Q&A with ODESZA’s
Clay Knight and Harrison Mills

ODESZA are an electronic duo based out of Washington state. Formed after Clay Knight and Harrison Mills graduated from college, ODESZA has crafted a sound informed in equal parts by British dubstep and American house music. Knight and Mills have a way with production, as evidenced by the flowing samples and loops in tracks like “Without You” and “How Did I Get Here.” They’ve garnered a solid fanbase through streaming outlets and blogs, and they’re shaping up to be one of the more exciting acts around in American electronic music.

The duo play High Noon Saloon tonight with Michal Menert and if you’re looking to dance and groove your way through a Friday night, ODESZA can certainly help. In advance of the show, I spoke with Clay Knight and Harrison Mills of ODESZA by phone.

You guys have self-released all recordings thus far. What advantage or disadvantages do you find in doing this?
HARRISON MILLS: “Advantages are that a lot of different people here it because they’re willing to check out free music. Disadvantages are there’s no money involved! But when you’re starting out, you’re not gonna make a lot anyway.”
CLAY KNIGHT: “Yeah. Another advantage is that we have a lot more control over when we put things out ourselves.”

Your music is remarkably cohesive. How do you guys fuse your personalities into such a consistent sound?
CLAY: “The sound comes from the process. We start with a basic idea or loop and sit in a room and keep adding layers back and forth until we get too much and then start stripping away.”

You’ve mentioned in interviews that your idea of success is creating a track that works as headphone music and in a live setting. What track of yours do you feel has especially accomplished this?
CLAY: “I’d hope that a few of them would be, but if there had to be one that has a nice drop and nice seguing melodies is probably… ah I don’t know! It’s hard to choose! And we’re playing so many shows that it’s hard not to think about how the things work in a live setting.” 

You guys have done a few mini tours and played Sasquatch Festival. What’s one aspect of the musician’s life that came as a surprise to you?
CLAY: “Our first tour was kind of a shocker, just being on the bus the whole day. The lack of showering was pretty surprising.” (laughs) “You’re sleeping ’til early in the afternoon and then staying up way too late.”
HARRISON: “A big part of it that I learned was the business side because that was the last thing I ever thought about. We would get to places and they’d be like “Oh, are you guys selling t-shirts? What merch do you have?’ Sometimes we hadn’t even thought about or prepared for that.”

EDM seems to be a bit of a polarized effort in 2013. There are artists that work for the sole purpose of pushing boundaries and there are others that are content on pleasing a large audience. How do you two mediate these two sometimes-opposing forces when making music?
HARRISON: “Well, pretty much we try to make things approachable or accessible enough so people will give it a shot. But you also want it to be interesting enough and include enough of our deeper influences.”

Soundcloud and Spotify seem to have played a role in getting your music to the masses. Can you comment on the Internet’s role in your releases and whether it’s positive or negative?
CLAY: “Without the Internet, I don’t think it would have taken off quite as well. Spotify and Soundcloud have been huge. Hype Machine is another one that’s been a big help. A lot of our success has come from people responding well on the blog scene, so it’s hard to discredit it.”

And you guys are able to do it as a full-time gig?
CLAY: “Right now we’re doing it as a full-time thing but we’re doing it pretty cheaply. We see a bright future ahead hopefully. We just have to push through the rough intro.”
HARRISON: “Also, as a side note, something Clay hasn’t touched on is that he’s from Madison.”
CLAY: “Yeah, I grew up by Lake Monona and then moved out to Washington. It’s a nice area.”

You’re gearing up for a lengthy tour of the States. What sort of things can we expect to see when you come to Madison on Friday? How has your live show changed since your first gigs?
CLAY: “We try to get into it as much as possible. We’ve definitely gotten better at it since the initial stages. We haven’t been able to incorporate live percussion yet but hopefully that’ll come soon.”
HARRISON: “We’re tweaking a lot of things and we’re getting able to blend everything very well. We have a lot of control over sequencing and we’re able to change our setlist nightly, which helps keep it exciting.”