🎙️ Interview with Two Friends

We sat down with Two Friends’ Matt Halper and Eli Sones, the DJ/Producer duo fresh off of their first Coachella performance and in the midst of their biggest headliner tour yet including their own festival series. They gained recognition early in their career from their dynamic remixes of iconic tracks like Blink 182’s “I Miss You” and The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” and have leveraged that success to work with the likes of Lana Del Rey, Tov Lo, The Chainsmokers, Steve Aoki, and more. With over 135 million streams on their award-winning Big Bootie Mixes, Two Friends continues to take massive leaps in their music careers.

With the drop of their new single today “If Only I” featuring Bebe Rexha (stream it here) and more performances around the United States to come in their Planet Two Friends Tour, it’s clear that they have no plans on slowing down. Read on to see how far Two Friends has come and where they’re headed.

AvA: How did the evolution of Two Friends come about?

Two Friends: We both grew up in Los Angeles and became best friends right away when we went to middle school and high school together. It wasn't until the very end of high school, back in 2011, that we decided it could be fun to start a music project together since we both had a passion and somewhat complementary skills. To be honest, we came up with the name and the logo before we even opened up any music software program. We started off doing some hip-hop production, but around that time we also had been starting to fall in love with dance music, and we quickly pivoted. We split up for college, so the first four years of Two Friends were mostly long-distance. But then pretty much Day 1 after we graduated we were back in the studio-- the same basement studio that we're still in today!

AvA: How has the music business changed since you got your start?

Two Friends: It's definitely changed a lot in terms of how people find new music and which platforms can give the most exposure to your music... but to be honest our mindset hasn't necessarily changed too much. If you find the right balance between quality and consistency, and focus primarily on those two aspects, you'll usually be able to adapt-- especially if you build a great team around you.

AvA: What is your biggest piece of advice for someone starting out in the music industry?

Two Friends: It's definitely easier said than done, but we like to say: have fun and put in the hours. They go hand in hand. If you keep it fun (doing it with your best friend definitely helps here), it's easier to put in the work, cuz it's definitely a long, long grind. And if you put in the hours and don't expect shortcuts, hopefully that'll keep leading to more fun things along the way.

Ava: What are your future plans for Two Friends?

Two Friends: So much in the pipeline. Finishing off our Planet Two Friends tour that we're currently on, then still doing other shows and festivals pretty much all year long. We just put out our new single "If Only I" with our friends Loud Luxury and Bebe Rexha, a single before that called "More Than Yesterday" with Russell Dickerson, Big Bootie Mix 23, and we're excited to follow it up with a lot more music we've been cooking up. Add in the Big Bootie Mixes and the expansion of our Big Bootie Land festival series, and we got ourselves a busy but extremely fun year ahead.

👋 Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend and talk to you soon!

-The AvA Team