Chad Cisneros and Dave Reed have been making music as Austin-based DJ duo Tritonal since 2008—which probably wouldn’t have happened had they not met in an online DJ gear forum in the early aughts. A decade later, the two have produced hundreds of singles and remixes. Don’t miss Tritonal’s signature uplifting beats at Marquee this month.
You’re celebrating 10 years of your label Enhanced, home to Disco Fries, Audien and BRKLYN. How has the label morphed and changed over the years? Chad: About 2010 or 2011, we decided to basically just go exclusive with Will [Holland] at Enhanced … and as such we would make that our home base, and we would develop our own artists and release whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, and we [would] never have to answer to another A&R [executive] again. That’s the beauty of having your own space. Now, looking back, it was a pretty bold thing to do. That’s kind of how indies get up and going now, you just release music yourself through distribution channels. I guess we were kind of ahead of the curve.
Chad, you’ve been sober for nearly 13 years. Why has it been important to share your story? Chad: In terms of the recovery community, that’s sort of the MO. Helping other people helps me stay in gratitude and allows my testimony and story to be of benefit as opposed to some regretful memory. It’s really been the bedrock upon this new life I built. [There is] this personification of the DJ being this rock star on private jets getting f*cked up every night, and it’s all easy and fun and games. It’s not true. There’s no way Tritonal would still be together if either myself or Dave were getting f*cked up at that exuberance, and I don’t know that we’d be able to go to three and four shows on a weekend and be home on Sunday as fathers and be up at the studio at 9 a.m. It’s too much in order to maintain creativity and mental fitness.
You just dropped “Love U Right” in July, and it has a lot of really catchy, funky hooks. What inspired it? Chad: That’s classic Tritonal, those choppy chords. That’s where we put our flag down in the sand in 2012 and ’13—we were always taking chords and cutting them up and rehashing them. … I think our music is like our personalities, it tends to lean positive and uplifting. We don’t tend to make a lot of dark music.
As resident artists, you’ll be playing Marquee a lot this summer. What’s the best part of DJing in Las Vegas? Chad: Vegas is tourist heavy, so sometimes you’ll get a lot of people in the room who are unexposed to the music or the artists onstage, and so for that reason they don’t know what’s new or old; it’s just an experience to them. It’s a great opportunity to test out new stuff that wont have any repercussions.
Dave: I think it’s a great spot to try out a lot of our stuff. Not only is the room super fun, the sound system is awesome, and the production is amazing. We play there so much we know how things should sound, so we debut a lot of unreleased material there.
TRITONAL August 9, 11 a.m., $30-$40, Marquee Dayclub. August 18, 10:30 p.m., $30-$50, Marquee Nightclub. 702-333-9000.
