MARSthewriter

Here at Ones To Watch, we value the musical risk takers. Ambassadors of Earth (AOE) embody that sentiment. Comprised of singer/songwriter Phil Beaudreau and Grammy-award winning producer Dawaun Parker, AOE has just released one of the most innovative albums of the year. Bringing their separate careers together is symbolic of the various genres (R&B, jazz, folk, rap, & rock) that they bring together on their debut EP Homecoming.

I got some time to talk to the duo about their origins, forming a musical chemistry, how to define “experimental” music, and more! Read the full interview below.

OTW: Where did the name Ambassadors of Earth (AOE) come from?

Phil Beaudreau: It happened pretty soon after we met. We were talking about our own philosophies with music and realized that we aligned on a lot of different ideas musically, politically, and socially. We felt we needed a name that represented our beliefs. We thought it would be great for our goal to be the real ambassadors of earth. We would be able to represent our music, our art, and the people with as broad of a brush as possible.

Dawaun Parker: It’s also something we aspire to live up to. To be someone the youth chooses to represent the best and the worst of us.

You guys see eye-to-eye on so many things outside of music. How do you think that affects your musical chemistry? Is it just easier to create or did you guys have to work really hard to get to where you are now?

Phil: I think the reason the group came together so quickly was because we have a real natural bond. We’re both from Providence, Rhode Island. We both went to Berklee. But we had never really connected until we met in LA. When we got together though, we realized that we listened to so much of the same music and shared similar inspirations. And that was something I wasn’t seeing a lot of the time with other people that I had been working with. Right off the bat, we listened to old jazz records and a gazillion other things. He opened my mind up to modern hip-hop. It was pretty exciting to learn something new.

What kind of sound are you guys trying to create?

Phil: We want to create an environment where we can be creative without worrying too much about a destination or a product specifically in mind. Putting us both together is already an experiment (laughs). We’re just trying our hardest to put out our best work going forward. We want to collaborate in ways that aren’t obvious like putting Dilla with Elliot Smith.

Dawaun: We don’t really talk much about what we want the music to do before we create it. We make sure we’re continuing to find ways to be true to ourselves while also trying to make stuff that’s relatable. At the end of the day, we want to contribute to music and the culture. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to do personally and I know collectively we’ve made that our goal.

People call your music as experimental. Would you agree? And in this era of constant genre bending, isn’t everything kind of experimental?

Phil: Yeah, I think so. I think you have to be experimental. That’s a trait that you have to embrace to be competitive at this point. I wouldn’t say that we are experimental independent of everybody else’s experiments but it’s definitely something that is essential to our process.

Dawaun: I wouldn’t put our music in the traditional experimental genre. But I’d say from everyone that’s ever heard our stuff and tried to describe it, they mention two or three different genres. So whether people want to call it future R&B, alternative R&B, or neo-soul (what we like to call it), it can be anything. We are thankful that people like the merging of all these things.

How do you push each other to get the best out of each other?

Phil: From my perspective, Dawaun has one of the best ears. He’s very scrutinizing when it comes to the quality of the sounds. There are professional ears in the room at all times so that helps me improve on my listening. The quality is so much higher than what I was expecting and what I was doing before. I have to write for that level of sound quality. We’re also always trying to figure out if something gives us that feeling, which is intangible but very real. You can make something really cool on a technical level but if it doesn’t punch you in the gut then it’s just not the one. That feeling has kept me creatively competitive.

Dawaun: Working with Phil has been a great learning experience. Phil is a true artist. I learned to value integrity in your craft and honesty more. I also learned to protect what you’re trying to express in spite of wanting to relate to as many people as possible. Coming from a producer background and producing for a lot of big artists, I used to make a lot of things with a specific goal in mind. But since then I’ve learned to make sure that the source of what I’m trying to say stays intact so our true artistry can come out. I hope to grow each day and I’m thankful to be working with somebody who values the same things I do.

Phil, for the “I’m Right This Time” video you hand-drew and animated the entire video. Why did you choose to do it yourself instead of outsourcing?

Phil: Kind of like everything else, it started as an experiment. I drew ten seconds of animation when we first wrote the song and I showed Dawaun. He said: “Oh my god, you have to keep going with this thing.” I thought it was going to be a cool Instagram thing but it just kept growing and growing. Over time, I realized I was about halfway done with the music video and had to just finish it. So instead of handing the project off while it was half-way done, I realized that the only way I was going to be able to get the images out of my head was to do it myself. I pushed through and took my time with it and made sure that every day I was adding a few things here and there. Eventually it got done! I don’t know if I would go through that process again though, knowing how long it takes (laughs).

What can we expect for the overall vibe of Homecoming?

Dawaun: I think electronic probably would be the overall genre, but it’s R&B, folk-rock, and more.