3OH!3 Talks Creative Process And Collaboration

Electronic music is a highly transformative experience, both for the artists performing and the audience members. What makes the genre a truly genuine experience for the listener is when there is a successful blend across multiple genres coming together as one.

PopCultureNow.com spoke with Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte of 3OH!3 – an electronic/pop/hip hop group – about the creative process, catalog of albums, and what it’s like to be at one of their concerts.

3OH!3 shifts back and forth from Boulder to Los Angeles, with Foreman living in LA permanently and Motte in Boulder most often. The success of the duo has led to them having to meticulously manage time and make every second count when they are together to write and produce.

“So I still live in Boulder,” Motte said. “That’s where we’re originally from. And my bandmate Sean has a place in LA where we do a lot of work for other other artists – all that stuff happens in LA. It’s nice man. I like being down here, but not having to live here.”

“We’re in different places at all times,” Foreman explained. “Me and my wife moved out to LA probably about a little over five years ago. I never thought I’d like the city because touring you play in the worst venues sometimes that are in the worst areas of LA. It’s one of those cities that’s so vast that every little pocket of it has its own style and eventually you find where you’re best suited. Every year it grows on me.”

Motte and Foreman blend together an engaging mix of lyrics and sounds that produce an almost addictive end result. Their songs have an energy and spirit to them that we don’t always see in the electronic genre of music. For them, it’s simply about making music that has a charge to it.

“For us, we just started making music. We were influenced by hip hop so our music has always had that flare,” Motte said. “We were also a fan of electronic music. We were interested in making our music energetic and fun. And fun for us to make. That was the center of everything.”

While making their music pop and have an extra dimension of life, Foreman and Motte work with a slew of other artists. From Katy Perry to Maroon 5, Foreman and Motte write and collaborate whenever they get a chance.

“Nat and I are fans of a lot of different types of music and different artists,” Foreman said. “We also like to write for a lot of different artists. For us, we really enjoy working with a range of artists. Nat has written some music for Maroon 5. I’ve written for Ariana Grande. Across the board, we’ve had some really cool projects. We continue to learn every time we go in the studio with someone else. It’s such a learning process and it continues to stretch our craft of what we’re doing. We worked with Lil’ Jon and to see how that guy works — despite taking shots of Patron — shows he’s a really hard worker. It’s a really fun experience and we don’t take for granted all the people we get to work with.”

3OH!3 is presented with an interesting position: they both must do everything.

Unlike a traditional band, with various members, Motte and Foreman are it. With that in-mind, they get to write, play, produce, and everything in-between.

“As soon as I get too sucked into one part of the music world – like songwriting, I really yearn to get onstage and perform,” Foreman said. “I love performing. It’s the most immediate form of all of this. You literally see the interaction from point A to point B as far as ‘here’s the music, here’s the audience, here’s the reaction.’ We love performing. We love writing. It’s the in-between stuff that can get a little tedious. When you get squeezed in a seat on the plane, you don’t miss the traveling, but we love getting onstage.”

The duo has been around since 2004 and has a catalog of albums to show for it.

From 3OH!3 The Album to Night Sports, they have come up with some highly unique songs and lyrics. Their album list represents who they are, where they’ve been, and where they are going.

“Our albums represent a journal in a lot of ways,” Motte said. “You don’t just go get inspired, go into the studio, and shit out a song two hours later. You spend months and sometimes years working. It really represents a portfolio of work. As an artist you want to appreciate the stuff that you’ve done and you certainly want to take satisfaction in it. Otherwise, what the fuck are you doing? You want to keep progressing and finding new ways to be creative.”

A pillar part of the 3OH!3 experience, though, is seeing them live.

They radiate an energy that gets the blood pumping immediately. The energy put out by them to the crowd comes from their core value of their music being both a homage, but also fun and something an audience member can experience instead of just hearing.

“We ramp it up. For me and Nat that was the first thing we really ever did,” Foreman explained. “We were booked for a show and we had to make music for the amount of time they were giving us. They asked if we could do it for thirty minutes and we were like, ‘we have two songs.’ We want to have the performance and energy in-mind when we write. We go out there and kind of go crazy,” Foreman said. “It’s interesting when we take some time off the road and we go back and there’s a show that’s an hour long you’re like, ‘I can’t maintain this.’ I’ve always been inspired by acts and bands that when they go onstage, it’s a spectacle. It really inspires you as a crowd member.”

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