And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 93: Drew Taggart (The Chainsmokers)

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

He is one half of the GRAMMY Award-winning and Billboard Chart-topping artist/producer duo, The Chainsmokers, who have evolved into a dominating musical force with a diverse repertoire of songs that have led them to become one of music's hottest recording artists. In 2016, the group catapulted to worldwide stardom with three Multi-Platinum certified hits - "Roses (ft. Rozes)”, "Don't Let Me Down (ft.Daya)”, and "Closer (ft. Halsey)”, which went on to become the longest-running #1 single of 2016 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 2017, the group released its debut album via Disruptor/Columbia Records titled ‘Memories... Do Not Open’. The album, which has been certified Platinum, debuted at #1 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200 chart and produced Multi-Platinum certified smash hits "Paris" and "Something Just Like This" featuring Coldplay. In 2018, The Chainsmokers released the album ‘Sick Boy’, which has accumulated over 1 billion worldwide streams to date and includes Platinum-certified single "This Feeling (ft. Kelsea Ballerini)” and Gold-certified single "Side Effects," featuring longtime collaborator Emily Warren. The duo’s latest album, titled ‘World War Joy’, which includes "Push My Luck," Gold-certified single "Takeaway" with ILLENIUM featuring Lennon Stella, Platinum-certified singles "Call You Mine (ft.Bebe Rexha)” and "Who Do You Love (ft. 5 Seconds of Summer)”, "Kills You Slowly" and "Do You Mean" featuring Dolla $ign and bülow. Additionally, the duo has been nominated for a 2020 Kids' Choice Award, a 2019 American Music Award, a 2019 MTV Video Music Award, multiple 2019 Teen Choice Awards and was honored with two wins at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards for Top Dance/Electronic Artist and Top Dance/Electronic Album for Sick Boy. And The Writer Is… Drew Taggart! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, welcome to Ann the writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs.

I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing, and mega house music management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear. Go to our website www. and the writer is.com. For a little bit of context,

we just wanted you to know that a lot of these were recorded before quarantine. And as we know, a lot has changed in 2020. So again, please stay safe out there. and enjoy the new episodes of And The Writer Is. Welcome to And The Writer Is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. Today's game-changing music influencer is not only a producer, not only a DJ, not only a frontman,

but is a Grammy Award, American Music Award, Billboard Music Award winning songwriter. Having already been anointed ASGAP's songwriter of the year, this writer has evolved his sound to push the sonic envelope. He's defied all odds, a true phoenix, from the ashes of getting dropped to rising up to literally one of the biggest bands in the world. His diamond certified success has enabled one of the most unique trajectories of any artist at any time in recorded music history. And he's done most of it while being one of Forbes's 30 under 30. Not anymore.

I'm 30. I'm 30. You're 30 now. So it's 30. Okay. From Portland, Maine, this writer is notoriously loyal to his co-writers and bandmate. So, we're hoping to get a little closer to this guy during this interview. And the writer is Drew Taggart of the Chain Smokers.

Do you clap at this point? Sometimes. Our audience of one. Yeah, so you're 30. That's a new thing. It's a new thing. Yeah, about a month into the 30. How does it feel being 30?

So good. Yeah. I was like ready to be 30 at 29 for sure. Everyone's like, oh man, it's my last year, the 20s. What? I feel like I'm like woke now. Yeah. Well, there's a weird thing.

If you're 29, 365 days old, people still think you're in your 20s. Yeah, right. And somehow the next day it's like, wow, you survive, man. You're an adult. know it's probably a placebo effect, but like I do feel like more like assertive and

and yeah, probably more assertive is probably the best way to describe being 30. So you just woke up and you said today I'm having this cereal regardless of the sugar content. Let's start from the beginning, man. So Portland, Maine. Your family's from there,

yeah? We're from Freeport, which is like 10 minutes north. How does somebody from Freeport, Maine, get into music? I think the same way anyone from anywhere gets into it. You know, my parents, my mom bought me a drum set when I was five years old. What parent does that? Like, I can't think of anything more annoying to get your kid. Why did she want you to play drums?

Well, I wanted to play drums really bad. Why? I just, I loved music, like, forever. well five years at that time was forever for me and and she like manned up and got me the got me a drum set and she all I mean even to this day she's like I like listening to you play which I don't believe you

but like thanks I love you and that was the beginning and then I played drums and then I eventually wanted to play guitar I never wanted to like sing until way way later but I wanted to play keys and I wanted to know how to do all the things and then when I was like 15 a lot of kids in my school went like did like a study abroad thing

which is usually like some of you do in college but it was like highly encouraged at my high school and I went to a school of like 400 people in the entire school and so I was like about ready to get out of Maine when I was 15 and so I went I went to Argentina for like I think six months or eight months

at 16? At 16? At 15 yeah yeah so you just said mom I wanted to go My mom studied abroad A time my mom speaks a bunch of languages She's a language teacher What does she teach? Well now she's retired

But she was like a computer coordinator Before that And then she was a Spanish teacher And a German teacher For a little bit What's the rest of your family dynamic? My dad's a Or he made orthotics and prosthetics

For a long time And then he did it for the VA hospital And then he went back to his old job and now he was most recently a roadie on my last tour. No way. Yeah. It was his true dream come true, yeah. That's really cool.

Yeah. Do you have siblings? I have a younger sister. Is she a musician too? No, she's very creative. Are you the only musician out of the family? Yes, but like my mom and sister sing and my dad plays guitar and stuff. Yeah.

But yeah. So you go to Argentina alone? Yes, by myself. and so my objectives with going to Argentina is I wanted to learn how to speak Spanish I wanted to get out in Maine that was probably the only one that I accomplished oh I got Spanish too

and I wanted to be in a city and I couldn't afford to go to Europe especially at that time and so South America was like the obvious option and Argentina is probably the most European of the South American countries and there was a part

in the application where you could like suggest where you wanted to be like situated and my 15 year old self overlooked that place so I thought I was going to pull up to Buenos Aires and be in a Spanish-speaking city with all this culture and everything I got placed

in this town called El Boson which is in the middle of the Andes Mountains like two hours outside of Bariloche so I basically went to the main of Argentina I was like God damn it Did you know when you landed

Were you like wow this city is much smaller than I had a vision Yeah well I landed in Batty Loche Which is a beautiful city All it in the middle of the Andes great skiing And I was like yo that I can rock with this And I was like the other city must be just like this And I pull up to a town like even smaller than my hometown I was like oh no what did I do

How long were you supposed to say that? First of all it turned out to be an amazing experience But yeah, I stayed for like six or seven months. Yeah, something like that, yeah. When you came back, you went back to Maine, obviously. Yeah, oh, wait, but something kind of pivotal happened there. What happened? So at the time, when I was 15, so that was 2005,

when I went there, I had been listening to, like, a lot of, like, hip, basically everything. Like, probably, like, at that time I was probably listening to a lot of, like, Death Cab for QD and Postal Service, but I was also listening to like that was like the beginning of like Lil Wayne so I was listening to that in Argentina

this is right before I left I was in this band Mew which is still one of my favorite bands and then I remember I went there and I was still listening to that stuff but we started going to the clubs which is something I didn't do

in the US and there we would listen to like daft punk and like the old Trent Muller and like the beginning of David Getta, and that was when I really discovered dance music, which was more sonically aggressive than anything I had ever really heard. And that was very impressive to me.

And the first thing I did when I came back was like, how the fuck does Dead Mouse make those chord sounds? How does Trent Mahler make these, like, his shit hit harder than anything I had ever heard? And that's when I discovered Ableton, which was kind of the thing that when I was a child playing the drums, then wanting to play guitar and wanting to play key. I didn't know about producing and that's when I that pushed me to discover that which

kind of led me to where I am today when you come back I mean that sounds like a crazy experience I think at any point in your life if you any person that we've ever met if you put them in that situation where you put them in a

semi random country and a semi random town in it it would be life changing yeah how did you not end up did you bring in any of the cultural music that, you know what I mean, did you bring in any Latin music? Was there any of that So the only Latin music

that, like, me and my Argentinian friends, like, that was like even around was called Cumbia. Okay. And it was just not their vibe. It wasn't cool to them. Yeah. It wasn't like how reggae tone is now. It's still kind of the same vibe.

It doesn't have like the hard kick. Yeah. So you go all the way there to discover Daft Pumps Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When you start making music on Ableton, you know, in 2000 and whatever that is, six or so, that's really early for Ableton. It is. Most people are not using Ableton yet. And thank God I chose Ableton because I chose it because I wanted to DJ and I wanted to produce and I didn't have any money and that seemed like the cheapest program that could enable me to do both things.

and then I learned it and enabled them in my opinion is now the best DA so I'm sure people will like disagree with that but I think it's amazing and it's you can work with anything in that program

did you have a were you DJ something no I was never DJ anything I made a bunch of songs but it like just I didn't put anything out because I thought they sucked which they probably did

who did you play them for I mean at some point you have to have And she was like, I thought they were red. Oh, really? Yeah, my mom's been probably my biggest fan. So then why did you think they were not good? And why did you not put them out?

Loudness. I've been fighting with loudness my whole goddamn life. What does that mean? Getting things to be loud and not like have a shitty mix. And I couldn't figure it out. I could like get the sounds and whatever. So you figured out how to make the sounds and stuff, but I couldn't get it to sound like loud and clear enough. What is it that makes music sound louder?

I don't know yet. You're still trying to figure that, huh? Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. We can get into that later, especially with like the... With like how Spotify and Apple Music and all these different streamers like have different, what is it called? Compression rates and stuff?

Compression rates and audio normalization. where it's crazy there's a site that we use now that like the way that we mix the song and also master the song and limit the song determines how loud it will be on Spotify

it's a whole thing we can get into later yeah well then we shall so you're 16 and you have these songs when do you start putting out music do people in your high school know you're making music are you you know yeah I was like the weird kid that just listened to techno at that point

yeah and going into college college, I was even weirder. They were not ready for that. Where'd you go to school again? Syracuse. So you go into Syracuse and you didn't find, did you find like-minded people there? I did. So my first two friends at Syracuse were Gabbs Landman and Harry Roberts, who's my best friend

and my lawyer. And Gabbs is a great manager. She's incredible. Yeah. Shout out to Gabs. Shout out to Gabs. Have you had Gabs on the thing? We haven't.

But we've been talking about it because she has a client that we're also going to... Amy? Yeah, Amy's incredible. Also from Maine. What's with Maine? I don't know. I think it's just us. I think if there's anyone else, we would know it.

With Syracuse is... There's someone else. Anyway. Yeah, I feel like I've said Maine before. One of our listeners will tell us. So you're at Syracuse. That's a really good music program. Yeah, so it was weird because I looked at Syracuse for...

I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I looked at Syracuse because it had a really good architecture program and that's what I thought I wanted to do. That's what my dad is. Oh, really? Yeah. Is he a peaceful guy? Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like it's a pretty peaceful. Anyway. I mean, if you're an architect and a songwriter are really similar. Yeah. You know, like they... Totally. Their job is to really just do... You know, produce...

You can do one from the couch. Yeah. You know, if you, nowadays at least. But the idea that you can, you basically draw a blueprint and then somebody else performs it. Right. You know? 100%. So there's some similarities.

I never thought about the parallels there, but. Yeah. So when you go to Syracuse for architecture, what makes you... I didn't go for architecture. I went for music business, actually. So I was looking at it. Was it already the Bandeer School at that point? It was the second year of the Bandeer School.

And my mom, my mom, Shout out to my mom again. I was like, you really should go to school for music business. She's like, you're really into business. I was good at my CAD classes and my architecture classes, but she's like, I just don't feel like that's fully, I think that's only like one part of your personality.

There's this music business program. Let's try and just try and imply. And I was like, they only let in like 25 kids or whatever. And I was like, there's no way I'm going to get in. And I didn't. I got waitlisted. And I actually had like my, my deposit in Hofstra

to go be like a finance major and at the last minute I got into Bandier and I was like okay fuck it I'm gonna do this instead crazy so you graduated with the music degree or whatever it is I don't know what I have did you graduate? Yeah I graduated yeah

what is the that's you graduated in what then? 2008 or 9? No 2012 2012 yeah that would be you graduate high school yeah I got it so you graduate from 2012 there's this period between there and when we can first kind of

see your discography beginning. What happens between 2012 and the beginning of chain smokers? Did you have any other projects before chain smokers? Yes, so I started putting out songs under the name

Dunkonia, which is one of the worst names I could have thought up. Why that? So I was obsessed with this book called Atlas Shrugged at the time. And there's this very charismatic character called Francisco Donconia. And I thought I was super clever making my artist name that, not really thinking about like that's really, it's like D-apostrophe Anconia,

which is a very just difficult thing for people. How many people got the reference? It looks like a pizza restaurant. Your logo, it's like a record, but it's also a pizza. Did anybody get the reference? There's been like two people after the fact that I've been like, yo, I'm reading Atlas Shrek, I get where your name came from. Amazing.

So you actually put out music then? Yeah, I put out a couple songs on my friends like vibe to them. And enough so where like, so, we're like, so this is the time that EDM is like blowing up. And Avichy had just come out and everyone was just getting on the EDM wave. And Scrillex was out. I mean, Scrolex is all-time top for me. And, but, like, everyone was, like, more into, like, the more EDM. Like, Swedish House Mafia was just starting, I guess.

I Vici was crushing it. Everyone was, like, all about it. Where were you living? I was at Syracuse at this point. You were still at Syracuse? Yeah. So I was putting out songs. This is the time, like, the industry was, in America was, like, starting to pick up.

Like every promoter wanted to throw an EDM show and whatever. So for me, it was like had a couple tracks online. And there's like probably like hundreds of other kids like in college that wanted to get involved that had a couple songs that were like doing a little bit. We were all trying to be openers on the show. So I start getting on these different shows and whatever. So I get booked for like a couple like opening act things, nothing like serious. Harry's managing me at the time. and I

yeah and then like I graduate school you know I actually oh actually I had been I was interning at Interscope my senior year I interned for Neil Jacobson

and Nick Groff and shout out to Nick Groff for being just one of the nicest people of all time and also just like giving me I was his intern and he would just like lace me with all these like remix opportunities and I ended up remixing a song for LMFAO, which they ended up buying, which was like actually a very...

Under Dunkonia? I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm almost positive. It was, yeah. And Neil was like, you got to change that name. And he was right. And so I remixed the song and they bought it.

And this was right at the end of my senior year. And that was like a big, like, I think they paid like $1,000 for it. But like the validation that that gave me was like, like, okay, I'm not going to go and try and get a job. This summer, I'm going to, like, just put my head down and grind out trying to become a better producer. Which meant moving back to Maine, which was very depressing. Why?

Because, you know, moving back into your parents' house after college is never a vibe, you know? You got to do what you got to do, but, you know, I was like, I was also, I'm from Maine. I'm like, I'm back where I started. Like, I've done this whole adventure to Argentina, you know, New York City and L.A., and now I'm back in Maine. And I was like, if I don't have anything like popping by August, and I got like a couple like ghost producing things for projects that never really became anything, but like it was enough money to like keep me afloat and inspired.

And then in August, this kid who was like booking me different, those like opening gigs was like, hey, so there's this group in New York City called the chain smokers. And one of the kids is leaving. And the other kid wants to bring someone on to fill his spot. you know he told me he was like I remember he told me that he was like they make like

a hundred thousand dollars a year and I was like are you what and he was he's like do you want to meet this kid and in my head I was like I don't really want to be in a duo or anything but like also

don't know shit 22 21 22 um and I was like all right I'll come down in New York and I'll meet I'll meet this guy and so

I remember I went down to, and this is so crazy actually because I went to this dinner and I met both kids that were in the chain smokers Alex being one of them. Who is the other guy? This guy, Rhett Bixler. Do you keep in touch with the Rett?

I never really knew him. And I didn't know which one was the one that was leaving. I'm just always, like, it's so unusual to be like, you know, people leave bands all the time. They don't always leave bands it become really successful. Yeah.

Well, I think at the time, yeah. Like that guy somewhere. He is. And, you know, we met up and it was crazy because I met Alex and Rhett. I met this guy

John Schwartz, who is part of Tau group, who is homies with us to this day, who is one of Alex's buddies in college and up until this point. They know each other forever, and we've been friends for 10. years now. Adam, who's my

manager to this day, who we've done everything with, and like a bunch of other people that were, that I still know to this day. So it was a very pivotal meeting. And they just knew some of your tracks, so they were kind of fans, but go in? Or are they auditioning people? I think they were

auditioning people. And basically just me and this other kid. And we met and had a little bit of a night, and I figured out that Alex was the... I remember, I meeting both of them and I remember like feeling them both out and I was like god I hope it's this one guy which was Alex thank God it turned out to be Alex um Alex is like yo come over to my apartment

tomorrow morning so I go to his like one bedroom apartment in the city yeah in Chelsea I walk over there from my friend's house and he's like look he's like he's like yo I want it he's like I like your music I like your vibe let's just like try and do this he's like basically chain smokers up into this point have bend we don't have any music um like we were just like DJing like if you were to go to avenue on a Tuesday night that's where the chain smokers would play and they'd throw these amazing parties and they had a cool little culture around it and he's like I'm a great DJ you're you're a great producer let's combine our skills and try and figure this out and so I went home on the on the the fun law bus you know about that what's the uh the Chinatown yeah the Chinatown bus the

13 dollar bus up to from Boston to New York sketchy as fuck went on home. I was like, oh, I'm going to like try and do this. My mom was like, go get him. And I would take the bus down like once every week. And I'd stay for like three or four days. And I would just like go to Alex's apartment, crash with a friend. And we'd just sit in like a desk in his one bedroom apartment and just like grind. At that point, Adam was my manager too. Adam ran 4 a.m., which was like a DJ booking agency. And yeah, we would just grind and grind and would just try to figure out how to make something

that people gave a shit about. What's the first song that you finished? We were like, this one is special. Roses? Oh, really? So it's that old. It took a while. I mean, that's going to be part of the story later.

So, well, when you're in the... What's the thing that gets you from... You guys are in that apartment. You're doing some shows. You're starting to probably make some money to at least live on. Yeah, which was exciting. Yeah, totally.

Yeah, like, it almost felt like stable income. Yeah. Like, regardless of the songs that we were putting out, because of, like, club culture, like, that supported us. Yeah. Yeah, shout out to John Schwartz. Kept us employed. Insane.

You know, they'd pay us, like, 400 bucks to play here, 800 bucks to play here, like, 600 to play there, which, like, you did a couple of them a week, and, like, you could, like, live not very well, but on it, you know, that was too great. New York was still expensive at that point. Does Republic meet you before or after selfie comes out? After.

So how did selfie go from being... So there's this whole phase. So basically, I'm giving you like the full story right now. You just don't have time to do all this. No, we have time. We have time until you have to go. Yeah. Which is probably shortly.

Cool. So there's this whole part. part that I never get to tell that I think is really important. That kind of explains Alex and I's work dynamic and kind of how we still like operate today. So I came in as like the producer kid. And Alex was Alex is, he is one of the most, I don't even know under, I know how to like describe his talent as like a, a, just a networker. like he stays in touch with everybody and he's so charming and he's so

humble and like so this plays into like our music career you know we were big fans although like the edmway was huge we were like really into like yonzi and uh like death cap for cutie and all this like bonnevere and like all these like indiacs that were and this was like 2008 which was like a free or oh i guess no this was 2012 but we had just gone out of like 2008, 2009, 2010 where we had like beginning of Kuddy,

the beginning of Bonnevere, we had Fleet Foxes, we had TV on the radio, we had all these amazing, like, kind of genre, passion pit, the beginning of Mike Snow, like these are people that really fucked me up, you know, like, all these like genre-clashing,

new artists that were amazing, or not new, they had their probably best albums, like Arcade Fire, the Suburbs, the National, I can't remember what album it came out, it was very impactful for me. Anyway,

So we loved all this music that wasn't present in EDM. EDM was becoming this like almost like a European thing that was then like melding with like pop music. And we never really fucked with pop. We were more like indie, but like let's combine indie and dance music. So what we did is like, and we always loved,

we were really inspired by Calvin Harris, how we had these songs that had like these incredible vocal parts that you could sing along to. But then they went into this very euphoric dance vibe. And so we tried to do that with, indie music and the first song that we really hit it with was the song by Yonzi called Around Us.

I don't know if we called it around us or his song was called Around Us or we just renamed it. But we remix that and it went number one on the site called Hite Machine. And so at the time, do you know Mike George? Who's Mike George? Mike George used to work for a scooter.

Also was in bandier with us. And Mike George, and he managed Hoodie Allen. Hoodie Allen crushed on hype machine. So for those of you don't know what hype, everyone knows what the hype machine is here. And so, if you don't know hype machine, look it up. Yeah.

So Mike told us that he would email all of these blogs and create relationships with them. And that's how, I mean, hoodie had great music, but that's really helped get hoodie stuff noticed. So Alex, like, took that to heart. I kid you not. So every week, basically our routine,

was for the first year of chain smokers especially after we got the number one high machine which was like a huge fucking deal to us which is it actually it is pretty fucking awesome because it's like kind of like the what's popping on the web. It's a big achievement yeah so

and it's still reserved generally speaking for indie artists like it's really hard you know it's not something that the blogs that are like I guess like troll like they comb from are like only indie blogs that don't post like pop music yeah um so what

Alex would do is he looked up every single blog that hype machine would comb and the ones that might only the ones that might post like an EDM remix of an indie song and there was like 500 of them and every week and so he first of all he would go out and he would look at every artist that was like cool that we liked that had a new song that was trending and he would send them an email

and be like hey we're like a no name thing we just did this like remix that went number one on Hight Machine we love your stuff can you send us stems he'd send out hundreds of emails we'd get back our swans from like maybe 10 of them and which was crazy because we ended up remixing

people like Tuvlo before she was like before she was huge like two door cinema club they were kind of had their moment already at that point they're already popping but like a lot of like really cool. We should look down the list

like Aster. I'm trying to think. Anna of the North. And we reached out and we got all like these stems from these amazing indie artists that also had songs that were already trending and then I would like make this we were like a factory.

I would and which was great because it's what we needed to be to like get to be better writers and producers. And I would sit there and just try to bang up a new concept for every one of these remixes and that's kind of where all my production chops came from. And he would sit there and get more stems from me.

And he would email every. And then once I had a remix, he would send a personal email, not a copy-paste email, a personalized email to every person from every blog that might possibly post art music. And within three months, he was homies with all of them. We had over 20 number ones on Hight Machine. and that was like I feel like that's an important thing for people to hear

because it was like a fucking grind to even just get to that point and that got us out of New York DJing you know that was like oh people are starting to know about it that know about that like music and are into the blog scene and here and like we started playing in clubs in San Francisco

and Dallas and and all these other places all over like all over the country nothing crazy like a lot of colleges a couple clubs here here and there. And we were kind of known for these cool EDM indie guys. Crazy.

That leads us to selfie. So selfie becomes you know, this is an era when they're, it's like a real viral sort of song. Right. You know, I mean that you can't, you can't

make those happen. Yeah. Well, you can try. But maybe there's a hustle behind it. But how does that really break just the timing was incredible how self became about is kind of a silly thing um we so we got uh this we got book to play live Miami which was like the dopest club we had ever played and we were so excited about it and we wanted to do well and and impressed like grutman and and like all the other promoters there and like bring a crowd we'd never really been to Miami we didn't know a ton of

people down there. So we had this idea that like, oh, the blogs are writing about, you know, our records. Maybe they'll write about the show, but let's make a song to promote that show. And at the time, but like, let's make it a funny song. And so Melbourne Bounce was like, like, the genre, which is, I guess, the best way to describe what selfie sounds like. So we're like, let's make like a parody song and get all the blogs to write about it and we'll like name it like the live at night to promote the, this is literally our thought process. And the song, Eat, Sleep, Brave Repeat was, uh, uh, uh, by Fat Boy Slim, um, was like a big song at the time and it's this guy who's like, it sounds like, he's like, on Molly, just like

ranting about some shit. And we're like, let's do that, but let's make it like good drunk girl at the club ranting about some stuff. So we wrote all these lyrics that were just like ridiculous things and we like called uh actually we like texted like a few of our like our girlfriends from new york city um and this girl lexas came over and just started like doing all these one liners and then i took them all and i chopped them up and i made it this ridiculous rant over this like really goofy melbourne bounce track um so we threw it up on soundcloud a week before the show um sent it out and we're like this is a joke to all the bloggers but like everyone posted it and it was like whatever for a couple days

and the views were like abnormally high and then we were like what the fuck what the fuck is this and then we're like should we take this down and try to get it signed and we're like but this isn't really like at all we just built this whole like fan base of like indie

EDM fans this song is like we made it as a joke to kind of like make fun of the whole scene do we want to be known for this And our idea at the time was and embracing selfie so Zane Lowe said to us he was like I feel like

I feel like the problem with selfie was not the fact that you made it but the fact that like the way you guys embraced it which I still to this day do not know if it was a mistake or if it helped us. I have to say things worked out so it must have helped us but everyone marks like selfie as the beginning of our career,

but we got dropped after that, which everyone kind of overlooks. Well, that's part of, you know, right before we started, I was saying the best stories are either the guys who are prodigies and out of nowhere, they just, their first songs that hit.

You know, and some of those people exist. But 95% of the success stories are people who went in and hustled and hustled and hustled, finally got a deal and got dropped. Like almost everybody with this Bruno Mars and Katie Perry and like, you know, the list Charlie Puth and Jonas Brothers and one Republic.

Like so many huge artists get dropped from their first deal. And I think everyone assumes that it's smooth sailing after you have a hit and it's like, no, that's not how that works. But you wrote songs like Roses and these other songs while you were signed at Republic. But even before they... I know you guys wanted them to come out, but that they hadn't. These were songs that were they setting you up with co-writes or how did?

Because internally you guys are writing some incredible songs that the label just didn't understand. Yeah, well, I mean, if you give someone, I mean, labels want more of what they signed you for, which is fine. I mean, that's their business. and you know yeah so we get signed to this song goes viral we get signed to republic

we're like holy shit like we have a major what the fuck just happened and this is like a year and a half into maybe just under two years of me and Alex knowing each other so

we're like what the fuck we're just like the song doesn't really represent it but we're embracing it because our idea was like let's get everyone to know us and then we'll show them what we're really about. And so our warrior got us a really good deal.

He got us an album deal because we wanted them to commit to developing us. And after the next two songs that were different, they were like, we don't want to do this anymore. You released those songs? No, we did the song Kanye, which we thought was like a way to bridge because it was more of the sound that we wanted to do,

but it still kind of had like a gimmicky type. type of title because we're trying to transition people over into what we were actually about and then we put out this song called Let You Go with a great good final okay who are amazing I love them um and that's that's a that was a really good song that was on par with like our actual sound but once we put that out republic was like we're trying to be out um and luckily we were able to just separate ties and goes our separate ways and it wasn't messy at all um and in the same phone call that you know, Adam told us that we were being dropped. He told us that he had started a JV with Doug Morris at Sony,

and he had a solution of a way to release our songs. Who introduces you to your co-writers during that, like during that times when you have, at least this is what I've been told, so correct me for him wrong, but that you had, when you had, when you, went over to go through the JV which ends up going through

Columbia right no yeah so Adam started Disruptor which was a JV with Sony with Sony and we

had a bunch of songs we had roses we had Don't Let Me Down was in that wasn't I don't know if we had Don't Let Me Down before roses even though that was the next big notable song we had roses

I can't remember what else we had I think we had Don't Let Me Down once Roses just started to come out I really can't remember But that was all like the same like summer I feel like the same like summerfall time Roses is a new level How did that work under a JV

You know how did that blow up? So basically I had made this So basically I made this remix for Anna in the North called her song Sway And I just like when I made it I was like this sounds like Because before that I felt like

We were just trying to imitate like Calvin Harris and a slew of other people But put an indie touch on it But when I made that remix I was like It was slower I was like I haven't done anything I was like this sounds like what our sound's gonna be And I made the beat to roses

and I just made the intro and the drums and then I had those drums and I was kind of trying to stay on this vibe of the sway remix and then we had so Liz

Rose is the singer one of her songs we had heard on hype machine and Alex emailed her and was like do you want to do a session and she was like cool so she came up from Philly and we sat in my like studio apartment

in New York City and she had written this verse Take it slow, but it's not typical to some other, to another beat that I had sent her that's completely different. And I was like, yo, that was cool, but like this beat that I just made, I think is really fire.

And let me take your songs and I just re-sang her melody and we worked on it together and got her and just changed the whole melody of those lyrics to fit that beat. And then there was this group love song that I had been listening to that I was super inspired by and I wanted the hook

to have this girl and guy part and I was like I wanted to say like these kind of like vibey situations that like represented like being in love with someone and that was the first time I'd ever really written lyrics and we just kind of freeze out deep in my bones I can feel you take me back to a time when they weed now

We could waste a night with an old film Smoking a little weed on the couch in the backroom Like that was the first time I'd ever written lyrics Or put my voice for even backing vocals on a song And we made that And in the same session We made the drop to that And we ended up

Basically writing And producing that entire song on like eight hours And that was like I was like This song is hot Did, after that, I mean, you now co-write pretty much exclusively with other people, you know, outside of the chain smokers. I guess, you know, success sort of, when you see that, you're like, oh, this is really interesting. At the same time, you define your sound as a producer, but also makes you open-minded to what outside voices can do to your sound. Totally.

it's nuts shout out to roses shout out to roses um it when that comes out on disruptor does did you at that point have these

follow-up songs ready to go um i i've always had a couple like i'm i don't know if i had don't let me down but i had a couple others how did you guys get to dea um well don't me oh we had we had until you were gone

I was starting to think about Emily. I think we put until you were gone out right after that. Yeah. Sorry, it gets all hasty. No, that's fine. Because we promoted roses for like a year. Alex and I like flew around the country and went to like every radio station and like beg them to play it.

When did you meet Emily and Scott? So we did the song. She sent me this song until you were gone that we produced with this group Tritonal and put that out. and then we decided to do a session and that's when we actually met in person. Don't Let Me Down becomes...

It's one thing when you have a hit. It's another thing when you have a follow-up. Yeah. You know, it starts to solidify somebody. One of the things that a lot of labels will do is even if they have a smash of a song, they don't want to release it unless they have a follow-up because if they don't, that's how one hit will.

wonders happen. Right. I mean, it's smart. You know? And you then end up going on a run, you know, like a proper run. Don't let me down going into... Closer. Closer. You know, these are huge songs. Did you... What was it like in the process of becoming, you know, two years into friendship, becoming kind of a household. old name. This is, that was like, from inception to like closer, it was probably four years. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was amazing, but also like really scary and weird because like we were, and I still feel, I feel like most artists feel like they're always

figuring themselves out better. But like, we were really figuring ourselves out. Like, we found out our song, our sound with roses and it was a hit. You know what I mean? And then I made, don't let me down, which sounded different, like, the beat to it because I started dating this girl who was really into trap music and we didn't make trap music and I wanted to impress her and she really like love this band Yellowclaw who are awesome shout out to Yellowclaw and I was like I can make it if I can make a trap record and so I made this beat the don't let me down beat and then Emily and Scott came over and that's when I met Emily and Scott and we sat in my apartment the same one that we did roses in

and I remember Emily just sitting at the coffee table being like, I need you, I need you, I need you right now and she wrote it about when she lost all her friends at Coachella has she told you that story? No, that's great then. Yeah. Well, in this next segment, what would Emily Warren ask Drew? She has a few of them for you.

Okay. Her first question is, speaking of this writing moment, she says, when you're writing a song, how much are you thinking about you versus? How much are you thinking about them? That's changed over time. And Emily, part of her genius, is if you let her, which some artists do let her and some don't from what she's told me.

If you let her, she will help you tell the truth about your own situation because most of us have a hard time doing it. what she is incredible at doing and how she's helped me develop as a songwriter is you know i went through the call was like i didn't write lyrics really in the beginning and which also makes you feel like i don't have anything valuable to say um and she um we call it a traditional yeep which is uh we always start everything with her a traditional we sit down and we talk for as long as we need to

until we touch on something that's a vibe. And she'll sit and notate and basically be a therapist and get you to just talk more about things that are interesting. And she'll bring the you into any song if you letter. I know she does sessions with people that just want to write things that people will like.

And I think we've definitely tried to do that tons of times. And that's a weird thing to battle. but if you let her she can really pull it out of you. She did have a few other questions so she said I could pick my favorites but I'm just going to ask you all of them because it's actually really good.

If you could give Drew as a little kid one piece of advice, what would it be? Oh man probably be cool to like other people just always make sure you're being cool. Were you not?

And I don't mean like cool and the expense of like well man that guy's the man or that guy's like right the flex yeah but like just be like like listen to people she asked which lyric they've written

are you most proud of oh man um I love they're so they're oh I don't know there's so many I like for different reasons but probably like closer

that's also one of the first songs I ever wrote and the first song I ever sang on so that's like obviously holds like a place in my heart but all those lines were probably like all the lines of closer because all the lines of closer are from my experience

at Syracuse going to school with a bunch of like rich kids that had all these things that were like mind boggling to me driving around and their parents range rovers and stuff and all this like apathetic like love and fake relationships and stuff

like I bottled up and put all into that song I mean I don't know if you know this about closer because it was you but you know there are few phrases and trends that happen where everyone tries to copy them you know there's this you know when people use the word shorty or swag or whatever along the way

there's always something you know trap drums right now and the whole like mumbled your diary like there's always something that happens you're tired you know it's like there's always something that's a trend that everyone wants to do you know but the thing that

closer did every one of the writers who I know this younger all tried to put in a a small medium sized city like I don't know how much you realize how many writers in the community

emulated what you did as a writer in that song do you did you realize because I don't know if people send you every song the way they were sending everyone else. Well, also people send me songs that sound like other versions of a song that we

would write because they want us to do it. Yeah. So we've heard a bunch. The biggest one for me is talking about drinking. The second line is, I drink too much and that's an issue. Yeah. I got every song was about like drinking too much

and not being sober. If I were sober in a fucking song, another time I'm gonna die. I can't do it. I don't know if that's us totally, but wow. Gotten a lot of those. Do you find it offensive or is it

upsetting that people emulate sort of I don't feel any type of way? Have you, because of the success of those songs were you starting to hear songs on the radio and hearing songs from other artists who are like, that's just a rip of what we do? Or do you not really feel competitive like that?

I think because, well, there are a bunch of people that in our under like the whole what Scrillex did with the Beaver Project and with Jack Hugh and Jacku's a little trappier but what Scrolex did with the Bieber project what Flum was doing

at the time what Kaigo was doing and what we were doing I can't probably like I'd say the four of us kind of like slowed the oh DJ Snake we all like slowed things down and like put hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hop influence into dance music and then everyone went there

Yeah. You know, and it kind of like changed the genre. I don't think we could take credit for that, but like you're part of the move, I guess. It was right around then that, because we've done one session before, and I remember you saying that you wanted, that you were a huge fan of Blink 182, and that you wanted to make music that was more, you know, in a, I don't know, band-esque or whatever, but you wanted to write song-songs. So the goal is to do that Not to do quote like DJ songs Yeah well I feel like Everyone has more song songs now

But at the time it was very like Generic euphoric sounding like top lines About really not much That kind of ruled the EDM world There were a couple outliers that were amazing But I wanted to infuse like the more like indie Or emo phase Something just like this is like it has that euphoric feel to it

But I guess it's also with Chris Martin's on that song. I have this impression. I don't know if this is how that song's written, but I hope it was written where he was... It's a good story. You want me to tell it? Yeah, because I want to think...

What do you think happened? I just think that you were playing a track and he had his headphones on and it was like, I don't know, something just like this. And you were like... And you were like... You know, like, I want to hit this. He's like, I don't know,

something just like this and he mumbled it or something you were like... It's actually incredible. Yeah. So after, like... closer I was kind of doing its thing. This is so funny because I've told like a fake version of this story on stage

every night before we play something just like this and it makes my manager cringe so hard. So I'm going to tell it here. So basically we like get this call it's so funny I'm telling you this. I told us like a million times. We get this call basically like our manager

and met Colplace manager and he was like, I'm going to try to get you guys in the studio with Cole Plamer like sure dude and literally he was like yo tomorrow like Chris is going to be in town and wants to like meet we're like okay and he's like you're going to the studio in Malibu

and we go to this beautiful you know the woodshed in Malibu so we go to the woodshed and first of all we're like floored at that studio I mean you've been there it's absolutely beautiful um we're already intimidated you know

um and we're there for like an hour meeting with that chris's guys were all super sweet and i remember Chris walks in uh just solo dolo and you know

Chris just has like a presence you know and he's a powerful human being and he comes through and we're just like sitting there just like trying to like let him like we don't want to like say you don't want to say too much around someone like that you just want to listen so

and we didn't make I honestly like that much small talk we just like kind of like got into writing and I was like pulling up like beats that I had and we eventually like landed on one and he was like this he's like this is dope let's go and so we started writing stuff and he put on his headphones

and he was like just let me sit with this for a while and he was like writing a bunch of lyrics on his phone and then he's like hey guys I'm like kind of burnt out on this idea whatever like I'm gonna have as you guys work on it a little bit more he's like I gotta go pick up my kids from school and then I'll come back and we'll work on it and I'm like we're like okay like cool we and we got something down and we're like you know that's cool um and then so he dips we like sit there we tinker with it we're like not really sure what to add um we eat dinner he comes back like

like three hours later and sits down to eat with us and like we're just like yeping it up and he's like I think he was like I was like all right well like anyway we basically you know come to the agreement like the vibe's over like everything it's all it is what it is what it is we're like it's okay cool like we got like a one thing tracked with him

was very unfinished and then we call this Uber and Chris was like can you play me some stuff off the chain smoker's album and I played in Paris I played him my type, I think, and I put him the one. And you could see he was like, like, it was his vibe.

And he was like, he's like, you do have anything else that's like not done? And I hail married this like one session, opened it up. And he was like, this is it. Like, let's go on this right now. Cancel the Uber. It was just like piano chords with all these like euphoric pads over it, which is something just like this versus. and he plugged in a mic, put on the headphones,

and just, I don't know if he had headphones, like, just danced around, like, the middle of the woodshed and, like, mumbled all this, like, the do-da-d-d-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Got a couple lines, and sat down and, like, worked a little bit, then mumble again, and I'm sitting there, like, adding layers, trying not to, like, keep everything exciting for him, you know what I mean?

And he's like, okay, I'm ready, plug it, like, goes in, and he just sings the entire first verse through the hook, and I'm like that's what you were mumbling like holy shit that's one of the best records I've ever like that's one of my favorite

cold play records I've ever heard you know what I mean like that like such a magical just structure and topic and I was blown away and I remember getting in like

the Uber after that and we just closed the door and me and Alex with each other we're like let's fucking go like what the fuck just happened it was like purely magical and it was so funny because Chris like in the beginning of the session was like

I don't know where songs come from they're just sent down and me being like okay you usually just got to grind them out right and then I just visibly watched a song be sent down out of nowhere and I was like this guy is a god yeah yeah did you guys try to replicate that session did you guys ever try to do more sessions with them or is it sort of once we haven't since then it's so crazy yeah yeah um There's times where people think they have a hit, but they don't really have a hit. That time you were like, oh, let's go. And you actually...

That song sounded very like the chain smoker sound that was really popular at the time. And Chris Martin was on. I was like, this is going to go. Yeah. Why do you... You know, now that you've proven that you have a voice that sells, you know, with your own voice, why do you still feature a lot of other artists? I like adding other voices to our productions

and I like that it makes every song different and like it adds like flavor and it's kind of like it's a fun thing to do I will say that being said this next album is going to be very minimal yeah part of that weird part of being a DJ versus as a songwriter is that

it's very public how much money DJs make at least on certain deals and stuff like that. I mean they literally have lists of who are the highest paid DJs. They don't really do that for songwriters. Isn't that super invasive? They probably will.

Yeah, oh no. Take that back. No, but isn't that really invasive? Does that have, not to put, does that bother you that people talk or about how much money you guys make or is that? I mean, now, I would prefer not to, I would prefer that they don't. I guess it's better to make the money and have them talk about it than to not make the money.

Yeah, of course, of course. But yeah, it is invasive. So the deal with Vegas, we were talking about, I mean, you literally play there every single week. We do. And I guess there's a lot. almost no reason for you to stop doing that. It's really fun. If it wasn't fun, we'd probably want to stop.

I have done we had a residency at Hawkson for two years. Probably did, or three years, probably did 100 shows there. I've been at the win at Excess, which is my favorite place. It's the best place in Vegas, hands

down, and we've been there for three, this is, we're starting our fourth year. I've done 162 shows there. Wow. Yeah, my poor liver. Do you drink every time you do a show? Yeah, it's hard not to.

Really? Yeah. I mean, once a week, I guess, is... Yeah, once a week. Totally. That's crazy. So, I guess one of the last questions I wanted to ask was, you know, the chain smokers become so big, so fast.

but not it's not a one-hit wonder it's like a five six hit seven hit wonder and you keep adding to this brand anybody who's had success it's like always feels like this wonder like how is this happening you know where do you see the brand of chain smokers how do you feel about you know where you are now and I know you said the next album's minimal but what how do you view it? It's minimal in terms of features. In terms of features. But not production or lyrics or anything.

It's just fully me right now at least. But it's going to be, I want to add key people that I'm really big fans of and I'm trying to add people that are not typical that you wouldn't think of. Is the goal for you

to match do you feel the desire, the need to match any success you've had higher? Hell no. I mean that would be awesome but like I've totally accepted that you can't control that and like we were talking about earlier

we just went to Hawaii with Ian Kirkpatrick and Emily and we the stuff we made I've never believed in more it's like we've also like came back with 15 songs I've never had that much like music before

so Chainsmorgers 4 is going to be the most cohesive real look into us and it's been really I haven't really been inspired by a lot of music recently there's some really great music but like I haven't been really I haven't really seen like how I could take the things that are are innovative right now and work them into our own sound and that is what Ian and and Wheaton also came with us for the second week. Incredible. We just created this new sound

that sounds like the future of chain smokers. That's cool. Like it respects the roots of what we do, but it's very progressive. The things that we're talking about are very introspective and like give you a look and,

you know, I really admire people like drank and drank. Drank. I was thinking of Frank Ocean and Drake at the same time and it came out as drank. Frank Ocean and Drake. Says the guy drinks once a week

Yeah Yeah And And I think I think Halsey did a really good job On this new album Just people that have been like

Cezas great at it That gives you a really good Like slice of their life Yeah In a way that like you That relates to your life And that's Something I really admire

That we could do better That I'm hoping to accomplish here Yeah All right So this final segment I'm going to list five things Five names you can just tell me the first

and it comes off at the top of your hat. Let's go with, you know, the homies. Let's start with Harry, you know, your attorney. Brilliant. Adam, your label exec slash everything else. Adam's the hardest working person I've ever met. Alex, you're bandmate. Wait, did I just give Adam the hardest working one?

Yeah, but you can. I guess, you know. Alex is the wave. Yeah. Yeah. Like everyone fucks with Alex. He's the coolest kid I know. Let's go with Ian Kirkpatrick.

He's a genius. He's a nutty professor. And finally we have to go with Emily Warren. Emily is the... Emily's the biggest vibe person I've ever met. she's she's I gave the wave to Alex thing

you can give it twice yeah I'm not I'm not gonna punish you she's just like she brings the best she gives she'll bring the best out of anybody like she's so fun she listens so well

she's super thoughtful and she's also like the most fun fun I've had more fun with her than most people I've ever met let's throw in a six one let's go your mom I mean, my mom is the most, like, my mom is so thoughtful and caring. And both my parents just really, it's more important for them, to them to be a good person, to their community and the people in their lives than anything else.

And they're also very intuitive. And they don't, they immediately don't, if you're not on a, they don't vibe with you if you're not genuine. and they have a very good radar for that stuff if you're making a choice that's not intrinsic to who you are. Well, thank you for doing this podcast. How long have I been here? Six hours.

No, I mean, look, we're fortunate to talk to a lot of people and obviously a lot of people that you've worked with in the past. Scott, Ian, you know, obviously, Emily. And part of what makes a band sound cohesive is when they write with the same people

or have the same producer. You know, you guys are evolving because you're evolving with a lot of the same people that you came up with. You know, otherwise you're going to, you know, you end up with really drastic differences when you have new writers per album

or new writers per song. and even when you have different features because a lot of your writers are the same because you're producing all of them they still sound like you guys so you know to be an artist where there's

cohesion and evolution at the same time is really difficult and I think it's really impressive that you guys are aware that you're pushing your own envelope and you're not complacent and trying to just repeat the sounds that worked for you instead

what is the new sound what is the new sound and that's going to keep you very successful. Thank you. It's an internal struggle, to be honest. We just always want to do something. You want to say better, but that's not really the right word. It's more like you want to do something that's more true to who you are. And when you're always changing, it's very difficult.

Yeah. Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me tell all the beginning story because I feel like people don't hear that often and it's so important for like I hopefully, the people that are aspiring to do something like this hear how big of a grind it actually was and the grind probably looks completely different today

but you just have to be all in there's no like golden ticket yeah I think it's easy to look at people's discography I always say it's like the stuff in between the hits is way more interesting than how the hits were written the hits were written one day and then you tour and you

push you push sometimes they all have their own journeys they're all interesting stories there are millions of podcasts not millions, thousands of podcasts that deal with with how the hits were written and how they came out

but I mean you're friends with all the same people that we're all friends with each other it's a small industry of people and you there's a reason why you're here you know

it's because you hustle. So, all right, man. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. All right. See, everybody. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed,

be sure to check out our Spotify playlist, or visit our website at and thewriter is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Berg's mom and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. Until next time, this is Ross Bowling.