URB: You won’t. On Manners, there are so many sounds. Who do you guys get influenced by and how do you make your music sound singular and not like a bunch of different stereos playing simultaneously?
DONMOYER: As far as production goes, we listen to a lot of over-the-top dance stuff. This one guy, Capsule, is one thing we put on all the time in the studio because it’s so over-the top–layers and layers of huge synth that knock you down when you hit play. So we analyzed how little pieces go together–what really helps is when you’re asked to do a remix and you get all those people’s parts and you’re like, “Why is there a finger snap every two bars?” And there’s so many tiny, little layers that add to making a recording listenable more than one time. A lot of minimal production that’s popular today, you get it all the first time you hear it. And it’s kind of risky because you better be writing a great song. And we can kind of mask things by having tons of tons of little things that you won’t hear the first time.
URB: I think that’s a good point. So many pop songs come and go because you get them in the first listen. But your music has under layers and under layers-
DONMOYER: And there’s really brilliant ways of doing that. I’m always envious people who can get away with being so minimal and so perfect with it. Maybe when we’re 45 and Swedish we can be more nuance.
URB: You’ll do a piano-only album.
DONMOYER: But only like three keys and one kick drum sample.
URB: I know on The Reeling you guys used the famous children choir PS 22. You guys also used strings, a lot of different elements. How do you guys figure out what you’re gonna use?
DONMOYER: We realized we may never get to do this again, so we’re like, why don’t we pull out everything we could possibly do–strings, horns and children’s choir–and it worked out.
URB: Did you guys get everything you wanted?
DONMOYER: Way over. Like when PS 22 came through, we didn’t think it would actually happen, we were kinda like, “Oh, let’s get a children’s choir.” But then Chris, who we owe a ton of credit to, was YouTubing children’s choirs, and they came up. First, they’re in New York so it made sense. And the director is so awesome and top of it and just e-mailed us and called us right back.
URB: It’s crazy how they make such emotional facial expressions while they are singing. If any children’s choir was to sing on your record, it’d be them.
DONMOYER: And it’s totally luck that it worked out that way. All we did was get them a day off of school and a bunch of pizzas and they were happy.
URB: Hey, I’d be happy with that. A day off of school and a bunch of pizzas and I’ll sing whatever the hell you want. So what’s next for you guys?
DONMOYER: I think we’re gonna be touring for at least another year, just trying to take it as far as we can and buying time for us to pile it up for the end-all be-all, which is making the next album, which is so far away.
URB: Plus you have all that touring, which is hard work as well.
DONMOYER: It’s different. It’s fun: you can see new places and meet new people. Your job is to play music, keep it in perspective. It kills you when you don’t sleep and you party a lot. We’re 22, we can get away with it. We’ll probably look like we’re 45-
URB: After the tour.
DONMOYER: [Laughs] Yeah.
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