Get To Know: Cash Cash

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Cash Cash, an electronic trio rising from Roseland, New Jersey, has been gaining much support by renowned DJs, producers and fathers of electronic music. Tiesto, Hardwell, Nicky Romero are all supported of the best friends / brothers' work.

Cash Cash consists of Jean Paul and Alex Makhlou, and Samuel Frisch. The trio has been signed to Big Beat Records, huge supporters of electronic music with a legendary roster including Skrillex, Icona Pop, Chuckie, Martin Solveig, Flux Pavilion and Rudimental.

With remixes to popular songs including "Safe and Sound" by Capital Cities, "Treasure" by Bruno Mars, "Alive" by Krewella and "Let's Go" by Calvin Harris & Ne-Yo, the trio has made a strong move into the scene, making an impact on electronic music fans all around.

Cash Cash was named one of Dancing Astronaut's Five Breakthrough Artists of Summer 2013, and the trio only has bigger plans in store for the upcoming year. The talented trio is currently touring around the states, with major stops including Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New Jersey for a New Year's performance.

I plan on catching the group lay down their tracks in Cleveland come January, but in the meantime, had the opportunity to catch up with the three guys to talk about their music and 2014 plans.

Read further and get to know Cash Cash!

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: How did you get your start in music?
CASH CASH: We all played instruments growing up, so we have a strong musical background. Our elementary school had a great music program and we owe them a lot for getting us involved at an early age.

We started producing music really early in high school because we were sick of spending thousands at the local studios.

We interned at a few studios but learned most of it just from trial and error. There weren't any YouTube tutorials at the time [laughs], the new kids are spoiled!

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: How did you get your start in electronic music, specifically?
CASH CASH: It definitely started at the piano, which transferred to the keyboard and synths.

Once we got involved with Cubase, all the doors opened up. Vst instruments and plug-ins were like digital cocaine, and we got addicted really fast.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: How did you come up with the name "Cash Cash"?
CASH CASH: Long story! Basially we were in a previous group growing up and never thought to copyright the name because when you're a young local garage band, you don't have the money and don't think it really matters. Well after we signed our first record deal, it kind of did matter.

We got hit with a ton of legal notices about it from the person who owned the name, and had this old agent trying to screwe us over, so when putting the new group together out of frustration, I was like, we should just name this group "Cash Cash" because every one is after our cash, and we don't have any yet.

We all looked at each other and it just stuck. The reason I said it twice like that was because "Cash Cash" was a previous song we had.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: Who do you consider your musical influences?
CASH CASH: We're big fans of so much music from Daft Punk, Justice and Chromeo to Michael Jackson, The Beatles and Nirvana.

A good song is a good song regardless of its genre.

As far as electronic music goes, the list is endless but to name a bunch, we really like Calvin Harris, David GUetta, Skrillex, Martin Solveig, Oliver, A-Trak, Knife Party, Zedd, Clockwork and Wolfgang Gartner.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: Who do you listen to in your spare time?
CASH CASH: If we're not listening to dance music, we're probably rocking out to 90's music from early dance to alternative. We love Chemical Brothers, Air, Fatboy Slim, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Basement Jaxx, Matchbox 20 and Goo Goo Dolls.

There's too many amazing genres of music to limit ourselves to one. It all influences the music we make as well.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: What has been your most memorable experience touring?
CASH CASH: It's hard to name just one. We've pretty much played a show in every state and have been really luck to travel overseas the past five years.

From eating the finest sushi in Japan to the wildest steak in Brazil, it's been an amazing experience.

We played awesome places like the UK, Amsterdam, the Dominican Republic and Canada. We hope to visit even more countries in 2014 - its only the beginning.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?
CASH CASH: It would be wild to collab with Calvin Harris, Matthew Koma, Oliver, John Martin or even someone out side of EDM like Travie McCoy or Bruno Mars.

We've talked about doing a collab with Dillon Francis which would be fucking dope!

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: If you were stranded on an island, what three things would you want with you?
CASH CASH: An acoustic guitar, Katy Perry and maybe some marijuana.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: What advice would you give to other young people looking to succeed in the industry?
CASH CASH: Even though we've beaten the odds and signed to multiple major and indie labels, publishing companies and big agencies over the years, I won't just spew the stupid cliche "you can do it if you try" or "if it happened to me it could happen to you" bullshit. Saying that can ruin lives. It's a tough and brutal industry that can eat you alive. I do believe the cream always rises but sometimes someone else eats it up because it gets the chance to turn into a Boston Cream Donut. My point? You can't put all your eggs in one basket because the music industry is a game of musical chairs. There's no consistency. A&R's and agents are like Mexican jumping beans; one minute you're a producer in a studio, next thing you're DJ'ing in front of 10,000 kids. One minute you're the lead guitarist in a headlining rock band, next your flipping burgers at Mickey D's. You can't be in it to make money off the bat or you will not get passed the climb.

You have to just truly love music and be willing to eat shit for a while. I couldn't see myself doing anything else so I didn't have a choice. It chose me but I always tell people to have a back up plan even if it's just another side of the music industry. We started playing in bands but always produced, recorded, mixed and mastered all of our own music and remixed outside artists.

It was something to fall back on. When playing in a band went as far as it could, we focused more on production and then the times enabled producers to be artists at the same time, so it came around full 360 for us.

A lot of my friends aren't as lucky.

I've seen a lot of let downs and not even because of talent, just because of timing and bad luck. So whatever you plan to do, my advice is to make sure you have a plan B.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: When you hit a creativity block, what re-inspires you?
CASH CASH: Boobies usually work 95% of the time. Eating sushi works the remaining 5%.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: How do you balance your music along with your personal life and other obligations?
CASH CASH: I think for us, they came the same tihing over the years. Music is our entire life. our job isn't like working a normal 9 to 5, but that doesn't mean it's a free-for-all. There are days we work 12 hours in a row.

The thing that makes our job the best in the world is that we get to choose our own hours and love what we do, so it never actually feels like a job. We don't have to report to any douchebag boss, but definitely work our asses off.

We just don't have to work on anyone else's clock except our own. There are time though, when we are like, "okay - it's time for a beach day". Haha.

EMPTY LIGHTHOSUE: Did you ever want to pursue a career other than music?
CASH CASH: Never. I think if there were other careers we could have pursued other than music, we would have done so when we hit some of our dark and low points as Cash Cash. We're servants to the music until the end.

Even at our darkest times, we never second guessed it for a second. We just kept trucking through and it finally paid off.

Not a day goes by that we aren't grateful for everything that has happened. It feels good to see all of our hard work start to pay off.

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: what are your upcoming plans in regards to more touring, releases and recording?
CASH CASH: We have a lot of great stuff in the works. We are in the middle of confirming a Vegas residency, so we will be out there a bunch, along with lots of other shows in the US and overseas as well. You can also expect a lot of new music and remixes.

We are currently doing a remix for Hardwell, plus working on a new song featuring the talented Christina Perri. We will definitely do a full album at some point, but not sure of any exact release plans yet.

Maybe we will do a single between the next release which could be an EP, full length or some kind of remix EP. 2014 is gonna be a wild year!

EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE: Anything else you would like to add?
CASH CASH: We've been really putting a lot of work into our radio show called "Royalty Radio".

Definitely subscribe to us at soundcloud.com/cashcash so you can find out when our new episodes are out.

We premiere a ton of new music and remixes on it, plus it's a great place to find out what we are currently listening to and spinning in our sets.

Keep in touch with Cash Cash over Twitter @cashcash and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/cashcash - the guys love hearing from their fans and listeners, and be prepared for all the trio has in store for 2014!