We here at Ascendance Radio try not to pick favorites when it comes to electronic dance music artists but can’t help but get excited at the mention of a new Tritonal track or event. With that said, it’s no wonder that whenever we have a chance to catch up with the guys of Tritonal, we take it. Check out our fun interview with the guys.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): This is Dayanna with Ascendance Radio and we are here at EDC Orlando with none other than Tritonal!
Chad (Tritonal): What’s up guys?
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): Guys, we have interviewed you more times than we can count and we not only been following your careers from an industry stand point but also as fans. When we look back at how you got started and to where you are today playing massive stages and venues we can’t help but be happy for you knowing that all your hard work and dedication has paid off. When you look back at all your music history over the years, is there any particular moment that you think to your selves “holy shit I cant believe we’re here and this is our life”?
Chad (Tritonal): That’s a good question, there are so many of those that it’s hard to choose one. I think every day that we wake up and were able to pay the bills and do music professionally it’s a blessing and that’s probably the biggest goal we ever achieved- was being able to do what we love and pay our bills and be financially okay doing what we love. All the other achievements are fun and they’re grandiose and I think that they are ego boosters but at the end of the day that’s all we really wanted to do when we signed up for music. I think it’s probably the biggest achievement ever.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): Okay, so I have to say this, that video that you guys put up with Dave with The Tritonal Cap was pretty hilarious. Okay, how did you guys come up with that and are we going to be seeing that a little bit more?
Dave (Tritonal): We love the hat first thought. We just thought of it was a fun idea to get everyone involved in some of our new merch and not only that we like to be funny, we like to enjoy wearing some of our stuff so we just took it to another level and just had fun with it. I sent Chad videos. We were going back and forth on what to do. Just, you know what? That’s funny, it’s not serious, let’s let it out, see what we got.
Chad (Tritonal): I think we’ll see more if it. I think it should be known that Dave’s a funny guy he’s kind of a prankster and kind of a comic so we’re tying to bring that out of him into the world. I think the world needs to see…
Dave (Tritonal): I’m a little bit more reserved.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): It was fucking hilarious! You guys need to do them all the time. So you’ve toured the world played at countless venues and festivals gaining new fans around the world. When gearing up for a performance, what runs through your minds right before going on stage?
Chad (Tritonal): So it’s not right before going on, there’s so much preparation now that we’re running all the visuals live and the audio. We have a editing video from the time we left Austin until today. We were editing video all last night in the hotel rooms. We didn’t sleep last night, flew in, got straight the hotel, plugged in the TV, mapped the visuals. It’s not like oh I’m nervous right now, it’s a lot of… now that we’re doing so much of the show, it’s a lot of prep, everything’s timed from when the power is going to hit, to when the streamers are going to come out to when the big Tritonal LED balls are going to go.
We’re programming shows now and not just going up there and playing whatever records feel good and that’s fun, it’s a lot of fun. The club nights is a little more free flowing because it doesn’t matter as much. With the festivals you get one hour to make it Tritonia and you want to make that hour count. If there’s anything we’re more afraid of the technology failing rather than we’re afraid of our own mistakes. We feel pretty confident in our mixing abilities, our ability to know where to go with music. Now it’s like, is the freaking MadMapper going to crash?
Dave (Tritonal): Is it going to skip digitally. Are we going to have a skipping session with the records?
Chad (Tritonal): So it’s like technology stuff.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): That can be pretty scary. You’ve collaborated with many vocalists and you’ve delivered hit track after hit track in the midst of all the running around and performing some of the highest energy sets we’ve seen. Where do you gather the energy to produce?
Chad (Tritonal): I get inspired by, one just staying in dance music, we host Tritonia every week and so we’re forced to find the music and I’m all the time finding the music can be like wow that’s a good record. That’s one thing and pretty obvious. I think the other things are life choices. You know you could get inspired musically by what you do day in and day out. We like to keep it pretty healthy. We’re both married, lots of time with friends and family, working out, visiting new cities, the traveling, you can get inspired by a sunset as well as just a cool movie. There are so many things to get inspired by I ‘don’t think that’s the problem. I think it’s what you do with that inspiration is what counts, you know what I mean? It’s not the dreaming, it’s the doing.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): Going back to Tritonia, though it still has a little bit to go, it’s getting closer to the 100th episode. What are you going to do for it?
Dave (Tritonal): We’re still piecing together what we’re going to think about doing but it’s going to be awesome. We are definitely coming up with something special, we’re going to make sure that it makes a statement. You know 50 was great but 100 is coming, 100 is fucking coming.
Chad (Tritonal): 100 is coming and we cannot say which city it is so…
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): Video previews maybe.
Chad (Tritonal): Yes, maybe.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): So there seems to be a trend with some dance artists to experiment with new sounds. Oddly enough, this experimentation always seems to happen with sounds that are ranking in the big money like EDM. As much as fans want to believe that every producer is in this because they want to create works of art, artists also have a business to run and what works creatively doesn’t always work financially. So my question to you is where’s the line between being an artist and being a business?
Dave (Tritonal): Cookie cutter, big time. I think if you’re an artist you’ll be like “I want to make something unique, I want to feel inspired” going back to what Chad was saying, it’s just that is where it always has to stem from.
Chad (Tritonal): But the line can get blurry too. I think we’re talented enough to make a lot of different styles of music. Fortunately for Tritonal, all the styles may come and go I feel like we can tackle any of them. We’ve chosen in the midst of a very big room dutch drop market for the last year and half to not really release any of those records, we know how to make them, but we’ve chosen to make tracks like “Satellite” and “Colors” and “Now or Never” and “Anchor” and “Electric Glow.” We’re doing that because to us they’re melodic and they’re songs we can look back on and be proud of and they’re are not just noise. Although we love jumping up and down to crazy de-tuned noise, we want to look back on our careers and feel like we made something that mattered and so music that matters is for us, I think where the line is. You can take a melodic track and make it contemporary and make it playable on BPM and make it edm style so that you are also being business savvy and to that degree, I think we are and there is business and we totally acknowledge that.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): The M35 remix of your latest track, “Anchor” just recently came out it’s gained massive support from the get-go from artists like Hardwell, Nicky Romero, W&W and so many more. Can you guide us thorough the process on how this track came together and how long you’ve been working on it on the release of the track?
Chad (Tritonal): It came together really first I think. M35 is a new talent and there was only one revision, that was all him. He was chosen to make that record impactful like we just talked about and the big room Dutch sound, something effective for the clubs, that’s what it is. It’s a record to play live. We can’t take credit for what he did at all. We sent him the track, we sent him the parts. We asked him to come up with an idea and he came up with a cool one and it just so happened to stick. My actual favorite mix is probably the Lush & Simon mix which is coming next, a lot more melodic, definitely dark. They took it to a minor key so we will see how that one does, maybe it doesn’t do as well because its not as trendy but again, we’re tying to keep our releases balanced.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): So as artists get bigger some may lose sight of the importance of fan interaction. From what anyone can see on your social media pages, you take the time to actively engage with your fans, holding many contests, sharing their posts and the art that they create for you, how do you manage to maintain that level of interaction especially given your busy schedules?
Dave (Tritonal): That’s because that’s why we’re here, they’re the ones who put us where we are. It’s paying it forward, it’s respect also. They support us, we’re supporting them.
Chad (Tritonal): A lot of them have just become friends as we’ve talked to them more and more. We’ve got some that are on the Tritonia page that we now know because they are always commenting on our stuff and they are always coming to the shows, and they’re always supporting. It’s developing and maintaining a community more than it is like, “you’re our fan, blah, blah, blah.” We like to keep it as humble and as real as we can.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): That’s cool. So as the end of year approaches, its often the time to think about new year’s resolutions, if you were to come up with a resolution for 2015 strictly music related what would make it on your list?
Chad (Tritonal): Finish the next Tritonal album and release it. We just started it. There’s a big long hill ahead of us. We just know what goes into an album, we’re not new, it’ll be our sophomore album. It needs to sound better, way better than the last one and we are pretty confident that it will work but that takes work.
Dayanna Ramirez (Ascendance Radio): Awesome, guys always a pleasure, thank you so much.
Chad (Tritonal): Thank you for having us.
Dave (Tritonal): Thanks again.
For more information on Tritonal, check out the Official Tritonal Website, visit the Tritonal Facebook Page, or keep up to date by following Tritonal on Twitter.
