Crownz Talks About Their New Single "Away"
- Mainstream Magazine
- Nov 1, 2019
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 2, 2019
AUTHOR: Elias Ramcrom
First off, congratulations on the new single! I immediately noticed the contrast between the melancholic lyrics and the poppy, airy beat. How did the writing process for instrumentals and lyrics influence each other?
Our writing process is broken down into about 2-3 days. Day one consists of creating the instrumental aspect with our producer Spencer Bradham. We sit in Studio C for around 6-8 hours to work on constructing beats, keys, guitar, and our signature EDM drops. The next day we come back and work on melody and write the lyrics for the track. That same day we record our scratch vocals and put all the effects on the vocals. We all sit with it for a few days and we decide whether we should record final vocals or if the scratch vocals were good enough to keep as our final. After that finally comes the mixing and mastering. So to answer your question, after finishing the instrumental we decide the vibe and what we want the song to be about and then let the lyrics flow!
I hear such a wide range of influences in this song, I couldn't even begin to box your sound into a single scene. It leaves the door wide open for you to work with so many different people, so naturally I'm wondering– what other artists and bands you'd want to collab or tour with?
We love that you say that! When we were establishing our sound in April we were analyzing what artists in the modern music industry were doing and what was making them successful. One artist that really stood out to us was Marshmello! The way he is taking over the entire scene by collaborating with artists in every single genre to expand his music to absolutely everybody in incredible! So we combined a fusion of Synth Pop, EDM and Trap combined with analog Rock instrumentation to create a futuristic sound with a hint of ’80s lineage. By doing this we set ourselves up to be able to collaborate with any artist from punk to country and anything in between! That being said we would love to collaborate with artists such as The Chainsmokers, Bishop Briggs, Halsey, Grandson, The 1975, AJR, and of course Marshmello!
How long have your members been in the music scene? Have any of you been involved in other groups, or is this your first major project?
Well we will start with lead vocalist Karly Johnson! She started out singing little by little in elementary school, but in middle school, she joined her school’s choir and received multiple solo opportunities and really had the chance to explore her voice! Then in highschool joined theatre and flourished. Thats where she really found herself and picked up her explosive stage presence. Next we will move on to our keyboardist Jacob Hoover! He has been classically trained on piano since he was 8 years old! The things he can do on a piano is insane! Third, our drummer Christian Tomlin! He is well versed in many instruments; from keys to guitar to drums, and many more. It is good to have such a versatile musician in the group. DJ Crownz is very fresh to the music scene and we have really broken him out of his shell. Finally, we will move on to our guitarist Bryce Berringer! He is a self taught musician starting out back in middle school, and like Christian he is versed in a range instruments! Which brings us to our next topic, Bryce started an Alt Rock group called Stranger Than Fiction straight out of middle school! Karly (which went to the same middle school as Bryce) Joined her sophomore year and Stranger Than Fiction really began to make its push in the local scene. Not to long after that Christian and Jake joined. However, we soon realized that music was making a big change and we wanted to keep up with the times. So in April 2019 we decided to do a complete rebrand, and music change and that is when we became Crownz! In the past 6 months we have done more than we could even have dreamed of in Stranger Than Fiction.
Now taking things back a little bit, your first song you all released was a collab with DJTranz– what was it like working with him?
DJ Tranz is truly an amazing person, and he is such an easy person to work with! Everything he did and continues to do is all about the music. We had the honor of meeting him through our studio Clear Track Studios, and we immediately clicked. We decided to come together to create “Our Way” just to kind of see what we could do with it and we ended up getting a distribution deal through Universal Music Group and 71,000 streams within the first month of it being released. It was an honor to work with him and we would do it all again!
You clearly have a versatile music style, blending EDM-drops, alternative songwriting, and a clever sense of indie lyricism. What styles can we expect from future Crownz music?
You can expect the unexpected from us… we have a lot of ideas and tricks up our sleeves and cannot WAIT to share them with the world. Style wise, expect a lot of dance, upbeat, trap music with a twist to it. Stay tuned for that!
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