There seems to be a new genre in electronic music every day.
This is one reason the scene is blowing up. From your trance ravers to the dubstep whompers, you can find your cup of tea anywhere in between.
The biggest new genre to hit the scene is a mixture of classic funky house music mixed stirred in a boiling pot of bass. The end result is a tasty bowl of future house.
FNCTN Winter Music Series will bring one of the hottest new future house acts out of SoCal, this Friday, Feb.6 to Xhale in South Shore’s Casino Corridor. Shoe Scene Symphony consists of Andy and Franz, who have been remixing some of the biggest acts in electronic music. Ever heard of Kaskade or maybe Avicii? No, well they even have remixes of Outcast, Janet Jackson, and Lorde, just name a few.
I chatted with the guys and get a little deeper with them.
Nick: Where was the start musically for the both of you? What were you listening to when you were kids and what was the point when you found electronic music?
Franz: The closest thing to playing an instrument for me is being heavily involved in turntablism at a young age. Digging for funky guitar riffs to scratch or drumming on turntables with a drum sample is what I did day in and day out. Turntablism was real funk-oriented back then and has definitely impacted the way I produce. My parents would blast ’90s disco tracks every Saturday morning and would be dancing around cleaning the house. My brother started DJing and he would play nothing but hip-hop and freestyle bass music which was really popular back then. When I started buying music I was really into ’90s classic hip-hop. I loved the rawness of it. Everyone was competing. Dance battles, MC battles, DJ battles. I was really fascinated by this period in hip-hop. I went to a festival in 2010 where Axwell was playing. Up to this point, I wasn’t really drawn to house music. His set blew me away and it forced to research more on this type of music.
Andy: I started DJing in the ’90s, and back then I was really into hip-hop and scratching. For my first two years of DJing, I didn’t even want to learn how to mix. I just wanted to scratch. In the early 2Ks I went to raves in SoCal. At that time, trance was popular, but I wasn’t sold on the music. My buddy, who was really into house, took us to the house room. This DJ by the name of Gene Farris was playing some really funky music. He dropped what I later found out to be the Cleptomanic’s bootleg of “All I Do” by Stevie Wonder. At that moment, I was sold on dance music and started buying deep and funky house records.
Nick: How did the you both find each other and start playing music together?
Franz: I remember seeing Andy at a DJ battle I was judging back in the day. I thought, “Wow, this dude can cut.” Years later I found out he was in the same fraternity my cousin was in. We were in the same scene. We went to Coachella in 2011 and were hanging out in the Sahara Tent. After Coachella we were like, “Yo, lets make music.” It started building from then.
Nick: What where some turning points in your music careers? What was the feeling when people you didn’t know started listening to your music?
Andy: We remember seeing 100 plays on SoundCloud for our first few uploads. That was pretty amazing to us. Granted 80 of those were probably ourselves and 20 of our friends who listened. We were 
pretty happy with that. Getting No. 1 on Hype Machine was really cool. Obviously, Avicii playing our Kaskade “Its You, It’s Me” remix was awesome. Nothing beats the feeling of playing our own music and people going crazy. It makes us want to get back in the studio and make more tracks ASAP. We love that feeling.
Nick: Where do you see the electronic music scene going or like to see it go? Things you would like to see change?
Franz: The electronic music scene, we actually like where it’s going. People are making so many different styles of dance music from big room, future house, deep house, UK bass, nu disco. We enjoy it all. You need more diversity because it increases the impact of each style when you play it live. For instance, big room has so much energy but if you’re set is all big room we would fall asleep. If you weave in and out of styles it keeps the energy of the room up in our opinion. This isn’t something that’s new. If you’ve been DJing for quite some time you already know this and always will be the case. As far as things we would like to see change, we have no clue. We just go with the flow and make music. There’s always something to complain about but shit we have no time for anything these days. No complaints from us.
Nick: Who are some artist you are really excited for in 2015? Plans for your 2015?
Andy: We’re interested in seeing how far future house goes this year. Tchami and Heldens are both residents at some major clubs in Vegas. That’s great for the sound. There’s a bunch of unknown dudes on SoundCloud that we are huge fans of. We are just going to be doing us and continue to get better at every aspect of our game. Whether it be live or in the studio, we are our worst critics. We need to get better with every single track that we release and every gig we play.
Be sure to check out the Shoe Scene Symphony souncloud page here:
https://soundcloud.com/shoescenesymphony
And get ready for one wild dance party this Friday.
FNCT Winter Music Series
Every other Friday, Jan. 9-April 17; doors open at 8 p.m.
Cover: $10
Saferides offeredXhale Lounge
Feb. 6 — Shoe Scene Symphony featuring Jami Deep & Otus
March 6 — Wilks featuring One More Night & Noizechemist
April 3 — Hardkiss featuring Benjah Ninja & Max KronyakLake Tahoe Golf Course
Feb. 20 — 40 Watt Hype featuring Eli Seth Lieberman of Strive Roots
March 20 — Scott Pemberton Trio featuring Black Star Safari
April 17 — Nurliex featuring 4 Piece Puzzle
