Christian Karlsson and Linus Eklöw know how to make hits. Together, the Swedish duo is known as the EDM project Galantis, but separately, each have impressive resumes writing and producing chart-topping bangers. Karlsson is one-third of the electro-pop trio Miike Snow (producing under the name Bloodshy) and has co-created hits for Madonna, Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue, while Eklöw has his own project, Style of Eye.
Galantis released its debut LP Pharmacy in 2015, and while you’re probably familiar with the club-ready single "Runaway (U & I)" that flooded airwaves last year, the entire album is dance-pop gold. Tipping the hat (ever so slightly) to the indie-electro leanings of the early 2000s, but still keeping cinematic, feather-light vocals and clean production at the forefront, Galantis is both innovative and current. With a live show unlike most electronic acts—they play instruments, for one—Galantis is set on bringing its boundary-pushing version of electro house to the masses. We caught up with the duo in advance of this weekend's show at Marquee.
With the onset of your own Miike Snow project and groups like Metric and Empire of the Sun, indie-leaning electro-pop was huge in the early 2000s. Is that something you’re trying to bring to the masses again with Galantis? Christian Karlsson: We don’t really try to do anything—I think we just do. And then what’s in there is in there, and it’s a collaboration between me and Linus. It’s just a mix of music that we like and that we think should be out there. I don’t think we really have an option, I think it’s just how we sound. It’s how Galantis sounds. It took a while in the beginning to figure out how Christian and Linus sound together. It is a mix … I think it’s always a vision, but it’s never compared to other people’s music.
Christian, you’re a part of Miike Snow and you’ve also written and produced music for Madonna, Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue, to name a few. It seems like you have mastered how to write the perfect pop song. How does writing a chart-topper differ for Galantis? CK: I don’t think there is a specific way or approach. Since I started to be in Galantis and Miike Snow, that opened up the possibilities. All of a sudden there’s zero limits. There’s no rule for how the vocal is going to be, or if it’s going to be a male or female or if it’s going to be a robot. Writing for other people, there’s always some type of rule you have to follow. Going into the studio, I don’t think me or Linus think, Oh, we’re going to write a song for this. You go in and you write music.
Linus Eklöw: We always focus on the actual song with Galantis. It doesn’t come dressed as a dance track immediately, and then we dress it up into a dance song. It’s not that we sit there and think Let’s write the biggest smash in the world.
How do you pick who to feature as the vocalist? CK: We spend a crazy amount of time on our vocals and the process of the vocal. There’s always heavy treatment on the vocals because that’s something that we like. We focus more on that than who’s singing. Who’s singing is more like who’s in the studio when we write the song, if it’s our own vocals or whoever we wrote the song with.
As Galantis, you guys actually write the songs on piano or guitar first—which I’m sure is very different from most electronic acts today. How does that influence the sound? CK: I think that’s very key to why we sound like we sound. Of course, it has to do with the background of being in the studio and writing a lot of songs and absolutely loving and writing chord progressions, melodies and lyrics. I feel, for us, the songs come together better, much better than making a track and trying to force a melody and lyric into that track.
You bring out floor toms and drum pads to your live shows. How does that bring a different energy, and how does the crowd react to it? CK: For us, it’s everything. It’s something that triggers us. We like to hit stuff and we like to be very involved in what we’re playing. It’s a big role for us, on stage, to bring as much as we can from the studio. It’s being able to be creative and do a real performance. We have one foot in playing instruments and one foot where we love dance music. I think Galantis is both of those worlds. To be able to send something like that energy out to the audience, you have to be able to create something on stage, otherwise it’s very hard to get that energy going. I feel they feed off us and we feed back off them. It’s a very important piece of our live performance.
You’re in the studio now. What are you working on? CK: We’re working on a lot of new Galantis music coming out this year, a lot of new songs. Some songs are in finishing stages.
What’s your favorite thing about playing Vegas? CK: We’ve been thinking about Vegas since day one. I feel like everything has been changing very fast. People are more open-minded and when we’ve been in Vegas, playing, it’s been amazing. The energy that we bring, I think it works so much better than we even thought ourselves. We love Vegas.
Galantis March 5, doors at 10 p.m., $41 men, $23 women. Marquee Nightclub, 702-333-9000.
