Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you are doing well. Today, we have an exclusive conversation with the one and only Joey Valence and Brae.

They had a fantastic record last year that I and my associate, Giggens, enjoyed quite a bit, NO HANDS. They've been dropping some more singles recently in preparation for their next big release, HYPERYOUTH, which is going to be dropping this month on the 15th. We're going to talk about that and anything else that comes up in the conversation.

A: Guys, thank you for taking the time. How are you doing?

JV: Excellent.

B: Great, man. Great, man. Thanks for having us.

With the album not being out yet, Let's just get into just some stuff and some sounds and some ideas, maybe features, whatever, just anything that we can tell fans about at this point to give them a heads up in terms of what they're going to hear, at least from the singles that we've heard so far, especially the title track as well as "Live Right". It seems like you guys are trying to address these themes of growing up and maturing and aging. What has got you guys in such a short period of time? Because obviously, it's only been so long since the last album, and it's a very brash, over the top, fun, in your face, ass-shaking party record. Obviously, "What's Up" is a song that drives in that direction, too. But simultaneously, it seems like you guys are making more room for getting a little sentimental, showing your softer side? What's got you both so emotional all of a sudden?

JV: I really think we've had it in us all along. It's just really creating an avenue and building a repertoire of music and showing it to our fans in a way that we can build up to a point where can finally be open and allow our fans to grow with us when we're making this music. Especially with this album compared to the other ones, it's still very much a club album, through and through. But we both have things we want to say and talk about and found it really easy to do so because making the music that we do whenever you get to explore a different option of music, it just flows out so much easier because you don't get to do it very often, I feel like. You can only write so much music about shaking ass.

You're not always in an ass-shaking mood is what you're saying.

B: Not always. And not everyone should be. 99% of the time, you should be ass-shaking, but there's that 1% where you want to talk about some real stuff.

What percentage of the time, because other artists do this, too, with their music, what percentage of the time are you like, ass shaking through the pain? Because there is that other lane and subset of popular music where it's sad ass-shaking. You're like, it's ass-shaking, but you're depressed during.

B: Depressed ass-shaking. Yeah, that's true. A lot of the time, you're trying to mask it, I feel like.

Maybe that's the next record.

JV: Yeah, I don't know if we really say on this record that you should mask it, but I think all of our music is really just this thing that's telling people to be confident and okay with themselves 100% of the time, whether you want to dance. We dive into a lot with this album. We're all growing up. We have things that we're experiencing, and it's okay to feel a certain way, but at the end of the day, we're alive, and that's cool. We're all just growing up, and that's really what this album is about. We wanted to just say all the things that you experience while being scared to do that.

You talk about this being driven, at least in a sense, by your connection with your audience, which obviously, I mean, such a thing doesn't exist when you're just starting to grow your platform and you haven't been able to build that listenership yet that you turn into a full-time gig. What is it that you guys feel like you've personally learned about the people, the demographic of listeners who follow you and care about your music so much in the process of continuing and building this into a full-time career that has gotten you, I guess, in the mood to connect with them on this level emotionally? Because it seems like you're just starting a conversation here, not just like merely reflecting feelings that you guys have, but it seems like you have an idea you want to communicate and you want to make sure it's like, registering with your listeners. Have you been able to have this opportunity to hear them out or get a sense of who they are and what their anxieties are or what their feelings are? Is that what has led you guys to want to start this conversation in this way?

B: Yeah. I mean, as the years have gone on, watching our fan base not only grow, but getting to know them better has been one of the best parts of doing this and being artists. It's so cool. When we first started, we used to stay after the shows and stand at the merch booth and meet every single person and sign stuff and take pictures. It's so cool because as the rooms get larger and more people end up popping out to the shows, it's such a mixed bag of people. It's super alt punk kids, then it's just the party like frat bro kids. Then it's skaters and people in the car and drifting community. Then it's people that enjoy pop and all that type of stuff. I don't know. It's really just a huge room with people. But the one thing that everyone shares in common for that hour straight is they're there to party with JVB and everybody is friendly. It's really just an amazing crew of people. So shout out to all of our fans. They're the best ever. But I think another important theme for this album was the fact that our fan base is growing with us.

And that's cool because we realized even with coming out with this last single, "Live Right", sonically, it sounds very different from the original stuff that people were used to hearing. But our crowd is very mendable to the new noises and sonics that we're bringing. It's really refreshing. And we're just excited for everybody to hear all this stuff.

Before we dive into some of that, is the car drifting community a strong contingent? How is this showing up? Are people doing donuts outside the venues?

B: I don't want to turn our shows into a giant concert. Cops are getting called. But yeah, man, I love it when car guys pop out. We've had kids bring their detachable steering wheels to the show and have me sign them and stuff. I mean, I'm such a nerd for cars. We have our hobbies and niches that are obviously sprinkled throughout the music. People know that now by following us. So, yeah, shout out to all of my friends.

Okay, so it's them picking. Now see, that's not a thing that I nerd out over, but you're telling me this is something that you're sprinkling into the music and people are into that world, they're picking up on and they're like, Oh, I'm into this because you're referencing something that I'm into.

B: 100 %. I mean, Joey references all the Pokémon and anime stuff and all that noise.

JV: We just talk about shit we like a lot of the time. At the end of the day, we're not really hard asses, we just talk about the shit we like. And I really feel like as we are getting older, our fans are growing up with us. Since the beginning, the first thing that we did when we had anything start to blow up on social media is get in front of a crowd immediately. We're not going to become some internet artists, which it doesn't even matter if you label us as it. It's cool. We are internet artists, but at the end of the day, we got out there in front of 15 people and built it from the ground up. And we're still seeing the same people from the beginning pop out to every show. So we've just been able to slowly grow every show to this really dedicated fan base, and we feel like they're really growing up with us. And so as we have more things to say, and as we grow a fan base of people who listen to all these different types of genres of music that we're inspired by coming to this show, it's like everybody has a connection to anything that we do.

"Live Right" is our highest rated song that people have talked about in a while in terms of "this is the best JVB song. This is better than anything else they've made." And it's so refreshing and cool to hear that because it just means that people are here for us and not a certain genre or coming for one specific thing.

One more before we maybe get into some of the sounds and production on the album, because you did bring it up, and I do think it is an interesting point to make. There's obviously a lot of aspiring and up and coming musicians who watch some of the interviews and streams and stuff like that. I feel like it's easy to forget with how the internet works, how essential it is if you are trying to build a career as an artist, to establish that in-person connection with your audience because you can really get lost lost and spiral in the hits and the comments and the likes and the reactions and just get obsessed with the idea that, "Oh, yeah, we had this TikTok pop off" or something like that. Then those artists who on paper, if you want to call it that, That might be something that you can pitch to a label really effectively. I mean, labels do have all these weird expectations these days in terms of, what are your Instagram numbers like before we put out your next project? But simultaneously, some of those artists that have those biggest numbers can't sell out a venue.

Are you guys seeing that difference yourselves when being among your peers out on the road? Do you attribute that difference in terms of the engagement that you're getting with the crowds? Just to all that time that you've put in to, "we're going to play live regardless if it's to 15 people or 15,000 people."

B: Yeah. No matter what, you just said it. We don't care if we're in front of two people or two million people. We're putting on this same show regardless. But I think another great point is the difference between numbers on social media versus in-person. I think a great example of that is, I don't want to name drop, but like Turnstile. Their Spotify numbers are actually quite low, but that doesn't matter because they're selling out stadiums. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I've never seen a video of a Turnstile show that wasn't crazy.

B: Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. So the social media can really be like smoke and mirrors because live music isn't going to go away. The tried and true people are going to pull up to the live show. So establishing that from the jump for us was super, super important.

JV: Yeah, that in-person connection is more important than anything. So the fact that we were able to start it and grow it right away, really have that connection and know that anywhere we go. People are going to show up. We just did a free show at Hollywood, and honestly, we thought 200 people were going to be there maybe, and 1,200 people showed out just on a whim for a free show. It was just so, so cool. It's really awesome to know that people are dedicated to come into a live show because they know we're going to put on a fucking good live show. We're up there because we care and we perform from a fan perspective. We didn't grow up going to see a lot of music in our area. So now that we're older and have this platform, we approach every show from a fan perspective. We know what we want to see when we go to a live show, so we just emulate that and make sure everyone leaves being like, "That was the best show I've ever seen. That was the best show of this festival." That's our whole mission We want people to leave with that feeling.

I think it is an important topic, so I do want to say this one last thing on it. I do think there is a thirst and desire among a lot of young people for, especially after the pandemic, an IRL experience, a community, some connection. I was just in Boston yesterday to see Clipse, but I was having lunch at this place on this main street down there where there's a lot of venues, including the Middle East down there. In front of the place where I was eating, there was a line coming down the block to get into the Middle East in the middle of the afternoon, literally at noon. When I left, I was just asking a few people in line, What's going on here? There's literally a line all the way down the road. Everybody wants to get in. Everybody was just like, "Oh, it's just this random local punk show." I was just like, "Oh, this isn't like some big name three, five million monthly listener artist who's on Spotify or whatever that everybody's like, lining up for or something." It's like, "Oh, no, it's just like a bunch of local bands, and we're just all dying to go see them." I was like, "That's awesome." That's what local music and local venues should be pulling people out for.

IRL experience is important. Clipse was great. Clipse was amazing. The show was amazing.

Let's get into a little bit of the stuff with the production, because some of the instrumentation in production is matching some of those sentimental vibes that are working into some of the songs. You do have some pillowy, fuzzy, melodic beds of synthetic instrumentation that sound occasionally a little vaporwave, a little Porter Robinson, I suppose you could say. I got maybe some electro-indie pop from the 2000s. What is it about this sound, this aesthetic, this era that you guys are very specifically pulling on in order to usher in some of these more sentimental feelings that you're referencing on these songs?

JV: Because it's an album about growing up, that 2010s era and late 2000s is truly the music that we heard as kids, besides what our parents were playing with us and those obvious songs there. That's the music that was playing when we were alive. Everything from Timbaland to Empire of the Sun and MGMT and that music. For me, that style of music is just so nostalgic for me. To talk about growing up and being a kid and the things you experience, I just use that sonically as nostalgia for me when it comes to approaching sound because I produce all the music. I'm really just taking all the influences that we both have and just putting it into this music. And specifically with the melodic stuff, Porter is a huge inspiration for me, too. And that synthy, really washed out mellow stuff I just love. And for me, that's just pure nostalgia for me to hear. And it just creates such an emotional feeling for me, specifically.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, a little bit of a Skrillex nod in there, too, in one of the singles as well, which is pulling from the same era.

JV: Of course. I love Skrillex.

Was there a process to finding a balance there, though? Because the super over-the top bombastic throwback rap bangers that you guys are typically associated with, I feel like even some of your most hardcore fans wouldn't necessarily, in their minds, make a connection to the music of Porter Robinson with that thing. Was there a process or a bunch of stuff on the cutting floor in terms of, "We're trying to combine this, but it's difficult to make it work?" It's a little oil and water, at least in concept.

JV: "Live Right" was definitely difficult.

B: Yeah, "Live Right" was so hard. I didn't even like it at first. It sounds so much different when the original beat we had, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, "I can't fucking write to this." The easiest stuff for me to write to is this the crazy Boom-bap, straight, like Coke rap style. I can just sit there and write forever, but "Live Right", I'm like, "Oh, my goodness. This sounds like a singing song, and I can't." It's not even the type of music I really like to listen to in my free time. I'm like, "Alright, let me try this." But it's honestly one of my favorite songs we've ever written. But yeah, it definitely was difficult to find a balance throughout all all the songs that are going to be on this new album. But it was fun to do. It was really, really fun to do. Getting outside of our comfort zone is the best thing ever.

JV: That's what you should do as an artist. Him and I having similar but also very different kinds of music that we that we collectively listen to all the time is just really important because we both put our own twist on everything that we approach. We both like so many genres of music. Who's to say as an artist why you can't put 20 different genres into one album. And so with this, I think we just didn't care. The through line is really us. Not as much the music. It's just us and the message was really the through line of it and the energy that you get from us.

I mean, for me, growing up, because I'm old as fuck, obviously. I mean, that was a main draw for me to one of your bigger influences, The Beastie Boys. I liked how versatile some of their biggest records were when I was growing up because it did seem like you were getting a little bit of everything. While at this point, nearing 40, are they my favorite group? Whoever did a rap track or a funk track or a jazz fusion track or whatever type of track. No, not necessarily, but I feel like they gave me a foundation for having a bit of a sense of getting into a gateway for a lot of those sounds when I was younger because there weren't a lot of other mainstream artists ,on their level, very popular in rap music that were touching down on a lot of that stuff in such an overt way.

JV: I think the hardcore and punk influence, too, comes from not only that and the old-school sound, but just at the end of the day, we both really like punk music and hardcore and stuff. So I think we just bring that energy to it and the fun, and people just use that as an automatic comparison. I'm not going to lie, they are an inspiration for us, but it's just so cool that they were able to start that wave of that influence. And especially being white people in hip-hop, we're obviously guests here, so it's really cool to be accepted in that way, especially with the features and things that we do like that. So really, the idea of putting fun and just different elements of shit that you just like, and it's very genuine and authentic and not trying to be something that it's not is where the inspiration from them comes in.

Before we move on to the next topic, a funny rap punk connection. Have you guys ever heard of that Houdini song, "Freaks Come Out at Night"?

Yes, of course.

Okay. For anybody who's not listening, it's a very funny song, lyrically, where it's like, there's tons of descriptions of them just being out and about and seeing all these punks waiting for a show and just being like, What the hell is this subculture that we're stumbling upon? It's just a funny observational track. But anyway, I think you guys are coming up with your own amalgamation of different genres that make sense for the time period that you're in. You know what I mean? And that's just reflecting in a different way. But speaking of trying different things. You guys are also doing a little bit of song vocals as well on this record, too, which is clearly a change of pace. Was that a process as well? Getting that down right? And in your experience, are there different mindsets you need to put yourself in when it comes to singing versus rapping, or is there more overlap there than maybe someone would assume?

JV: I don't know. I mean, it definitely was a little bit difficult to see how we could approach that, especially us doing all the singing vocals on the record, except for one of the songs. But it's a lot different than the stuff that we're used to. And with my past, I've done a little bit of singing in the past and used to make more electronic music. So for me, it was a little bit easy to know what I was used to voice-wise. But for both of us, for this context, it's completely new. So we just did what felt right. There really wasn't too much thought. It was just like, "This sounds good, and we're going to put it in here" and who fucking cares? It's just what we feel and what feels right for the song.

On HYPERYOUTH, with the intro to the album, you had the voice of the actress who does BMO's voice, right? Is that correct? Was that entirely original or was that lifted? My adventure time lore is not fully committed to my brain.

JV: For the people that don't know, yeah, we are sampling BMO on this record, and it's from an episode called "Be More" from Adventure Time. It's just the character of BMO who's this little robot talking about being afraid to grow up. And if I grow up, does it change my body or my soul, too? And that was just such a good representation of getting older, but do you really have to lose a sense of yourself? Do you really have to go out and be cool? Is that instead of being care-free and dancing and being authentic with yourself? That was just the through line of the record was this character of BMO talking about being scared to grow up, and that's what a lot of the sentiment of the record is. So it was really cool. As of now, I think we're the first people to ever be allowed to officially sample Adventure Time.

It just reminded me, I know Hiatus Kaiyote had her on their record doing a little vocal thing.

JV: Wow. I didn't know that.

Yeah, on their latest LP. But it wasn't from the show. It was like an original thing. They were doing the voice, and it was a bit of a transitional moment on the back end of the album. But I recommend checking it out. It just It hit me. It's like, Man, there's just this new generation of musicians who this cartoon is now super nostalgic for them, and it's something to call back to. I guess But beyond just that mere reference to that couple of lines from that one episode, is there anything about that series, I guess, in general, that speaks to you guys or the music that you make, speaking broadly?

JV: From my perspective, I love that show. I've seen it so many times, and that entire show, it's really the through line is growing up. There's a lot of stuff that just hit home with me as I was watching it, really growing up with the show. I'd really compare my growing up with the show to kids growing up with our music and actively using music in the show in our own life as just this growing experience. I don't know, man, I just love that show. It's so good. And to be able to sample it is so cool. It was a very tough process to go through that, but it was just really cool.

B: We like sampling cartoons around here at JVB.

I think the only point of comparison, and maybe someone in a chat will have another example, but the only thing I can think of that comes close to this is maybe the weird Rugrats spinoffs where you see them older or whatever. But Adventure Time is one of the few cartoon shows I can think where you, in a way, see the character's age, because from the first season to the last season, everyone seems like they're consciously animating and drawing the characters different to make them look older. And obviously, Finn's voice is so different from when the show started. It does feel in a weird way, even though they are animated figures, you're watching them grow up before your eyes. It's a very weird sensation for an animated show.

JV: It's literally the start of that show, it just started as this very carefree and very kid-ish thing, and then it grew into a very mature a show with the same energy, but a more mature theme. I would really compare that to an artist's career, because especially us who started with the music is basically just us having a stupid time trying to make each other laugh. You go listen to the first two records and it's really that. Now when we actually are maturing and have more things to say, we're keeping the energy and the vibe the same, but introducing more mature topics, and I think everybody can can relate to that as they grow older.

I wanted to talk about some of the other appearances on the record. Obviously, JPEGMAFIA is on "What's Up", and everybody's enjoying that single. But a funny thing about that track was that you guys had "Freaks" from the deluxe of the last album, which was very Peggy-coded as far as the way it sounded and the production and everything. So it's like, how do you go from this very similar sounding track to an actual feature and everything? What was the progression there? Because I know personally as somebody who enjoys his music, but also knows him to fly off the handle on social media occasionally. I was like, man, it seems like these guys are coming from a real sincere place of praise. I would hate for him to go on Twitter and be like, "Fuck these guys. They're stealing my shit," or something like that.

JV: He called me top three white people. I'm playing.

B: He's always in for life.

I'm glad that you guys are on great terms. Obviously, I want everybody to be on great terms. Again, tell me how we get from point A where we're paying homage, and now we're doing a crossover.

B: Yeah. I mean, shout out JPEG, first of all. I mean, he's the coolest dude. Joey and I have been fans of him for a long time. So to be able to have a song and have him featured on and work with him was just fucking crazy. But I mean, JPEG as an artist, in my opinion, he's up there, number one, with just being the most tapped in into experimental and alternative hip hop. That's what he does the best. And we just got to see one of his shows live in the Netherlands a few weeks ago, and it was just fucking crazy, man. He puts on such a great show. But yeah, working with him, it's just the classic JVB formula. We just be DMing people or they DM us. I think he literally followed us on Instagram, and then Joey and him were shooting messages back and forth, and Joey bounced him that beat for "What's Up", and he put a verse on it. And then one thing led to another. We shot the music video with him a couple weeks later down the line, and it's awesome, man. I mean, he really is the coolest dude.

JV: Yeah. It's so cool to be accepted by people in our similar lane, like sonically. I think we're on the end more of silly, but someone like him who's taking his art very seriously, and not like we don't, but it was just really cool, again, to see people in our similar lane and a part of the culture really accepting us as artists. It's like the people we look up to a lot, similarly with Danny Brown. It's like people that we really look up to accepting us into their community is just so cool. So we're just very thankful.

Yeah. I mean, musically, Danny Brown is insanely tapped in. So I mean, I can't be too surprised that he would be into your stuff.

JV: He's the most tapped in artist I've ever met. He knows everything. He's like, here's this artist with 15 monthly listeners. I'm like, "bro, holy shit."

Yeah, no, he's got great taste, and he's always had great taste. So other features on the record, from what I understand, Rebecca Black is in the mix at one point as well. Tell me the origin story of that and where that ended up going to give, again, people a heads up in terms of what she brings to the record.

B: Yeah, well, when we were creating the album, when we were making that song, before we were even thinking about features, we were talking, we were like, "Man, we need a mid 2000s Timberland, Nelly Furtado type thing." I think women representation in music is super important, especially for us, because not only women sound so badass on a track, their voices contrast so well against ours in a song. We were less like, "we need some women on the album," We're like, "Alright, who would slide on this one? Who would give a really good poppy singy hook?" That was another thing we wanted, too, a hook on that song because for years, it's just been us being yelling the same thing over and over. Okay, how can we get something that really sings and floats? And Rebecca fit the bill perfectly. Yeah, that was just so cool.

JV: And she's so tapped in with that scene, too. We have a lot of club baddies that have been introduced to our music, and especially that scene of the LGBTQ culture and everything. There's such a big inspiration for us as well, and they're just tapped into our music. So it's really cool to have her and just have a song for the baddies because we're baddies. We like it.

We just want to have that representation there. And again, having a female voice on our music was really important to us for this record.

Yeah, and her progression as of late has been insane. I think this little ERP thing is her best thing yet. And the production is unhinged. The song sometimes will change at a break neck pace into something completely different. And she's really coming into her own as a singer. It's been interesting to watch.

B: Totally.

Is there anything that you guys are doing? Because I'm noticing the tracklist and everything that you're considering with this record as far as the macro picture, because I love No Hands, obviously full of bangers, very fun record. But it's also an album that in a lot of respects just feels you just made in a firestorm a bunch of bops and threw them together. You know what I mean? With a record that has such a theme and a message behind it, was there more thought put into the tracklist and the way all the songs are flowing together in the story that it's telling? How did that impact the process of writing and looking at the album as a whole?

B: Yeah, this was the first time we sat down and storyboarded an album. Everything is purposeful – the color palette, all the imagery, just the tracklist itself because we sat down, too, and we set up the tracklist as if we were performing it live. It's pretty damn close to what we would do for a live setlist. So everything was handpicked and purposeful, unlike it has been in the past where things are just at the moment rolling.

JV: Yeah. I mean, for real, the through line of it all is really just that sentiment of growing up, but also like dancing and using dancing as this very centered theme throughout the whole thing of "We're going out to clubs. Why aren't people dancing?" It's so annoying. And so we wanted to push this club record and using growing up, too. Why are these people thinking they're so cool? Or why are we old now and don't want to dance anymore? I understand not everyone's outgoing and everything, but if good music is playing, why the fuck aren't you dancing? It's so annoying. People were looking around too afraid, and it's that crowd mentality. But we just wanted to push something that was like, please just go out and dance. Have fun. I know we're getting old, but God, please just enjoy yourself. It's okay. You don't have to grow up and change and be all cool now and lose that sense of childlike enjoyment of things. So, yeah, it's just like everything was very purposeful from the start. Even the fact the fact that it replays on itself with we have this dance, bounce thing at the beginning of the first song and the end of the next just to like, replay. But, yeah, it was all very purposeful.

What's the dance history here?

B: You should have saw us at A$AP Rocky last night at Lollapalooza. It was like running laps around people, literally just like shuffling. It was so fun. We're always out, man. You can catch us in the crowd at festivals or whatever. We want to be out in the crowd all of the time. Even when our DJ is doing his opening set, we're asking our tour manager, "Can we go out in the back of the crowd, watch the set?" We're just always going to be jumping around and having a good time. Dancing, man, it's the best.

Yeah. I want to dig into this for a second because do you think it is something that's connected to age and people feeling like it's just something that only young people do? Because just simultaneously, it does feel like, I don't know, a bit of a culture shift. I mean, something that was shocking for me was, I think recently, I saw a Druski sketch, which I mean, funny guy, cool guy. It's not often I see one of his sketches and I have an epiphany. But he did this sketch about a guy who's like the one guy who's dancing at the club, and he's dancing really hard. But the thing about it is, he's actually at a club, and everybody else at the club isn't like, they're not a paid actor. He's literally at the club with how the club is now. He literally was, as a joke, the only guy there dancing at the fucking club. That's not how the club was when I was young. People would go to the club in the '90s and the 2000s to dance. That's what people did at the club. And I'm just wondering, what has changed between then and now that people just think just dancing is lame?

JV: Yeah. Everyone's so afraid of being recorded, I think. And just they're afraid. There's this aura mentality now and a nonchalantness that is really cool with people now. And I'm like, okay, you're a loser. Just enjoy yourself. We went to this party. It was the first Hollywood music party we went to. We went to this Billboard event and there was a DJ there. I'm like, "Why is nobody dancing?" We're literally busting it down, breakdancing on the floor. People are coming up to us and are like, "You guys are so awesome. You're so carefree." I'm like, "Okay, there's music, and it's a party." Why aren't we all dancing with a bunch of these other artists there? Everyone's trying to act cool, and they're all in their best dress, and we're like, "Yeah, that's cool, guys. But let's dance."

B: Jeez. I mean, there's a time and place for everything. It's not like we're dancing at the fucking airport going through a TSA. But when we're at a club, though, or you're at a show, I really don't understand. I see videos all the time on social media of people panning clubs where there's this crazy music being played, good music, and people are just standing there chilling, talking, whatever, taking pictures. And I get it if it's not your thing, but when you're on the floor, get off the floor if you're not going to dance. That's what bothers me. When you're on the on the floor and everyone's just standing chatting like, oh, my goodness.

JV: I also think as time went on and there was a more focus on watching someone perform versus turning to your friends and dancing, there's an artist called Bickle who has a song, "Don't Look at the DJ."

Oh, yeah. I know Bickle.

JV: Yeah, Bickle's fantastic. I love Bickle. He's an amazing artist. But it's just that sentiment is so true. As soon as people started looking at the DJ, they're not turning to themselves and dancing anymore. So I think people just seem to look around to their friends and enjoy themselves.

b: Also, I don't want to put too much hate on this. I could talk about it for years, but being behind the DJ booth and actually giving a fuck about the DJ, oh, my God, it drives us crazy. Who cares?

JV: Our least favorite thing is seeing a DJ, and there's 800 people behind the deck with their iPhone. I'm like, Bro, get in the crowd and dance. What are you guys doing?

B: I know they can't hear the music up there anyway with those tiny little booth speakers.

JV: Whatever. They just want people to enjoy themselves. That's whatever.

No, it's definitely created a really weird dynamic. Like you say, it seems like people are too afraid to dance and that there's a less is more mentality where the less you express yourself, the cooler you look. And now we turn a camera on the DJ for the Boiler Room set for the whatever set, and the people who do want to dance are usually behind the DJ because they want to do it on camera. So it's like, maybe they're just needs to be a camera, non-camera section of the dance floor or something.

B: We need to bring back a Soul Train vibe. I remember all those videos where they're just like crazy. Oh my God. That shit was the best.

JV: But a lot of artists talk about the phones being an issue, and I think it is, but I don't think that- It's not. I like recording artists, and I occasionally put my phone up and record stuff so I can have it in my memories and remember it. But the issue really is just people not wanting to dance because the people aren't around them dancing, and then it just follows through the crowd.

So you think it could be something that's fixed, it's just a little bit of encouragement?

B: Yeah. I know it's encouragement because when we pull up to places, as soon as we be starting the shit, I swear, as soon as two or three people start dancing, then everyone starts loosening up. It's like being the first person at the wedding party to get on the dance floor. Nobody wants to be the first person.

JV: Or like a middle school dance.

B: If you start that, it's it. If you start dancing, I'm going to join. That's really it.

Okay, got it. Obviously, this has been a huge point of promotion and messaging for Tyler, too, with his newest record as well. I mean, hopefully, it's something that more artists care about or more people just, I don't know, aren't so self-conscious about, especially considering we're talking about a genre where it's like, obviously, hip hop has shifted so much over the past five decades plus. But it's like literally breakdancing was one of the pillars. It was at a point where it was inseparable. You couldn't have a hip hop experience, go to a hip hop event or anything without that being a part of it. This isn't specific to hip hop, but it just seems like with a lot of live music in general, dancing and experiencing it physically has been deemphasized less and less and less. Again, hopefully that's something that can be pushed against in some way.

JV: For sure. Totally. I don't necessarily think everyone's "making hip hop fun again" or whatever. I'm like, hip hop is what it is, and it evolves with the culture, and that's perfectly fine. Not every artist has to have dance, hip hop, or or pop music that's really danceable. But it's okay to have serious music, and there's a lane for it. I think we just have this pocket that we know really well, and we allow people to have that experience. I don't want to say we're the only ones doing it, especially with the new Tyler record. It's just a perfect opportunity for that conversation to start about dance music. We just want to create a lane where people can act freely at a show or something and feel.

Also, with that complaint you were just voicing there, I feel like your average person throwing that out there is waiting for somebody to else to make the fun for them to join in on, as opposed to, like you just said, at the club, you can just start. You could just start doing it. It's like the club is one of the few places where you can just literally break out into dancing and nobody's going to stop you.

Nobody's going to call the cops and be like, "I think there's something wrong with this person." It's completely socially acceptable to do.

JV: There's literally a song where I talk about that in the album, "Bust a move, now they put me on a blacklist," is one of the lines in our song, "Is This Love" that's on the record. And it's just like, going to the club and nobody's dancing, but you're the only one going crazy. So people think you're on shit or like, they're going to kick you out for going too hard. It's like, I'm the only one who cares. I'm the only one having a good time. So it's really that sentiment, for real. I think that's a lot of it.

No, it's true. There is, I think, a very bottled up, conservative, not conservative in a right-wing way, but conservative in a social way, social order where people presume that if you're not holding everything in and you're letting too much out, it must be because you're on something or you're doing something or you're cracked in the head or some shit like that. But moving on to a little bit more of the production and sonics of the record. Going back to the cute little Skrillex nod that you guys gave on the record, are there any crazy, unexpected or interesting samples that you guys were able to in other beats on the LP that you were really hyped to be able to clear, or maybe you couldn't quite clear that might have resulted in you guys taking a different direction? Maybe a certain song you ended up throwing away because you couldn't make it the way you wanted to make it?

JV: There's a few songs, actually. We were able to clear this Africa Bambada/Kraftwerk sample.

Oh, yeah, "Planet Rock".

JV: Yeah, one of the best hip hop songs ever. That was so cool to be able to be able to do that.

B: So sick.

JV: I was making this track at the beginning with this Midnight City M83 sample, and we weren't able to clear that, unfortunately. But I mean, sampling, especially because our music is so sample-heavy-based, it's really cool to have that freedom now to be able to sample anything that you want most of the time. It's unfortunate when artists are very protective of their music and don't allow it to be sampled, which I understand artists are free to do whatever they want. But I think just so much of our artistry comes from sampling, and especially in hip hop based around sampling. It's really cool. But yeah, there's Bobby Codwell sample on it, "Cry". That's so good. I love that song. We wanted to sample Jay-Z on "HYPERYOUTH", and unfortunately, couldn't clear that. There's this Santigold sample we ended up not clearing, but yeah, sometimes the samples get in the way of making the art you want. But overall, I think we got away with a lot, which is really cool.

B: Yeah, Outkast almost didn't let me do the "forever, ever, forever, ever." It lived right. That was a couple of days of a thing.

That's just a vocal callback. You need to call up just to even get it approved for that?

B: It's not just the one person. It's a whole publishing thing. Other people in the room with the writers, and it's a whole thing. We had to go through eight people to get that sample.

JV: Jay-Z literally was like," Yeah, you can use this sample on the record." And then the other writers were like, "No, tough shit." And I was like, "Bro, if Jay-Z said yes, why can't we use it?" There's no much politics with the music stuff when there's a bunch of writers on a track. It's very annoying.

B: Yeah, crazy.

As a producer, though, and I would love to get your thoughts on this because some of the ways that you make beats in the way you approach certain samples, it does have a very old-school flair to it. I wanted to know what your philosophy with that is, because nowadays it seems like we are in a dawn of a new era for producers because you have a lot of producers out there who are just sampling AI, or they're sampling random splice stems that they're getting from some other place like that, a library of stems and that thing, or all of these random, obscure Reddit message boards where people are digging for like, "Oh, hey, here's this record I found this digitized copy of, and there's no rights holder for it anymore." You know what I mean? So it's free game for anybody who wants to jump on it. Do any of those avenues inspire you or interest you when you're pulling together beats? Because, again, your philosophy does seem old school with how you assemble stuff.

JV: Yeah. I mean, there's definitely so many avenues for sampling, and I wish I had the time to really dive into stuff that wasn't so obvious in Crate Dig, because most of the time it's really just coming from Crate Digging on Spotify. And there's this website called Tracklib that is amazing for catalogs of music to sample. So it's a lot of looking through that. I wish I had a better answer of how niche I get with my sample digging, but it really isn't. It's baseline, and I just like the music that I like, and we like the music that we like, and just go out and sample stuff that is pretty immediately on top of the head. But just from a producing standpoint, I just like stuff to sound really dirty, and I've always loved working with samples to have something sound like it's not perfectly squeaky clean and be able to not reproduce something and make sure everything's in its own little pocket. I just want stuff to sound really raw and purposefully messy because I just like music like that.

How do you personally, without, I don't know, spoiling too much of the special sauce, I guess, make sure you go about accomplishing that because it does seem like, especially these days when you download certain DAWs or you get your hands on certain groove boxes, it seems like all that stuff out of the box is designed to make the process as streamlined and as quantized and as simplified as possible so that you're within these bumper lanes and you're not going too far left and too far right. So, oh, this drum is not out of sync with this other drum and that thing. How do you crack that code to put yourself in a space where you're like, I feel free, I can actually start painting fucking Pollock on the canvas, just doing the paint wherever I want?

JV: The one first answer is, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I've never watched a tutorial.

Avoid all YouTube tutorials for everything that you do.

JV: I don't want to recommend that, but I really, I don't know what I'm doing. And that's why the stuff sounds the way it sounds, because I don't know music theory, and I don't know how to mix, and I don't know how to master, but I still do it. And that's what gives us its own flavor. I'm just doing everything the way that feels natural for me. Number two, I don't use any patterns. I don't use any MIDI. It's all just bounced right to audio. And so it gives me a lot of free roam with how I place my samples. And I actually do production breakdown. I did one for NO HANDS, and I'm going to do one for this record, too, just showing people how I do everything on it because I think people should have that knowledge. But I don't know. It's just way cooler where stuff is messy.

B: Yeah, like something I'll chime in, too, because obviously, Joey produces everything, but just doing vocals together and stuff like that. Sometimes I'll spit something or he'll do something, and it's not 100% on the money or on the flow, and we'll put it in anyway and just leave it because not that we don't want it to sound good or be completely in the pocket, grooving just right, but it just gives that super raw, genuine, J Dilla-esque. Sometimes you spit stuff and it doesn't sound perfect, but it sounds just good enough where it's hitting right on those drums and it's like, "Okay, that sounds dope." Sometimes we do gang vocals and the fucking ceiling fan is on in the room or Joe's dog is barking in the background. You can hear us laughing, and that shit bleeds through. And that's something I think is super lost because sometimes you listen to these new records and you're like, Holy fuck, this was recorded in an Apple 4D fucking studio where you could fart and it would disappear into the fucking air. You can't hear anything. So I like the shit that we do. It's because it's literally in his bedroom and all the shit is done by us. So, yeah.

Yeah, what's exciting about some of those early and classic records from like, Wu-Tang or NWA is you do get those certain parts of certain songs where it sounds like a group of guys in a room all making this together. I love that. There's an excitement to that. There's nothing wrong inherently with doing something that sounds like an all-in-one type of production main brain solo venture. But it seems like, despite you guys just being the two of you, you I do want a lot of these tracks to sound like, actually, this is like 10 guys all together screaming in a room. It seems like that collective feel matters to you guys a lot.

B: Yeah, totally.

JV: Especially from a live setting. Once you get to the live setting of it, It really is a bunch of people in a room. So we're actively making the music with a live setting in mind because that's so what it's like. The whole sentiment of JVB is you don't get it until you see it live because it's just so much different experience. You can call it what you want, and you can say it's this, say it's that. But at the end of the day, when we're in a room full of people and we're all having the best time of our lives, you can't talk shit on that. It's just all the music is really centered around purely giving someone a live experience most of the time.

B: Yeah. In the title track, "Hyperview", we literally sampled our own crowd, the chanting in the beginning, J-V-B. That's just audio from one of our shows.

Yeah. When you're doing those gang vocals and stuff, you're automatically giving the audience instruction. It's like, "Here's the part you're yelling."

B: Yeah, exactly.

Essentially, to invite them in on the process.

JV: It's a cheat code. It really is.

All right. Before the album drops, which again, very soon, is there anything else, like promo or drop-wise, that we should look out for around the corner to further entice us or anything like that?

JV: I mean, we're doing another free show in London. Listen. Okay. I'm not even...

You fucked up!

JV: Radius Clause.

Both: We're doing a "listening party."

JV: But, yeah, we're just like, we want everything to feel very connected to our fans, and we're doing a lot of stuff. All the promo and the content is really based around a live experience. And we're going to start shooting some of the music videos. We had this really cool idea with Rebecca to do a really cool music video. But it's all just going to be very live-based That's what the album is. It's like, come out and see us live, dance.

B: Grab a ticket to a show if you want to come dance. Come see. Come and have fun.

JV: The tour is going to be awesome. We have AG Club opening for us.

B: Shout out AG Club. We're so excited to have them as an opener. It's going to be incredible.

JV: Yeah. Just very excited to give people this very genuine and authentic thing that we've crafted. And from all the people that we listen to and all the inspirations for it, just really shining through in a lot of different places. So we just hope people connect with it. I don't care if you don't like it, but if you can connect to one thing, that's what really matters.