These two guys are The Chainsmokers, Drew Taggart and Alex Pall. Taggart is the younger (26) clean-shaven guy, Pall is the bearded older (31) guy. I have to admit, I jam out to The Chainsmokers at the gym. “Roses” and “Don’t Let Me Down” are great gym songs. Currently, they have a massive hit with “Closer,” featuring vocals by Halsey and Taggart. Their breakthrough success has been mostly in the past year, so it’s no surprise that they ended up on the cover of Billboard. What is a surprise is that these guys are not musical intellectuals. They are flat-out frat-bros with zero media training. They spend all day on social media but they have no idea how to present themselves. Either that, or this is all some sort of bro-tastic performance art, although I doubt it. You can read the full Billboard piece here, and here are some of the worst/grossest/most ridiculous quotes.
Taggart on their parties: “We rage every night. My mom’s going to hate reading that, but she already knows.” Pall agrees: “It’s always ‘work hard, play hard.’ But you’ll never see us getting carried out of a club. We’re way too good at drinking.”
Dong size: “17.34 combined inches,” so it says on their website. Pall clarifies: “Oh, that’s our penises combined… tip to tip.”
Taggart on their successful year: “Only Justin Bieber and Drake can hold a candle to what we’ve done,” says Taggart, naming the two artists who banked more top 10s this year. The Chainsmokers even unseated Calvin Harris as all-time champ of the Hot Dance Songs chart. “Now we’re influencing the industry, putting out songs everyone copies.”
Namedroppers: Pall doesn’t mind sharing that Linkin Park unexpectedly called him while he was on the toilet; Big Sean blew off his management to confirm a session (so did Dua Lipa); and Weezer circled back after refusing a cameo in The Chainsmokers’ 2016 Coachella set. “They were like, ‘Yo! We should do a track together,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, really?’ ” says Pall. “I can’t blame somebody for saying no early on, but it depends on how you said no and how you came back to us. If you own it, like, ‘I didn’t see the vision, but it’s clear now and it’s super sick,’ I get that. It feels good when those people are like…” Taggart finishes the thought: “Thirsty.”
What they sound like: “It’s like if LMFAO just started making…” says Pall, and Taggart finishes: “…the illest sh-t and stopped dressing like idiots.”
They bombed at the VMAs: There was no stage production to speak of, some awkward non-chemistry with Halsey and, as Taggart tells it, “It sounded like sh-t. We were told my voice was going to be mixed well, but there was no reverb and it was way louder than the track for the broadcast. I was set up to fail. Nearly every other person lip-synced it, and we knew because we had them in our ears. So now I know why you lip-sync.” He points out that was only the second time he has sung live but doesn’t realize that’s part of the issue: Who gets to give singing a try on a nationally televised awards show? (Pall saw Kanye West in a hallway but was too shy to introduce himself.) “It’s funny,” says Taggart. “Everyone said congratulations, and my mom was like, ‘Keep up with your singing lessons.’ ” He is, for the record, sticking with the lessons.
They’re unapologetic bros, but even they aren’t Trump supporters: Taggart does every sport that involves a board, and while he won’t vote for Donald Trump, he doesn’t claim to be a Hillary Clinton booster, either: “I’m not saying she’s the best candidate of all time,” he says. “I’m just saying this guy’s a f—ing idiot.”
Why they do this: Both had live-in girlfriends but copped to being “girl crazy.” “Even before success, p-ssy was number one,” says Pall. “Like, ‘Why am I trying to make all this money?’ I wanted to hook up with hotter girls. I had to date a model.”
The bro philosophy: “We’re just frat bro dudes, you know what I mean? Loving ladies and stuff.”
The only thing I genuinely find funny is that these guys are, like, permanently wrecked, high and drunk, they talk about fun “games” involving punching each other in the face, they even commit all of this to the public record by being honest in an interview, and after all of that… like, they aren’t even dumb enough to be Trump supporters. That says something, I guess.
Photos courtesy of Billboard.
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