The DJ and producer group – Bad Royale, met at the summit of a Southern Californian mountain in 2015 and haven’t looked back since; starting their own record label, ‘Rude Mood’ as well as collaborating with the likes of Diplo, Steve Aoki, Skrillex, Major Lazer, Borgore, DJ Snake and others.
With festival appearances at Ultra Music Festival, Electric Zoo, Tomorrowland, Life In Color, and many others, it’s clear that Bad Royale are on the right track to become Dance Music’s most notorious cartoon kings.
Check out our chat below with the group, about the inception of “Bad Royale,” and their brand new single – All I Can Do.”
Valarie – Hi, Bad Royale. Welcome. Thanks for taking time out for this interview. It’s a pleasure to have you!
Bad Royale – Ah, thank you for having us!
Valarie – For those of you not familiar with Bad Royale, you guys are a DJ/producer group consisting of Maor Levi, Bruce Karlsson, Kevin Wild & Elias Ghosn. You guys have been together for only a short time but had been involved with music projects for a while now. How did you guys get together?
Bad Royale – The story of our beginning is that of a Disney fairytale…we were internet friends. We all knew each other thanks to the invention of Facebook, and due to our solo careers being part of the same label, Anjunabeats. To make the tale a short novel, three of the four members knew each other and had actually moved in together in San Diego, and then along the way picked up the fourth member, and then, one night, some crazy witchcraft happened and just like that, Bad Royale was born.
Valarie – How did the name Bad Royale come about?
Bad Royale – Bad Royale was born out of the now defunct project ‘The Kingdumb’. The Kingdumb was a joke project that started during an episodic, teenager-esque, experimental music phase. We were being rebellious, we were edgy, we simultaneously loved all music, and hated all music. We created, what we thought, was knee jerking, thought provoking, maybe even provocative one might say. It was all fun and games until Diplo got ahold of our music and told us he wanted to sign it, under one condition… we find a better name than ‘The Kingdumb”. So, Diplo’s friend and mastermind of creativity at Mad Decent, Paul Devro, helped us create our current name and brand, Bad Royale.
Valarie – Your music can be described as having pushed & smashed through boundaries of not only dubstep, bass, moombahton, and have gone as far as serving up your own genre known as “kingstep.” Can you tell us more about that?
Bad Royale – We refined it to a less lackluster word; we are now calling it ‘Caribbean Bass’. Which falls under the umbrella genre of Caribbean Dance Music. The term was coined by Karrilee Fifi, a Trinidadian event coordinator who has been pushing the movement to help define a musical space for the Caribbean and its current uprising back into the mainstream dance scene.
Valarie – Congrats on the success of getting signed to Polydor? What make you decided to sign with them?
Bad Royale – Thank you. Our decision to sign with Polydor is the equivalent of having to choose players for a basketball team from a school yard lineup and one of the players is Michael Jordan.
Valarie – Your latest single “All I Can Do” is out now, featuring Silver. It’s a brilliant change that shows the range of songwriting & top-notch productions. How important is it that the music you guys release, is up to your strictest standards?
Bad Royale – If the song is going to get a release, it better be 11/10. We get a lot of criticism thrown our way for experimenting with a lot of different genres and mixing a lot of ideas together, but in the end, the outcome will always be what we think is the best we can do.
Valarie – Any new music coming up? Being in a large group, how does the responsibilities fall or doesn’t, since everyone’s equally involved?
Bad Royale – We have so much music on retainer; the hardest part is trying to figure out what comes out next. We have a lot more stuff like “All I Can Do” coming soon; we also have a lot of heavy stuff waiting for release too.
Valarie – What’s in store for 2017? Any plans for a tour, an album, etc?
Bad Royale – No album just yet, we firstly have to release all these singles we have and club records that are on backup! As far as touring goes, we are on nonstop travel mode, check out our Facebook or website to see our tour dates.
Valarie – You’ve collaborated with some heavy hitters from Major Lazer, DJ Snake to Skillex & Borgore. You guys even have your own music label “Rude Mood”. How you do guys decided on which projects to do when it comes to expanding your careers?
Bad Royale – We really like to work with a lot of small artists, if you look at a lot of our originals, and even some of our collabs that are coming out soon, there are a lot of names people aren’t familiar with.
Valarie – Top 5 artists that we all should have on our playlists?
Bad Royale –
Major Lazer
Mira Masa
Bunji Garlin
Louis The Child
Cashmere Cat
Valarie – Thank you, Bad Royale, for talking with us here at T.H.E – Music Essentials. It’s been an absolute pleasure! Best of luck!
Bad Royale – Thank you!
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