Simple Creatures: "It's Somewhere Between A Rock Show And An EDM Hip-Hop Show"

Yesterday, Simple Creatures – made up of blink-182's Mark Hoppus and All Time Low's Alex Gaskarth – announced a short series of live shows, the duo's first-ever performances under their new banner.

With just the two members venturing between Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York and London in March and April – in support of their debut six-song EP Strange Love, to be released on March 29 – we were intrigued how it was all going to work; not just how this music would translate in a live setting, but also what the set list would compromise of, given their limited material thus far.

Luckily Alex has cleared all that up for us, telling Kerrang! about the exciting "hybrid of genres" that Simple Creatures will bring to fans in both their music and at these forthcoming gigs.

“It’s pretty crazy," he says. "There’s a lot of moving parts, and we’ve been figuring out how to do it live. It’s just the two of us and we don’t have a live band – we don’t have a drummer. It’s sort of landing somewhere between a rock show and an EDM hip-hop show! And I think that’s what’s really interesting about this project: we knew that, to do this right, it was going to have to be some sort of strange hybrid of genres. And, even down to the live element of it, it is truly that. We’re running a lot of stuff off these insane sample pads, and I’m playing more instruments than I know what to do with so far! That’s a very interesting element of the show. At any given moment, we’re both on keys, I’m on bass, Mark’s on guitar and then we’re swapping guitars, and then I’ll be playing the sample pads, and we’re looping a beat and playing on top of that… it’s pretty crazy. There’s a lot of interactivity in the show for us, but, at the same time, it still really feels like this energetic rock show.”

When asked if Alex and Mark will be covering their own bands during a Simple Creatures set, he teases that they're "going to get clever and kind of fun with it". Ooooh…

“We’re sort of taking it as it goes!" Alex explains. "We definitely know that we need more songs (laughs), and we’re working towards that. There’s more music in the chamber ready to go, so I’m hoping it’ll actually be sooner rather than later that people will hear even more material. We just wanted to get this first EP out and have people familiar with the project before we overload them with even more music – but there is more music coming. And we’re gonna get clever and kind of fun with it, and try some different things! I think people will maybe expect some tunes that are not Simple Creatures tunes, so we’ll see…”

Can't. Wait.

Catch Simple Creatures live at the following dates:

March

28 Los Angeles, CA, Belasco Ballroom
29 San Francisco, CA, The Midway
31 Philadelphia, PA, Warehouse On Watts

April

01 New York, NY, Public Arts
03 London, UK, The Hangar

Tickets go on sale 9am March 15.

Simple Creature are also headlining the Avalanche Stage at Download Festival this June. Get your tickets now.

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