Published in The Santa Barbara Sentinel
The beat starts thumping and I stop mid-sentence, bobbing my head as I get out of my seat to turn up the volume on the radio.
“Ooh! Listen to this!” I said to my friend.
She gets up and joins me in an impromptu dance party in my living room.
“This is awesome! Who is this?”.
Turns out, the tune – “Hey Lion” – belongs to SOFI TUKKER, comprised of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern who connected at a warehouse show where Sophie was belting out bossa nova (Brazilian style music) songs.
Since then, they’ve produced hard-to-categorize dance music with influences in poetry, spirituality, and tribal-disco beats.
They’re played on radio stations all over the world and most recently, their song “Drinkee” became part of the Apple Watch campaign.
Catch them live on stage at Velvet Jones on Thursday, June 9th.
We’ll be there.
Dancing shoes on.
We’ve been dancing to your tunes on KCRW and love that SOFI TUKKER gets us moving! Can you explain what it was like during your first collaboration?
The first collaboration was so seamless, despite the fact (or because of the fact!) that we come from such different musical backgrounds and expertise.
Who are your go-to jams?
Recently we’ve loved flipping slower, more acoustic songs that you wouldn’t necessarily dance to into dance tracks. (That’s how SOFI TUKKER started, after all!) We have a mixtape full of them that we’ll share at some point very soon.
What’s been the most satisfying part of performing together?
Probably connecting with the audience! It’s an amazing feeling to be in a room where we feel like everyone is on the same page and in the same world on the same vibration as us.
People have a hard time figuring out which category to put your music in. In a few words, how do you describe your art?
It’s what happens when you mix our tastes and knowledge and personalities. It’s what we want to hear. We love that people can’t categorize it so we aren’t going to do it for them.
Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Hmmm.. Stromae!
What venue/festival/event would you most like to perform at? Or have you been there, done that?
Anywhere where people just want to have a good time and be loose, big or small venue… we haven’t been to Berlin as a band yet. That’s definitely a place we want to go and dance.
What would you like most for the future of SOFI TUKKER?
For it to be long, for us to continue making things, to continue feeling inspired and inspiring each other!
