Name: Chromeo
Members: David "Dave 1" Macklovitch, Patrick "P-Thugg" Gemayel
Nationality: Canadian
Current release: Chromeo's Adult Contemporary is slated for release February 16th 2024.

If you enjoyed this Chromeo interview and would like to know more about the band and their music, visit their official homepage. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.  



The Chromeo sound is intriguing – it's both personal and familiar, contemporary and rooted in a proud past. How would you describe the search for your personal voice? What were breakthrough moments?

The search is constant for us because what keeps us coming up — and keeps us motivated — is riding that fine line. Not being too familiar but not being too jarring either; not being too pseudo-contemporary but not being too rooted in the past either.

Same goes for the lyrics: not being too funny, not being too emotional. It’s a permanent balancing act that comes up with every song and, within each song, every production choice.

Breakthrough moments for us came in the form of songs and musical tropes and moments that we could pull off, or maybe even get away with. A song called “Momma’s Boy.”



A poppy moment like “Jealous”.



A collaborative ballad like “One Track Mind.”



Or something really indulgent and overextended like the song song outros on White Women and the tracks off the new album.

Do you tend to prefer artists who change with every album or those who find their style and then stick to it? How does your ideal of change vs consistency manifest itself on Adult Contemporary?

We love both, honestly. The Beatles changed; A Tribe Called Quest stayed super consistent and just refined their aesthetic. We’re definitely the latter. But in our case, every album is a reaction to the previous one.

On Head Over Heels, we went super slick, super collaborative; we purposefully worked towards a big, wide, clean sound. We wanted to involve a bunch of writers, producers and guests on the record. So on Adult Contemporary, we decided to do the opposite. We wrote and produced and arranged and played everything ourselves and only worked with one mix engineer for the whole thing (Morgan Geist!).

In that respect there’s a bit of a return to form, but in terms of production chops and sophistication, we implemented everything we’ve learned along the way — it’s definitely the culmination of 20 years of craft, for us.

It is often said that there is never anything genuinely “new” in music and that we are only ever creating variations. What's your take on this? What does originality mean to you?

Originality is an overrated, romantic, 19th century construct. If you had told a Renaissance artist they were original they would’ve thought it was insulting.

We sort of agree with that, but more in an intertextual, postmodern sense. Everything is re-phrased and re-contextualized. You study the greats until the point when, using all your influences, you come up with a personal twist, a personal way of combining and distilling them.

We’re flattered if we’re called original but we’re not insulted if we’re called derivative. Hopefully we’re derivative in an original way.

It is easy to see how the past and the future need to be reconsiled when it comes to society as a whole. When it comes to music, however, do you feel it is important to try and resolve these opposites as well? Do you see yourself as part of tradition or a lineage?

Renaissance artists said this: we aim to be midgets on the shoulders of giants. Our whole career we’ve been open about our idols and influences, be it Hall & Oates, Prince or Daft Punk. In a few cases, we’ve had the honor of hearing one of our heroes tell us we were part of their lineage. There’s no greater compliment.

We’re music fans — fanatics — first and foremost. So hopefully we walk towards the future whilst keeping an eye on the past…it’s like walking forward but facing the back…like moonwalking.