CHUURCH: Building a base with Lean Bass.
Chuurch has established themselves as one of the most forward-thinking acts in the ever-expanding world of bass music, playing massive numbers of shows and festivals around North America, winning over new fans (UUnion Members, as they've been appropriately dubbed) wherever they lay their beats. As the influence of religious institutions wanes as time goes by, and people find new places to commune, Chuurch may be one of the most aptly named acts in music right now. Their signature 'Lean Bass' is a yin-yang of dark/moody and fun/groovy. Chuurch's is a sound that bridges those gaps between light and dark, welcoming all listeners from wherever they may come from.
“I'm a hip-hop producer, I've produced for Snak the Ripper and a bunch of other cats, and Jeff's (Aka EviCtion) classically trained, he has a degree in jazz theory but he makes electronic music. That's the preface of how it starts. We get into the same room and we really just don't stop,” recalls Justin (aka Makemdef), of the genesis of Chuurch. “We lived in the same house for two years and a bit. We just moved out of there this summer. We went through a lot but the one thing we did was just make beats all the time. All the time. All the time. It's crazy. We had the cops at our house so many times from noise complaints,” he says with a laugh, as he's readying to board a bus for a 15 hour ride to drop the grooves to the UUnion in and around the West Coast. “I figure in a year or 40 down the road, I'll be looking back at this laughing about those first 15 hour bus rides just to make it work. It's gotta go into the book, for sure.”
Those years of living together, amassing a huge backlog of music and learning to work relentlessly with each is starting to pay off in spades, as the duo are always showing up to wherever they are called with new music, new sounds for the ever-hungry ears and hips of dance-floor goers. “We really love making beats. We have a new beat for every different festival, for every new show we played. We just walk around and think, 'What's the crowd like? Who are we playing for?' Whether it's East Coast, California, wherever it was, what kind of beat do we want to make? We just manifest it, just conjure it up. That's why we have so many beats. We just get carried away. We're both really hungry. We're both complete polar opposites in every spectrum with a similar goal and common denominator.”
Whatever differences the duo may have are entirely irrelevant as the two have found a musical synergy that eludes many throughout their travels. “At FozzyFest, I walk into the green room at the stage and Jeff is sitting there, first time I've seen him in over a month, and he doesn't even say 'Hi.' He just looks up with his headphones on, at his laptop, and just waves me over and hands me the headphones. He had taken the stuff I had sent him from point A to point B. We were working on this song right off the bat seeing each other. We exported it 18 minutes before we started and it was the first song of our set,” Justin drops with a casualness that belies the incredible musical feat he just described.
It's that respect for the art and dedication to new ideas – as well as just being really fucking good at making music – that is helping Chuurch build a strong, dedicated fanbase. “Me and him just do what we do 100%, same as you do what you do 100%. Same as of all of the people involved in making this whole scene economically sensible. That's what it takes, is ninjas. There's no small part to it when it comes to contributing to this. That's what it's all about. You can totally remind someone having a shitty day that it's all good, just those simple gestures, offering your own personal gifts. A person can just take it and run with it. That's what it's all about – building each other up so we can keep building the culture up.”
Keep up with all things CHUURCH over at their Facebook page and the UUnion Fanpage.