You may not know it, but you’ve been listening to Cash Cash everywhere. The American electronic music trio — which consists of brothers Jean Paul Makhlouf and Alex Makhlouf, as well as life-long friend Samuel Frisch — not only produce chart-topping EPs, but have also found success in whipping up remixes for artistes like Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Britney Spears and Krewella.
While Sam Fitch and Jean Makhlouf first started playing together under the moniker The Consequence in the early 2000s, the band transitioned to Cash Cash in 2008 along with Alex Makhlouf after going through various keyboardists, drummers, and a series of unfortunate events (read #5).
The band rose to fame with their first album titled Take It to the Floor which led them to tour with the likes of Tyga, Boys Like Girls, Kevin Rudolph and Cobra Starship. The continued to produce chart-topping songs such as “Aftershock” and “Surrender”, toured through 2016 as well as playing several dance music festivals.
We fortunately got to speak to them recently, so let’s find out about what inspires their work (and their recent trip to Bali!):
Recently, we got to catch up with them about their wildest tour experience as well as how the band got its name. Read our interview with Cash Cash below:
1. How and why did you transition from Electro Pop to EDM?
Our hands on approach with production and recording since the beginning of ur career gave us a massive leg up to create electronic dance music. We were doing remixes for other artists around 2008 and that made us dive deeper into electronic production. Eventually, our remixes started to slowly influence our original music which lead us to where we are today. Our music always had signs of electronic production so if you look at our whole catalog of music you’ll see that it was a very slow evolution more than a single transition.
2. If you could pick anyone, alive or dead, who would you want to collaborate with the most?
Stephan Jenkins and Jimmy Eat World.
3. What are you guys working on right now that we can expect in the future?
Right now we’re working on new music with a lot of different features and singers from all different styles of music. We just filmed a music video for our new song “All My Love’ ft. Conor Maynard that we can’t wait to come out. The directer had a great concept and really nailed it. Other than that we’re busy playing shows and have a residency with Hakkasan group in Las Vegas.
4. How did Cash Cash come together?
Me (JP) and Alex are brothers and I’ve known Sam since I was in 3rd grade, who lives across the street. We played in different bands growing up but we were very close thanks to our love for music, and that led us to start making songs together. In high school, we started messing around with recording in with our old pc computers and eventually things started to sound professional from years of trial and error.
5. Cash Cash is pretty iconic. How did you guys come up with the name?
Basically 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. After we signed our first record deal we got hit with a ton of legal notices about it from the person who owned the name, and had this old lawyer trying to screw us over for money 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 even have any yet. The three of us couldn’t agree on a new name for months… but after i said that, we all kind of just looked at each other, laughed and it stuck.
6. What do u enjoy doing in your free time?
We love photography and different kinds of art. We’re also big on animals and love hitting up Zoo’s, Aquariums, and wildlife reservations. Oh, and we also love to sleep and hibernate whenever we can.
7. Your collaborations Bebe Rexha, and ROZES, have really exploded. How do you pick an artist to work with? What do you look for in a partnership like that?
We like to go with someone who has a truly unique voice. A lot of bands use the same artist over and over and over again, so we don’t want to do that. Instead, we go with distinct voices which people aren’t used to hearing on an electronic produced track. So that’s fun for us, to hear a silky voice with a lot of character on a dance anthem.
8. What’s your wildest tour experience?
Well, we were in Bali for a show so we couldn’t miss out the chance to go sight-seeing. Just our luck though, because as we walked through Uluwatu Temple (Monkey Temple), the wild monkeys started to attack us. We have never been that terrified of being infected with rabies.
9. What were your roles before you became a household DJ?
Sam and I (JP) worked at animal shelters and were in college full time. Alex was in high school when we got signed but he graduated school early so we could start touring.
Learn more about Cash Cash via their official website or social media channels on Facebook and Instagram. Check out the trio’s Spotify channel too while you’re at it!
