Sedona Schat and Noah Yoo | Image by Peter Slattery via NYU Local

Among the box of definable musical artists, there are those that remain straddling genre lines with their unique sound and overall artistic persona, artists that break the mold and all the while stay true to who they are. One of those artists is Cafune, a local New York band made up of NYU students, Sedona Schat and Noah Yoo. The band was born in 2014 after a collaborative school project. A year later, Cafune released their first EP, titled "Love Songs for No One" and a few months after released their newest single "Don't Forget," an ode to the ambiguities that come with self-love and the trivialities of self-doubt. Sedona's cool crisp vocals perfectly weave along their upbeat, alternative-esque, dance sound that perfectly masks the not-so dance-provoking lyrics their songs often have.

I spoke with the band over the summer to talk about their experience in navigating through the present day's musical climate, their musical inspirations and that one time Pharrell bobbed along to their new single.

What made you decide to pursue music?

Sedona Schat: I took various music lessons when I was a kid. I did violin and guitar and choir, I did magical choir in high school which is like Italian Renaissance style singing. I got my guitar when I was 10 and I started writing when I was 13.

Noah Yoo: I played violin when I was little, then I stopped when I got to high school because I got sick of it. And then I started to pick up bass guitar, and from there I kept picking up instruments and played in bands throughout high school. When I got here, I was getting tired of having to rely on other people to make music, so I forced myself to learn how to make beats and then I got tired of that. Then I started doing the band with Sedona.

That sounds like an organic transition.

S: Full circle.

N: We did a project together for school, so that's the first time we worked together. Then we were friends before that. So when the project went well, the summer afterwards we said we should write more music. One weekend I was like crashing at her place before I moved into my other apartment and that's when we wrote a song.

Name some musical artists that you look to for inspiration.

S: A big part of what makes our dynamic work as a band is a core set of artists that we both really see eye to eye. So The Stories, Daft Punk, Phoenix, The Killers and The Two Door Cinema Club. Obviously the enthusiasm for Daft Punk, The Strokes, The Phoenix and The Killers trumps that of Two Door Cinema Club but Two Door was the first thing we ever talked about.

N: A lot of these artists are dumb, big, like ridiculous festival headline artists. But those are the ones we just clicked on as far as when we discuss the type of music we want to make or what we want to do with our music.

S: We're really inspired by, particularly by Daft Punk, how they've created a methodology and a culture surrounding the band and the music.

N: I reference the Smiths all the time for songwriting and guitar arrangements.

N: We also, or I at least, reference our friends’ music. A lot.

S: Oh yeah! Like Biro.

N: Yeah like our friend Birocratic, he makes instrumental hip-hop, kind of Nubajes-esque. It's very different from our shit but it's so well done that it’s crazy inspirational. He's dope.

How would you guys describe your sound?

N: When we first started the band, the single focal point that we were on was making really upbeat, feel good music. We were preoccupied with that but over time we realized that while the music itself is really upbeat and happy, the lyrics aren't at all (laughs).

S: Oh my god. It depends. Well, occasionally. I'm a bag of emotions! I just in general really enjoy the idea of making upbeat music. Like, “it's okay to be like melancholy and still dance around.” I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of those two things and something that we both talked about a lot is the foundation of [our music]. Noah and I come from different worlds almost. He grew up as the “internet kid” and I was sitting in my room with my guitar. He went to a science and tech high school and I went to high school in the middle of nowhere. So initially we sort of put it as, "digital boy-analog girl" and I think it like goes beyond that .

N: Yeah we stopped using that tag line.

S: The central idea of it is utilizing the best of both worlds. Using and celebrating the human elements of playing live instruments and writing songs that aren't just about here's the hook and here’s the drop. Also, we really really like electronic music. We love French electronica. People can do fucking amazing things with just computers.

Inspiration behind the EP?

S: Both of us were in long term relationships and I had never really fully committed to writing romantic songs before and part of it was if I'm not with that person anymore then it would feel weird writing a love song to him or about him, so we called the EP "Love Songs for Other People" just because it's kind of funny working with a friend on very, very romantic and intimate music about other people. That's the basic idea of the EP, a perspective on romantic relationships and the romantic relationship is not.

N: It's not in the music. It's just a reference.

S: Basically, the intro and the reprise tracks are instrumentals that Noah had long before we ever considered putting it on the EP. Super last minute, but they reinforce the theme of the EP which is "let's just like be in love right now but it's probably not going to last very long." So "Warm Body and Runaway" is also kind of about that. And "Fall Asleep Slow" has some lines that kind of refer to that same thing, but it's more related to personal struggle and how that affects your perspective, so it's a little bit more about anxiety. But yeah, the general idea of the EP is temporary love and enjoying it and recognizing that it is temporary.

N: With stuff like "Lay Low" and "Warm Body," I wanted to see how far to the electronic side we could really go without it not sounding like us. I think we kind of figured out where we stand on that. Most of the songs in the EP are bright and our music in general tends to be very bright.

Tell me about your music process. Do you make the beats first then add the lyrics or do you write it all together?

S: It totally depends.

N: Yeah because right now we're not working on an album, just singles. Or a stream of singles.

S: When we were making the EP, I spent a semester in Paris. During that period, we would make demos and send them to each other and add stuff remotely. Sometimes Noah has a beat and I write on top of it. Sometimes I write a song and I bring it and we work on top of it. Sometimes we write together.

N: Whatever our schedule allows honestly. It's not the type of thing where, well, Sedona is the principal songwriter. Whenever we talk to people that is what we say, but I’m not just gonna stop and wait for Sedona to make chorus values or whatever. We're going to do whatever we want to do.

S: And vice versa as well.

N: Exactly. Sedona writes beats and I write guitar lines sometimes. There really is no one thing. It's easy for people to digest it if we both said Sedona is the songwriter and I'm the producer. But we...

S: Really don't like that.

N: We don't like that dynamic because a lot of the times the producer is given more power in that situation and so often the power dynamic is all fuck-y. I’d much prefer a band situation. I don't even like the duo situation because it implies that one person makes the tracks and one person top lines, when in reality our writing process is way more complex and way more involved.

S: It's tough because that means every time we (make music), the roles, what we’re expecting from the other person changes. So the roles aren't really well defined. Even that is sort of a thing that transforms and changes. I don't know, I think it has made us better writers.

N: Definitely more adaptable.

When Pharrell came to your school, he was able to give feedback on one of your tracks and I heard he really liked your bridge.

S: It was pretty cool when he said that. Noah from now on, his ego with bridges, is permanently...

N: Okay, even before Pharrell said that, in high school, my songwriting thing was always like bridges.

S: Oh, I know.

N: In high school, I had friends who were way better songwriters than me. Whenever they would bring something to me, they would always say, "Okay but it doesn't have a bridge so you have to write a bridge."

S: My thing is the second verses.

N: Second verses! Very good at the second verses.

S: So clearly we’re a top 10 hit.

N: (Laughs) Top 10 hit makers. Second verses and bridges, no hook. No chorus, no catchy part. Spoken word, verse and a bridge.

S: The thing with Pharrell was really funny because I was sitting right next to him so I couldn't see his face when the song was playing. I was just sitting there trying to see out of my peripheral. He reacted physically when the bridge came up and tapped his foot and everything.

N: Yeah, but up until that point he wasn't moving and I was definitely hating it and I was like, oh no.

And you were also thinking, "Oh god, everything’s being filmed.”

S + N: Yeah yeah yeah!

S: A bunch of random people just watching this happen.

N: And I'm just like, please bob your head, please clap. Please. Please. But it was awesome, honestly. It was great to get that feedback from somebody that I look up to. It felt really great.

In the video, your professor said, “There’s a great emphasis on fame and fortune and getting rich and getting everybody to know your name but anybody who makes and loves music knows that it’s really about creativity.” How does Cafune navigate through the present musical climate and the demands of the mainstream?

S: I can approach that in a couple different ways but we have to, as students who are graduating, find a way to be able to stay in New York. I think sometimes people place making money in opposition with genuinely creative and I definitely don't think that needs to be the case.

N: Yeah, not at all.

S: One thing that I really appreciate our program for is knowing what you're doing and knowing how to defend yourself in an industry whose culture is definitely taking advantage of artists. The nice thing is that without a crazy amount of effort, we actually have been able to make a little bit of money. Beyond the straightforward financial question, how do you make money and be an artist in this environment? I think about how fame and success and how they're tied into money is really interesting.

N: The thing about being an artist is that—well, even going to NYU. Either your parents have to be loaded or you have to get a scholarship or you have to get loans up the ass. In both our situations it's the latter. We had to take loans because both of us wanted to be here in the city so badly. Obviously the education was great, too, but the same thing goes for the art. Most people can't afford to have a career in making music or be an artist just because the odds of success are so low. Success in any tangible way, that is. And so realistically you have to have a day job and lots of people seem to think that's weird. Does that devalue your art? Does that make your music less significant? No. Artists for centuries have always needed patrons to exist. Every great painter had some royal that paid him butt loads of money.

S: Not necessarily butt loads of money but enough money to...

N: Enough to not starve. Same thing goes for us, eventually we would like to get to a place where this could be our full time thing, but until then we’re just gonna keep working our asses off.

When you’re in this business, you're definitely not in it for the money.

N: You cannot. You just can't. It doesn't make sense.

People see pop music as its own genre, not understanding that "pop" means "popular." I think pop music is just a combination of any of the classic genres.

S: Because at this point there's pop rap as opposed to just rap. There's pop rock, there's pop electronic versus.

What should listeners expect from Cafune in the next year?

N: So 2016 is mostly focused on singles. We want to build a fanbase now that we have a full fledged project under our belts. It makes more sense for us to focus on making these individual songs as good as they can be without having to worry about the premise of a larger project. We also both really enjoy working on the projects. We could probably do another cover or two this summer.

S: We've been doing a Spinner’s cover live. I don't know if we would ever really record that one but every time Drake comes out with new music, we just want to do another Drake cover.

N: Yeah we can't do another Drake cover.

S: But we've talked about doing a "To Be Real" cover, which would be fun. Our professor is always telling me to listen to all this disco music, so I think that could be a fun process to explore.

Check out their upcoming show on July 27th at SOB's. More info here.