Posted on 06/12/2009
Ivy Leaguers Maxwell Drummey and D.A. Wallach are not your average Harvard Grads.  Instead of heading to the investment banks, or law school, these two are currently making their mark on the pop music scene as Chester French with their freshman effort Love The Future, out now on Star Trak records.  OKP resident writer Sean Deezill worked out an email interview with the duo, figuring their Ivy education positioned them to be able to, at the very least, write up some decent answers to emailed questions.  And he was right.  Read on for the full interview where D.A. and Max dig into limitless music, having Pharell and Chad as their bosses, the influence hip-hop has had on them, and more.

OKP: Hey guys, sorry that this had to be an online interview. Just a few constraints made a phoner quite difficult. Regardless, you guys are clearly able to provide proficient email replies to your fans right? Is it true that you guys respond to every piece of fan-mail (and other mail in general) personally?

CF: It is true indeed. The least we can do is respond to the folks who are supporting us at this early stage in our career. And most Chester French supporters we've met at pretty awesome so it's a pleasure.

OKP: What’s this Chester French VIP Concierge Service I heard about?

CF: The concierge service is basically the service through which we communicate with our supporters and invite them to join us for special, secret events when we're on tour. We recently hosted a free, open-bar cocktail hour in NYC, for example, and invited everyone who had joined our VIP Concierge Service. And the best part is that it's free and anyone can join at chesterfrench.com.

OKP: Speaking of your fans, you guys have a variety of them ranging from rock crowds, to pop crowds, to hip-hop crowds. Does this add more pressure, the fact that you have to appease a new variety of people every time you drop a record or perform a live show? Do you try to expand your music into those genres knowing that you have fans who like a particular side of you?

CF: We just try to make music we love and our supporters are super open-minded so we trust that they give every experiment of ours a listen.

OKP: Of course, the label you are a part of surely gives you that freedom to explore. Unless I’m wrong and you have limits, because they aren’t so evident in your music. Is it fair to say your limit is to “have no limit?”

CF: Yes.

OKP: How are P and Chad as bosses?

CF: They are the coolest bosses on earth. They're musical geniuses and teach us so much in that realm but then also give us the freedom we need to make the music we want to make. Not to mention that they're genuinely great people.

OKP: What did Harvard teach you about being musicians? Perhaps it didn’t change you at all, but surely, it must’ve shaped some parts of your lives even if not in music.

CF: It was four years, so it definitely impacted us, but we've tried to avoid letting Harvard, the music biz, or any other institutions really define us. We just try to be ourselves, whether that's in the context of Harvard or Star Trak, and it's more fun that way!

OKP: Before we talk about your latest work, let’s talk about Jacques Jams. I played hockey for many, many years and Jock Jams was such a popular dressing room tape/cd. Aside from the clever play on words, do you think the mix is a soundtrack for a specific occasion or specific crowd similar to how the sport mix was?

CF: Jacques Jams, Vol. 1: Enduranceis a soundtrack for masculinity. And also for femininity. It is, and we don't say this lightly, all things to all people.

OKP: Ha! Evidently, the mixtape is highly hip hop influenced. Were you guys always big fans of hip hop? Who were some of your favourite artist and how deep into the history can you go?

CF: We love hip-hop and can go balls deep, which for us is really deep.

OKP: Anyways, on to the new album. A complete 180 fromJacques Jams, would you say?

CF: Well we made Jacques Jams after we made the album, so really it is a 180 from the album.



OKP: Can you explain the title, Love the Future I found the addition of the Geisha quite interesting. Is there any deeper meaning to having a Geisha, a timeless character that provides entertainment, in between two modern entertainers?

CF: There is so much deeper meaning there. Shit. You have no idea. Layers.

OKP: Do the reviews ever bother you guys? This album in particular is loved by some and dismissed by a few too. That can make things a little complicated, no?

CF: As long as we and our supporters like our work, we're more than happy. One thing worth remembering is that reviewers are just people, and very few of them know all that much about music or really engage albums in musical terms. If they did, their opinions might be more interesting to us.

OKP: You guys are being compared to a lot of classic rock groups. From what I’ve read, it seems like the general consensus could be The Beach Boys. I firmly agree. D.A., you have even been compared to Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Carl Wilson. What does Chester French bring to the table that groups like The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones did in their hay-day? Do you guys agree with the comparisons?

CF: We love those groups and aspire to their incredibly level of creativity and showmanship. We've also learned from many other artists but there's a certain youthfulness and playfulness to Love the Future that definitely is inspired by 60's pop.

OKP: Bringing it into the hip hop world, how did you feel getting a great review from a well respected hip hop site such as Hip Hop DX considering that the album has very little of the traditional hip-hop in it?

CF: We were thrilled by that review, and it's so cool to us that folks from the "hip hop world" have embraced us even though we're a bit left of center.

OKP: What connection do you guys have to hip hop that makes you so adored within the genre more so than a lot of other groups i.e. Fall Out Boy, or even Gym Class Heroes?

CF: We're so fucking rugged. Too much for rock. Hip-hop heads understand that.

OKP: It’s upsetting, and I hate talking about it, but skin colour is sadly not ignored by the immature fans of hip hop. XXL is doing an “All White Edition” of this Rap game show they have. A track you guys were recently on with Asher Roth spoke about his comparison to another white rapper, simply because of skin colour. It’s much more prevalent in hip-hop. How do you guys feel about the importance placed on race in hip-hop, especially as two white guys who are now very much a part of the hip-hop world?

CF: We don't think race does or should have very much to do with music or anything, really. Greatness has always crossed racial lines in music, which is one of the reasons that it's such a powerful art form.

OKP: Do you think it will affect you guys in any way, the same way it has affected Asher, Eminem, etc.?

CF: We're Asian.

OKP: So yeah, as we are talking about Asher, you guys were on his “As I Em” joint, why not invite him to drop something on your record? Jacques Jams was loaded with features; did you guys just want this solely to be Chester French and only Chester French?

CF: Yeah, we wanted the album to really be 100% us. Even though we released it on Interscope, it's a very independent-spirited project as we wrote, produced, and engineered it all ourselves.

OKP: And you guys did all the production and songwriting yourselves too right? Was there a particular process you guys had when crafting a song?

CF: For most of that album, we would come up with chords and a melody first, build up arrangements based off that, and add lyrics last. There were a lot of instruments, microphones, and cables involved, and sometimes we stayed up late.

OKP: Was there any specific inspiration for songs like “Jimmy Choos,” “She Loves Everybody,” and “Beneath the Veil?” They seem to deliver some strong lyrical messages aimed at particular people or particular situations. Can you speak on the lyrical content, of course, not limited to those tracks?

CF: We try to write songs from experience, so that they are legitimately genuine. Beyond that, our main goals are to make them pleasant sounding and memorable.



OKP: Considering the jump, emotion, and musicality you guys provide to a song, guest spots will certainly always be on your radar as they already have been. How does it feel being asked by an artist like Common or Talib Kweli to be a feature on their songs? Is it less pressure or more pressure?

CF: It's really just more fun, but it's always a challenge to work with new people. We try to find a balance between making a track our own and respecting somebody else's work.

OKP: Throwing back to the past once again, you guys had some big namers jockeying for a piece of the Chester French pie. There was a huge bidding war that is hardly a secret by now. You gotta tell us how that went down. Who was involved, what did Star Trak have that Dupri couldn’t offer, etc. And c’mon, be honest, no hard feelings here.

CF: We had offers from Star Trak, as well as Kanye and Jermaine. Pete Wentz was interested too. Pharrell took us to this harem he runs in Miami and drugged us. We had a six day long tantric orgy with the most beautiful Cuban women on the planet and, at some point during that, signed with Star Trak.

OKP: Regardless of where you guys are signed, we sincerely hope you guys stick around and drop another dope album. What can we expect from Chester French for the rest of 2009? You guys touring?

CF: We are touring our asses off. We've been out with Lady Gaga, Gym Class Heroes, and Lady Sovereign for the last three months. We're on the Blink 182 tour later this summer, and we're going to Europe right now. Doing ither dates un between, including one with Q-Tip that we're stoked about. Hopefully we'll do some headlining US dates this fall. After that, we've got to get Jacques Jams Vol. II and another album together.

OKP: Thanks for taking the time to talk (email) with us, and we’ll definitely be checking for future (love the) projects from Chester French.

- Sean Deezill

Chester French’s Love The Future is in stores now.

Watch CF’s video for "She Loves Everybody" below.