The White Panda Interview

Last night a couple buddies and I drove up to The White Panda‘s show in Ft. Worth, TX. We had a chance to kick it backstage with the guys for a few minutes before the show where we held a ten minute audio-recorded interview. I’ve cleaned up and notated the interview below. We were able to learn about their music, their background, and get an inside look into some of their upcoming work.

These guys are some of the hottest mashup artists in the game right now, so take a read below and grab some of their tunes posted previously on The Kollection!

Meet The White Panda

Note: The below interview was audi-recorded, then written. Read it as you would a conversation.

1. How did you guys start making mashups? What was the inspiration?

For me, I can’t speak for Dan, but it was initially boredom. I was a fan of the genre and I liked artists like Girl Talk, and I always listened to that kind of stuff in high school, but never really knew how to do it. When I was in college, as a way to avoid studying for interviews and tests, I looked up how these guys were doing what they were doing. I started messing around myself and realized it was a pretty fun thing to mess around with.

2. How did you first get your name out there?

In the summer of 2009, we decided to collaborate – we grew up together, but worked independently, and through a link on Facebook we realized we were working on the same kind of stuff. We decided to release under a common name and get a website – this was summer of 2009. We initially would throw our work on the site and email it out to some bloggers, blogs that we followed, asking them to take a look. We got an overwhelming response, way better than what we expected. From there it just sort of took itself off.

3. Where did the name The White Panda come from?

Dan came up with it actually – there’s no really cool story behind it. We should probably come up with something, just because we always get this question. The actual answer is that it came during a random brainstorm of stuff that we thought was catchy. You could say it’s because I’m white and Dan is half asian, but for the most part we were just shooting names back and forth, and The White Panda stuck.

4. What are your favorite kinds of songs to mash, and why?

Good question, one that I don’t usually get. We listen to a lot of different kinds of stuff. I think outside of country, Tom and I pretty much like every kind of music – no disrespect for you country fans – but this allows us to draw from all kinds of genres. When we started this we were into the dance/house/electro music, so a lot of our influences lie there. But like I said, we’re not limited to anything because we enjoy all types of music.

5. Any original production for 2011?

Yeah, we are definitely going that direction. We are dropping the new mashup album in the next month or so, probably sooner. We are working pretty hard on that right now, putting finishing touches on and everything, so look for that to come out soon. But yes, we are getting into some remixes and original production type stuff, so that should definitely be dropping later, probably in the summertime.

6. Do you guys have the name for your next album yet?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, should we just tell him? Yeah, leak it, I don’t care. It’s called Pandamonium. We actually opened it up to our fans to name it, and we got thousands of submissions for cover art and album titles. So we had to decide with what we were gonna go with. A lot of people were thinking we were just gonna go with Rubber Mash or Overtime to go along with our theme, but we kind of wanna do something different. So yeah. Pandamonium. You guys are literally the first ones to know it. We’ll probably drop it later this week, but yeah, that’s the title.

Everything will be done through fan suggestions – the name and album art – that we have picked out from submissions.

7. If you could work with one other artist, in a concert setting or for original production, who would it be?

That’s a tough call. If we were producing our own music, and wanted a hip hop artist to rap over the top, um, I don’t know. Someone realistic. Probably someone like Chiddy Bang or Wiz Khalifa, we wouldn’t be going for Eminem or Lil Wayne. We’ve done a lot with Chiddy Bang in the past, who would be cool to work with. I would love to sit down with Pretty Lights and pick his brain about his production and his style – I’m pretty impressed by his stuff. Maybe Skrillex? He’s got real clean production, he would be fun to work with.

8. Who made your masks?

That’s top secret man. We’ll leak you our album title, but can’t tell you about the masks.

9. What software and equipment do you guys use for your mashups?

We work with Reason, Ableton Live, Adobe Audition and Fruity Loops. Hardware is nothing too complex, just audio controllers, computers, and a soundboard. But yeah we work with Roland Fantoms, stuff like that.

10. What was the first mashup you ever made, and do you still enjoy it?

Oh god. The first two songs I ever put together was called Return Of The Interstellar Love. It was the beat of Return of the Mack, Mark Morrison, and I put Interstellar Love on top. It was horrible. Straight up horrible. The first mash I ever did that people could listen to is called Hypnotic Echo, off of Versus. It was the first concept I ever really did that I was a fan of.

11. When are we going to get a live mascot?

A live mascot? Ha. I was actually on a plane the other day with a lady who I was chatting up, she was pretty cute actually, but she is the ringmaster in a circus. She was born a carnie, got into fireworks dealing, and now is the ringmaster in a circus. I asked her to look into pandas, to see if we can get any trained for our shows. That would be sweet.

12. What would you say to mashup haters, someone that claims mashups aren’t a true musical production?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, if you don’t like it then that’s fine. You don’t need to call mashups “art” or “production.” You don’t even need to call us “artists.” Compared to people like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, we aren’t artists. We’re not creating our own shit – we’re taking good stuff thats out there and putting a different spin on it. The fact that there’s people out there that like it, and that there’s a market for it, and people enjoy it, like, don’t hate on it. You don’t have to like it, but some people do, so fuck it.

13. T Swift or Katy Perry, for mashes?

What do you mean by “mash?” Haha. “Mash,” I would Taylor Swift, but for music, probably Katy Perry. Same thing for Dan.