In an era where unexpected ingredients thrive, MAKO offers a truly unique experience. Before an introduction was made, the two budding artists spent their early life progressing musically in radically different worlds. Alex attended The Juilliard School on full scholarship as musician and played with some of the world’s elite classical artists in the most storied of venues. Meanwhile, Logan was quietly mastering the art of DJing and within only a few years, began opening for some of dance music’s biggest international acts, including Tiesto and Avicii, and major appearances, including Lollapalooza.
The group’s first release, Beam, quickly circulated on blogs and YouTube, logging more than 3 million views to date. The track was featured on SiriusXM’s Beta Test Tuesday which then prompted them to proclaim MAKO is “the next big thing.” Since then, MAKO has found themselves in studio with some of dance music’s top artists: Avicii, Sander Van Doorn, R3hab, DubVision, Heather Bright, Le Castle Vania and many others.
Now with their new song, I Won't Let You Walk Away making huge notice by big names, the duo took their song into a memorizing Music Video.
“That was a fun one, I think my favorite part was hitting flowers out of Logan’s hand with aluminum bat, I would do that everyday if I had the change.” Praising their genius music video, I just had to tell the duo how incredible the music was. – “Its cool right.” Alex Also Adding – “The director came up with the idea and pitched it to us, and we didn't really know what to expect right, but it sounded really creative it sounded very different and interesting so we just tried it out and we go into the room to do it, and there was like 25 cameras around us and we did it and it was crazy, we got out a whole bunch of planned things that we didn't know what we were going to do, we had the lyrics written out on some stuff then were like lets bring whatever; paint, glitter, balloons, anything just see what it looks like.”
What was your favorite part about working with Sander van Doorn and DubVision making ‘Into The Light’? – My favorite MAKO song
“That one was fun because that one was our first song EVER! That we ever released as a label so thats what made that one fun, we didn't actually meet any of those guys, we just emailed everything back and forth. Yeah it was a super internet collab and then last year in Miami we met DubVision for the first time, its so fun ‘Hey we had a song together, hows it going’ – we are all started laughing because it is surreal. “And everyone is super nice and super cool, Sander is a very nice guy too, it was a fun experience and for us it was kinda like our first thing so it was really exciting.”
When you get feedback from your fans and other DJs how does that make you feel?
“Thats crazy, I think thats the moment where you like really stand out, things start to feel surreal because up and till then your just making a thing, sending it to your friends and family and your grandma comments about it, but when it starts to get random people like ‘Im in Malaysia saying I can't stop listening to this’ and the you're like WOW THATS CRAZY! Thats amazing so that moment it becomes something bigger, something more special, then you're making music for a community of people that are supporting you and its almost like a regular at a bar, you start to see the same faces on social media that are always commenting on and then kinda become friends. — It’s really cool.”
We all start listening to some type of music, I ask MAKO was some music that they listen to other than EDM. “Yes, especially Logan, — I guess for me that I love alternative rock and all that.” Then Logan asks me what are my favorite bands, I replied ‘Incubus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam” — Logan replies “ME TOO! and Radiohead.” Then Alex jumps and says “I love classical music, so like my spectrum is all waked, but yeah Im a addict of classical music; there aren't too many 20 year-olds that say that.” Logan adds: “Its always fun to add in a ‘Radiohead’ thing into a set or even classical pieces or something like that, we try and do little pieces here and there when we can, and bring in what we like and try to share it with people who may not have access to those things, things like someone gave us a The Killers remix, a friend of ours which is like a cool indie rock band and a lot of people are listening to this kind of music stumble upon The Killers, its kinda cool to bring those two worlds together.”
When asking what is your favorite part of Miami Music Week, and Ultra — Alex and Logan had to completely different answers on how they celebrate their MMW. Logan like to stay in the hotel rooms and watch TV like the ‘Hunger Games’, “I’m not really the most party friendly.” While Alex replies — “this is my second Miami Music Week, last year we didn’t know as many people so it was a little overwhelming and we didn’t even do that much but this year I think now were just like friends with so many other artists I’m really excited just like last night we were with a bunch of people and we’re probably just keep running into all our friends, so thats probably whats going to be the best is just hanging out with all these other producers that your buddies with, everyone here is partying and its just fun.”
What was your first show ever you attended?
Logan – “My first show when I was 9 my dad took me to see AC/DC.”
Alex – “My was a classical concert in San Diego”
“So were eagerly awaiting for that, other than that right now I'm kinda experimenting on some new shit, I should be wrapping up the single soon but I'm no where close to it because I've just been making a whole bunch of different tempos stuff right now. We have a tune of songwriting and collabing with some amazing writers and singers in LA so were turning a lot of stuff out but I'm not exactly sure what are next couple of moves were gonna sound like quite yet, I think this will be our more experimental periods in our day, and playing with some 120 BPM stuff to make things a little faster, maybe some indie rock stuff, so more mixes and things.”
If you could choose to live inside a video game what game would it be?
It took them a few minutes because not only it was a great question to ask but an extremely hard question because of all the incredible games that are out in this day. Logan replies “thats an amazing question, you go first because my answer is so obvious.” – Alex “Yeah, thats fucking tough though, I don't what I would say it would either be World of WarCraft or one of the Pokemon games.” Logan adds “thats has to be by far the best question we've ever been asked, its much better than where did you come up with the name MAKO? My favorite game would have to be Final Fantasy 7, I also love Super Mario on Nintendo 64.”
