The intent was to drop flashy production tricks and focus on songs that still sounded gorgeous when stripped to their essential melodies. “It rained for almost two months straight, and we locked ourselves in here and made as much music as possible.”ĭemos and rough ideas from the road were fleshed out during daily 12-hour recording sessions. “We had a long winter,” he says, cracking open the can. When it was time to make another album, they retreated to this basement.ĬLAYTON pulls a lime La Croix from a mini-fridge stocked with water, juice, and kombucha. They played hundreds of shows in the three years following In Return’s release and call this period both the manifestation of their wildest dreams and a physically and emotionally grueling experience. The men often looked at each other while performing with their with jaws dropped at the thousands of people cheering for them. The LP hit number one on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Chart and the RAC remix of ‘Say My Name’ was nominated for a Grammy. They were “incredibly scared” to release the album, fearing its stylistic shift would cost them some of their hard-earned fanbase. With this LP the duo focused on sharpening its songwriting skills and incorporating vocalists. Much of ODESZA’s second album, 2014’s In Return, was recorded on the road. When Clayton’s parents saw him play Sasquatch, a Washington state fest Clayton had attended for years as a fan, they knew their son had found his real job.
Dive bars turned into large clubs, then massive amphitheaters and both mainstream mega-festivals like Coachella and smaller indie gatherings like California’s Lightning in a Bottle. “There were a few points on the road,” Clayton says, “where it was like, ‘What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why can’t I just go home?’”īut the plan set forth by ODESZA and their management team – gradually build a fanbase through non-stop touring – worked. They agreed to loan him the cash as long as he got a “real job” when he got back.) Many of these early shows lost money. (Clayton asked his parents to lend him $1000 to pay his way through this first tour.
ODESZA toured relentlessly behind Summer’s Gone, sleeping in the back of U-Haul vans while en route to gigs, doing 24 sets in 26 days on their first European tour, and playing for audiences as small as four in pocket-sized clubs and dive bars across the United States. In more ways than one, this is what Harrison and Clayton have been doing for the past year. Down here it is dim and cool, an ideal place to escape the heat and make music. This latest studio is populated with computers, a vintage Moog synth – a gift to them from Moogfest – and loads of recording equipment set up on a wooden door turned into a makeshift desk.Īn air conditioner hums in the corner and a framed record celebrating the gold certification of ODESZA’s ‘Say My Name’ hangs over the couch. You might not suspect two of the hottest producers in electronic music live here, except for the musical nerve centre in the basement and offhand statements like when Harrison mentions they got the hammock on the porch this past June at Michigan’s Electric Forest festival, where they were headlining.įive years later they’re still in the basement making music. The house is roomy, lived in, altogether welcoming. Upstairs, a light-filled kitchen with two refrigerators serves as the main gathering area, and one more floor up is the spacious bedroom Harrison shares with his girlfriend of eight years. The first floor is mostly bedrooms deemed too messy for viewing. ODESZA – Harrison, bearded and dressed in unseasonable flannel, and Clayton, blue-eyed and dirty blonde in a black T-shirt and jeans – offer handshakes, smiles, and a tour of the house in which they live and work. A roommate, the one with the trumpet, opens the front door and escorts me to the basement Harrison and Clayton have converted into their studio. THE electronic duo – Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight – live in this sprawling three-storey creative compound with a few buddies, Harrison’s girlfriend, and a border collie named Oden. This is how I know I’ve found ODESZA’s place. The street is still and silent, except for the trumpet sounds emanating from the boxy wooden house in front of me. On this residential street in the lush Leschi Park neighborhood there are no cars, no kids on bikes, no one outside. Searing temperatures – 34 degrees Celsius on this sun-drenched afternoon – have slowed the city’s pace to a minimum as it endures its most intense heatwave in nearly a decade.
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