...surf noir? really?), So that has essentially led us to reevaluate our image and what direction we want to take with new tunes, etc. As for our ego? Until we both get to dump a bottle of champagne on a bikini clad woman or credit card another girl's azz crack (respek Nelly) we're pretty sure we're still nobodies, so we'll just ride this chillwave for a bit bro. Chutch.
Jordan/Reed: "We hear about alot of bands saying they try and avoid reading their reviews and what people are saying about their music cause they would be crushed by one negative comment and would be unreasonably bolstered by the positive ones. Well, we pretty much obsessively check out blogs that send us traffic, just to get a feel for what they are like, and what people are saying. We had people hate on our name (understandable) and we got lumped in with chill wave (also understandable, lets be real...surf noir? really?), So that has essentially led us to reevaluate our image and what direction we want to take with new tunes, etc. As for our ego? Until we both get to dump a bottle of champagne on a bikini clad woman or credit card another girl's azz crack (respek Nelly) we're pretty sure we're still nobodies, so we'll just ride this chillwave for a bit bro. Chutch.
Chutch indeed. You can see Beat Connection in their first live show on August 27th. They will be opening for BCB favorite Baths at the Comet Tavern. We will be there.
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