A couple boys get together while studying at Haaaahvard and make an album, send it around to some bigwigs, and wait. "Once the record was finished, we sent it around to everyone we could get it to. And did that for 9 or 10 months. And, mainly, we walked into closed doors, you know what I mean? No one was interested. And then Kanye, Pharrell, and Jermaine Dupri within about a week and a half all really wanted to do something," says Maxwell Drummey. Read on for my interview with these charmingly sarcastic musical prodigies, and catch 'em on the tour they're about to go on with N.E.R.D. -Holly
Chester French at the Hotel San Jose courtyard
ELLEgirl: Has this sudden success freaked you out?
Drummey: You're in the dorm room one day and then you're with Jermaine Dupri in Atlanta.
ELLEgirl: What do your parents think?
D.A.: They're happy - they don't have to pay for us! We're not living with them. Until that happens, they're cool.
ELLEgirl: Did you graduate school?
D.A.: We graduated in June.
ELLEgirl: What were your early influences?
Drummey: A lot of Outkast. Love Outkast. Old stuff too, everything from Les Paul to female singers, Dusty Springfield, Beatles, Led Zepplin, everything we could get our hands on. We both played jazz in high school.
ELLEgirl: How did you get the name? From David Chester French?
D.A.: Yeah, we thought it sounded cool. Almost as cool as we are.
ELLEgirl: Modest, too!
D.A.: I am the most modest guy ever.
ELLEgirl: It can easily go to your head, when you have hip-hop bigwigs -
D.A.l: And also when you're this modest, because you kind of get reminded of how much humbler you are than other people. Even if your grammar isn't perfect.
ELLEgirl: How long did you work on the album?
Drummey: We worked on the album for three years. You listen to a song and it's going to have four or five keyboard parts, guitar, bass, drums, and everything, and there's only two of us.
D.A.: And we didn't know how to record a piano, how to record drums. You make mistakes and it gives it character a lot of times.
ELLEgirl: When you had to finally perform, was it crazy [their first show ever was this week]?
Drummey: Nah, because I can play all the instruments at once. I'm a one man band.
Maxwell: We have a band. We've been a band for a month, with the other guys. We're not over-rehearsed.
ELLEgirl: Are you surprised you have fans?
D.A.: Well, I'm pretty used to everyone loving me everywhere I go, because I'm beautiful, so it's like, it's a blessing and a curse. A beast and a burden. But also a blessing. Noooo, I mean, we're surprised to the extent that we have the ability now to reach a lot of people.
Drummey: I'm surprised that people like our music when we haven't put our album out yet!
Chester French's album in June or September. Check them out.
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