[TSS Interview] SOFI TUKKER: Your New Favorite Dance Duo, Whether You’re Aware Of It Or Not

To say that the immensely talented musical duo that is SOFI TUKKER is a unique group would be one of the larger understatements of the last decade. With an out of this world sound and a fantastic infectious attitude, Sophie & Tucker have been working crowds into a dance frenzy ever since they exploded onto the music scene with the release of their first smash hit “Drinkee”.

The craziest thing about these two is they’ve haven’t even really been creating music for all that long, yet it’s all amazing. Through their incredible live performances and their breathtaking Soft Animals EP, which you can buy here (trust me it’s worth every penny), it’s real obvious that these two are definitely a group your going to want to add to your musical library ASAP.

We here at TSS were fortunate enough to have a quick chat with SOFI TUKKER at this years insanely rainy, but insanely great 10th anniversary of Treasure Island Music Festival to hopefully give you a better look into the minds of these genuinely awesome artists.

TSS: So take us through a day in the life of Sophie & Tucker? Are you the kind of group that gets to the studio early to create new music?

S&T: Haha never early that’s a guarantee, we might work until 5 in the morning but we aren’t going to get up at 5 in the morning, unless it’s a flight but we don’t like that.

TSS: Could you guys tell us about your creative process as a whole? Because it seems like you two have been outstanding musicians your whole lives.

Tucker: I haven’t at all haha. I taught myself how to make music because I actually played basketball in college but got sick and basically was bed ridden for a year. I had to do something to stay productive and not go crazy, so I decided to learn how to make music on my computer because I always wanted to. So I guess it all started not that long ago because that was about four years ago. I didn’t really play the bass until we started performing.

TSS: What about you Sophie have you been singing since day one?

Sophie: Well I’ve been writing since day one. I feel like, well ya I’ve been singing for a long time. I have no idea when it began. I had done a lot of choir, then I was doing some musical theater, then I did some jazz, and then I was a Bossa Nova artist, but the guitar has kind of been my accomplice all the way through.

Tucker: But she had never even played an electric guitar until I put one in her hand and was like yo, can we get some electric guitar?

Sophie: Ya it changed everything

Tucker: And then that day, the first time she’d ever played an electric guitar we recorded “Drinkee”

TSS: That’s super impressive

Sophie: Well it’s pretty powerful to play an instrument that you don’t have any auto pilot with because then there’s no place that my fingers will naturally go to try to do what I always do. Ya I play the guitar weirdly because you’re supposed to stroke up & down but I only stroke up haha.

TSS: Well it all sounds amazing. Could you guys take us through the book tree next? because it’s such an awesome and unique aspect of your live set.

Tucker: So there’s contact microphones in all the books, their a quarter inch and they connect to a converter that turns the vibrations of the hit into a midi note. So basically when you hit a note it’s like an on-off switch in the midi. There’s a different drum rack in Ableton for each song, so we’re both playing different samples on each song depending on each part and whatever.

TSS: So you two have probably heard this question a lot, but considering your discography is filled with so much quality, and not the most quantity, what are your future releases looking like?

S&T: More quality!! We’re actually almost finished with our full length now and we’re really excited about it. We can’t wait to start playing more new songs, we actually played a good amount that aren’t released in our set today

TSS: There was one that sounded way harder than your usual stuff with Sophie screaming/singing can we expect more of that?

Tucker: Ya we got a few more like that, a couple of the new ones are actually even harder they’re like screaming techno punk haha or something else, who knows.

Sophie: I’ve never screamed before so you’re going to start seeing a trend, and Tucker encouraged me to try it and it just feels so good and really is the most fun.

TSS: When you guys create music do you like to work with other artists? Or do you prefer just working with yourselves?

Tucker: We actually have something in the works with another artist but we can’t share it right now. We mostly work with ourselves. It always feels less authentic and less “us” with other people involved and we do all of the process on our own.

Sophie: It’s really nice to sort of like start and finish a song with just the two of us the whole time and there’s something magical and seamless about the process, so bringing someone else in…

Tucker: Sometimes it’s fun and the song is good but we’re like huh is it us? Sometimes I don’t know if the it’s in that weird space where Sophie & I’s brains connect you know.

TSS: You guys are heading to Europe for a tour in a little bit right? Is there a difference in playing for crowds over there as opposed to in the US?

Sophie: There’s a difference every single crowd in every country it’s so wildly different it’s crazy.

Tucker: And we’re much bigger in certain countries over there than here so sometimes it’s crazy, like we went to Latvia and everyone new all the words to most of the songs on the Soft Animals EP, and we were like really? That’s amazing. We had an amazing show in London and Italy & Hungary are real big for us too.

Sophie: We played a show in Italy at the beginning when we were starting out, for like a TV thing, and we had gone from playing smaller stuff you know, I think at that point we’d opening for The Knocks in the US, and we go to Italy haha and we play in a 12,000 person arena because we had a number 1 song there. Again we were just like what? it was just so wild

TSS: Can you tell us a bit more about your relationship with The Knocks as they are some of our favorite artists here at the site.

Tucker: They were the ones who really pushed us to pursue music as a full career. They’re definitely some of our best friends in New York, we love them. They’ve just been so great as kind of mentors that really helped guide us through the music industry when we were originally starting out.

TSS: Thanks guys, you’re the best

If you couldn’t tell through this interview, these two fantastic artists are some of the most genuinely nice and humble people you will ever meet. It truly is inspiring to see a duo create such incredible and positive music almost on a whim. Be sure to check out their new music video for “Awoo ft. Betta Lemme” below for a better idea of the SOFI TUKKER vibe and the super cool book tree in action.

These two truly are a duo unlike any other so be sure to throw them a like or follow for some of the best tunes you’ll hear these days.

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