The Los Angeles based band, B. R. E. E. D performed along with the elite list of leading musicians from all over the world at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival last month. One of the most iconic events on the world music calendar, the festival spanning across two weekends in April in Indio, California, had them playing on the Do Lab stage. The duo consists of Ritesh D’ Souza, one of Asia’ s most influential and original underground electronic DJ-producers & bass music pioneer of India, and Tara Mae, a classically trained pianist and vocalist. After having launched their first album‘ Binate’ in 2014, the album sat at the No. 1 spot on the top Addictech album releases and was No. 3 on the top 5 Glitch Hop album releases on Beatport in January 2014. Score sat down with the duo to talk Coachella, their creative process and plans.
You ' re performing in Coachella this year! Congrats! How does it feel to be a part of this prestigious festival? What are you looking forward to aside from performing this year?
Thank you very much. We’ re super excited! We weren’ t expecting it to happen. There are so many festivals that happen and Coachella is obviously one of the best. Like anything, we’ re just really excited at the opportunity to be in front of an audience that can relate to our music. We’ re appreciative and marketing music is not an easy thing. This is an opportunity to showcase our stuff. Other than Coachella, we are excited to just develop our live set. We have so many tracks that we’ re looking forward to release. We’ re looking into different labels right now all over the world. We have a bunch of tours planned for 2015 and we’ re looking forward to just getting the music out. We have a lot to do but we’ re crazy excited.
Tell us a bit about yourself. How did you come together and become BREED.
So, I do live keys and I do vocals on most of our tracks. For the live set eventually we want to do live vocals. For now I do live keys. Ritesh spins but he’ s also going to be doing finger drumming and being a scratch artist. We want him to implement his scratching too. So right now, the live sets have been live keys and synths on our regular sets. Again we want to bring in live vocals and lot of scratching. I also have plans to work with a really good MC and poet I know. With regards to getting together, we developed breed together. Ever since we met we always developed music together and worked alongside each other. Not even just music, but we do everything, including marketing and developing our brand. We’ ve been working on all of that for years.
And what about your name?
I think It was 2007 2008, we were playing with names but none of them stuck. I don’ t know how breed came but the name just stuck.
Who all were your inspirations growing up? Who do you find yourself listening to a lot these days?
When we began B. R. E. E. D., there were lot of artists that inspired us however they’ re totally different from artists who we’ re inspired by now. We’ re inspired by a lot of FKA Twigs and Flying Lotus. Very progressive and forward music that pushes all genres.
You guys are on of few that are revolutionizing EDM forms in India and across the world. Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Well, EDM is a broad term and we don’ t really fit under typical EDM right now. I know what you mean though. But that I guess is our inspiration because we don’ t want to stick to one genre and we’ re just extremely inspired by artists that are doing different stuff that doesn’ t fit into one thing. And then obviously we also come up with our own stuff that doesn’ t following any one thing.
Where have been your favorite / memorable venues for performing till date and why?
That’ s a tough question because there have been a lot of great places where we’ ve had the opportunity to perform. But I would say Burning Man, which was in 2007. It was totally different at that time from how it is now. Burning Man has been around for years and at that time it was totally new for us. And that really stands out for us
You ' ve also collaborated with many prominent artists. Who do you wish to collaborate with in the future?
Another tough question( laughs) because you know there are a lot of people. But one name is definitely FKA Twigs. Both of them are just incredibly different and very very artistic. We love abstract and artistic people. They’ re different but they’ re both so amazing. A lot of collaborations with Classical Indian artists have been amazing as well. We did a track with Manoj George the violinist and that was really great. The blend that we did on the track was really different. This year we’ ll have more collaboration, but from past ones definitely the classical musicians have added a different exotic feel.
You guys are set to perform your latest EP ' The Inside ' along with some other new material for Coachella. Any projects in the pipeline you can share with your fans?
Developing our live set, like we said we have a couple tours with our live set and one of them is in India. We’ re excited to release and we’ re developing those tracks!
You guys have amazing style as well. Please tell us where you draw your style inspiration from? What are your go-to outfits?
We’ re into different unique clothing. We both love fashion. Just unique, creative, and artistic clothes. We both love accessories and funky jewelry!
Anything you wish to say to your fans?
Just keep going with what you’ re trying to do and believe in what your doing and don’ t believe you have to follow anything. Also we wish to give a big shout out to all our India fans who’ ve been ridiculously supportive and been with us throughout!
The Score Magazine www. thescoremagazine. com
41