We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful PLURTHLINGS. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with PLURTHLINGS below.
PLURTHLINGS, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
There are 2 of us working on the music and artistic side of this project, so we both had different moments in life when we started to pursue full-time careers as professional artists.
Monsoon first knew that he wanted to be a professional DJ and music producer back in 2009 when he performed at a First Friday Art Walk. At that point, he played drums in a band, and he knew that he wanted to be a musician, but he only had recently discovered DJing and producing on his own. He showed up to the event with a PA system with a large subwoofer and a folding table. He started playing some of my early mashups and party routines that he was making in my college loft. Before he knew it, the whole street in front of me was packed with other college kids and teenagers dancing to the music. It felt so electric and positive. He felt alive in a new way for the first time.
It took many years to replicate the energy level of that experience. Before that, he played shows with other musicians, and they always ended up unreliable for a long-term career. When he found DJing and producing, he could do everything myself. But he struggled for a couple of years before he teamed up with his best friend as a duo. Finally, we’ve played some amazing shows together that have gotten better and better over the years.
Since Kahu is a little bit younger than Monsoon, the moment he decided to go all-in on a career as a professional musician came a bit later. From January 2008 through the Spring semester of 2010, Kahu attended the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. He had always loved music very much, and it was a huge part of his life and personality.
In general, Kahu’s love for music manifested into an obsession for finding new/fresh styles and genres. He had a laptop that had 1000s of songs that he had compiled over the years. One reason for this collection was his love of action sports, specifically snowboarding. Growing up in Denver meant that he had the ability to go snowboarding every weekend (and sometimes even skipped class to go during the week). That meant there was A LOT of time to fill while in the car and on the mountain. When looking back, snowboarding was more about having something to do while listening to music rather than the activity of snowboarding itself, haha. So, over the years, Kahu cultivated a natural ability to “DJ” long car trips and days on the mountain while snowboarding with his closest friends. This is where he developed an exceptional taste for music across various genres. 90’s House Music and Underground Hip-Hop were in heavy rotation!
Eventually, word got around within his friend circles at ASU, and people would start to request that Kahu start bringing the laptop to all the parties that he was attending. In the fall of 2009, he found himself at all these big parties with a laptop plugged into whatever sound system was available. Whether it was choosing songs from the curated library he already had or finding new music at the moment via YouTube, he always found himself in the position of setting the vibe for whatever setting it was. Playlists were a HUGE thing for Kahu (and still are), so he would have a playlist made whatever the occasion was. Kahu was very active socially while in school. He pledged and was initiated in a fraternity, was an active member of the ASU wakeboard team, and even became a member of the Pre-Law fraternity Phi Alpha Delta. These outings always required some level of “DJing” via the mystical party laptop.
Someone approached Kahu and noticed that he had been at a lot of the same parties. This person was from Los Angeles and was heavily into the rave scene. He commented on how he thought Kahu had a natural talent for finding and playing great music and asked him if he had ever thought about being a legitimate DJ/Producer. At first, Kahu wasn’t sure what he had meant by the comment. Initially, he thought, “like a wedding DJ? That doesn’t sound like something I would be interested in,” and shrugged off the suggestion. The kid from LA shook his head and pulled up a YouTube video of deadmau5 debuting the first version of his infamous Cube stage set up with his signature LED Mau5 Helmet. He was standing in front of a MASSIVE crowd at the Sahara Tent during Coachella, which had just happened a few weeks prior. Kahu will never forget that moment when he discovered an entirely new world that he didn’t even know existed. The next question from the LA kid was, “Have you ever heard of EDC?” and that moment forever changed the trajectory of Kahu’s life. He pulled up another video, the promotional trailer for the 2010 installment of Electric Daisy Carnival. Kahu responded, “What is this? And how do I get there!?” and completely submerged himself in music production and DJing from that moment on. He downloaded Ableton Live and Virtual DJ later that same night.
Kahu spent the next couple of months completely immersed in this whole new world that he had discovered. Learning as much as he could about dance music production and DJing led him to meet his best friend, Monsoon. One of his fraternity brothers reached out one day and invited him to come jam with some of the other guys at Monsoon’s apartment. Monsoon & Kahu didn’t really interact that night, but Kahu had left his school ID there on accident and needed to return the next day to pick it up. Monsoon was finishing a DJ mix he had made for the car ride in preparation to drive out to Los Angeles for EDC. He invited Kahu to hang out and listen to the multiple-hour mix. They were immediately bonded through music.
A couple of weeks went by, and Kahu hadn’t really seen Monsoon until the morning that he decided to leave on a road trip to LA to experience his first Electric Daisy Carnival. One of Kahu’s friends that were supposed to ride in the car with him didn’t wake up and was not answering his phone or even his front door. So, Kahu got the car packed up and headed out without him. He pulled into the gas station to fill up his gas tank, and while he was standing there waiting for the gas to pump, Monsoon pulled up and was by himself in his car. Kahu told him what had happened with his other friend and invited Monsoon to jump in the car. The rest is history!
The duo went to Los Angeles for the weekend and had an incredible time. It was a life-changing experience. When they got back from EDC, Kahu had decided that this was his destiny and that he would do whatever it took to be a part of that community and create a successful career as a professional Music Producer & DJ.
PLURTHLINGS, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
In the most simple way possible, our business is a creative media company. We produce electronic dance music that we release on our own label and we create merchandise to help support the cost of running a record label. While learning how to do everything that it takes to actually have a real record label and merchandise project, we learned the ins and outs of digital tools, online marketing, and consulting. You could sort of say that we are a “one stop shop” in terms of running your creative passion as a business.
Monsoon and I (Kahu) have been working together, making music & art, since 2010! That summer we met through mutual friends on a road trip to EDC Los Angeles from Arizona State University in Tempe.
That was definitely a defining moment for both of us on our creative journey. I (Kahu) just remember standing in the USC stadium wondering how I didn’t know that this (raving) was a thing. How did it take me 20 years living on Earth to figure that out?
The energy from all the other ravers was something we had never felt before. Everything from the lights, to the music, to the performers walking around was so beautiful and we wanted to be immersed in this sort of environment forever!
We looked around and saw that raving was so much more than just the music … It’s a community, it’s the rave outfits, it’s the Kandi, it’s the lasers and the lights … but what does it all mean? What does it stand for? Where is it going?
That’s when we both had an epiphany to combine music with fashion in order to fund sustainable projects and be an influencer of positive change … We were so inspired by these experiences that we put our thinking caps on and tried our best to figure out how to stay in this world forever. When we got back from EDC, we were inseparable, always making music and working on DJ mixes.
In 2012, we finally decided to work together as a duo, but it wasn’t until 2016 when we went back to EDC’s Las Vegas 20th anniversary festival. That’s when we realized we wanted to represent everyone from the hardcore ravers to the first-time festival-goers and spread PLUR as best we can to all EARTHLINGS. That’s when we became PLURTHLINGS.
Since then, we have released tons of music, performed all over the country, and created a whole line of unique rave fashion that features our album artwork on “All-Over” printed clothing.
In 2022, we made it a goal to release a new track every Friday starting in the spring! You can find clothing/merch on our website www.PLURTHLINGS.com and all of our music is available on ALL streaming platforms, just search @PLURTHLINGS or visit go.plurth.com!
We love to interact with our fans and consider them our closest friends, so find us on social media and feel free to reach out :)
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
We have been extremely curious about the world of NFTs and have been actively researching what they are all about. There seems to be a lot more to it that meets the eye initially and we really appreciate the fact that they are community based and we have found out through our research that there is a lot more of a deeper meaning to them than just purchasing a piece of digital art.
There is still so much more to learn and we feel like it is definitely something that we want to be involved with. We currently have a few mentors that are very well versed in that realm and we are currently doing our best to figure out how we can contribute to that community as well.
Everything is still at the beginning stages of development, but we are confident that you will be seeing some sort of NFT release from us at some point in the near future. Until we get to that point though, we have just been consuming as much information as we can about the subject and are actively seeking anyone who would love to join our team and help us with that project. If you or anyone that you know is interested in helping us get that project set up, definitely reach out to us directly via social media and we would love to get the conversation going!
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Absolutely! We are very passionate about healthy living and sustainability! Our long term goal for the music and creative journey is to utilize that platform to promote the ideas that we are super passionate about and generate revenue to invest in sustainable technologies, specifically vertical agriculture real estate development projects. Our plan is to develop music festival resorts that utilize these sustainable tech projects and use them as a proof of concept. Once the ideas are proven and have data to support their success, our goal is to implement those same concepts all around the world and enable even the most under developed countries to generate more resources for themselves and the communities that they serve.
We want our ideas to help people worldwide and help the entire Earth move from the paradigm of simply surviving to one where EVERYONE is thriving. The goal is to have our music & business concepts impact every single human being on the planet in a positive manner.
Absolutely! We are very passionate about healthy living and sustainability! Our long term goal for the music and creative journey is to utilize that platform to promote the ideas that we are super passionate about and generate revenue to invest in sustainable technologies, specifically vertical agriculture real estate development projects. Our plan is to develop music festival resorts that utilize these sustainable tech projects and use them as a proof of concept. Once the ideas are proven and have data to support their success, our goal is to implement those same concepts all around the world and enable even the most under developed countries to generate more resources for themselves and the communities that they serve.
We want our ideas to help people worldwide and help the entire Earth move from the paradigm of simply surviving to one where EVERYONE is thriving. The goal is to have our music & business concepts impact every single human being on the planet in a positive manner.
Recently, we released a Podcast style interview where we cover these topics in more detail. You can find the full version of that video on our Youtube channel. Here is a direct link to that video: https://youtu.be/tTpZlWGzERg
Contact Info:
- Website: www.plurthlings.com
- Instagram: PLURTHLINGS
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plurthlings
- Twitter: PLURTHLINGS
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/plurthlings
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2I5DChwLQIHHSu7enWBA96?si=0_Oit3vKSCaWXso92kfKNw Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/plurthlings/1191902182
Image Credits
Photography by Brooke Allison Live Photo on Stage by Alex Pacheco