Prior to their debut at DGTL Festival in Amsterdam this April, the San Francisco trio PillowTalk sat down with Pulse Radio to shed some light on how such an inspirational musical project was born and where its heading today as part of the Crew Love gang.
Thanks for talking to us guys! So, how excited are you to kick off this year’s festival season with DGTL Festival? Thanks for having us again. We love playing in and visiting Amsterdam. It hosts some of the best festivals in the world and we enjoy a lot. People love dancing and it's a great honor to share our music with such a great crowd of people and artists.
It must feel like such an honor to be a part of the stellar lineup. Do you guys have any favorites you’ll have to catch playing over the weekend? It's always so much fun playing with Crew Love and we all support and stick around for each other's sets. Besides that, Robag Wruhme is one of our all time favorite friends and DJs. John Talbot and Gui Boratto will be great to see. Both day’s line-ups are not to be missed and will be fun to romp around.
Lets talk about how you guys got to where you are today as PillowTalk. When did it all start to come together for you as a group? Ryan and Sammy started free styling vocal ideas and melodies on the piano and when I moved back to San Francisco from LA in 2010. I stayed in the studio for 4 months, and during that time we were able to really establish the direction we wanted our music to go and also design the live show together. When Sammy and Ryan took "Love Makes Parks" to DEMF in 2010 and Seth Troxler fell in love with it and picked it up for Visionquest, we knew then that we had something unique and special on our hands.
Had you guys ever produced together before? No, but Sammy and I were neighbors back in ‘02. He was working on music with Justin Martin and I was producing my own music and remixes on Om Records at the time. I also had a small bootleg project and label for a couple if years called XMP.
Have there been any ‘make-it or break-it’ moments along the road? Not really. Traveling and being away from home and your loved ones is one of the hardest parts of being on tour. Finding the balance has been hard, but makes it very special when we do come home.
So who does what exactly in the band? Do you switch it up sometimes? Sammy is the front man on lead vocals. Ryan is the instrumentalist, playing keys, synth, guitar and bass. I run and control the live show from my laptop and also mix and engineer while playing keys, synths and singing background vocals. We're really happy with the flow and dynamic of our show, but expect some surprises in the new album tour.
Explain what it’s like to produce a classic PillowTalk track like Strange Love. How long does the composing process take? Either Ryan or Sammy will come to me with vocal melody or track idea and I will throw down a drum beat and record them. Ryan and I will spend allot of time picking the perfect sounds and creating the groove. Ryan writes majority of lyrics and then him and Sammy and I will create the vocal melodies and harmonies. Then we add vocoders, synths or instruments to round the out the track. We all sit down together to do the arrangement and then I'll mix it down for mastering.
You guys produce some of the smoothest, sexiest electronic tracks out there. How would you explain the fuse of sounds that make PillowTalk so beautifully original? We each have a vast taste in music and find a common ground when it comes to soul and R&B music. There is something very special and unique about writing and composing songs versus tracks. The lyrics that carry the PillowTalk sound speak to everyone and anyone, they come from the heart and from the soul. It allows us to speak to our diverse, worldly audience in a language that they can all understand and relate to.
Are there any artists who have been particularly influential to you? Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Beach Boys and Stevie Wonder. There are so many to choose but these are a few of our all time favsies.
DGTL Festival is hosting a Crew Love stage this year, featuring the likes of Soul Clap, Wolf + Lamb, Tanner Ross, and of course you three. How excited are you to be spending the day performing with your closest friends? I'll put it to you like this: "Crew Love is True Love".
Crew Love is undoubtedly one of the best parties on the circuit right now, simply because of the beautiful vibes (and tunes) you guys give off while playing as a crew. How did the whole Crew Love alliance come about? It all started with Wolf + Lamb, then there is Gadi's label Double Standard. Soul Clap started their own label as well. The common factor was that it featured all the same artists and had similar vibe and vision. It really came together at the shows. No one label or artist wanted to take precedence over the other. The idea of branding everything into one package was brilliant and started as a joke, but then ended up creating these parties into a really tight family.
So finally, when you boys aren’t PillowTalk-ing, what kind of things are you getting into? I can't speak for the boys but I stay super busy running my label Touch Of Class Records and working on my weekly Wednesday SF party, Housepitality, and producing music with my other project Signal Flow.
Catch PillowTalk at Sankeys Manchester on Thursday April 17th and DGTL Festival on the Crew Love Stage with Soul Clap, Wolf + Lamb and more on Saturday, April 19. For more info, visit: dgtlfestival.com