Entertainment

Published on April 26th, 2012 | by Ilenia Cangelosi

EDM Insider Interviews Tritonal at Pacha NYC

After only three short years as a trance duo, American natives Chad Cisneros and Dave Reed have gone from being labeled ‘newcomers’, to top names in the trance and electronic music industry. They’ve made a name for themselves on major labels such an Armada, Flashover Recording and Anjunabeats, as well as their own label ‘Air Up There Recordings’ and they have found a comfortable spot on the DJ Mag Top 100 DJ’s List.

Their debut artist album “Piercing the Quiet” released on May 9th, 2011, holds Seven TOP 20 Beatport singles including four that held #1 position on the trance charts. “Lifted’ held the #1 position for nearly three weeks, followed by “Still with Me” (featuring Cristina Soto), monster collaboration with Ben Gold “Slave (club dub)“, and most recently “Can’t Keep It In” featuring Jeza. Their phenomenal remix album is said to release this June and it is no surprise that Tritonal is not slowing down anytime soon with their count of 100+ original releases and loyal following of ‘Tritonians’ growing by the day. EDM Insider got a chance to catch up with them before their Pacha Main Stage Debut on April 19th, 2012 to discuss their rapid growing success, new artist album, and what the Tritonians can expect in the upcoming months.

EDM Insider 1: Where did the name ‘Tritonal’ originate from?

Tritonal Dave: There’s actually a really cool story behind that. When we started getting into the whole collaboration we wanted to come up with a name. We came up with so many terrible names. We needed to find something that described us. We needed something that was very energetic and, you know.. musical. So we stumbled upon Tritonal. The triton is a diminished fifth of a piano and it also relates to an explosive, so there’s a little bit of us in there and there’s music in that; we were like this clicks, this works , this is cool.

EDM Insider 2: Trace back to the beginning: What are some of your most memorable moments when you were first discovered as staples in the trance community?

Tritonal Chad: Looking back, some of the coolest moments had to be opening for Above & Beyond and then holding up the vinyl copy of ‘Lights Over Austin’ which we signed to Anjunabeats, that was cool. That gig was in Austin, we played for our home crowd and it was like, we hadn’t made it yet, we weren’t touring yet. We were still hitting the streets lined up with promoters, but at the same time we had records on Flashover, Armada, etc. Another one was not even a year into our project and we had opened for Ferry Corsten in Austin and he was really, really gracious to us. We gave him a couple of tracks and he signed them the next day. I don’t know, three or four months later we were playing with him in LA at Vanguard for the Flashover Showcase. It was sold out and it was like our first BIG show, it was 2500 people rammed wall to wall in LA and it was amazing. We had such a good time. So yea, those are two of our very memorable moments during our first year.

EDM Insider 3: How does it feel going from newcomers, being newly introduced on ‘Trance Around the World’ and ‘A State of Trance’ radio shows, to becoming house-hold recognized names with your very own loyal following of “Tritonians’ in just three short years and having your own label?

Tritonal Dave: It feels rewarding, I mean we’ve done a lot, we’ve done like 15,000 hours of work in the studio, and not only that but reaching out and getting gigs. Chad would go online and try to find out who else to hit up. We’ve done a lot of work on all ends, I mean not just music is what I’m saying. Now what it boils down to, we’ve attracted so many people on so many levels around the world, it’s now developing into this really cool, ‘Tritonians unite’.

EDM Insider: It’s like an army.

Tritonal: Laughs

Dave: We never would have thought that was going to happen. It’s like a very cool, very unique click that we have with our fans.

Chad: It’s really cool, they’re devoted, and we’re devoted.

EDM Insider 4: So how did you guys come to collaborate?

Tritonal Dave: It was an online thing. We met online; we were a couple of nerds. We met on an audio design forum. We started talking about a synthesizer, it’s called a ‘CI’, the thing came out, it was supposed to be amazing. It really was but at the same time it wasn’t. But the technology, I don’t want to get into the details, but the technicalities of it… it had problems.

Chad: And a big part of us on that forum, figuring out how the hell this thing worked properly, and through that we became friends. We shared tracks, became friends on IM. And listened to radio shows together, talked about what we led, what we didn’t like, and Dave eventually came down to Austin. We wrote a few tracks together, the synergy happened and Dave was blessed to have a family that supported him, that young, in making that move. When he came we were full time in the studio, and that was the beginning. And now it’s four years later…

EDM Insider: And it’s going wonderfully….

Tritonal: (With big smiles) Yeah….

EDM Insider 5: How do you try to differentiate yourselves from industry leaders like Armin van Buuren, Markus Schulz, and Above and Beyond who have been in the dance community for ten or more years? And how do you try to differentiate yourselves from constant flow of new artists in the EDM community?

Tritonal Chad: That’s actually a really good question because we’re already making the same beats, our rhythm is still always one, two, three, four….it’s all about vocals and melodies and hooks, and it even comes down to our image, what we look like, how we are on stage, things we do and how we interact with our fans.

Dave: I also think a big part of it is interaction too. Its like, how can you get everyone to be a part of you, where they can feel like they’re interacting with you and making a contribution to what you’re doing? And that is one of the biggest things that we’ve done a lot…

Chad: And another thing that makes us unique, you don’t hear the same Tritonal records and tracks over and over. It’s all weird and different, you can hear and tell its Tritonal because maybe the writer, the melodies, good vocals. We try to keep it weird. That’s the theme of Austin and that’s kind of our theme too. And going forward, differentiating ourselves… It’s tracks that stick out to you, when you hear it you know its a Tritonal record because there’s something about it that just doesn’t sound like anything else. We’re not gimmicky, we don’t have anything that we try to pull off like a hat, or something on stage, a suit or anything like that. We want our music to speak for itself and come across as classy. And have the fans devoted to the music and not some weird thing that were doing, does that make sense?

EDM Insider 6: Yes, absolutely. I know you don’t necessarily consider yourselves trance artists; You throw some electronic in there, a little of everything. How did you work together to develop your specific sound which is very great and very unique?

Tritonal: Laughs. In synchronicity, “That’s very hard.”

Dave: That’s funny because originally we were trance heads, that’s how it started. Like 138…full on Trance. We’ve gone from way back to now… it’s fair to call ourselves musicians.

Chad: We’re not settled to any one specific genre. You listen to our album, the sound is all different. We love that kind of stuff, it’s different. We want to step out a little. It shows that we are artists, like we were talking about earlier. Where that came from, that evolution wasn’t a conscious decision of us trying to be any one thing. It was like, us playing in clubs, playing all kinds of records trying to figure out what the hell we like to play and what we got a great reactions from, and combining those two things. We like this, they like this, let’s go with this. Yea, this works, we can all be happy with this. I think that’s where the club mixes really came from. It takes the melody of this track you love and it takes the vocals that you love, but it puts it into something like, cool. And early on, that just wasn’t the case. We would write tracks like ‘Walk With Me‘, and ‘Lights Over Austin‘, and All these songs…(Laughs.)

Dave: A lot of experimenting…..

Chad: Yea like, these songs are great to listen to, but they just…I can’t imagine playing those records on the floor now. You might chill out to them, but you don’t necessarily….

EDM Insider: It takes time and much development over the years, it’s a process.

Chad: “Yea, it is. That’s the point, right? I think that’s why we’re not so typical, it’s because we’re trying to keep it new, as something that works on the floor.”

EDM Insider 7: And you guys have done a great job at that and have a very unique sound, it works. You released your first debut artist album “Piercing the Quiet” in 2011, and you are soon receding to release “Piercing the Quiet Extended Mixes”. How did you guys decide what direction you were going with the sound of the album and track selection? What prompted you to release the Extended Mixes compilation?

Tritonal: Yes, the remix album is coming in June. We released some previews and introduced some songs at A State of Trance 550, it’s coming.

Dave: The sound that we came to, going back to how we like to evolve musically, we had so many inspirations on some of the sounds, we always do. We didn’t want to sound typical, we wanted to try and make something special and unique.

Chad: Something that you can remember like “Everafter”, and some of the other vocal tracks on there. And with the extended mixes, the remixes that are coming out, its just bringing the tracks back to life so people can relate to them as well. We wanted to branch out. I think the Artists like Super8 & Tab, Stoneface & Terminal, Raphael Frost, Mat Zo, Ronski Speed are all on the album and you know, it’s cool. We even got a dubstep remix by this guy 7Skies of “Still With Me” and it’s just PHENOMENAL. And “Seven Lines”, and he did a dub step remix for Above & Beyond which is where we heard of this guy. He remixed “You Gotta Go” for them and that went to Beatport #1 and I was like, man that would be so cool to have. Because “Still With Me” is a half time track, it was written at that tempo already. We had to change it up and warp it to make a club mix out of it, it was actually very soft. It hit number 1. That track was originally written much more like that than the club mix…it’s really cool to see him tweak that out and do something cool with it.

EDM Insider 8: Where does some of your musical inspiration come from and who are some of the artists that have inspired you over the years?

Tritonal Chad: I think some of the big names that we both like are Chris from Coldplay. I really like how they write. I think it’s cool how they have the white piano and they write lyrics on it and then at the end of the album they repaint it. I think that’s so cool. What else….?

Tritonal Dave: Really, all kinds of artists… We like to look into a lot of music and like, dissect it. Some of our favorite stuff, not that it necessarily has to do with any one thing, like Linkin Park and Pink Floyd. All kinds of stuff. I mean, of course there’s Armin and Tiesto, that’s all EDM, but outside of that you’ve got some of the hip-hop stuff as well like Rhianna, all kinds of stuff.

Chad: Yea, going back I think, like U2, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, even way back Sasha & Digweed when they were first doing stuff, you know what i mean, Drum & Bass. Those were amazing days, those days don’t exist anymore. We were talking about this earlier, we play all Tritonal records in our sets but way back when DJs we first starting out, like Oakenfold, Sasha & Digweed, DJ Dan, they would play these sets and you’ve never heard these records, they were records that you couldn’t even get. It was all about the night and the experience; it wasn’t about worshipping the DJ. It was all about going, having a good time with your friends and dancing all night. The rooms were dark and sometimes you didn’t even see the DJ, much less worship him on an LED board, you know what I mean? And so it’s a much more commercialized day now. So staying current with that is important, but I think we have roots in the other as well which is important too.

EDM Insider 9: Your latest single alongside Ben Gold entitled “Apex” will be releasing on April 23rd. Where did the idea for this follow up track to your first collaboration “Slave” come from? How did you and Ben Gold begin producing together?

Tritonal Dave: “He was actually going to the remix “Slave” but then we had the whole idea of, let’s do a collab and it turned into something completely fresh. And, so, Why not! So we did a follow up to it and everyone’s loving it. It’s a really fun track, you can tell its totally like 2.0. We even used the same project ball. We’re not afraid to say it, we kept the project ball because the compressor settings were just how we wanted them, the effects channels were exactly how we wanted them, some of the sounds are the same layers and stuff. But Ben had this melody that he wrote three years ago, it was called “Oxygen” and Gareth Emery played it a lot in his sets but he was like “Man, I could never get this track the way I wanted it….”.

Tritonal Chad: “He had the melody, but he could never get the sound design and the arrangement right and he felt like we nailed it on “Slave”. He was like, “I’ve got this track, I think the melodies perfect for it, but let’s plug in our slave ideas into this project”, and we did and it’s been great.”

EDM Insider: Well your fans are very supportive, bringing it to number 1. Hopefully we will do it again with “Apex.

Tritonal: Smiles and laughs, “Yea, hopefully…”

EDM Insider 10: How was your experience in being part of the two closing parties for ‘A State of Trance 550’, in both Miami and Den Bosch? How was each event different?

Tritonal Chad: They were SO different…..so the first one in Miami was a blast, there was a jumbotron and Armin would come on there… It was really cool. They had the lights and everything and the energy was through the roof. In Den Bosch it was a little bit different; it was more of an enclosed environment. Miami was smaller, in Den Bosch there were stages everywhere. We had just our fans, come to our stage, A State of Yellow. It was a lot more spread out. It was a fun experience, it was totally cool. What was different about Den Bosch that was better than Miami, not from a stage perspective, but from a networking perspective is that they had this massive artist room that had food and drinks, and I mean.. EVERYBODY was back there: Cosmic Gate, Arty, even Armin, and everyone. Kyau & Albert, Stoneface & Terminal, they were all back there, kicking’ it. It was so cool to catch up with so many industry icons and to be able to hang out. They would play, and then they would come back and then they would play, and it was cool. We didn’t have that in Miami; Miami was harder because it was Ultra…

EDM Insider: They had the artists secluded I saw….

Tritonal: Right, they had us secluded. There were trailers.

Chad: So I think Den Bosch was better for the networking and for the club. A State of Blue and A State of Green were amazing. We wish we would have played those stages, maybe next year. Laughs.

EDM Insider 11: You have produced tracks with several powerhouse vocalists such as Cristina Soto, Jeza, Jenry R., Fisher, and Meredish Call, as well as collaborated with artist Ben Gold. “Slave” was a chart topper and I don’t doubt that “Apex” will be as well. What can you tell us about your experience doing collaboration work and what can we expect in the near future?

Tritonal Chad: Well, it’s always awesome with Cristina because she lives in Austin. And because, we’re great friends so we can be like (jokingly) ‘Cristina… That was horrible.’ Laughs. It was harder with some of the other ones, like with the collaborations made online like with Fisher and Jenry R., because they’re in another state and another city, and we’re having to communicate back and forth and send samples back and forth, it was more hands on.

Dave: It was a little more difficult, communicating with them online…it was different.

Chad: Each collaboration was different. With Fisher, she has her husband who is an esteemed and established writer and the communication went through him. With Jenry R., we paid for him to get in the studio. Meredith was in Austin, so that was really cool. Jeza was in Hong Kong when she wrote her lyrics; she would write them on the laptop and we would send them back and forth, and then she finally went to the studio and laid them down. It’s really different with every person. We’re going to try to do some different stuff going forward, not as typical as we’ve done in the past. We’re going to try and do some stuff with vocalist that we HAVEN’T worked with because we always want to keep it moving forward and keep it fresh. We don’t just want to hag out the same stuff. Keep it Fresh.

EDM Insider: Well we are very excited for the remix album and all that Tritonal has in store for us in the future… I look forward to seeing you guys at Pacha later tonight.

Interview by: Ilenia Cangelosi

About the Author

Ilenia Cangelosi Ilenia Cangelosi is a native New Yorker with a passionate "MBA" in Electronic Dance Music. A long time connoisseur of dance music having been exposed to New York City nightlife at a young age, Ilenia loves everything EDM from Trance, Minimal, Techno, House, Drum&Bass and all things world festivals. Follow Ilenia (@miSziLenia) on Twitter & Instagram to stay up to date on the latest & greatest in all things EDM!