PARIS TEXAS On Their Latest Album ‘MID AIR’ [@ParisTexasUSA]

Rap/rock duo PARIS TEXAS recently dropped their debut album, MID AIR. Their distinct sound is like no other – often marrying heavy, brash rock instrumentation with quick-witted punchy rap lyrics. GUAP catches up with them for a chat about their album, their journey, life on mars and more.

Kat: Can you talk me through how you guys met, started making music together and then settled on the name PARIS TEXAS?

Louie Pastel: Two young dudes met in college being swagadocious, and then next thing you know, we were like, “This s**t’s kind of hard and mean.” We [called ourselves] PARIS TEXAS, because Rap, Rock; Paris, Texas – juxtapositions – and that’s how that came to be. 

Kat: What’s something that you guys have learned from working with each other? 

Louie Pastel: I learned that I have a bit of an ego, but you know what I mean, it’s easy to overcome it from this man. He has no ego, so it makes it easy. 

Felix: I learned that I still don’t know how to count bars, but I’m trying to learn. Sometimes I can feel it, but most of the time I don’t be knowin’ how to count bars. 

Kat: What has been the most rewarding part of the entire journey that you guys have taken together? 

Louie Pastel: You know what’s crazy, this is gonna sound kind of personal, but I think seeing that we set each other up to be great. I already came into this s*** with my brother damn near, and really put ourselves in positions where we can live the life we always wanted to live. That’s a crazy dream that most people don’t get to [do] – it’s already hard enough doing it by yourself, but making sure that your friends [can do it with you] it’s crazy and mad rewarding. Me and my friend are really traveling the world, meeting people, keeping our heads on straight, because most people have to do it by themselves. That’s just tight. 

Kat: How does it help, being in a duo?

Felix: Damn, duality is hard. I think it just depends. It really depends on the people that are there, but I guess – as cliche as it sounds, but true –  certain things to be in line of, to keep a focus about, it helps to have [someone else], if you’re deterring too far off. We always know if it gets too crazy that we’re just gonna be there to have a serious talk about it. With the duality part, it really just depends on the people. It depends on how people work together, how people are. It’s almost like sometimes there’s a weird symmetry to the way we live or the way we view certain things or jokes. It’s not one and the same, but it’s just different enough. There’s just different enough things about each other as people. This weird synergy with everything, it’s wild.

Louie Pastel: Oh, it’s amazing. You win together, you fall together. It almost feels like the difference between getting jumped by yourself, but if you get beat up with your friends, you guys can laugh it off. If you get beat up by yourself, it’s like, “Damn, I’m a loser,” but if we all get beat up, it’s like “We’re losers, this s***’s cool,” [it] feels like being the kids off of It, you’re fighting to clown together. 

Kat: Your sound is quite different and distinct. What music did you listen to that inspired the production that you work with now?

Louie Pastel: Rx Papi, RXKNephew, 454, Teezo Touchdown, Jeremy Crescendo – these are [artists] that were in heavy rotation while making the album.

Kat: Tell us about MID AIR. What was the vision for the album and how did you execute it?

Louie Pastel: We were trying to have a really fun time trying to make sense out of this weird purgatory we’re kind of caught in. We didn’t wanna be overly serious. That wasn’t the goal – to be like, “Now we’re so serious after putting out all this fun music,” but it was definitely like, “We’ll give you guys more pieces of seriousness while still trying to find more creative ways to turn up.” That was the goal, mostly. 

Felix: I guess just putting more intention behind the music that we already had out [and] doubling down on it. Just being more accurate with the resources we have now available to us and being like, “Okay, let’s really try to make some s**t.” That’s pretty much it, having the access to make a lot of the music that we have now. 

Kat: What was it like working with Teezo Touchdown and Kenny Mason?

Louie Pastel: It was really easy ’cause we were already friends. 

Felix: Yeah, those guys are great.

Louie Pastel: It’s funny, with Teezo, he literally knocked it out within the first 30 minutes, it was crazy to watch and then with Kenny, [we] got the verse sent back to us. We’d always wanted to make something weird with Kenny and Teezo, but with Kenny – where he was at, it was just like a whole thing, but he knocked it out the ballpark. Those are two people that I trust more than ourselves to make something fire. I don’t really trust that many people to do good music, but those two – top 10 artists I’ve ever met for sure. 

Kat: You guys are known for having really wacky and intriguing music videos, do you have any favourite memories from shooting them?

Felix: Damn. Probably the end of ‘BULLET MAN’. I remember ******* were overhyping the gunshot sound, crazy! I guess just like the ending of that, ‘PANIC!!!’ was just exhausting. There’s always funny stuff going on, conversation wise, off camera. ‘FORCE OF HABIT’ was mad cold. I can’t think of a favourite crazy moment, there’s just funny moments that have just happened. 

Louie Pastel: We’re some funny dudes. Every moment’s a funny moment. 

Kat: What are your favourite songs off of the album and why?

Louie Pastel: I wanna say for me it’s personally ‘Lana Del Rey’, because that was [the] max capability of all my production skills and all my guitar playing skills. I had a solo on on there and I’m like, “Whoa, what the fuck?” I listen back, I’m like, “Dang, I made a crazy song I’ve always wanted to make.”

Felix: Probably, even just up to date, probably just that one. I dunno if it’s gonna change, but yeah probably ‘Lana Del Rey’ for sure. 

Kat: Outside of music, what’s your favourite thing to do? 

Louie Pastel: Hang out with beautiful women. Get to know them. Read Bell Hooks. Try and destroy the patriarchy. Try to understand. Try to break down my own demons as a male – that’s fun for me. 

Felix: I don’t do it enough but play video games. Skateboarding if I can. I think I like to do it, but I don’t like to drive, I just always be driving. I don’t hate driving, but I’m not eager to get up – I just love being on the road. I’m like, “I’m in California, if I just gotta go somewhere, how else am I supposed to do it?” But yeah, it’s fun. Video games are fun. 

Kat: If you guys actually ever went to Mars, what is the first song that you would play there when you got there? 

Louie Pastel: I probably play ‘Rocket Man’ by Elton John.

Felix: Probably a Michael Jackson song, for sure – ‘You Rock My World’.

Kat: If you were gonna play music for aliens, what song would you play to them? 

Felix: I’d be so scared to show ’em anything, maybe Yeat. I wanna show them something really basic – bare bones, easy instrumentation, just really light. 

Louie Pastel: You gotta show ’em Yeat, because that just sound like alien music. 

Felix: I know but certain frequencies, I don’t wanna scare ’em. 

Louie Pastel: Nah, I feel they’d be right with that. They be like, “Oh yeah!”

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