Chris DeLine

This is the villin podcast and this episode features an interview with Akash Gururaja and Ian Crumley of Gold Revere. Collaborating on music together all the way back to when they attended Linn-Mar High School in Marion, they’ve put out a tremendous catalog since then despite writing and recording out of separate locations for the bulk of the past several years, with Akash attending school at Vanderbilt and Ian at Iowa State. This body of work features the viral track titled “Goldfish Crackers,” which led to signing with Sony Arista, but most recently includes their new EP titled 4 On the Floor.

The duo’s path lends some interesting context for the discussion which follows here, as we dip into talk about marketing and the mystery of how to get noticed when everyone on Earth has a bullhorn. Of all the different ways they discussed trying to inspire interest in their music, they also raised the idea of a remix competition, which actually went live this week on their Discord. “Goldfish Crackers” now boasts over seven million Spotify streams, and several other songs have each exceeded a million, but past successes have provided few assurances that new music is also going to reach a large audience. Instead of relying on that past sound to dictate what they make now, they say they’re leaning more in what they feel is an authentic direction, aiming their sound at the intersection of where still-developing trends and their personal tastes align. This is how the sound of 4 On the Floor was developed, and that’s where we dive in, focusing on the new music and what helped drive its creation.

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[This interview was first published on villin.]