Scotty and Andrew are a walking representation of the duality they hope to create with their music. Just recently, Two Owls threw down at the Rialto and I got the chance to catch up with them after their set to talk about their start as Night Owls, all the way to their upcoming performance at Escape in San Bernardino, California.
Andrew is a California native who first got into the EDM scene in 2008 and fell in love with Dubstep. He didn’t start making music until 2012 in which he was running a music blog under the alias Night Owl. At this point in his life, he met Florida residing Scotty who got his start with EDM back in 2007 with Tiesto and Benny Benassi, before he got into breakbeats and Drum and Bass which gained mass popularity in Florida. S: “The first parties I went to and it was all mostly breakbeats and Drum and Bass and Badboy Bill in 2007.” Florida is a very EDM centric place alongside Las Vegas and California, and as it just so happens, Scotty was also running a music blog under the alias, Night Owl.
The two started making music together and merged together still under the alias Night Owls. The more and more that they worked together with the more than their brand and their sound started to develop and become their own. As they gained more traction in their music career a roadblock occurred in their branding. Insomniac is famous for the owl symbolism as well as their own line of Night Owl content which forced them to re-brand. Re-branding isn’t easy but luckily for them, they were ready to go with a new concept. S: “We always liked the idea of duality, we both look different from each other, we kind of have opposite personalities so it only made sense for our name to reflect that.:
Andrew is a more quiet and laidback guy who has a creative mind and a love for creating. A: “I’ve always been an artist it just took me awhile to figure out the medium that I wanted to create on and I love painting but music really stuck with me.” It was also really cool to see his love of video games come out as we talked more and more. For me, as a kid, I was bullied a lot so video games were my escape and for a big name producer to share this passion it made me appreciate their work that much more.
Scotty is an expressive and outgoing soul who has the energy for days and never seems to fear to speak his mind. S: “I remember making rap beats on Fruity Loops when I was like 9 or 10 years old and just writing lyrics making music.” Scotty focused less on what he thinks of the music and how it sounds, and more on how their music makes people feel. He has been involved with dance music from a young age even throwing mini raves in his bedroom with all of his neighborhood friends.
While both of their parents didn’t quite understand exactly what jumping into this industry entailed, they supported them in this endeavor and are finally starting to see the payoff. S: “Andrew got to bring his mom up on mainstage when we played at Nocturnal Wonderland and that was so cool for her to be able to see.”
Everyone remembers how they felt at their first EDM show and how it isn’t quite like anything you’ve ever experienced. Scotty remembered how he felt when he first saw a DJ on stage performing saying, S: “I wanted to do that, I wanted to have that feeling all the time and I haven’t had it until I recently saw Porter Robinson playing a live set and it took me back to that feeling I had over 7 years ago.” Scotty and Andrew are ambitious as hell and I have no doubt their drive to be successful will take them far, and a majority of what they have accomplished and what they will accomplish can be attributed to the attitude of, S: “Never being satisfied. We want to always push the envelope and never stay complacent.”
Starting a passion project is always the easiest step, you have that excitement and motivation when the idea is fresh, but after a while the monotony sets in. Behind every person, there is a driving force and Andrew explained that, A: “The success of my friends is what drives me and I just want to wake up and make music. Seeing my successful friends like Bijou (who was also present that night) on every festival lineup motivates me to make new and unique music as people are getting tired of the same old stuff.” Their competitive nature drives them to create better music and pushes the envelope on their genre. Andrew isn’t wrong at all though, the dubstep and trap genre has been getting flooded with all sorts of new songs this year but it is slowly starting to give way to a more future bass, melodic dubstep styling.
Two Owls is working towards still developing their style but they have always had that dark-bass vibe that gave the summer of trap a fresh undertone. But guess what, summer is long over and fall has set in with all the pumpkin spice lattes and flannels you could ever want. This month is special though, as Two Owls have dubbed it #OWLTOBER and have continued to release a new song every week of October. The first week of Owltober they released Waking Up the Dead which featured powerful and haunting vocals from Elle Vee, the second week, they released Daylight with KLAXX and Blake Ross, the third week they released Home with Yuneer Gainz which is a gritty and melancholy tune. I am super excited for them to release the last track of Owltober but there is something else I admire about Owltober.
They could have easily released all of these songs as an EP, each one feeds into the next as a carefully crafted story is told throughout and the drops crash with emotion without overdoing it. Two Owls has no plans of slowing down with a remix of AWAY’s Sleepwalker and a few more releases including one on Circus Records. Two Owls has been receiving inspiration in their styling from people like Illenium, Said the Sky, and Porter Robinson, often styling their music for something that can be performed live to create that powerful experience. A: “I don’t want to say it’s dubstep I don’t want to say it’s future bass it is more of a heavy melodic approach to creating an in between, hybrid genre.”
While a large part of this profession is making music Scotty and Andrew appreciated the fact that where they are today would not be possible without the fans and the festivals. S: “We are just thankful and continue to keep getting better and when people send us messages and say you guys are killing it I love your music, it is just humbling that people would be so content with where we are now but we have so much more to do still.” A: “We had some growing pains and we played a lot of empty rooms but we have learned from that and it has made us able to do what we do now so well.”
Two Owls will be performing on Mainstage at Escape in California on Friday which is a huge step for them. They will be playing on the same stage as some of EDM’s legends such as DJ Snake, Flosstradamus, Illenium and much more. I have seen Two Owls perform twice and trust me when I say they absolutely throw down at every set. As they keep growing in their sound and developing their style I think that Two Owls will continue to shock everyone.
When I asked if there was anything that they wanted to say to their fans, Scotty told me this.
“The most important thing is how we feel about our music and the fact that we can create music that we would never have been able to a year ago is amazing. When we were Night Owls we received a lot of early exposure. The scene in L.A. is a lot of artists comparing their one million Instagram followers and the music scene in L.A is very fractured which is why I truly believe art is dead. We are all stuck in this vacuum of social media and always being on that there is this pressure to create and always be something and put out content all the time. I only want to create content that makes me happy and not just drip out mediocre content to stay relevant. One day I want us to get to the point where we only put out one thing a year that people absolutely love and has a longer shelf life and can be appreciated.”
