Carmada Talk About The Differences In Touring The US And Australia In iEDM Exclusive Interview

Max Armata and Drew Carmody are two outgoing, charismatic Australians that form the electronic duo Carmada.

Both Max (Yahtzel) and Drew (L D R U)  have their own solo music projects which aided them in their journey to finding each other.

While having a chat with them at Electric Forest their vibes are contagious. Their sense of humor and Australian accents make you feel as if you're already a long-time pal of theirs.

iEDM: How does it feel being at Electric Forest Music Festival?

Max: This is our first time here at Electric Forest and it is fucking great. Super cool vibes, love it. Everyone is beautiful. I’ve never felt love like this at any festival in the entire world before. I’ve never felt such a sense of unity and that being said, I haven’t been to every festival in the world but so far for me....

Drew: It’s a family vibe.

Max: Yeah, this festival is very very warming.

iEDM: How do you feel your music has been received in the United States?

Drew: Pretty good. At the end of our show here, Max was like “Come to the side of the stage, we’ll come hangout and get some photos and stuff.” And the majority of the crowd came over to come say hello. It’s really nice and that’s where we get the family vibe from.

Max: And we stopped and we talked to every person who came up to us. We met every single person and I remember all their names, which I shouldn’t because it’s humanly impossible to remember 150 names. But I remember everyone’s name because everyone was so nice and so friendly and it fed the soul.

iEDM: What brought you guys together to form Carmada?

Drew: Love.

Max: Love and a very drunken night in a hotel in Australia. We both were seconds away from getting kicked out of our hotel rooms. I don't remember much. All I remember is that we had a wild time. We then played a few shows together after that and then I was like hey man why don’t we try to make a song together. So then we released a song called “The Only One,” which was pivotal for us because it brought us together and we became good buddies and we’ve been traveling around and making tunes ever since.

iEDM: Who are some of your guy’s major influences?

Max: Hermitude.

Drew: Skrillex.

Max: Yeah Skrillex is actually very diverse and I think he’s underrated. Because he plays so much and he’s in so many places. People look at him as overrated. But in my eyes he’s easily the best producer in our day in age because he’s so versatile and he can nail every genre. He can nail pop and he can nail the heaviest song you’ve ever heard and then he can nail screamo. There’s a reason why he plays so much and why he’s in such high demand and that’s because he is such an amazing producer. I think that kind of gets overlooked. When people get in high demand naturally there’s a crowd that goes oh man that’s not cool anymore. But I think that’s wrong because he’s the best person at making dance music. He can make people move no matter what. Skrilly Willy is definitely top one.

Drew: Kilter, who has been a good friend of ours for a while. He’s another Australian artist. A few up and comers like Intro who’s also from Australia. Touch Sensitive and Flume.

iEDM: How would you describe your music to a person who is seeing you for the first time at Electric Forest?

Drew: A bit more on the vocal side but you still get the electronic vibe with the bass influence.

Max: I’m going to go a little deeper. It’s a snowball made of rocks and it's rolling down a mountain. It’s a ball of all the elements and it’s rolling down a mountain and its going through all the different seasons, summer, winter, autumn and spring. And we’re traveling with it, adapting with it and we’re trying to make as many friends as we can. As the ball it rolling down the mountain we’re learning lessons and we grow as people and as music producers. And at the end of the day when the snow ball hits the bottom of the mountain and we die and fade away, we’ve made a lot of good friends and a lot of good memories and thats the main thing.

 iEDM: Are there any major differences between touring and playing festivals in Australia vs. the United States?

Drew: The United States is Australia on steroids, everything is bigger and better. That’s the best way to put it.

Max: America has more capital cities. The way Australia works, 85% of Australians live on the coast. The difference between America and Australia is we don’t have any major cities inland, all of our capital cities are basically on the coast. In America you can go east to west and hit cities on the way. In Australia everything is close together.

iEDM: Any new music coming out soon for you guys?

Max: Tons.

Drew: We’ve got a NGHTMRE collab coming out in 3 weeks on Mad Decent, it should be cool. And after that we’ve got a solo EP coming out that has about 4 or 5 tracks on it. We’ve got a few nice features with Example and Bellylive coming out.

Follow Carmada to keep up with their music adventuress and watch out for their new EP coming soon! Check out more iEDM exclusive interviews HERE.