ABC/Paula LoboThis year, The Chainsmokers have released a string of singles with downbeat themes, like “Sick Boy” and “Everybody Hates Me.” But their latest single, “Side Effects,” featuring their frequent collaborator Emily Warren, is much more upbeat — because the duo’s Alex Pall says they were in a “summertime” mood.
“We wrote ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ with [Emily]. We wrote ‘Sick Boy,’ ‘You Owe Me,’ all these songs with her,” Alex tells ABC Radio. “So it’s not [so] much of a change in our workflow, as just, like, the mood.”
He adds. “It’s summertime, we’re feeling great. She wrote this amazing song and we heard it and were like, ‘We gotta produce this’…We’re really happy with it. It’s just a fun song.”
As for those downbeat tracks, they all seem to be about The Chainsmokers’ struggle to come to terms with their fame. The duo’s Drew Taggart says that’s because music reflects whatever they happen to be going through.
“The thing about our music is, it’s always very current with how we’re feeling at the time,” he explains. “I think once you hear songs like ‘Side Effects’ [and] ‘Closer,’ with ‘Sick Boy’ and ‘Everybody Hates Me” — the more somber, introspective, millennial type of anxiety-driven songs — I think the whole thing will make sense, and people will understand who we are, because we have so many different sides to us.”
And Alex says their fans love how the duo mixes it up.
“We have amazing fans, and they’re super-supportive, so no matter which direction we go, they always have our back,” Alex says. “But I do think they don’t have any idea what’s coming next, which is fun!”
“At the end of the day, it’s all coming from the same place,” he says. “So we’re just…keeping it interesting!”
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