Artist Profile: Checkmate & Concise

Checkmate & Concise - Defenders of the Faith- have been a staple of West Coast Canadian hip-hop for decades. Thoughtful. creative and precise, their words flow easily over grimy beats, giving listeners insight into their minds and melodies. Electric Love's Nikki Broom talked to the duo about what's on the horizon...including their plan for a psychedelic Electric Love Music Festival this summer!

Electric Love: How long have you been making music?

Checkmate & Concise: Checkmate & Concise have been making music since birth.

Professionally since 1998.

Electric Love: What are some current projects your are working on?

Checkmate & Concise: Concise the Black Knight dropped a single/video on

Youtube/Itunes  called ‘Sex On Fire’. Checkmate just released the visuals to 

‘Breakfast’. A song paying homage to the stoner life. You can check 

them both out as well as all our other videos on our youtube page 

@defendersmusic.ca

Electric Love: What do you bring to the table, musically?

Checkmate & Concise: A barrage of dope beats and raps. Tantalizing music videos, and

a excellent live show for your viewing pleasure. We do this in our sleep. 

Literally.

Electric Love:  What are some accomplishments you've achieved in your field?

Checkmate & Concise:  Checkmate won a Juno award for his role on the Canadian

anthem ‘Northern Touch’. Concise has a Socan award for producing the Platinum 

selling song ‘Fuel Injected’ for Swollen Member when he was only 21!

Numerous other Juno nominations for countless projects.

Electric Love: What is your wildest previous festival, tour, or performance story?

Checkmate & Concise: Performing real high on chocolate covered mushrooms on the

mountains in Nelson BC. Best festival experience ever!

Electric Love: What are you looking forward to the most about Electric Love Music 

Festival?

Checkmate & Concise: Performing real high on chocolate covered mushrooms and

performing to an energetic crowd….Chuuuuuuuuuurch!

http://facebook.com/conciseDEFENDER 

http://twitter.com/conciseDEFENDER 

http://instagram.com/conciseDEFENDER 

'Sex on Fire' single out now on iTunes: http://bit.ly/SexOnFireSingle 

Official Video: Concise The Black Knight - Sex On Fire (Official Video) 

Noble Eightfold Path: Affordability

The people behind Electric Love Music Festival love music...we also believe that everyone should be able to enjoy music, especially a multi-genre festival like Electric Love. In fact, affordability is one of the eight values that this festival stands on - at just $60 per ticket for an all-day, all-night, 4-stage festival, prices have been kept as low as possible.

Still can't afford it? We have a solution for that. When you hit this link to buy your tickets, you have the option to click "Yes- Payment Plan" and pay in 2 small installments. We look forward to seeing you there!

Artist Profile: Rachel Sehl

On the heels of her hot new video "How Do You Hummus," DJ, producer and label owner Rachel Sehl is kicking ass and taking names - all over the world from Ibiza to the Cayman Islands. We're very excited to see her on the Electric Love stage come August, and even more excited to share some of her stories and spiritual vision in our latest artist profile.

Electric Love:  Do you have any previous festival experiences you want to share with our Electric Lovers?

Rachel Sehl: Whatever you do, do NOT wash cherries in the stream at Shambhala!

Electric Love:  What is your wildest tour or show story?

Rachel Sehl: Pretty sure I can’t tell you about the wildest story, but I can tell you this.  I was on my way to Ibiza to play my first ever gig there. Biggest moment of my life to date and I was ecstatic!  I arrived at the hotel and I suddenly realized that I left my computer with all my music on the plane!  I died. Of all the times this could happen!  Lucky for me, my stuff was taken to Manchester and I happened to have a friend flying into Ibiza from Manchester the next day. He brought everything back with him and saved the day. So lucky!

Electric Love: What do you do/bring to the table musically that sets you apart from other DJ's in the game? What makes you unique?

Rachel Sehl: The music gods speak to me.  I’m an empath, which allows me to tune into peoples energy levels and vibrations.  This enables me to create the perfect atmosphere for any occasion. They pretty much ride unicorns and slay dragons every time I play.

Electric Love: What are you currently working on?

Rachel Sehl: I have four tracks I’m currently working on so I might release an EP.  I also just finished a track with I Know Karate and vocalist Paige Morgan called ‘Ready 4 Luv’ and its being featured in aFruttare commercial that I starred in.  

Electric Love:  What are you looking forward to most about Electric Love?

Rachel Sehl: Throwing hummus at I Know Karate while he DJ’s (shhhh ;))

Electric Love: What is your favourite thing to do in the summer?

Rachel Sehl: Festivals. Obviously. Plus, anything involving a board: Wakeboarding, Longboarding, Surfing, etc. Riding dirt bikes through the mountains is pretty dope too.

www.rachelsehl.com

www.twitter.com/rachelsehl

www.sunglassesatnight.com 

Artist Profile: Decibel Empire

Decibel Empire are the ultimate party-rockers - with a penchant for playing festivals through the early hours of the morning, music takes precedence over rest for Average Citizen, Brukout and Schmo-Digz. Nikki and Adrian from the Electric Love team sat down for an interview with Average Citizen and Schmo-Digz to find out a little more about their wild adventures in the festival world.

Electric Love: How long have you been making music for?

Decibel Empire: 2 years now. Yeah, 2 years we've been together.

Electric Love: What are some of the current projects you have on the go?

Decibel Empire: We've got lots of bookings coming up this summer and right now we have 2 remixes that were working on as well as 2 original tracks. We just put out an original track last month that we did with Dirty Looks that can be found on our Soundcloud.

Electric Love: What do you guys bring to the table, musically, that sets you apart from the other performers?

Decibel Empire: I think it would be the diversity of the 3 of us. We all have our own separate loves of different types of music but together we've made our own sound. And the fact that there is 2 of us rocking the decks as we play and the third member is on the mic the whole time doing stuff that's in our tracks as well as freestyling and just hyping it up. Having the three of us all working together like that is super high energy. 

Electric Love: What are some of the accomplishments you have achieved in your field so far and would like to achieve in the future?

Decibel Empire: The biggest thing for us was the tour with Stitches. In March, we went across Canada with Stitches, so we were like the support for the tour and we were his DJ. So that was pretty awesome for us to be able to play our original tracks in Canada and then with him as well. So that was cool! And then also, we've put out a lot of tracks this past year. Future goals, I mean it was cool going across Canada, but definitely would love to tour the States and Europe, so that's next on our list. 

Electric Love: What is the wildest story from touring with Stitches?

Decibel Empire: I would say the time Average Citizen got punched in the face. (Laughs.) Yeah, the whole tour was wild. Everybody involved with it was going nuts, and yeah, I got my nose broken on the second night of the tour. The whole hotel afterwards was booked, there was no security and it was connected to the venue, so the hallways just ended up turning into a huge party. Like people having fights in some areas and then he ended up coming out to see what was going on in the hallways. There was a guy out there that thought he started some of it and cracked him right in the nose, just outta the blue. And yet he had nothing to do with it. But that was like the whole tour—it's Stitches. Everywhere we were going was nuts, even in the middle of the day in the mall there was this energy with him. It's kinda bonkers, but it was cool, it was fun. It sucked to get my nose broken, but hey, it was total rockstar sh**!

Electric Love: What is one of your wildest festival moments?

Decibel Empire: We love closing festivals. In the morning the people that are left are just die-hards! And last year at Bassfest, this couple was just loving our music so much they just decided that they were just gonna start having sex on the dance floor, right in front of everyone. So I mean it gets pretty wild. Everybody noticed and loved it, like at that time in the morning everyone was like "whoa, look over there" and cheering along. And that set we were doing a tag team with Neon Gypsy and people just love our sh** I guess, makes ‘em go wild! So that was pretty awesome, pretty crazy. 

Electric Love: Since this is the first annual Electric Love festival, what are you looking forward to most about performing?

 Decibel Empire: I'm looking forward to going back to Chilliwack because back in the day there was parties out there every summer, all summer, like back in the early 2000's, late 90's. It's such a beautiful place, sun’s coming up over the mountains and the water in the morning. Also, playing on the same stage as Pegboard Nerds and Far Too Loud, getting to play the main stage. We have a bunch of new original tracks to drop by then too, so that's gonna be awesome too, just getting it out there. 

Electric Love: You're part of this big collaboration of people behind the scenes putting on this festival. Where do you guys see this festival going in the future?

Decibel Empire: It's definitely gonna grow into a couple day festival for sure, like a 3 to 5 day thing. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome! We're super excited! It's great to bring back the one night thing y’know, but it will grow into a few nights, but it's gonna be super cool to bring back the one night. There’s nothing like that right now. Nothing for all ages, or even 19+ that goes till 9 in the morning anymore. 

Electric Love: Where can people purchase tickets?

Decibel Empire: I'd say go online to the website. There's also tons of stores where they can get hard copies, and all the information is on the website. 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/decibelempire

Twitter: @decibelempire

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/decibel-empire