When the inspiring energies from The Chainsmokers and Odesza collided, a butterfly effect must have commenced, leading to a new Carolina electronic music project, name unknown. Debuting their signature touch on a blackbear record at the beginning of 2021, the brotherly duo has been on a onslaught of releases the past few months to hone in on a ripe sound. Brining us to their latest releases primed for the radio and festival circuit ‘Can’t Forget’ with ENMOCEAN and ‘Collide’ featuring Candela. While their recent Illenium edit is a treat as well.
‘Can’t Forget’ is bursting with head turning samples and heartfelt vocals. The dynamics in the final breakdown gives us a taste of name unknown’s ability to keep the dance floor enticed. name unknown shares on the message of ‘Can’t Forget’, “no matter how bad the heartbreak you have with someone, each love you have takes a piece of you and you hold a piece of them in your heart. But there’s a reason you’re no longer with that person and you shouldn’t forget the lesson that the relationship taught you.”
As name unknown prepares for their set alongside Zeds Dead, Two Friends, Dr. Fresch, Speenz and Candela for Hidden City Music Festival in South Carolina, the duo shares their story, keeps us apprised of hot dance music releases, talks Carolina electronic music and reveals their roadmap ahead during an exclusive thatDROP interview.
How did you find the singer on the track, Kristy Grant and ENMOCEAN? How have you found other vocalists you have collaborated with?
We actually found her [Kristy Grant] through some digging on Soundbetter. We tend to gravitate using Soundbetter when possible for singers because singers seem to be much more open minded on the site and are super easy to work with since its kinda a work for hire situation. Kirsty did an absolutely amazing job. We sent her the production and she sent us a demo that just blew us away. We made some adjustments and went back and forth fine tuning it but she did so well. I highly recommend looking her up.
After we finished the vocals, we sent the demo to ENMOCEAN. ENMOCEAN is an old friend of ours. We all lived together in LA when we were attending ICON Collective. We are putting together and EP (which ‘Can’t Forget’ will be a part of) and asked ENMOCEAN if he wanted to work on one of our demos as a collaboration to be on the EP. He said yes and loved our demo ‘Miami’. It sounded COMPLETELY different from the track you hear today. ENMOCEAN put his twist on the song then sent it back to us. We got Kirsty to sing and then we reworked the track to really fit her vocal perfectly. Then we went back and forth a few times with ENMOCEAN tweaking small things from there and then ‘Can’t Forget’ was born.
We have worked with quite a few vocalists and seem to gravitate to the same ones since we have such a good relationship with them. For the EP we currently have Jaime Durez, Kirsty Grant, Nate Mitchel, and Rebecca Page. All artists you definitely need to check out. So underrated.
It is awesome to see you opening for two of your inspirations, Zeds Dead and Two Friends on April 9th for Hidden City. Can you tell us how you are preparing for a set like this? Can you tell us any more details about this specially curated event?
It’s our first major festival so we are excited to say the least. We have been preparing a set ever since Hidden City contacted us in December about playing. We want to really stand out from the normal DJ sets. It’s difficult since we both don’t really play an instrument to make things “different” but we love to perform and always make sure to put on a crazy show.
We have some ideas up our sleeves on how to stand out from the rest but I can assure you, no one will match our energy on stage. The closest we can compare it to is The Chainsmokers. Like them, our sets go way harder than what you hear in our music. We love making Dance-Pop, Future Bass tracks but when we perform it’s a kaleidoscope of different genres.
What are 5 melodic / future bass tracks you find at the forefront of electronic music?
We are huge The Chainsmokers fans so we have to put ‘High’ on this list. Cant wait to hear their new album. It seems like everything they put out turns to gold. They have a huge influence on our music. Definitely someone we hope to work with some day.
Illenium ‘Story of My Life’ with Sueco and Trippie Redd. We are about to release our remix to this song. We love the punk rock direction that Illenium is taking the future bass scene. It’s something we are trying to implement into our own tracks If you cant tell by the overdriven guitar like melodies.
‘First Time’ feat. Dylan Matthew by Seven Lions, Slander and Dabin. This song always hits right in the feels. Love every artist in this song. Some others are ‘Getting Late’ by Slander (fellow ICON grads) and ‘Glow in the Dark’ by Friendzone and Nevve.
How is the electronic music scene in the Carolinas? What are your favorite local venues, artists, events and festivals?
The scene in the Carolinas is growing rapidly. When we first started out back in 2016 we couldn’t play much EDM when we performed. Now it seems like clubs are popping up everywhere and dance music is in the forefront. If you asked us 5 years ago if we thought we could make it as electronic artists in the Carolinas we would have given you a strong no. Today, it almost feels like 2012 and EDM is just finding its voice here.
We loved Breakaway Music Festival and are hoping to one day play in it. We also have our eyes set on High Tide in Charleston and hopefully even Digital Gardens for next year. Obviously we cannot wait for Hidden City as well!
Our favorite local venues are Slate, Lost and Found, World, QC Social Lounge, SERJ, The Bassment, and The Filmore in Charlotte, NC, and Cotton Gin and Rooftop in Columbia, SC. All of them hold amazing shows and are so much fun to go to. We are hoping to get our foot in the door at one of these soon. Right now our biggest performance venue is Rooftop in Columbia. We will be hosting our release parties there alongside our longtime friend Candela.
What is your biggest fear?
Failure. We have put every spare dime that we have into our music for almost 7 years now. Countless dollars, hours, friendships, relationships, bad situations with managers, venues, and the like, horror stories, blood, sweat, and tears. We want this. We want to be able to make this our career and nothing else. After putting 7 hard years into this it would hurt not to see anything transpire.
If you could break one world record what would it be?
Well.. Fun fact, Joe actually holds 5 International Powerlifting Association World Records in powerlifting. Junior 220lbs Weight class Squat of 920lbs, and Total of 2100lbs, Junior 242lbs Squat of 965lbs, and Teen 220lbs squat of 810lbs.
If we could break one world record other than that it would be longest high five chain. Legit think we could break that at a show. Other than that it would be either most top 40 singles or most top 40 songs in an album.
What other vocalist do you hope to collaborate with?
It has always been a dream to work with Halsey, Ariana Grande, Charlie Puthe, and Tom Delonge because not many edm artists have worked with them and then Lennon Stella, Ruben, Sasha Sloan, and Emily Warren.
Do you have any life mantra or philosophies that you like to live by?
So far in our music experience, Murphy’s Law has been the biggest unfortunately.
But for us it’s to never forget why we started. It’s so easy to lose sight of why we wanted this career in the first place when things don’t go our way. We didn’t come this far to only come “this far.” We are seeing this through and we will do what ever it takes to get there. It’s like the drawing of the miner digging for diamonds only to stop right before he breaks into the diamond mine. Gotta keep chipping away, our diamonds are coming, we know it.
Can you give us some insight into the NFT space?
This is Joe’s world. He is huge into the crypto space. He has a mining company and everything. It’s helped us fund a lot of our music venture.
NFTs right now are kinda like the internet when it very first started. We knew we could link computers but we didn’t know what we could really do with it or what it will become.
The NFTs like these punks and various jpegs that really have no use case are just that. It’s like owning an antique Mac in storage. Doesn’t really do anything, but a collectors item and will stay just that.
But NFTs with a use case are going to be the ones that really breakout. At some point our airline tickets, concert ticket, contracts, properties, etc. are going to be or are going to be represented by a NFT.
So, Our NFTs are in honor of our upcoming EP ‘Untethered’. They allow people to be a part of our come-up. Each one will come with UNK Coins to spend on our merch and will earn perks as we go, whether that’s streaming royalty rewards, free concert admissions, merch, etc. All to come. We will make having one worth it.
What are you excited for this week, month and year?
Super excited for our next show at Rooftop in Columbia, SC on March 18th. We cannot wait to set the release date of our first EP in March and definitely are excited for Hidden City in April.
We are finally putting out the music we love and have been sitting on for months if not years. We just cant wait to see how people respond to the music once it’s out. We have so many tracks to put out this year that it’s honestly hard to keep up with.
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