Courtesy Photo
The Floozies are Mark (left) and Matt (right) Hill. The brothers duo mixes live instrumentation with drums and guitar with EDM elements to make for high-energy electronic funk music. They will be headlining at George’s Majestic Lounge on Friday, Sept. 5, and Saturday, Sept. 6.
The Floozies are blowing up right now.
Known for their high-energy, funk-fest live shows that operate like parties, The Floozies consist of Matt (producer, guitar) and Mark Hill (drums), who are brothers. The band’s music is a unique blending of live instrumentation with drums and guitar with EDM (electronic dance music) elements. Oh, and the EDM elements are improvised, too.
They’ve come a long way from Lawrence, Kan., and now they’ll be hosting a double-header at George’s Majestic Lounge this weekend on Sept. 5 and 6. They plan on unveiling some new songs at the shows, too.
Thirty minutes before his fantasy football draft, Matt squeezed in a phone interview for us.
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Here’s our Q&A:
TFW: So, how did you guys come up with the idea of having drums and guitar mixed in with EDM?
Hill: That’s just what we play. I’ve been playing guitar since I was about 11, and Mark started playing drums when he was 9. All the other new gear and instruments going on was all pretty exciting, so we just kinda naturally added it to what we already do. It made sense to incorporate everything that we’re good at to do this band. Honestly, we didn’t think about it that hard, it’s just that’s how we make music.
TFW: What were some of your EDM influences?
Hill: We listened to VibesquaD and the Glitch Mob. At the time I hadn’t really heard much — We’re from Kansas, and y’know, Lawrence is pretty cool, but at the time it wasn’t getting that much electronic stuff. When those guys came to town, it was (sighs) a big moment for us. Seeing them play live was like “holy shit, you can do this stuff live.”
TFW: So when did the “Floozies sound” come about?
Hill: We really started sounding like us when we released “At Dusk We Launch,” in 2012. When we started out, it was just live looping. It was just guitar and then Mark would play drums. Then we added the keyboard. Honestly, at first we were kinda broke so we couldn’t afford all this rad gear. As we got better and had more money, we started incorporating Abelton Live, and I bought Logic Pro. So once we got all that stuff, that’s when we really got to realize our creative vision.
TFW: Speaking of gear, I saw a video of you messing around with this EDM-type guitar that had buttons where the strings would be. Tell me about that!
Hill: Yeah! It’s a Misa Tri Bass. It’s like a touchscreen and touch-sensitive neck. It’s set up like a guitar in how you place your hands in the same place as a guitar, but it does not play like a guitar. So I’m still practicing with that thing so I can get it to a point where I can play it live and it not sound bad. It’s definitely a learning experience. The notes on the fretboard are just like the notes on a guitar, and you touch the touchscreen like you would pick. It feels totally different. I call it my space guitar.
TFW: So you guys have been able to fit into a lot of different scenes with your music, and you’ve played tons of festivals. What’s the journey been like?
Hill: It’s been nuts, man. When I was in college, I would look at the Wakarusa lineup and want to be on it. Now we are, and we’ve played like every festival that we wanted to play this year. It’s been pretty unreal, the best summer of my life, I suppose. The Wakarusa sets were a blast. I had a really good time at Waka. Hudson project in New York was pretty cool. We played at 1:30 p.m., and that’s pretty early. When I’m at a festival I don’t get going until about 2 or so. We had a great crowd at 1:30 and people were just going nuts for us. That felt really good to know that we could bring people out and have them check us out. We’re really fortunate to have that.
TFW: How do you structure your sets?
Hill: We don’t really do setlists. We usually don’t know what we’ll start with until we go on. It’s just reading the crowd and making sure we’re on their page. It’s just so much fun when we’re giving them energy and they’re giving it right back to us. When you’ve got a preordained setlist, then it doesn’t really feel as strong. We improvise a lot and change songs up a lot. I think it makes it more fun for us, and more fun for everybody else.
TFW: So, you’ve got two back to back shows at George’s. Tell me about your relationship with Northwest Arkansas.
Hill: Man, we love Fayetteville. We considered moving there before. It feels similar to Lawrence, that it’s like a fun liberal college town in the middle of a red state, so it’s a very familiar feel. Wakarusa was the first major festival we ever played. We have a lot of friends down there, and there’s a lot of pretty girls there, too. There’s pretty girls everywhere, but at one of the George’s shows a while ago we were just like, “Man, you all are just a gorgeous crowd!”
