Tag Archives: TwoOwls

Two Owls Interview

 

3MiloE: So if you could state your names?

Andrew: I’m Andrew, one half of Two Owls.

Scotty: I’m Scotty, the other half of Two Owls.

3MiloE: Awesome!

Scotty: That your math homework?

(3MiloE flips through his notebook)

3MiloE: (Laughs) No, it’s my psychology homework.

Scotty: Right on.

3MiloE: Okay so, where are you guys from and what’s the music scene like there?

Andrew: L.A. area born and raised. I’m from around this area, grew up in Laverne. I live near Long Beach now. What about you, Scott?

Scotty: I’m from Florida originally, and I’ve been living in Los Angeles for the past two and half, three years. The scene in both Florida and Los Angeles couldn’t be any different. But they’re definitely both a great ode to electronic dance music. Florida, for example, has Ultra Music Festival in Miami and then, you know, Los Angeles has…where we’re at right now… Escape. So yeah, the scene in Los Angeles is way more underground. It’s thriving right now.

Andrew: I think it’s the best for new artists because many can’t go play shows in other states cause they aren’t getting paid enough to travel. But over here…

Scotty: You can play shows here and build your entire fan base out of Los Angeles. I’ve seen it happen.

3MiloE:  So how did you guys come up with your DJ names?

 

Both: (Laughs)

Andrew: Well, we used to tour and make music as Night Owls together, then  we went through a re-brand process from April 1st?

Scotty: Yeah, and we’ve always had this concept of… duality within our brand.

Andrew: And in the fascination with owls and nocturnal life and the occult things. I’ve always been infatuated with those kind of interests. But yeah, a mix between duality and like… our love for owls.

3MiloE: So, obviously the animal that best personifies your music is the owl.

Scotty: Yes.

3MiloE: Why?

Scotty: Essentially, it really comes down to, Free Masonic imagery, as well as the Illuminati symbolism. In the middle of the Redwood Forest is Bohemian Grove, there’s a forty-foot stone owl that they call Malik. (Editor’s note: Moloch.) Malik, as we know, has been around for whatever, so um…

Andrew: From the mythology, Malik isn’t supposed to be an owl, it’s supposed to be a bull.

Scotty: They’re both, so, Malik is an owl but it also, the same… force…has been represented as a bull. So it’s like, the same thing.  So I say it’s like a bull, the symbolism is really interesting. And someone snuck into the Bohemian Grove and took hidden camera footage of people sacrificing what seemed to be like a human, or maybe they, if maybe it was, just some sort of a whatever…

Andrew: A mock sacrifice.

Scotty: …to a forty foot stone owl. So this has actually been going on for thousands of years. (Editor’s note: Thousands, eh?)

Andrew: What does that have to do with our music, dude? (Laughs)

Scotty: And, this is where, I think that’s where a lot of power of the brand comes from. Because, that has existed throughout human history for thousands of years. So I think it could thrive in a brand and use it.

Andrew: I like owl’s personifications. They’re really swift creatures that are able to see through the bullshit.

Scotty: And they’re nocturnal.

Andrew: And nocturnal. I’m a nocturnal person. I kind of see our music as swift and sleek. But owls are also very dangerous things. Like, kind of like our drops.

Scotty: Yeah, my bedroom is also full of owls too. I have all these different owls.

3MiloE: That’s great. So what are you trying to convey with your music?

Scotty: Emotion. The goal, yeah? To be able to convey emotion through music. That was a good concise answer.

3MiloE: Alright, next question okay? Can you describe the feeling you get when you’re on stage?

Andrew: Not really, I mean, it’s almost like…

Scotty: …Transferring energy.

Andrew: It’s almost like, when I was playing baseball as a little kid, and I was like, batting. Like, I almost like, blacked out. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s like you black out and you go in…

Andrew: Yeah, blackout…

Andrew: If you’re prepared, you just go. That’s how, that’s how it is for me. I don’t know, I mean, we work well together. We can read each other, off of our energy. We can do things with each other and we’ll do things vise-versa, and I don’t know, it just flows. Like, I just almost blackout. It’s weird. I don’t remember what I do during my set, or after my set (Laughs). I don’t know. And also, every single one of our sets is prepped different. We couldn’t go and do the same set twice. A lot of artists do the same set forever, but we never do that.

Scotty: Yeah that’s very true. Yeah I definitely agree the whole blackout thing definitely does happen. As soon as we go on stage and we press play, everything else is just a blur until we’re off that stage. It’s really… it’s a really interesting feeling. I think as far as being on stage, I feel like there’s this transfer of energy between the person on stage performing and the crowd. So it’s like, the person hypes it up, and their crowd looks at that and is like, “Okay, this person is hyping up. I’m gonna hype! And that’s like this transfer of energies for the crowd’s hyping and, the performer is hyping, so it’s this cycle that goes on and the bigger the crowd the more you can feel it. You can actually feel this.” (Editor’s note: HEADY!)

Andrew: That’s true though, the better response I get from a crowd, usually, the more confident I am with my DJing, too.

Scotty: Yeah, it’s so surprising. The bigger the crowd, the more confident we are because we know that they’ll fucking like what we do. So the more people there, the more heads we can turn.

3MiloE: What moment do you cherish the most so far in your career?

Scotty: Moments like these, when we’re with our friends at these festivals, and able to, you know, run around the entire place like a playground… it’s like a theme park.

Andrew: I think the one I cherish the most was probably our Global Dance set. Because that was our first time playing to a real festival crowd, and I was really nervous before like,  “Fuck. It’s my first time having fucking, 5,000 people watching me do what I do.” But I really cherished it. After I got off stage. I was like, “Damn. I really just did that.” That was probably the one I cherish the most. It was the first time, it’s like losing your virginity, you know what I mean?

Scotty: (laughs) Very true.

Andrew: Yeah, that was the one for me.

3MiloE: So what are your major influences?

Scotty: As far as music or as far as…?

3MiloE: Anything.

Andrew: Major influences…

Scotty: His is baseball. If the Dodgers lose, then he can’t make music. If they win, he’s grinding.

All: (Laughs.)

Andrew: Nah, but major influences. Let’s see. Music wise, a lot of the guys doing melodic shit right now, like Illenium, Seven Lions, Zed’s Dead, Nghtmre. People like that. As far as direct music, but I draw a lot of inspiration from like, I used to listen to a lot of heavy metal shit, like screamo post-hardcore shit. I grew up listening to that. I still draw inspiration from that going into, creating chord progressions or something like that, you know what I mean? But yeah, I also draw inspiration from just everyday life, you know what I mean? Like, some days I’ll be in a rut like, I’ll open Ableton and I’ll just stare at it. And I’ll go do something, I’ll go get lunch or something and just get inspired, come back, and get ready to work. I don’t know, but yeah that’s it for me.

Scotty: I think there is a really fine line between what your influences are, and what you’re actually a fan of. I think there’s a lot of artists and music that I’m a fan of, but don’t think actually influence me. And I think at the end of the day we most influence ourselves. We become some sort of anti-influence because we’re our biggest critics you know? We have the most to lose. So in a sense our criticism of ourselves is what really influences us.

3MiloE: That is profound. Yeah, that made my head spin. I like that.

Scotty: So I didn’t get you at the forty foot stone owl that they sacrifice people, to but I got you at influences. (Laughs.)

3MiloE: Yeah, well I mean. I take my influences, and they’re not necessarily the people I listen to.

Scotty: Well, I get influences from movies, I get influences from books, I get influences from stuff that has nothing to do with music. That still influences me.  I see comedians, the way comedians come up is so similar to the way DJs come up. A comedian for example starts off at a small club, doesn’t have any pull, is probably performing for free. They have to develop an entire set, test it out with the crowd to see if the set works, like, “Oh, these jokes don’t work, let me scrap it.”  DJs are kind of like the same thing. It’s like, “These songs don’t work, let me scrap it.” They develop a set, they start off at this shitty club. They’re not even getting paid, and they end up, you know, being able to pull their own crowd, being able to, go on their own tour with their own headlining tour. So I think kind of stand up comedy and DJing, are both thriving in Los Angeles. I think both of those scenes kind of are so similar. So that influences me too, I could see the way this dude came up, how can I superimpose that to our shit.

3MiloE: Awesome. Where do you see yourselves a year from now?

Andrew: Hopefully doing more of these at a later time (Laughs) But really…

 

Andrew: We opened the main stage today. We’re kind of getting on the stages where we see ourselves being. But we want to make it more frequent. Maybe outside of California like, other east coast festivals, blah blah blah. Try to get some of these later time slots, bigger crowds, you know what I mean? But we got to start somewhere, definitely blessed to be doing what we’re doing right now, even opening, that was so awesome.

Scotty: Exactly like, I love DJing. It’s so fun to DJ. In a year I would hope to be at a placee where we would be able to make something that we wouldn’t be able to make right now. I would like to be at a place where we’re able to make something we couldn’t make a year ago. Whether its goals or achievements or whether, it’s music. As long as we’re always improving. One year ago we were not able to fucking make this song, or one year ago we weren’t able to fucking pull out, or sell out this venue or something like that. So whatever it is, I hope we’re always progressing, whatever it is, it better be something we weren’t able to do right now, you know what I’m saying?

Mike: When you guys said you opened up the main stage, what was the moment you realized, “‘Wow this is actually happening?”

 

Scotty: Well, we kind of got booked for these shows months in advance, so we were kind of able to somehow envision and strategize everything out, you know? For example, we’re playing at Countdown, Insomniac’s New Year’s Eve event, and it’s October. So we have three months to prepare for that.

Andrew: Also to answer the question… I don’t even think I’m personally at that point yet,  you know what I mean? I’m still struggling every day man. We can be on the stage right now and not there tomorrow. But take everything with a grain of salt. Appreciate everything.

Mike: Whose the brains behind this operation? Like, do you guys have equal parts?

Yeah, it’s equal, definitely like, we’re partners. Business partners, music partners…and I mean it, fucking basic brothers. But there’s no brains.  I mean, sometimes he’ll take the head on something, sometimes I will.  It’s just how we trust each other. That’s just how it works.

 

 

 

3MiloE’s Escape 2017 Experience!!! Updated Nov. 15, 2017!!!

 

Day one  October 30, 2017. Contemplating in a graveyard because I find myself being featured on the television show called “Now and Then” as I will write down in log my first day recalling escape 2017.

First foremost I would like to thank insomniac for the opportunity to cover this event and interview DJs. It was really the most profound experience I have had yet to date and I will re-iterate by thanking them because they really are the best party thrower’s in the world.My name is 3MiloE and this is my Escape 2017 experience.


Logged October 30th, 2017

The purpose of this project is to really capture the feeling of both the artist and the party goer. I will be updating this project daily posting photos interviews and my personal experience interviewing partygoers as well updating daily as time goes along so you can track my project and the progress of this project from beginning to end . Readers can thoroughly enjoy themselves and go through my story day by day rather than having to wait to finish the entire project. I hope you will re-live my experience, with me as I put it down in this article and capture my own experience throughout this wild weekend which was a esape 2017.

 

9:23 a.m. Tuesday, Halloween, October 31, 2017, my friends back yard,

Please allow me to get sidetracked for a second because the main focus of this work, is to derive meaning from this entire stream of consciousness that I experienced during Escape. Although it’s hard to describe. People think it’s about that music, people think about the drugs, people think it’s about the lights, people think it’s about dressing up. It’s really about what each individual takes away from it.

The first night I spent the night interviewing the DJs but the second night I interviewed the crowd. It was interesting to find out what really makes everything tick. I’ve been part of the crowd before but I have never been behind stage I wanted to ask the artist questions I wanted to know, not necessarily what people wanted to know or the public. I like to call myself a Renaissance man of EDM, I produce, I spin, I promote, I write articles, I go to festivals and, now I interview famous DJs.

Right now it is 9:20 in the morning Halloween October 31, 2017 I have just woken up at my friends house I am having a coffee before he wakes up. I am logging in my daily time thinking about who really is my audience reading this? Should I really bring the hard data? Which I feel to some extent this festival world needs.

I am going to write the story of Escape down in this text, the feelings of the artists, the feelings of myself, feelings of the crowd. With the prime directive of answering this questions, “what did we all take away from this experience.  DJs, medical staff, festival workers, party goers, the producers; all changed in some way by this experience. Did people take home something with them, that had only been discovered at Escape 2017? Do they have the feeling that I have?
The feeling that artists cried when they were on stage, was the feeling that was described by general mission, and party goers and that’s the feeling I got when I was experiencing the story doing the interviews, being in the crowd, but most of all I am wondering what feeling the world or the audience will take away from this text…

Nov 2, 2017

Currently stressed about life. I really have to Now  prioritize, strategize and work the hardest I’ve ever worked in my entire life. I am going to be real with you all . I am a psychology student, in the midst of his first year in my master’s program.

Now let me set the scene…”

I have recently lost my entire hard drive on my computer only a couple weeks before the festival and half way through my first session at school . And that was a Trumatic experience for me. I lost about two years worth of content on my computer including photos and all the music I have produced up until that point and my homework… Songs I had spent hours working on, lost to nothingness, save a few originals on SoundCloud. Here is my November 2nd reflection.

As my mind grows, so does my ambition and curiosity…

I have a lot of work to do, I am really stressed, but I know what I have to do and nothing can stop me from conquering my dragons! I must ride this dragon of psychology and become a master! As well as pursue my passions as an active EDM enthusiast, I feel it is my duty , to push my intellectual capacities and apply them to both my fields of research and study. One being electronic music and the other being psychology. It is my master plan, to blend the two together for my master’s thesis.

Ok Ok! I realized I have just been posting thoughts, so here is some real deal pics to satisfy you guys before I get to the juiciest part of my experience….  THE DJ INTERVIEWS…My associate and I are Dictating the interviews now!!!

Da Tweekaz love TheHardData!  Thanks for reading guys!!!

 

November 3rd 2017,

It is the evening of November 3rd 2017 and I just witnessed a lecture by Fanny Brewster, a renowned psychologist who has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and is a licensed Psychoanalyst. Her lecture was on a female Architype. I feel so connected with women, and that may sound strange coming from a man in 2017… but I truly believe, that women are underrepresented in our society.

Selfie, with Fanny Brewster!

 

I took my mother, as a guest, to this lecture at Pacifica, which is the University I attend for my master’s program in psychology. My time there tonight let me reflect upon how I have been thinking a lot about women lately… and the important role they play in my life. I am reflecting now, upon how important music is to me, and that there are not a lot of females in the industry. For example, I can only name two female headliners at Escape. Rezz, and of course Missk8! I feel that Rezz is channeling female power through anonymity. Rezz captures female form without giving it a physical manifestation of beauty, empowering the ideal of a woman and showing the world that a woman can headline without people acknowledging her physical appearance, the beauty lies underneath the trippy glasses. Thank you Rezz!

Similarly, empowering women is Missk8. Missk8 however, harnesses her power by shocking people with her beauty and applying it to high energy music that expresses emotions like anger and exposes aggression within people. These emotions are not often thought of as beautiful, but when Missk8 blasts her music on stage… you tend to re-evaluate things. Her beauty, and figure, has a shock, or wow factor to it. Because hard style is aggressive and angry in a lot of cases, culturally thought of as negative feelings, misunderstood, misinterpreted or misrepresented feelings, and that is not often thought of as beautiful, but Missk8 embodies the beauty that lies within the music, underneath the surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(LATEST UPDATE) November 15, 2017

Affectionately known as my “Office”

I just established my space at Pacifica Graduate Institute. I even tagged it in my social media! I affectionately call it my office. It’s a small room in the library! It’s so perfect and quiet. I recently have been reading this book called, “Addressing Cultural Complexities in Practice Third Edition Assessment Diagnosis, and Therapy, by Pamela A. Hays. I find myself using it as a tool for self-analysis and a way of recognizing biases, within myself, that would potentially prevent me from connecting empathetically with those I seek to form therapeutic relationships with.

The reason I am bringing up this literature… is because, the literature is telling me a lot about my own self-identity. When I go to a massive rave like Escape, I can see every type of person imaginable; even those previously inconceivable.

Everyone’s inhibitions were lowered, acceptance of others was heightened. This lead to a mass exchange of culture, ideas, empathy and feelings! As a result of these socially perceived barriers, that are perceptively stronger outside of a festival setting, were almost demolished, due to the ambiance of the festival. The magnitude and scale of this social exchange goes unparalleled in modern society. It takes years, sometimes lifetimes to tear down the walls of ego and judgement that lie between us and the “other”. At festivals people differ in age, sex, gender, ethnicity, social class, religious beliefs…

A party goer dresses as the pope and Jesus Christ; a strong and symbolic representation of a cultural Archetype,

 

 

economic status, regard for authority, culture, and physical attractiveness. Yet all of us were concentrated in close proximity and feeling some of the most intense feelings that some of us will have had ever experienced in our entire lives.

In life, there is racism, intolerance, prejudice, bias, privilege and misunderstanding. As a psychologist, it is my job to understand these aspects of the human psyche, and therein my own. I must be aware of all these aspects of human life in order to be sensitive and understanding with the people I interact with. And so, with this log I would like to emphasize cultural awareness and sensitivity because we are part of this world. Each culture contributes its unique sounds, adopted by electronic music. The beats, and timing differ from country to country, culture to culture, and person to person… coming from, and spreading to, all over. There are people from all over the world, representing their unique cultures, as individuals, at these festivals. Be aware that we all need to respect and honor each other. That is the premise of the readings I found in Pamela A. Hays’ book, and the theme of this log is to reflect upon your own culture, relative to everyone else’s culture, and bring about a better perspective than the days before that time of great reflection… Happy travels- 3MiloE

 

I never wore color until after Escape 2017