3MiloE: So if you could state your names?

Andrew: I’m Andrew, one half of Two Owls.

Scotty: I’m Scotty, the other half of Two Owls.

3MiloE: Awesome!

Scotty: That your math homework?

(3MiloE flips through his notebook)

3MiloE: (Laughs) No, it’s my psychology homework.

Scotty: Right on.

3MiloE: Okay so, where are you guys from and what’s the music scene like there?

Andrew: L.A. area born and raised. I’m from around this area, grew up in Laverne. I live near Long Beach now. What about you, Scott?

Scotty: I’m from Florida originally, and I’ve been living in Los Angeles for the past two and half, three years. The scene in both Florida and Los Angeles couldn’t be any different. But they’re definitely both a great ode to electronic dance music. Florida, for example, has Ultra Music Festival in Miami and then, you know, Los Angeles has…where we’re at right now… Escape. So yeah, the scene in Los Angeles is way more underground. It’s thriving right now.

Andrew: I think it’s the best for new artists because many can’t go play shows in other states cause they aren’t getting paid enough to travel. But over here…

Scotty: You can play shows here and build your entire fan base out of Los Angeles. I’ve seen it happen.

3MiloE:  So how did you guys come up with your DJ names?

Both: (Laughs)

Andrew: Well, we used to tour and make music as Night Owls together, then  we went through a re-brand process from April 1st?

Scotty: Yeah, and we’ve always had this concept of… duality within our brand.

Andrew: And in the fascination with owls and nocturnal life and the occult things. I’ve always been infatuated with those kind of interests. But yeah, a mix between duality and like… our love for owls.

3MiloE: So, obviously the animal that best personifies your music is the owl.

Scotty: Yes.

3MiloE: Why?

Scotty: Essentially, it really comes down to, Free Masonic imagery, as well as the Illuminati symbolism. In the middle of the Redwood Forest is Bohemian Grove, there’s a forty-foot stone owl that they call Malik. (Editor’s note: Moloch.) Malik, as we know, has been around for whatever, so um…

Andrew: From the mythology, Malik isn’t supposed to be an owl, it’s supposed to be a bull.

Scotty: They’re both, so, Malik is an owl but it also, the same… force…has been represented as a bull. So it’s like, the same thing.  So I say it’s like a bull, the symbolism is really interesting. And someone snuck into the Bohemian Grove and took hidden camera footage of people sacrificing what seemed to be like a human, or maybe they, if maybe it was, just some sort of a whatever…

Andrew: A mock sacrifice.

Scotty: …to a forty foot stone owl. So this has actually been going on for thousands of years. (Editor’s note: Thousands, eh?)

Andrew: What does that have to do with our music, dude? (Laughs)

Scotty: And, this is where, I think that’s where a lot of power of the brand comes from. Because, that has existed throughout human history for thousands of years. So I think it could thrive in a brand and use it.

Andrew: I like owl’s personifications. They’re really swift creatures that are able to see through the bullshit.

Scotty: And they’re nocturnal.

Andrew: And nocturnal. I’m a nocturnal person. I kind of see our music as swift and sleek. But owls are also very dangerous things. Like, kind of like our drops.

Scotty: Yeah, my bedroom is also full of owls too. I have all these different owls.

3MiloE: That’s great. So what are you trying to convey with your music?

Scotty: Emotion. The goal, yeah? To be able to convey emotion through music. That was a good concise answer.

3MiloE: Alright, next question okay? Can you describe the feeling you get when you’re on stage?

Andrew: Not really, I mean, it’s almost like…

Scotty: …Transferring energy.

Andrew: It’s almost like, when I was playing baseball as a little kid, and I was like, batting. Like, I almost like, blacked out. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s like you black out and you go in…

Andrew: Yeah, blackout…

Andrew: If you’re prepared, you just go. That’s how, that’s how it is for me. I don’t know, I mean, we work well together. We can read each other, off of our energy. We can do things with each other and we’ll do things vise-versa, and I don’t know, it just flows. Like, I just almost blackout. It’s weird. I don’t remember what I do during my set, or after my set (Laughs). I don’t know. And also, every single one of our sets is prepped different. We couldn’t go and do the same set twice. A lot of artists do the same set forever, but we never do that.

Scotty: Yeah that’s very true. Yeah I definitely agree the whole blackout thing definitely does happen. As soon as we go on stage and we press play, everything else is just a blur until we’re off that stage. It’s really… it’s a really interesting feeling. I think as far as being on stage, I feel like there’s this transfer of energy between the person on stage performing and the crowd. So it’s like, the person hypes it up, and their crowd looks at that and is like, “Okay, this person is hyping up. I’m gonna hype! And that’s like this transfer of energies for the crowd’s hyping and, the performer is hyping, so it’s this cycle that goes on and the bigger the crowd the more you can feel it. You can actually feel this.” (Editor’s note: HEADY!)

Andrew: That’s true though, the better response I get from a crowd, usually, the more confident I am with my DJing, too.

Scotty: Yeah, it’s so surprising. The bigger the crowd, the more confident we are because we know that they’ll fucking like what we do. So the more people there, the more heads we can turn.

3MiloE: What moment do you cherish the most so far in your career?

Scotty: Moments like these, when we’re with our friends at these festivals, and able to, you know, run around the entire place like a playground… it’s like a theme park.

Andrew: I think the one I cherish the most was probably our Global Dance set. Because that was our first time playing to a real festival crowd, and I was really nervous before like,  “Fuck. It’s my first time having fucking, 5,000 people watching me do what I do.” But I really cherished it. After I got off stage. I was like, “Damn. I really just did that.” That was probably the one I cherish the most. It was the first time, it’s like losing your virginity, you know what I mean?

Scotty: (laughs) Very true.

Andrew: Yeah, that was the one for me.

3MiloE: So what are your major influences?

Scotty: As far as music or as far as…?

3MiloE: Anything.

Andrew: Major influences…

Scotty: His is baseball. If the Dodgers lose, then he can’t make music. If they win, he’s grinding.

All: (Laughs.)

Andrew: Nah, but major influences. Let’s see. Music wise, a lot of the guys doing melodic shit right now, like Illenium, Seven Lions, Zed’s Dead, Nghtmre. People like that. As far as direct music, but I draw a lot of inspiration from like, I used to listen to a lot of heavy metal shit, like screamo post-hardcore shit. I grew up listening to that. I still draw inspiration from that going into, creating chord progressions or something like that, you know what I mean? But yeah, I also draw inspiration from just everyday life, you know what I mean? Like, some days I’ll be in a rut like, I’ll open Ableton and I’ll just stare at it. And I’ll go do something, I’ll go get lunch or something and just get inspired, come back, and get ready to work. I don’t know, but yeah that’s it for me.

Scotty: I think there is a really fine line between what your influences are, and what you’re actually a fan of. I think there’s a lot of artists and music that I’m a fan of, but don’t think actually influence me. And I think at the end of the day we most influence ourselves. We become some sort of anti-influence because we’re our biggest critics you know? We have the most to lose. So in a sense our criticism of ourselves is what really influences us.

3MiloE: That is profound. Yeah, that made my head spin. I like that.

Scotty: So I didn’t get you at the forty foot stone owl that they sacrifice people, to but I got you at influences. (Laughs.)

3MiloE: Yeah, well I mean. I take my influences, and they’re not necessarily the people I listen to.

Scotty: Well, I get influences from movies, I get influences from books, I get influences from stuff that has nothing to do with music. That still influences me.  I see comedians, the way comedians come up is so similar to the way DJs come up. A comedian for example starts off at a small club, doesn’t have any pull, is probably performing for free. They have to develop an entire set, test it out with the crowd to see if the set works, like, “Oh, these jokes don’t work, let me scrap it.”  DJs are kind of like the same thing. It’s like, “These songs don’t work, let me scrap it.” They develop a set, they start off at this shitty club. They’re not even getting paid, and they end up, you know, being able to pull their own crowd, being able to, go on their own tour with their own headlining tour. So I think kind of stand up comedy and DJing, are both thriving in Los Angeles. I think both of those scenes kind of are so similar. So that influences me too, I could see the way this dude came up, how can I superimpose that to our shit.

3MiloE: Awesome. Where do you see yourselves a year from now?

Andrew: Hopefully doing more of these at a later time (Laughs) But really…

Andrew: We opened the main stage today. We’re kind of getting on the stages where we see ourselves being. But we want to make it more frequent. Maybe outside of California like, other east coast festivals, blah blah blah. Try to get some of these later time slots, bigger crowds, you know what I mean? But we got to start somewhere, definitely blessed to be doing what we’re doing right now, even opening, that was so awesome.

Scotty: Exactly like, I love DJing. It’s so fun to DJ. In a year I would hope to be at a placee where we would be able to make something that we wouldn’t be able to make right now. I would like to be at a place where we’re able to make something we couldn’t make a year ago. Whether its goals or achievements or whether, it’s music. As long as we’re always improving. One year ago we were not able to fucking make this song, or one year ago we weren’t able to fucking pull out, or sell out this venue or something like that. So whatever it is, I hope we’re always progressing, whatever it is, it better be something we weren’t able to do right now, you know what I’m saying?

Mike: When you guys said you opened up the main stage, what was the moment you realized, “‘Wow this is actually happening?”

Scotty: Well, we kind of got booked for these shows months in advance, so we were kind of able to somehow envision and strategize everything out, you know? For example, we’re playing at Countdown, Insomniac’s New Year’s Eve event, and it’s October. So we have three months to prepare for that.

Andrew: Also to answer the question… I don’t even think I’m personally at that point yet,  you know what I mean? I’m still struggling every day man. We can be on the stage right now and not there tomorrow. But take everything with a grain of salt. Appreciate everything.

Mike: Whose the brains behind this operation? Like, do you guys have equal parts?

Yeah, it’s equal, definitely like, we’re partners. Business partners, music partners…and I mean it, fucking basic brothers. But there’s no brains.  I mean, sometimes he’ll take the head on something, sometimes I will.  It’s just how we trust each other. That’s just how it works.