While keeping the funk alive at The BUKU Music + Art Project, Chromeo sits down with VIBE to open up about their highly anticipated, four-years-in-the-making White Women LP. Dave 1 snacks on his cliff bar and P Thugg sits dripping Fools Gold swag aside talking upcoming album, A$AP Ferg, and how “guys are shmucks.” White Women is set top drop May 12th. Prepare to be swooned.
VIBE: Can you describe your White Women LP in four words or less?
Dave 1: Happy
P Thugg: Sexy
Dave 1: Dance-y
Your single off the album, “Jealous (I ain’t with it),” had that sick A$AP Ferg Cameo. What other surprises can we expect from you guys?
Dave: We have Solange, Toro Y Moi- but that’s all been announced already. I can’t think of moves we haven’t made…
P Thugg: Surprises wouldn’t be surprises. If people knew about the A$AP Ferg cameo before, it wouldn’t be as badass.
Dave: You know what was funny? When that video came out, for the first half of the day nobody wrote about it ‘cause I think Pitchfork didn’t watch the video ‘til the end or something and they didn’t write it in their description but then one guy on twitter was like “Is that A$AP Ferg?” I retweeted and then for the rest of the day it’s all everybody talked about.
So is no publicity the best publicity prevalent?
Dave: No, but make your own publicity.
This is your first studio album in four years. How would you describe the journey from the ‘Fancy Footwork’ days to ‘Come Alive’?
Dave: We’re really grateful that we got a shot. A lot of bands don’t do four albums and keep growing. We just challenge ourselves. Like how to stay dope after so many records and be fresh.
So with staying fresh, you guys have been tapping more into the dance music industry with recent remixes (i.e. Boys Noize, etc.)…
Dave: We’ve always been down with those guys but you gotta cover all angles. We want to be the only band that remixes Boys Noize and has Ferg in their video. We want to be the only band that has Ezra from Vampire Weekend on their album…
P Thugg: And Solange on another track
Dave: And Pat Mahoney from LCD on another track. And then have gold teeth. That’s our wave. Even though our music is really specific, in the fact that it’s got this ’80s thing and not a lot of people do that- we want to be unique in the way we connect certain dots.
Aside from festival gigs, what can people expect out of your live shows?
Dave: Well, we’re going to change our whole live show for upcoming festivals. [Including Coachella] So we don’t want to reveal too much but…
P Thugg: There’s going to be an epilepsy warning. You’ll have to sign a waiver.
You guys played five shows at SXSW this year, Schoolboy Q in a recent interview came out talking about how it was all corporate now – having played it for numerous years, what are your thoughts?
Dave: It is corporate.
P Thugg: I mean that’s how things evolve. It starts off small, cool and for bands that nobody really knows- undiscovered bands, then people get on it and then people see money and you know bigger acts come in so it’s just the nature of the beast. I can’t really hate on it. I mean, you can.
Schoolboy Q did…
Dave: The thing is Schoolboy Q gets those corporate checks too, we get them too. You just got to navigate those waters carefully because obviously there are great opportunities for bands. You just don’t want to give fans the impression that you’re only doing this because of the Dorito’s check you got. That would just look corny.
P Thugg: But Doritos is great too.
Dave: You just got to do it with a bit of subtlety. Our big thing was- look we’re going to come, yes SXSW has become a very brand heavy, tech heavy, corporate heavy, festival but you know at least we’ll play five shows so that any Chromeo fan can probably see us once. It’s not like we’re coming just once and doing the super private YouTube party. We’re doing five shows; you’re going to catch us. That was our way to circumvent.
Dave, you stated in an interview recently with Rolling Stones “all guys are shmucks.” Can you elaborate on that? Your songs sort of unveil that stereotype.
Dave: Yeah but they’re embracing it too. What I meant by that is that all guys can have an insecure, jealous, vulnerable side and we talk about it instead of glorifying the macho, player side all the time. Yeah that’s what we meant.
Photo Credit: diegoinfocusphotography