The Chainsmokers

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.

Were you gonna try to sing it?

I'm gonna sing. Oh, I'm gonna look away.

It was fun, and I had my opinions before we interviewed them.

Alex and Drew, they're so fun.

But they were great.

God, they're wonderful. Yeah, I had a blast talking to them. I mean, if I've gotta explain who the Chainsmokers are to you, you don't own a radio. You have not been on planet Earth for the last 10 years.

My dad probably doesn't know.

He does.

Well, he does, but he doesn't know he does.

Exactly.

And we get into that.

Yes, he knows, but he doesn't know. he knows. You can't know what you don't know. That's the message.

I guess the message is you can know what you don't know.

That is the message. This guy kinda disproves that. The albums, memories do not open. Sick Boy, World War Joy, so far, so good. Also, and this'll blow your mind, they run a venture capital firm called Mantis VC.

Yeah.

And they're so fun. They're nice. Please enjoy The Chainsmokers. I want something just like this.

Hi. Wing, wing, wing.

Ooh, ooh, ooh.

He's an armchair explorer.

He's an armchair explorer.

He's an armchair explorer. He's an armchair explorer. I have an AMG station wagon, which I fucking love. It's like my favorite car. Drove that for a few weeks.

Yeah, that. You love them too, right? Yeah, but I did just recently see at the gas station the EQ series.

Which one? Again, I don't know.

So that's electric. Mercedes, electric, okay. And it's gorgeous.

Yeah, they're nice. How old are you? 33..

33..

33 is really young.

That's rough, isn't it? It's really young. I'm so happy. now people are starting to be younger. A lot of them.

I'll get there, I'll get there. Are you a multi-billionaire? Not yet.

Okay, okay. He's trying.

The thing with a lot of the young multi-billionaires is, if you wait a couple of years, the market's correct, then they're not multi-billionaires anymore. That makes you feel better.

That does make me feel better.

I like that.

They'll lose everything, and I like that.

Don't worry, they'll lose everything.

I hugged Drew.

I'm gonna hug, Drew. Nice, to meet you too.

We did handshakes, so I have to do the same.

That's fine. Don't get up, please.

What did you drive? He is in a G-Wagon.

I used to have an Audi. You're in an Audi? Yeah.

That's great.

Both are great.

Two German options.

I used to have a Jeep Wrangler, which, honestly, I fucking loved.

Why did you get rid of it?

Well, the lease was up and every car is ridiculously expensive now, so I was like, I'm paying way more than what I'm getting the value out of a Jeep Wrangler for, so I might as well just get an actual nice car at this point. We both got really nice cars at one point and they just sucked. You get in and you're just like, this is such a waste of capital, and I feel like such a clown in it. I'm the guy who pulls up to Craig's, though, and they're like, there's no parking. Because you're in a- It's like a Wrangler.

You don't get it, you don't get it.

Don't judge this book by the cover of this Wrangler. I'm trying to remember, immediately what comes to mind is Sean White, which is really funny. He went and bought a Lamborghini when he was in high school, at some point. A track. It's kind of like, to his parents, a declaration like, this is my money, I'm gonna have fun with it.

He totaled the car?

He totaled it, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think he was like 15 or something.

Maybe 18, but yeah.

As long as no one got hurt, good for him.

If you're Sean White, go ahead and throw a Lambo away. It just happened, somebody else just recently- I know, someone was just in here talking about the same thing, where they got some money, they bought a ridiculous car.

It was Jason Derulo.

Oh yeah, I tracked him. I have a really funny story of a friend that runs a tech company and I guess he was like staying at Jason Derulo's and I guess Jason was, you know, doing his thing with somebody. But I guess the way his house designed, like he had trapped my friend in a certain part of the house he couldn't get out of. But also, he apparently has a python that just like roams around his house.

Wow, why didn't we get that out of him? Oh man.

I mean, unless my friend's full of shit, and then he was like, I'm trapped in this room with a python. Oh my God. I don't want to blow Derulo's opportunity, whatever's going on in here. Sure.

He seems so unlike that.

And our friend's really awkward too. I would just be like banging on the door,

like cut it out. Well, you said a tech friend.

You know, he's like, oh fuck. You know what I mean? Like, I might get eaten.

I'm gonna have to look this cobra in the eyes at some point.

I'll have to call him on the fact check.

That's wild. Yeah, he bought a crazy car.

He did, but then got rid of it in the same fashion of like, I look dumb.

I know Drew bought a McLaren. What did you buy?

I'm a big James Bond fan, so I got an Aston Martin.

Which one? Vanquish?

No, it was like a DB7.. I want to say it just sucked. Like it was just an absolute shit car.

It broke a lot?

It broke a lot. And you want to connect your phone, just doesn't connect.

It would be great if, in one of the James Bonds though, they did show 007 having to connect to the Bluetooth. Every time I rent a car, I just did in Oregon last weekend. I'm in the parking lot, I'm in a BMW. I've never really connected my phone to one of those.

Trixie?

12 minutes, I'm sitting there. And my wife's, just like, you know, just go. You're not gonna be able to listen to your music for the 12 minute ride to the airport or to the hotel.

It's funny you say that. I'm watching this lioness show on Paramount. I love action movies.

We're not allowed to- It's a movie? No one can watch it, but we will continue to talk about it.

Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.

They did a great job, but it was funny because they're watching these special operators. You know, it's like a show about seals and all that stuff. And I was like, wouldn't it be funny to make a serious movie? but it has these honest moments where, like, the guy just has really bad gas. You know what I mean?

Well, you should watch Chips.

I was gonna say, it's full of those human moments.

Yes, yes. So I'm a cop in it, but I'm also a pill addict and I also am really sensitive to smells. So when going to certain people's houses, I'm starting to get kind of sick and it's not a right time for it, but don't watch it.

Yeah, you definitely don't want to watch that. We've met before. really briefly. Where? You wouldn't remember.

That's incredible. I can almost promise you it would have been like eight years and two months ago, because I was in Atlanta a bunch, because Kristen was working there and we had a two month old Delta. Monica was there as well at that time.

Oh, another thing we probably can't support, but they have a great Chick-fil-A at the Atlanta airport.

Yeah, the Atlanta airport is stacked. Right?

It is.

It's really stacked. Like, I don't love it as a connection, just based on where it is in the country, but.

Almost worth the pit stop, though.

Actually, yeah. It's huge.

I'm from there, and so I take a lot of pride.

in going to the airport.

That's amazing. Every time you go to the airport, you just have options. So many. That's something to look forward to.

I appreciate there's a big military base. I see a lot of military guys. I'm sure like a lot of connections go out of there and it always kind of makes me, you know, God bless those guys. Yeah.

You might've even seen me, because in that spell I went home really quick, got a vasectomy and came back. So you could have seen me in the middle of it.

That was a really pivotal moment.

The end of my fertility. You might've seen me in my last fertile day.

It's funny when you're sitting there and you're like, you know, like we're both just like eating and you know, you respect the rules of the traveler.

So that's a fun question right out of the gates, which is there's, I would say, an asymmetrical anonymity to you guys versus how enormously ubiquitous you are.

It's awesome.

A thousand X people are aware of something just like this. Then they are me, right? I just looked this morning, 2.3 billion times it's been streamed on just Spotify. So certainly every single person at airport had heard that song, and maybe one in every 50 people knew who I was, but is that golden? That seems kind of groovy.

They know the stuff we've made, but like we are out there and it's awesome.

Look, when you're on the side, where you're getting your picture taken a lot, you envy what you guys have. But I could also see where, if I'm you guys, I'm like, motherfuckers, I've got the biggest, 26 weeks in a row. I've been top five and no one, you know, they tell me the restaurant's closed.

I definitely prefer it this way. I think we have great lives, but I couldn't go to Erewhon and no one gives a shit. Literally, I was in New York last week and it was like the VMAs did not go to the VMAs. But I went to, like one of these lounges that are after party and it was like late, I'm not going to lie. And like, definitely they'd been dealing with.

In those moments, it has to kind of suck.

Well, I don't mind, honestly. Cause I'm like, maybe my shit wasn't together enough.

That's like past trauma of being a New York city kid and just not getting into clubs and just be like, you know what? It was my fault.

And it's like a sign. You're like, wasn't meant to be, I'm out of here. As long as I'm not like pandering. Cause. I was like, do you know who I am?

And they were like, no, you can't do that.

Then you're like, really should feel terrible.

I love that attitude. Getting stuff to the door is important for everybody. Every now and then.

Yeah.

We have always had that one friend. that's like, we're good now. And I'm like, what'd you do? And it's like, I gave him a thousand bucks. You're like, no, that's even worse.

But if I was with you guys, I would feel like that was an injustice. An injustice. I probably would be like, hey, no.

They're bigger than those people.

Yeah. To Drew's point, you need that sobering moment. And again, I really like it. We do a lot of calls with tech founders and stuff like that. And you know, some of these people are much older and they're just like, I don't know anything.

You could not have been alive in the last decade, and not at least closer, or? I don't know, you name it. You just have to hear it.

Music can be so omnipresent everywhere. You can be in your car. I've turned on the radio and I've heard the same song playing on all six stations once. And I was like, that's bad-ass. But also I hate this song.

I will say, though, if we compare it to some other breakout hits, this weird thing does happen with some of them, you hear them four years later and you're like, oh God, right? I'm not gonna name them, because I don't want to shit on anyone's stuff. But there are ones that are mega hits. You hear it and you're a little embarrassed for yourself that you liked it. There's songs that don't age well.

I guess it's as simple as that.

Our first hit was Selfie, which I hope you forgot about. But now that we're talking about it, I guess I'll bring it up.

I didn't even know. Selfie. My introduction to you guys is closer and I have little girls, and that was probably the first song that Lincoln and I would sing passionately, very loud, in the car. And she was probably five years old. How old was that song?

How long ago was that? 2016..

Oh my God. She'd been four. She knew the words to that song as a baby, basically.

That's true.

It's so cool when you hear it, those text messages, you're like, oh nice. She might come to a concert someday. If we can get that next wave. Yes, totally.

Okay, so there's so many things I find interesting about your pairing. I think, first and foremost is just simply, you guys didn't know each other. I think most of the bands that we interview, Jonas Brothers, like they're family. Or all these people have known each other, Chili Peppers, they fucking knew each other as kids, you know, in high school. But you had this dude, Adam Alpert.

Yeah, he's our manager.

And you're at the time, how old are you?

Yeah, I'm 21 or 22.. I'm finishing school at Syracuse.

What did you major in?

Music business.

But you too?

No, I studied art history.

And business, but not music.

Well, I was in the Gallatin, you kind of can do whatever you want.

Oh, Gallatin, Gallatin comes up all the time on here. It's like a non-major major.

Yeah, yeah, it's like the greatest thing ever.

It's a college experience without the work.

They're like, do whatever you want. You're like, I don't know anything.

I came here for you to tell me what I'm supposed to do. Okay, so, you were at Syracuse, you were just graduating. You were an intern at Interscope. So how do you come to know, Adam? How does this union start?

I go to school thinking I wanted to be like an agent. I was so into dance music, but I didn't think being a DJ, like it wasn't big in America at that time, but I didn't think that would be a possibility. So I went the more practical route, go work at a label, management, agent, something like that. And then, kind of my senior year, America came around to dance music. And so this thing that I had been spending all my time in my bedroom trying to make beats and be relevant in that scene, it was becoming the big thing here.

You were putting music up, like you had a SoundCloud.

I had a SoundCloud, I had a different name.

What was the name?

You have to tell us.

I hesitated, even like saying it. It's not that bad.

It's not that bad. All right, so I was obsessed with this book called Atlas Shrugged. And my favorite character was Francisco D'Anconia.

Why not John Colt?

That's too hardcore. That's too like. I'm making a statement with my name. But D'Anconia sounded like a cool thing. No one knew how to say it.

Well, I hope that what people are gleaning from this, the advice here, is like, just lie across the board. Yeah. There's like the fourth lie already. We're getting closer to stardom.

Yeah.

Let's check in with you, Alex, because you already had Chainsmokers with another person. I would save this normally to the end, but just we're here right now. That guy is bummed or he recognizes, he recognizes that Drew was part of.

He was pissed. He left on his own. He wanted to leave. And honestly, like I would actually give myself credit because I was like very, you know, like most people would just be like, oh, he left. But I was like, I want to find someone else.

All your money at the time.

I was so broke after this, especially on just paying a guy to leave. But what was weird, it was like, you already left. I think he was like, what's up? Why are you giving me money? And I was like, I want to make it just official.

Sounds great.

Nothing's happened with it.

This valueless thing.

Yeah, yeah, and he signed it. And then, literally the next day, we changed everything and he was like, what the, you know? But it wasn't like we got successful the next day either. I think he just kind of realized we had a plan in place.

I don't feel bad for him because he laughed.

What was crazy is he went into our Twitter the day we had our first gig, I don't know if you remember this, and started blocking everybody. And you can't see who you blocked. For us as a new artist, he was blocking club owners and this and that.

Oh, because he's still in control of the account.

Yeah, I mean, he went on really nasty Twitter tirades.

Even racist and homophobic things about our team. And he really did not handle it gracefully. Yeah.

In his defense, is your team super black or gay? Are you over-indexing in that?

More Jewish. Oh, yeah.

Nobody left that off the table. Anti-Semitism.

I don't know what he's doing right now. Last I heard, he was a dog walker in the city.

That adds up. If you're spending your time just wallowing and being rageful.

Dogs are probably the best person to spend time. But I mean, dog walkers, they make crazy money. They make like a 200 grand in New York City. No. There was a whole New Yorker article about it.

It's a career. Oh.

I was like, shit, maybe one day, when I'm fully done, you know what I mean? You just like, walk a couple of dogs for 200 grand a year.

I bet, though, you're gonna have to walk more than two dogs to get to that 200 grand. I bet you have 10.. One dog for each chain smoker.

The lesson with this whole thing for me in joining Drew was, I think people often surround themselves with negativity. I remember being with the other guy and blaming everyone around us for our lack of success or progress. You know, it was constantly like, that guy's an idiot. He doesn't understand shit. And the second, that negativity was out of my life, first of all, I personally just felt different.

We always mark it as like the luckiest thing that ever happened too. Cause we literally met one day and the next day was crashing, with friends, walking two, three miles to get to his house in the middle of the winter. Just grinded every day.

And it was like fun. You know what I mean? It was fun. Obviously, we weren't successful for a while.

But I wanna know about the first meeting. Did you meet a bunch of people?

No, I didn't. I think Drew was really the only guy.

And did you guys immediately feel something or was it a slow?

That's what's so. lucky. Cause, we were just like, yeah, you seem cool enough.

You know?

And, like, you know, we are here 11 years later. We've had an amazing music career. We run a venture capital fund together. We own a tequila company and we're still best friends. So it's like, what are the chances?

Well, I almost think it might be easier to do it the way you did it. Because I think what can happen is if two people are best friends all through childhood and then when the spotlight's on you and, let's say, they are drawn to Timberlake more than whoever, that can be stressful. And it introduces a new dynamic that didn't previously exist. where this one is, like any dynamic that arises, is the dynamic. Cause.

That's a really good point. I've never thought of it that way.

You think of the Jonas brothers, the older brother, he's the boss. And then the younger two get more popular. That's an insane dynamic for brothers to handle.

What's funny in investing, one of the rules is don't invest in teams that don't have experience. together. You want that rapport to understand the other one's strengths and weaknesses and fill in the gap. In some ways, this was the complete opposite of that idea. But I agree.

Are you both kids of single moms?

Just me. I don't know. I just say mom, naturally for my background, but you're just always putting the bigger picture first and not yourselves. To me, if they're like, hey, we're going to throw Drew on the cover of Vogue, but not you. And it's going to be about the chain smokers.

Really?

Your ego is very in check.

How do you explain that? You would recognize that's abnormal.

I don't care. I mean, short of them calling me like ugly or something, you know what I mean? In the email, where they're like, we don't want the ugly one. Then I'd be like, that was just nasty. It's not like I had a personal aspiration my whole life to be on the cover of Vogue.

Were you on the cover of Vogue?

If you listen to this.

No, what?

No, this is all hypothetical. This is amazing.

What's great is, I was going to walk away, had you not asked that follow-up question, that he had been. Yeah, yeah, for sure. This is a real example.

No, we're more likely on Fishing and Outdoorsman Weekly. But just conceptually, to me, it's just cool, whatever. As long as we're pushing our music forward, I don't really mind.

But would you recognize that's kind of abnormal? Because let me just say, I'm you, and I don't know how it would break down if AI analyzed your guys' creativity and productivity, but let's just assume you guys are 50-50 contributors to the music, yet one person is 85% of the face of it. Innately there, it feels like this feels a little unjust.

And I respect someone like Chris Martin for this. Clearly, Chris, to the world, is Coldplay.

Coldplay, yeah.

But he is so diplomatic about how he handles everything. split down the middle. The band is the most important thing to him. And I think for us, that's always been the initiative.

But let me just say something. That's lovely, and I've hung with Chris Martin. He has the luxury of doing that because he's fucking gorgeous. He's gotten so much attention. He's so talented that he can be so benevolent and gracious.

We got advice the other week from someone who's very wealthy that was like, at the end of the day, money isn't what's important. It's about the experiences that you have. And you're like, you're a rich person. saying that, though. You know what I mean?

In their defense, there's quite a bit of social science, lots and lots of studies. that money does make you happier, to a point. It's been decided in America, on average, at like 160.. It plateaus up to about two million, and then it goes. So, there is data that says, that's actually not just this whimsical observation.

But I know what you're saying. It's much easier to have that look on life if you have the money to be able to be like, yeah, it actually doesn't matter that much, all this money I have.

All right, well then, get rid of your money. And it's like, oh no, I don't wanna do that. Money obviously creates the freedom for you to hopefully pursue the things that you love and care most about. But also, it has created a lot of friction for people, because we have a lot of friends that are successful and they can't find good relationships because I think they're too distracted and have too much shit going on. And I was joking with one of them and I was like, why don't you put your money in escrow with like a lawyer for three months and live off 2,500 bucks a week, which should be enough.

That's a good point.

You'll go to different places.

That tells me you do believe in what they're saying. Because what I've seen is, we've interviewed a ton of these tech billionaires and it's insanely isolating. Everyone around you is so conscious of what you have. Even myself, it's hard for me to not think about the fact that Brian Chesky has $12 billion while he's across from me. I'm just like, I mean, if you have 12, if you give me 500 million, you wouldn't even notice that.

Ryan's interesting. We're friends with him and he's very motivated by, not money, you know what I mean? Like, the dude still sleeps in Airbnbs. He's in pursuit of something larger than that. He's like the least flashy of all the billionaires.

That's true, but the actual acquisition of the money changes the dynamic, with everyone around you. For sure. Which is no fault of the person who made the money, but it's now an enormous element. Yeah, yeah. I've also been around Brad Pitt.

Because he's hot, though, not because he's rich.

Yeah, that is true. He's Brad Pitt.

He transcends hot.

He's still so hot.

There's the cool factor. There's so much. But the point is, is like, I can't blame that guy for anything, because he's living in the most altered reality, where everyone around him's thinking about him 100% and like worrying about how they sound, and self-conscious. And then it's infectious, that self-consciousness. To deny that it comes with this enormous price or that he probably wouldn't maybe be happier, being just wealthy, maybe.

It's like everything, you know, the good and bad of these different things. Like you can talk to the most beautiful person on the planet and they would say, that's probably a huge burden and stressful. And inside they feel super self-conscious. This is totally strange pivot, but my dog just shit all over one of our carpets. And normally this would have like ruined my day back in the early days.

I totally agree with you. So that is the beautiful thing of having money is that there are certain problems you can solve with money. The problem is, you can ultimately solve nearly every problem other than health issues with money. And people obviously do, because what's the point of it if you're not going to do that? And I do think it does something to not be stressed, to not have to deal with these burdens.

You're not living in reality. You can't really connect with other people because they're living in reality.

You know those people too. I can think of like eight of them that just came into my mind. We were like, this dude's out to lunch.

Because everything's handled. And even like, okay, so the shit on the rug, I too, I would have been like, hun, get it out of here. Now we saved ourselves that cleaning experience. But what we robbed ourselves of is we've cleaned it. It's back.

Yeah, I agree with that. I feel like we've always been really grounded. Part of that is that people don't recognize, you know what I mean? I feel successful, but I have imposter syndrome, for sure. I take a lot of joy in those little, small, like building something or not outsourcing everything that you have in your life.

Yeah, I would imagine receiving the trophy on stage isn't nearly as fun as you two actually finding the song.

100%. The moment of invincibility, we'll call it, where you're like, I can do anything. Holy shit, I have no more worries. Pure serotonin release is in making a song that you believe in. And then, when we learned that Closer went straight number one on Billboard or we won a Grammy or really awesome achievements, just kind of felt like, oh, cool.

That equals more money and I can do more.

I don't want to not lose that, but that pales in comparison.

But like still to this day, I'm not as happy of a person if I'm not actively in the studio. Finding that thing that makes me be like, wow, this song just makes me feel like anything's possible. I can imagine playing it here and there and all these people reacting to it. It's a really magical thing that no other achievement or whatever can supplement.

And that's interesting, because everything's analytical today. And that's not like an analytical thing. That's really just an experience, you know, magic. Whereas, like everything else, you know, you wake up every day, XYZ has number one here. And this person has this many followers.

Everything in our life has been quantified.

Which kind of robs people of some of the magic that makes things special.

Well, creativity can't really be measured. And that's what it is at the end of the day is that sense of achieving the creative.

Well, tapping into something that's maybe beyond what you thought you could reach is also an incredible feeling. I just had the simplest experience with it. I haven't edited video in like eight years. We've been busy, I've been busy. And I shot something that I wanted to edit.

Yeah, it's also a really hard thing to chase. And I've been thinking about this a lot recently, because we just put out the song last Friday called Summertime Friends.

Watch the video this morning.

Well, it's hilarious that that's the video. And there's a lot of hesitant making that the video, because it's just me and my girlfriend blacked out on this boat this summer. And we were like, let's shoot the video right now. And our friend Spencer, who is also blacked out, also like shot it three times. And that's now the video.

I was like in my room, being like, they're shooting a video upstairs.

Yeah, black the song again and again. Anyway, but that's one of those songs that it's about something very real and personal to me. It has this moment of tension. I think, if you've been a Chainsmokers fan since Don't Let Me Down or Closer Roses, it really captures that nostalgic feeling that you kind of come to us for. And it's funny identifying all of those factors.

You're not AI.

Yeah, I mean, well, that's interesting to get in the eye. We'll throw that in the queue, but you know, it's interesting. we put out eight songs and only till this last song this year, we're like, oh wow, this one's really getting reaction. And you're like, duh, this has all the things, but why weren't we aiming for it before? And it's crazy how you kind of step in your own way as an artist.

We also relearn the same thing over and over again. as a human, don't you? I have the same epiphany every three months.

It wouldn't feel good if you could do it on command. It wouldn't feel good if you could just turn it out. Yeah, it's because it's hard to do.

To bring up Chris Martin again, he's given us a ton of great pieces of advice over the years. And he would always say, I don't write these songs, they're sent down. Which I thought was like a really kooky piece of advice at the time. And the older I get, the more it makes sense to me. Sometimes this song is just sent down and the words, what you want to say, exactly how you feel and say them in a way that people resonate with and you want to hear over and over again.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

That's a really hard thing to do too. when you get to our level, where we've been doing 150 shows a year for eight years. When am I supposed to have those experiences again? Especially now, with our VC fund is pretty much our main job too now. And it's like, fuck, you got to remember to get some inputs in here so I can make shit.

I wanted to talk about the VC fund at the end, but now it's second time I've resisted. So, from the outside, what I would say is why on earth have a VC fund? If you think of like David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, who you guys have performed with, wants to be you. He wants to be a DJ. If you're mega rich, you'd praise that you were a chain smoker.

For the David part, having hung out with him a ton of times.

Yeah, I don't know him. by the way. I just know that he's a DJ.

Greatest dude ever.

DeSalle.

DeSalle, yeah. He unfortunately doesn't really do it anymore, because everyone's so open arms about the idea.

that you know, like playing music.

But like, it's his hobby, it's his passion. Same way that people would play golf or guitar or anything. And it just happens to be this. I love him for that. He really enjoys it and took it seriously whenever we played.

I had eBay businesses when I was like 14 and that kind of little hustle.

And your dad's an art dealer?

My dad was an art dealer, yeah.

My dad was a car salesman. If you're into sales, you inherit that as well.

I mean, you could talk all day long about the idea of what you're exposed to as a kid and how that shapes your actual identity. Because that, really like, threw me for a loop as I decided I wanted to go in on music. I never even considered it.

Because you were working at an art gallery when you guys met, right?

Exactly. And also, it was all I knew. I didn't know about becoming a doctor or a lawyer. It was just like art dealing. Yeah.

Hard to hate. Yeah.

And then, as you, you know, get more into it. And my dad passed. when I was younger. I only had like the good truth, probably not the stuff where he was like, this is what sucks. There's so much nepotism.

Heists.

Yeah, heists. Also the collateral.

That's the fun part.

I like that. they have it as collateral. Thieves steal shit. You know, like mafioso bosses will steal famous so that they can barter if they ever get arrested. Well, I'll return the Mona Lisa.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that like $9 million gold toilet thing was just recovered or something. What's that? There's some heist in London where they stole like a $9 million gold toilet from a museum or something.

Right, like some King's toilet.

And I was like, what a great story. I would love to just know everything from A to Z. You know what I mean?

You guys hear about these people in LA that are going around to liquor stores and cutting open the roof and dropping in. They've stolen like $750,000 worth of wine.

No.

How cool is that? Like, I hate to endorse this.

Yeah, yeah. No, I love heist too.

That wine's got to taste real good. You know what I mean? Like. you can't bite into some gold, but you can just like take a nice sip of some Burgundy.

Anyway, heists are awesome. Yeah.

Going back to the original point. So once we had built our platform as the Chainsmokers and we had some success, we had this platform that people were beginning to reach out to us about different opportunities to invest. And most of those opportunities were consumer related stuff. But what was really eyeopening was just, we really enjoyed bringing the experience and network we had to these different companies and opportunities and helping them succeed in different little ways. So someone might be like, damn, if I could just get into Whole Foods, that's the inflection point for me.

You're like leveraging your vast connectiveness.

I think what was funny is musicians, there's some great ones out there, but it can be like pulling teeth. Getting someone to respond to a simple text about a mix can take four months.

You just raised your hand.

And it drives me crazy because I'm very much like, if we can do it now, let's do it now. Are we not all trying to go to the same place? So let's do it and let's all work towards that. And I felt like, in the tech community, those types of founders, that's all they were doing. They were like, I'm working 24, seven on this ambitious idea.

So if I could just ask you guys to compare, maybe it's not comparable, but let's just say for a second, you guys have found some company, you like it, you connect them with the right people, you bought a stake in it and then it wins. Can we really compare that to the joy of creating closer or that feeling?

No, is the short answer.

There is a similar high to it where you're like, wow, we found this company, we invested time and effort and connectivity with this team and helped them achieve something, and it's working and anything's possible for them. now. You're connecting to them, you made a difference and you made something that people are now relating to. That's a big part of the high. With music, you're always just trying to communicate in a way that you can't do through conversation.

You're transferring an emotion and a feeling in a song.

And when people get that, that feels amazing. And when you're bringing that not in the same way, but to a company and finding out what their needs are, investing time with them, making them believe in this idea, hiring the right team around them, all of these things that we love, helping them to do, and then, you see it, work, that's very gratifying.

I could turn the same question onto myself, which is we have a diaper company and I have an NA beer company. I could imagine being critical of me and going like, why do you need to do this thing? The beer company is like me and my two best friends from childhood, I named it, I write all the copy, I write the commercials. The thing I was editing was for that. I'm like, oh, it's actually not different at all from what I've already done.

I understand, and like going into the store and seeing that for the first time, or seeing a kid at a park and the parents are changing the diapers easier. Companies like Uber or Airbnb. with Brian Chesky, he's bringing a level of connectivity to the world that certainly didn't exist. I think also we're very competitive people. I think venture is like music.

You can probably imagine, though, for the people that love you both, they want you to focus on music. Like. I don't want Daniel Day-Lewis per se to become the great computer programmer of Scotland. He might be the best AI mind in the world, but when you love an artist, you just want more of what they put out. Can you see where people would be like, I don't want you focused on anything, but this thing I've cherished.

I think it's been equal parts difficult and beneficial. The thing is making music or any type of art, it's not an office job. Yes, you get more output the more time you go into the studio, but great songs like the ones that we're really trying to write, we've done a couple of times in the past. Those don't come every day. Even when we were working on the fund, it was like 8 a.m.

Very low percentage.

Yeah, we probably spent that time, like. the inputs thing is the thing that you need to be conscious of. Like, am I having experiences? Am I watching movies? Am I talking to interesting people?

New points of view, new ways of thinking of things.

We've always been cerebral. in that way. It does satisfy a part of us, which is we like business. We like reading the news. We're very curious people.

You guys are true partners. Yeah, yeah.

And so I think that allows us obviously to cover more ground. And then Drew mentioned it, but we tour a lot. We're not married yet. We don't have kids yet. That's probably not too far in the distant future.

You don't feel like you're working.

Yeah, I don't wake up at seven and I'm like, ah, damn it. I like to complain. So you probably will hear that. Like, I'm just a complain-y person.

Well, you're from the East Coast.

Exactly.

Is LA wearing you out? Cause it slowly infected me. I'm from Detroit.

Yeah, I'm a Lions fan.

Newly?

No, no, for a long time.

Oh, wow. You got in at the ground floor.

Yeah, yeah. We haven't really gone up much. I'm from New York originally and I finally have a place back there and I love going there. And everyone's like hustling and moving. There's shit going all the time.

It's frenetic.

We have a couple of buddies who are successful tech people that are like, I'm going to go to New York. And I was like, dude, how are you liking it? They're like, I'm so tired. They're like, I'm so tired here. I'm having so much fun, but it's so tiring.

I think the thing in New York is, when you're there, you're out. You don't want to be sitting in your apartment, cause you're hearing it all out the window and you're like, I need to be out there.

Well, so your apartment's this big. Even a nice apartment is this big. So you have to go somewhere. Yeah, this is like a fire apartment. Yeah, exactly.

With no door.

A hot plate.

I think there's a new generation. now. You can't just be Daniel Day-Lewis. Or I kind of feel like Taylor Swift and Beyonce were like the last musicians, who were just musicians. And that's it.

It's exciting. I mean, I think, you know, going back to your points about taking in the world, I keep bringing this point up. We just had like a meeting yesterday where I mentioned this. But if you want to become a great actor, you shouldn't just like sit there and read the script thousands of times. It's about going out, go to galleries, go to theater, go watch movies, go hang out with friends, go to concerts.

Well, even Brian said that Kutcher had called him like 25 times before he finally got on the phone with him.

Oh yeah, probably. Shout out to Brian, he's done so much for us. This isn't a negative. But I mean, I was like, Brian, will you invest in our fund? He's like, no, I don't think so.

And you were like, what? You know what I mean?

To his point, and he was right, he was like, my value isn't capital for you guys. It's my resources, my experience. This guy's done a lot of great, really helpful things for us. But it's funny, you know, at the time I was like, you're wrong. This is what I need right now.

Also, we don't know what we need. We think we know what we need.

A hundred percent.

Until we get it, we're like, huh, guess that wasn't it. Cause I still feel restless, irritable and discontent.

But music is the son of our solar system. I mean, there's no doubt about that. Like music has given life to everything that we've been able to get involved in. If we have another successful record, that makes everything else infinitely easier. Priority will always be Chainsmokers.

So can I ask some really dumb, basic questions? I probably should ask them at the very beginning of this. Cause I'd imagine some of our audience is equally ignorant. So when I think of a DJ, I think of Grandmaster Flash. Like I think of someone spinning two vinyl records.

We have different formats of shows. When we do big festivals, it's both of us DJing, but mainly Alex, cause I'm singing a lot. And our drummer, Matt, is playing with us too. So Alex will DJ and play a couple of live elements to like add to the songs. I'll be DJing and singing.

If he gets sick, I do drum. That'd be fun. At a two and a half out of 10, I'd say. Yeah, okay. So we can keep it simple.

We'll just have you play over track or something. It'll be cool, yeah.

Or I'll just mime and you play a track.

Then Vegas is really fun. We've been at the Wynn for six years now.

Oh, that continued. I know you guys had a three year deal.

Yeah, we have like two more years with them now.

And are you guys there every weekend? Is that how it works?

Basically.

Every weekend.

Basically, it was like 50 shows a year for the first four or five years. And now we're down to like 35..

You're broke. You are.

Which actually feels like a lot less, which is amazing.

Well, it goes from every single weekend to-.

Sometimes twice a weekend. It was like crazy.

We're there tomorrow night and then we're there on Saturday.

Okay, so here's the thing. I know. you guys fly there. You can just take me one time. Yeah, me and me.

Yeah, you guys can both come. We love bringing new people too. We have our consistent friends that are like, dude, I'll come with you right now. And you're like, all right, we have an- But like bringing new people.

I like how. that was a Sergio impression. That was a Sergio impression.

DJing isn't so much about- Yes, Grand Mantra, Flash, A-Track. There's incredible turntablists.

Is that what you call them? Turntablists?

I would say that that's probably the official title. I think we're even dated.

On the techniques. Yeah. 1200s.

I mean, I started on 1200s. It's hard and it's an art form, but what experience we're bringing is very different, because you can go to one of those people's shows and some people, you can have a great time, but there's all the times where you're like, I'm just gonna try to hear the track and enjoy my time.

Yeah, that's like the biggest realization in Vegas, because in Vegas, this club, Hakkasan, brought, and this is like 2012, probably or 2013,. they brought, like Calvin Harris and Deadmau5 and David Guetta and every big DJ at the time, Avicii, and it became this like big EDM heavy thing. And then we just played so many shows there that we just forget about this whole EDM format thing and just started playing throwbacks and shit that we grew up on. And we were like one of the only American DJs. So we kind of tapped into that whole thing.

Are you guys old enough to have ever seen AM?

Yeah, he was incredible. I mean, he was probably the best first example of that guy that took Elton John records and mashed them up with a dance track or a hip hop song. And I mean, I saw him a bunch of times. actually. He was really special.

Yeah, he was a friend of mine and he was so on another level, musically.

The act of DJing, it's like you're hosting people. You're coming into the world of music and energy that we're trying to create for you. So it's almost less the musical act of DJing and more of the experience.

Yeah, you're putting on a full thought out show.

Or sometimes not as thought out, but you know who we are, the energy that brings, the vibe that brings in. Like, I want to go see that. That was like Chainsmokers pre-Drew. If we're playing at One Oak, it's going to be probably like when everyone else DJs there, it's high end club. But then you start adding in your own music to the mix.

Yeah, Closer was weirdly the first song I ever sang on.

I know, you had only done background, right?

Yeah, I did background vocals on Roses, for the deep in my bones, I can feel you. That part, yeah. And then Closer was the first.

So yeah, that was one of my questions. is I had to imagine taking that swing. I want to know what kind of internal conversations there were about it.

There was never like, okay, one day I'm going to sing. There was never that prophecy.

You weren't a pestering, Alex.

Fine, singers are annoying. You know what I mean? We were like, if we can bring this thing in house,

it's easier. But I'd say the evolution of our career in terms of going from producers to writers, to performers, like all of that. We started doing remixes. We'd go on Hype Machine, which is this blog aggregator, and beg all the artists that were on the chart to give us their vocal stems so we could make our version of the song. And that's kind of how we cut our chops as producers and figuring out what would be a sound that was replicable, that would be the chain smokers that felt like us that no one else was doing.

It's a temp.

Exactly. We're like, we need a feature. What guy could sing this or whatever? And then, in the time that it took us to get off that tour, enough of our friends had heard it. And we're like, this shit is fire.

Halsey was on it yet or not?

Halsey wasn't on it. She wasn't on it. But we were like, we should have a female singer do the second verse. And we actually had Camila Cabello sing the second verse before her. She just left Fifth Harmony.

Oh, we know who convinced her.

Yeah. Anyway, we've heard through the grapevine who said to not do it, but whatever. That shit happens all the time in the music industry.

Is she dog walking?

No, she's doing great. Yeah, yeah.

Julie figured it out. We're trying to have her on. I'm just asking you. She's amazing.

But that's a bummer of a song to have turned down. Oh my God, yeah. That's your biggest song, right? It's like 2.6.. When we do have her on,

we will be asking her about that moment.

Because that sucks. I would be interested to hear her perspective on this story.

That's basically like you stepped up and you said, I'll take a random pick, Super Lotto, Mega Ball. And then a guy behind you was like, I was in line before you. Oh yeah, then take this ticket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get the next one.

But it's really weird, because who knows what would have happened if Camila stayed on it. Right. Halsey was perfect.

It was the perfect timing. Chainsmokers had two hit songs out. We had Rose and Don't Let Me Down. She had a hit song out and everyone was very excited about it. It was a really cool, you guys should do something together moment.

That's gotta be another lovely layer of like, God, not only is this thing the biggest thing we've done, in record setting, like second longest song in top 10 ever, 33 weeks or some shit. And it's you, and you didn't even plan on it.

It was also really crazy because then I had to figure out how to be a singer. And I have tried to get most of the videos taken down on the internet, but there are some pretty painful moments still out there.

Well, you're also very young to be going through all this.

Yeah, this wasn't the plan. Like there's so many things in our history. I remember when we got our number one for Closer, VMAs were coming up and they were like, you guys have the biggest song in the world. Are you not gonna perform at the VMAs right now?

Like you have to do that. We should not have performed at the VMAs. This is like two weeks after I become a singer.

I know you guys know this so well, and I'm certain you guys think everyone knows this, but I did not know this whole thing you're about to say until I read it this morning.

Okay, yeah, so, you know, you get the call and everyone's, like, you guys, will be idiots not to do this. And we're like, we have never performed on anything.

Yes, yes.

We have no experience.

All we have is childhood reference of like, oh, the VMAs, this is a big deal.

Right. Yeah, you were like, we're DJs. Yes, Drew sings and Halsey sings, but where is the music coming from? Are there dancers? Are there not?

In-ears, for those of listening that don't know, when you're playing a big room like a arena or a festival or whatever, you can't hear yourself on real time without monitors. And so you wear these in-ear things, which this is my preamble to, if you ever go watch the VMA video, you'll see what I was suffering from.

Fucks up your timing, yeah.

Totally. You can't sing on time without them.

You have like professional modes. It costs like 2,500 bucks. And they were like, here's my ear pods. What they give you on airplanes.

You know what I mean?

When they like, collect your headset.

I know, I'm having a panic attack. I know, I hate this.

So I get up there and I'm trying to sing through them, which sounds so bizarre. I've never done anything like this. Also, I'm not a good singer. So there's like two really...

Big hurdles.

Big hurdles.

I can't hear myself and I can't sing. Oh God.

Brought in to sing, a couple issues. I don't sing. So wait, so you didn't have the thing in there?

I put them in. I was like, this is weird. Took them out, but didn't really understand. This is so idiotic.

They were like, it's tomorrow. And we're like, what? And they were like, do it. And I'm like, what am I doing? And they're like, just stand in front of the keyboard.

It's not even gonna be plugged in.

And I was like, is that unusual? They're like, nobody plays it. Everything's fake, which is partially true. That was one of the most eye-opening things in music business for me, was learning how to play piano really well. And then being like, we don't actually want you to play a lot.

It's a variable they don't want.

Why am I here? You know what I mean? Like, I'll just show up at 8 p.m.