Half of the NYC electro duo ASTR came dressed for their early set and the high noon heat last Saturday: Zoe clad in a crop top and high-waisted jean shorts (the Gov Ball uni for girls, it seemed); Adam covered in his typical head-to-toe black, with thick-rimmed glasses and finger-in-a-light-socket locks – a hipster Einstein that totally works. But of course opposites attract, and when they started to perform their 90s-infused, synthy hip-hop pop, everyone witnessed their creative chemistry in action.
The two worked the afternoon stage like champs and quickly transformed the crowd from hungover zombies to dancehall queens. They played favorites "Blue Hawaii" and "R U With Me" and performed their cover of Drake's "Hold On, We're Going Home." We got to steal a few minutes of Adam's time to talk about their new EP and Gov Ball 2015, so read on to learn about these cool AF creatures that we are deeply thankful found each other in yoga class a few years back.
EARMILK: What influences did you guys draw upon for “Activate Me”?
ASTR: Zoe and I both grew up on house music and hip hop and have been messing around with some more dancey stuff as we were continuing to write. This song came together and in some ways captures a little bit of what was going on in New York in the 90s, which was the house music epicenter. Similarly, with the video, we wanted to make something gritty that captured New York in a non-iconic, unrecognizable way. And we ended up shooting on the coldest day of the year.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4xEKwyZT8U[/youtube]
EARMILK: What can we expect to look forward to with your upcoming EP?
ASTR: Look forward to more of the same, which is dark pop with RnB overtones. Most of the songs were written in New York and hopefully somehow some of that comes across.
EARMILK: How did you come to work with Rodney Jerkins/Darkchild?
ASTR: Apparently he's a big ASTR fan, and he took a meeting with someone that we work with and saw our sticker on their laptop and immediately said, "that's my shit, I love those guys." We met with him out in LA and he was just playing our shit really really loud, and invited us to his house to work. He was really feeling “Activate Me” so we sent him the files, and he turned around a pretty dope mix, which is what we have. We're super thankful that he wanted to collaborate with us and we learned a lot in the few times we hung out with him.
EARMILK: Any upcoming collaborations?
ASTR: It's a little too soon to say, but I can say we've done a few collaborative sessions.
EARMILK: What are your thoughts on Gov Ball?
ASTR: We had a really early set on Saturday, basically the first set of the day, and we were nervous that people would have been too partied out from the day before, but we had tons of people and a really great show, and even though it was a little muddy, we ended up having a great time hanging out with a lot of our friends.
EARMILK: What's in the pipeline for this summer and year?
ASTR: We're just really excited to get this next batch of songs out, and we hope people like them. We're gonna continue playing shows and making music videos for the Homecoming EP, which you can expect at the end of July.
Stay in touch with ASTR & stay in the know about new must et al, via the links below.
