In promotion of their debut album Morning After, OVO duo DVSN decided to make their way by Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio show this week and chop it up with Hot 97’s Ebro Darden for a rare video interview.
Sitting down for nearly 12 minutes, Nineteen85 & Daniel Daley talked about touring with Drake, working under OVO Sound, receiving a Grammy, relationship status’, and much more. They even talked about their lack of video interviews, saying they want their music to do the talking for them and that social media can overexpose people.
“We try to keep our music so honest that we feel like people find a way to connect to us through that. So they don't feel like oh I'm completely disconnected from these guys.” Daniel said.
“I think with social media today is so easy to like overexpose yourself and do way to much,” 85 then added.
If you’re a fan of the OVO duo, then I highly suggest checking out the informative, yet rather short interview (below) and peep some of the highlighted excerpts while you're at below that. Morning After available now on iTunes.
Talk to me about OVO Sound. Because you did a contributing segment to that. Beats 1 is about breaking new artists and breaking new music. Talk to me about doing that for OVO Sound and how you discover music these days and what you're listening to.
85: OVO Sound Radio for me is the first time since I've been a producer where I started to feel like, oh I really want to DJ again. That was actually what got me started as a producer. I wanted to be a DJ and so with OVO Sound Radio they basically said you have an hour an hour and a half. Do whatever you want. Play whatever you want. Figure it out. It's on you. No rules you can play anything. You know and for me I was like ok well if I were a DJ what would I do. You know what kind of songs would I showcase. And that was right around the same time we started discovering where we were at. You know I was kind of saying to Danny like, “Yo let me let me drop a couple of these songs on the radio show” and he's like, “Are you sure?” and I was like, [7:07] “No no no.” I think we're in a great place to do it and the great thing is those will pretty much be the only unknown songs I play and because of that instantly everybody was just like, “Yo what was that? I can't even find it. Like that’s not on my Apple Music. Where do I get that?”
You know and the questions started. Yeah that's one of the good things about where we're at right now and I think as far as finding music I've always just been looking for anything that wasn't really on the radar you know I'll go to Apple Music whatever it suggests. You know like I'm always looking for the suggestions because those are the things that you never really know where it's going to take you. You know and I think that's kind of where music's going right now. There's almost no more genres. You know the world has been so opened up by the way music is traveling right now and the way that you can consume it. You don't have to go out and buy it it's just there. You know when an album comes out it’s there. Anything you want to hear you just open up your phone and it’s there. You know because of that I think right now this generation is more like musically inclined than any ever before. I agree.
Daniel: Again that's part of the connection here is that we were both people that just had a crazy… It's not just a love like a respect for music in general. So like our knowledge will go far back, far left, far right you know in the other stuff that we're into. So yeah I'm always checking. I’m listening to any and everything. It doesn't really stop at just R&B. It doesn't really stop at just what I'm doing or what my peers are doing or anything like that.
It feels like the way you guys made the drums on this project it's different than what you did on the last project to kind of set a palette for what you wanted people to kind of feel in their soul and in their spirit. Because the songwriting still great on bro projects day. Vocally you're amazing arrangements are amazing productions are amazing. Was that on purpose?
85: Definitely with “Mood.” I remember even having this conversation with 40 when he was like we were getting into the mixing of that record. He was like, “Yo we need this to feel like this. You know it’s got of hit you in the gut.” The whole thing the whole album is.
Daniel: Our whole vibe is that people will slowly start to see it, but we’re those hip hop heads.
Is this your first world tour?
85: First time. We did a short tour. We did 11 cities in the US and then literally a couple weeks later we went on tour with Drake and we end up doing the whole Summer 16 run and the whole Boy Meets World Run which basically was a world tour but we've never done it on our own.
For fans who have been to your shows, what are they going to get that's different when they come see this world tour? Are you guys taking any risks with what you're presenting on stage?
Daniel: It’s a different show.
85: We definitely are. I don't want to give away too much. But I think this is also just us really just like embracing this album. You know embracing the new direction it’s taking us. The last one even the show the performance everything about it was a lot darker and lot more — Some people thought it was mysterious. You know so I think now we're kind of just like bringing things a bit more to the forefront.
How hard was it to be on tour with Drake as a new artist?
85: It was interesting for us.
Daniel: That’s the beautiful part about it is. I got to go out. Open the show and have that same experience you're talking about where it's like, all right you know lets win them over and you know and you get to you get to watch and you hit the first high note. You notice a couple people pay attention. Ok what's going on here. The dope part about it is that Drake midway through his set at the height of it would leave the stage and let me enter again. And I did the record we had together “Faithful.” It's like two completely different reactions, but you get to see people piecing it together connecting dots and then you know it’s your followers that go up and you know different things happen.
On not doing many interviews:
Daniel: We try to keep our music so honest that we feel like people find a way to connect to us through that. So they don't feel like oh I'm completely disconnected from these guys. I don't know what
85: I think with social media today is so easy to like overexpose yourself and do way to much
So I think I'd rather people think we didn't do enough than people like, “Ah these guys are doing too much.”
What is it about “Claim” that people love?
85: We all know somebody that feels that song is speaking directly to them. And I might have had a person say that.
Daniel: Yeah. Yeah we definitely had that. Those texts came in. So you’re just going to air me out? Just going to drag me out?
On their relationship status:
85: It’s weird because some people would say we're relationship experts by the way we talk on some of the songs at the same time you might think we're relationship failures by the way we talk on those songs.
Daniel: But here this is my theory and I tell people this when it comes to relationships. Only one is supposed to work.
Would you say that your patient in the in the journey?
Daniel: He doesn't think I'm patient. Nah, I’m just a guy that when I connect with someone and I vibe with someone for real like —-
85: It gets intense quick.
Daniel: It's not unusual for us. It’s not unusual for us to you know keep a keep a keep a regular keep a regular interaction you know. Yeah. It's like if if I like you you like me we like what we’re doing.
Have you scared someone away Daniel because of that intensity?
Daniel: No. Usually the opposite happens.
85: He get’s scared away when they respond with that same intensity and it just keeps going up and he's like “whoa whoa whoa slow down."
So you're like his therapist 85?
Daniel: We both get what we're supposed to be getting in the beginning and then you know some people like to jump out the window too quick. Some people like to do — I don't want to jump out the window.
85 what happened first? You met OVO and Drake and that whole thing in the music game? They heard you DJ-ing and how did the relationship build?
85: It’s interesting because I know so many guys from the team Drake included completely separate of music you know just kind of knowing each other coming up. And then we were all doing music separately for a couple of years before we even kind of just like connected. And I would say 40 was a big part of just like making all those dots align. Because we all knew each other and we all knew that everybody was doing dope stuff. Nobody was the one that was just like this is what should work with that. That was 40. 40’s kind of just like oh you know what you should be at the studio when I'm at the studio working on this that and the other thing because you already know where I'm going with stuff so let's just bounce ideas back and forth.
You got that Grammy. Did you care?
85: Of course I care but I never really think about those things. So even when it happened. Not to say I was surprised I was I think I was kind of just like in the moment being as appreciative as everybody else watching it was. You know even when they called me up to the stage because we had one for “Hotline Bling” the song right before it and Drake was still on tour. So they go this goes to Drake for “Hotline Bling.” We're going to take it on his behalf. They walk to the back of the stage. They came out the very next thing they did is the same song and they go this goes to Drake again for “Hotline Bling”. And then they just stopped. And everybody's looking around at me like, “Go up that's you. And I was like what? I was like I have my phone out. I was filming Yeah. Yeah it was like. “No no no that's you go up go up” you know.
So even in the moment I was just kind of like really you know this is happening and then watching it back I can see how surprised I was you know on the way out because I didn’t even I didn’t even know I was supposed to go on stage at that point you know. But the overall moment of it that's huge. You know there's so many people that their whole career I've never even been nominated let alone win. And I'm doing it so early in my career it's definitely a blessing.