WIN WIN, FTW!

Some might call WIN WIN a supergroup of sorts.  It does help when your group is comprised of heavy-hitters XXXchange (the producer-half of Spank Rock), Devlin and Ghostdad. Well if that isn’t convincing enough for you – maybe the fact that they are signed to Vice Records, had a track remixed by the Black Lips or are touring with The Death Set.  Plus, on their album they had vocal contributions from Hot Chip and Andrew W.K.

WIN WIN are playing a show on Wednesday May 4th at the United Steelworkers Hall in Toronto (with the Death Set) and I had a chance to catch up with Devlin and Ghostdad prior to the show.  Here is what they had to say:

1) How important is the use of art / visual art in the use of your live performance?

Devlin:  Well, Video is crucial part of the performance. While we are banging around on midi controllers and samplers, the video is also being manipulated in a similar way. To keep some sort of time and rhythm with the music.
Video and visual art informs the music we make as well. We make weird sketches and use other kind of visual influences to generate song ideas or to open up the channels

2) You are all established musicians / artists in your own right — how did WIN WIN come together and what was the idea behind it?

Devlin: We wanted to just work on some bootlegs and edits but things really kind of took their own direction. The first few sessions between Boston and Brooklyn sort of made it clear we had something a bit bigger than an ep of edits. Alexxx was working on some stuff that really fit with the work that the 3 of us (GhostDad, XxxChange,myself) were making so it was like ‘OK,  let’s put it all together and have a record’.

3) You’re currently on tour with the Death Set.  Tell me what it has been like touring with them.

GHOSTDAD:  Our first show was last night in Boston and it was really fun!  The Death Set are definitely influencing us to take a more DIY approach to our setup.  We’re hanging up screens and projectors in every venue and have some lights and other tricks up our sleeve as well.

4) What is WIN WIN bringing to the table that is different from other artists.

GHOSTDAD: I think the way we collaborate with guest vocalists is different. We’re willing to let them take the reigns and really develop our idea further and in the same token they’ve been cool with us taking the vocals we collect and doing whatever with them, stretching and pulling them into new ideas in some cases.

5) What are some of your favourite remixes and collaborations that you’ve worked on in the last little bit?

Devlin: We recently did a remix for Bikini and I think it turned out pretty good. We did a Scion remix project for the song Victim we are pretty excited about that as well

With this being WIN WIN’s fist Toronto performance, y’all should go show them some love.  Tickets are still available ($12.50) for this performance and it is an all-ages, early show (8PM).