New York-based duo Sofi Tukker burst onto the scene in 2016 with their Portuguese-fused track 'Drinkee'.

The track racked up million of plays, and earned the pair a Grammy nomination. From there they've remained on the rise, with a slew of huge international performances under their belt and another Grammy nom for their debut album Treehouse. Having recently played Coachella, they'll be making the trip down under this week for the Groovin The Moo festivals (along with some headline shows).

I spoke with Sophie and Tucker about what we can expect in their Australian sets, their new single 'Fantasy' and working with Jon Hume, aka the lead singer of emo throwback band Evermore.

I wanted to kick off by talking about Coachella, which you guys played for the second time last weekend, and again this weekend. How did that compare for you to when you first played it in 2017?

T: Way better. It was really crazy, I mean the first time we played it was one of our first festivals ever, we played in the daytime, we were just hoping the tent would fill out.

We were trying to do our best at the time, and it ended up being one of the best experiences ever. It was really overwhelming and crazy, and then this time we went back and it felt a little more like, you know, we knew what we were doing sort of. We had a big new live show and production that we've been working on for six months that we were planning to debut at Coachella.

We were excited and nervous about that, and we had an amazing night slot and everything worked perfectly. We had some amazing guests who are friends and icons and we were just so excited about having them. The crowd was so crazy that it actually leaked in to the next tent and security had to get them out. It was the best thing ever.

Yeah, that sounds amazing. Did you end up catching any of the other acts that played this year?

S: Yeah, we saw a couple of people, we saw Rosalia who I thought was absolutely incredible. And I thought Maggie Rogers was amazing…we didn't get to see that much but those two particularly really stand out to me.

Yeah, definitely. So, you're playing Groovin The Moo here in a few weeks, which is quite different to something like Coachella. What can we expect to see in your Groovin set?

T: We are going to bring a lot of our new production, like the new sculpture thing we have in the middle of the stage, we call it the Book Tree that I hit and it plays samples. We're bringing all that stuff, so it’s going to be a full Sofi Tukker show. We're going to go dance and sweat a lot and jump around a lot and egg on the crowd to be crazier than they've ever been - and in Australia that's pretty crazy.

You've got some headline shows around Groovin as well - how do you plan or prepare differently for your own headline shows versus a festival slot?

S: It can be super different. We play a different order of songs, and we place things a little bit differently, when it comes down to it, it's still a lot of energy, positivity, you know, good vibes and the crazy dance party.

And then you've also got a couple of Australian acts joining you for these shows, like Golden Vessel and then a few of the local acts, so how did you choose who was going to come on board for that?

T: Well, usually we get a group of artists and we listen to them through and see who we feel like would be a good fit for us. And then sometimes we show up and actually have no idea whose opening for us.  

S: And we just get there and say hi.

T: So it totally depends on the situation, but all the ones we're having in Australia we're pretty excited about and I think it's going to fit really nicely.

I also wanted to chat quickly about 'Fantasy', which dropped a few weeks ago now. It's a bit different to the other tracks I think we've heard from you guys before. What was the process behind that track?

T: The process of 'Fantasy' was sort of an experiment. We were like, “let’s try to make this type of song that makes you dance and cry at the same time.”

And you know, it can be sung with an acoustic guitar and still be a full beautiful song, but for the dance floor it’s sort of a new take. I have always really loved European dance music and the bolder stuff, so we definitely got a lot of inspiration from classic dance music.

S: We also collaborated, actually, with an Australian for this one - a guy called Jon Hume from the band Evermore, who’s from Australia. That was really fun, we loved collaborating with him.

I was actually about to ask, because Evermore is a bit of a teenage angst band for a lot of us, I was wondering how you guys got to know him?

T: Well it’s funny, because we got to know him as a musician and a collaborator, and we didn't know Evermore. We played a bunch of songs with Jon and we actually didn't ever really look up Evermore or any videos of their music, until a couple of weeks ago with him. We were laughing so hard, and he was like, “oh not this one!”. We didn't even know it was like emo rock or anything, I had no idea – it was really funny.

Yeah, it’s definitely like a big throwback thing for a lot of Australians I think.

I was told that there's a R3hab remix about to drop, possibly tomorrow, is that right?

T: Yeah, and it’s a banger.

How did that one come about?

T: That one, we basically were thinking up, who do we think would remix this, and take it to the next level of this full, big banging thing. R3hab was on the top of our list and he came through, and it’s so beautiful. We ended up mixing it through it at the end of our set in Coachella from our original version to his version kind of like an outro, and it felt so good that people were crying.

He includes this amazing melody in the drop that we were all just like “wow, that was so brilliant”. I'm so excited for that one to be out because I've been listening to it from my phone for a little while and I want it on Spotify and iTunes.

It sounds very exciting. The last thing I wanted to ask you guys is about what you’ve got coming up for the rest of the year?

T: Well the most important thing is Australia.

S: Yeah, I think we're going to be releasing a lot of new music and we're going to be releasing audio-visuals and we're going to be travelling the world. It’s just so much music, and we get to tour the new live show around which we're really excited for.

---

Georgia is the Managing Editor of Blitz. She is a Journalism/Law student with a passion for all things music and culture. When she’s not at a gig, you can find her watching NCIS and tagging her housemates in memes. Her go-to coffee is a skim mocha. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.