The Dare joins Miles the DJ at Coachella
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00:00That one, it just came very naturally. Charlie was visiting New York for the Met Gala, and I was throwing an unofficial Met Gala Frequencies party.
00:15The world-famous KROQ music director, Miles the DJ, here backstage at Coachella. Weekend two, day two, day five overall.
00:23We're getting through this with one of the great artists on the bill, performed last weekend.
00:29We'll be performing in a few hours as we record this, The Dare.
00:33How's it going?
00:34How's it going, man? Thanks for taking some time with us.
00:37It's my pleasure, really.
00:39I want to get into you as an artist, The Dare, people who may be discovering you for the first time.
00:46For anyone just catching up, who is The Dare, and how did this whirlwind of success start for you?
00:54Yeah, I'm The Dare, yours truly. I'm from New York City.
00:58I mean, not originally. I'm from Seattle, but I've been living in New York for a while now.
01:04And I started making music as The Dare in New York, started DJing there, performing.
01:10And I put out a song called Girls a few years ago that sort of snowballed into a full-on band and project and lifestyle, which I'm now continuing.
01:28I know you were born originally in West Hollywood, very briefly, before you moved to Seattle.
01:35I host a show on K-Rock called Locals Only. Does that count? Is playing The Dare on an L.A.-based show, does that count? Can I do that?
01:42I think it counts, yeah.
01:44Yeah, let's allow it.
01:45You studied English literature, you're an educator, becoming from that to one of the most consequential and successful DJs on the planet, frankly.
02:01It's all happening really fast for you.
02:03Do you ever just sort of look around, pinch yourself, and say, how did I get here?
02:08Yeah, I mean, it's happened quite quickly, so it's kind of a roller coaster.
02:14And it changes every day, so that kind of question of how did I get here becomes different.
02:21You know, whether I'm at Coachella right now or, you know, playing a pre-show at Primavera last year or just got off tour of Europe last month.
02:31So there were many times when I was in random parts of the UK or Europe where Austria, for example, didn't think I would ever go there.
02:41So, yeah, it's been a bit crazy and I'm just constantly adjusting.
02:46How did the name The Dare come to be?
02:49It's not that romantic.
02:52It's just I had to pick a band name and I always loved classic The Names.
03:00I kind of grew up listening to a lot of The Bands.
03:02And it's also sort of a New York lineage thing to have a The Band name from The Strokes, The Velvet Underground, you know.
03:11The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
03:12The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
03:13The LCD sound system.
03:15There's a really funny Sum 41 video from back in the day.
03:21I don't remember what song was on the top of my head, but Will Sasso starts it.
03:25He's like, you guys are in The Band now, The Strokes, The Hives, The Led Zeppelins, huh?
03:29You know, it's working out for you.
03:32We mentioned, you mentioned Rather Girls earlier, the song that kind of blew you up.
03:35Are you seeing that that song is still having momentum, people discovering it still?
03:40Do you see that song still becoming a thing as time goes on?
03:44I think especially now in 2025, the way that songs become popular or, you know, experience revivals is just totally not linear.
03:56And, you know, you saw this with like Kate Bush and TikTok a few years ago having this charting hit that I don't know if it originally ever charted.
04:04But, you know, every day somebody new hears Girls or hears my music for the first time, which is cool because I've been doing it for a while now.
04:15So it's cool that it's fresh in people's minds all the time, which is interesting.
04:21What's cool about it, too, is, you know, you have a song like that that blows up so fast.
04:25It could be easy for an artist to sort of like be known for that one song, right?
04:29But in the short period of time, you've been able to follow it.
04:33So many great records.
04:34LCA recently came out.
04:36Perfume, one of my favorites of yours that you performed last weekend.
04:39A song in particular I love is Good Times, which sort of like has like a Rapture, Peaches, like Fisher Spooner vibe to it.
04:46Like you're you're kind of you have your own sound, but you explore different sounds at the same time, if that makes sense.
04:53Have you been able to kind of hone in on that and have you sort of figured out what, you know, your sound is?
04:58Yeah, definitely.
04:59I think at the beginning, especially with that song, I was trying to make a song like Warm Leatherette by The Normal, which was sort of one of the founding songs of Electro Clash, I would say, aesthetically.
05:12And at that point in time, I was just still figuring out how to make music that even sounded like that era or, you know, how to use certain drum machines and when and why to use them.
05:23And I think at this point in time, I have a much better grasp of the genre and sort of in upcoming songs have a lot more play with sort of the associations and styles that orbit it.
05:38It's cool because you have like kind of a almost like a danger to your music.
05:43It's very like in your face.
05:44It's got like a punk rock aesthetic to it.
05:46But you mentioned the bands of the early 2000s as well.
05:50So to see what you're able to do and also with the technology that's at your fingertips these days, it's, you know, making music in a way that hasn't really been done before in a lot of ways.
05:59From what I can tell.
06:00And you're all over the place, right?
06:02A song you're also known for is producing guests, Charlie XCX and Billie Eilish.
06:06It was up for a Grammy Award talking about how how things are going so fast for you.
06:10Won a Brit Award for Song of the Year.
06:12Talk to me about how that came to be and your relationship with Charlie.
06:16Yeah, that one.
06:17It just came very naturally.
06:20Charlie was visiting New York for the Met Gala and I was throwing a unofficial Met Gala Frequencies party, which is the party I throw in New York and now globally.
06:35And we had worked on a few ideas over the past year before this party.
06:40And she was excited about playing one of them.
06:44Maybe she was like, would you want to play one?
06:46I'll come to the party, like test it out.
06:48And that one we had never felt that strongly about or it had just been kind of cast to the side, the original version.
06:56And I think the day before or the day of, I decided to make sort of like a club edit version of the demo that was in existence.
07:04So I just made it really, really quickly in like maybe an hour or two, sent it to her.
07:10She was really excited about the version that I had sort of made.
07:15We played it at the party.
07:16Obviously, she came, people took videos of it.
07:20There was sort of like this groundswell of excitement around that song.
07:23People didn't know if it was her song or my song or what was going on.
07:26And then over the course of the Met Gala weekend, we went to the studio and sort of put the finishing touches on it.
07:34So it came together very, very quickly.
07:36And then she put it on the deluxe, which is the rest is history.
07:40Is it true that one of the first times you hung out just to get to know each other, she came to your apartment and you had to kick your roommates out?
07:48Is that a true story?
07:48Yeah, it's true.
07:49It's true.
07:50She just hit me up, I think, like a little while after Girls came out and people had first started hearing about it.
07:57She was in Delaware, I think, on tour with Dua Lipa and was like, can I come over to your house tomorrow?
08:04I'll take a car up.
08:05And I said, sure.
08:08And so my roommates, I had to explain to them what was going on.
08:11They didn't believe me.
08:12I said, you need to go stay in your room so you don't fangirl out or freak her out or something or just take a long walk.
08:20And then she came over.
08:21We listened to a lot of music.
08:23It was very surreal for me as a fan.
08:26And, yeah, we became friends after that.
08:29Do you still live in that same apartment with those same roommates or has life changed a little bit for you?
08:33I don't.
08:33I think I started to piss them off.
08:36I started traveling a lot more, coming and going, coming home late from DJing.
08:41They were in love, actually.
08:43So they're still there together.
08:45And I packed my things and got out.
08:48Bigger and better things.
08:50If you can have another artist, dead or alive, who could reach out to you out of the blue and have a similar experience,
08:57they want to come over, listen to music, get to know you, maybe collab, who's one of those for you?
09:02That's a really good question.
09:04I mean, I'm sad I'd never met Tom Verlaine in New York from television.
09:09He's one of my all-time heroes.
09:11And Marky Moon is kind of one of the first records I ever became obsessed with as a teenager.
09:15And it's also just so New York and sort of genre-less.
09:21You know, it's punk, but it's not really punk.
09:23And I think it's sad that he passed away just a few years ago.
09:29So I didn't end up meeting him, but that would have been really great.
09:33They're kind of the band that you can point to as sort of starting this whole genre in a way.
09:38I know the Strokes were a big influence, or influenced rather by television.
09:42I assume the Strokes for you.
09:43So it's sort of this cycle.
09:46And yeah, that was a great band and great record, obviously.
09:50What's the biggest thing that success has changed for you in your day-to-day life?
09:54I think probably the biggest change is just traveling, being on planes all the time.
10:01I used to be pretty afraid of flying and hated it a lot.
10:06And now it's just sort of a weekly part of my life and not really, you know, staying in one place.
10:13You know, I do live in New York technically, but I also just travel so much for shows
10:18and for various DJ things and recording things with people.
10:23And that's just been something to get used to, just being sort of like a nomad in a way.
10:29But it's also wonderful.
10:31I've just been to so many cool places.
10:33Yeah, that's awesome, man.
10:35I want to talk about your Coachella set a little bit.
10:38Super chaotic, super fun.
10:40A lot of people calling it the highlight of Weekend One in the Mojave Tent,
10:44which is the same location as the Sahara Tent, where it used to be, like the early Coachella days.
10:49And like, it's the same spot where Daft Punk performed in 06.
10:54And it really had that sort of like early days of Coachella, Sahara tent vibe.
10:59While still feeling very fresh in 2025.
11:03How do you pull that off sonically, aesthetically, and just putting that set together
11:08and, you know, really making something that, you know, people are going to be talking about
11:11when we think back on great Coachella sets?
11:13Yeah, I think kind of even since the beginning of playing live shows as The Dare,
11:19where the visual side of it was always influenced by Daft Punk, Justice,
11:24and sort of like the use of geometry, lighting, set design, stage design.
11:32Growing up, like going to shows by sleigh bells, like that was some of the earliest live show experiences I had.
11:39And I think when we designed the stage setup, it was always with, you know, a larger stage in mind.
11:46Or even that, you know, maybe subconsciously or consciously, the, you know, Coachella stage in mind.
11:53So I remember even like two or three years ago playing like Baby's All Right
11:57and sort of debuting our live lighting setup there.
12:01And people were just like, oh my God, this is like, this is like an arena show.
12:06Like that's, it's ready to go.
12:08So not much has actually changed over the course of the live show.
12:11We've just sort of pumped it up a little bit more for this weekend.
12:16It's got like this simultaneously a setup that looks incredibly intentional,
12:22like a team of people put it together while having like a DIY aesthetic to it.
12:28You know, perfect for Coachella 2025.
12:31Was that intentional?
12:32Well, I'm glad that you feel that way because it's,
12:36the team is really just my manager, Bryce, me, and our lighting guy, Steven.
12:42Three people total to make that happen?
12:44Yeah.
12:44Wow.
12:45Yeah.
12:45So it's a pretty small team, but we're just very intentional and very, very critical
12:51and pull from a lot of different influences to inform what we're doing up there.
12:56That's incredible.
12:58Shout out to Bryce and your team.
12:59That's right.
13:01You're a huge part, maybe like the biggest part of what Describe is like this,
13:05like indie sleaze revival.
13:08Does it ever feel like you're kind of living in a sequel of Meet Me in the Bathroom?
13:13Like the book, like right now?
13:15I think it did more when I was in New York for longer periods of time, like at the beginning
13:19of all of this.
13:20I remember going to see the Meet Me in the Bathroom movie with my friend who also plays
13:26in a bunch of bands in New York.
13:27And she was like, is this, is this our lives right now?
13:30Yeah.
13:30Like this seems very similar.
13:32Yeah.
13:33And it is similar in many ways.
13:34You know, I'm sure the people who are all there would argue that it's completely dissimilar.
13:40And there are many things that are very, very different about it.
13:43But I think the spirit of it is sort of what is the same.
13:47You know, the idea of, I mean, not even just the idea of this moment of renaissance in New
13:52York where there's all of these bands and many different genres.
13:55And like everyone sort of has their own values of what they think music should sound like
14:00and how long the set should be and what kind of clothes you should wear or shouldn't.
14:04Right.
14:05And I feel like that was a new thing after living, I've been in New York for like almost
14:10eight years now.
14:12And the first half or two thirds of it was not feeling that way at all.
14:18There was not this sort of sense of explosion of music and style and excitement around that.
14:25So it does feel pretty good.
14:27And it feels, at least from reading the book, you know, somewhat similar to that.
14:32When did you kind of feel that changing in New York?
14:34I think it was definitely post-COVID.
14:36I think a lot of musicians especially were frustrated or sort of twiddling their thumbs
14:42during COVID and feeling like a lot of precious time was taken away from them to sort of pursue
14:49their thing, as well as, you know, everybody.
14:52But live music in particular took a blow.
14:56And socializing, obviously, everybody was craving that.
15:00So I think when things opened back up, people had more of an urgency.
15:04And excitement around just partying, hearing live music.
15:08Letting it all out.
15:09Yeah.
15:09Just going to the bar.
15:11That's also a big part of the Meet Me in the Bathroom thing.
15:14There's a quote where they said people stopped going out five days a week and instead they
15:18went out seven days a week.
15:20Good for them.
15:22Yeah.
15:23I love that quote.
15:24Great book.
15:25Meet Me in the Bathroom.
15:26We're backstage here at Coachella.
15:28K-Rock.
15:28The Dare.
15:30If a sequel to that book, which kind of, for those who don't know, sort of like talks
15:35about the early 2000s, the strokes, that whole scene with the kills and the aforementioned
15:40bands from earlier.
15:40If a sequel is ever written, is there a story in particular that you think they should include
15:45in there from your experience?
15:48Yeah, that's a good question.
15:50I feel like I've had a lot of messed up experiences over the last year or two.
15:55And I'll say, we're pre-recording, full transparency, so we can always cut it.
15:59Okay, wonderful.
16:01I don't know what a really good one is.
16:03There's been a couple of cool moments where a lot of the bands that have been buzzing have
16:09been in the same room and sort of looking at each other, getting very, very drunk, and
16:17somebody's jacket caught on fire.
16:21Someone was thrown out for smoking in the bathroom.
16:23Someone else spilled alcohol all over the DJ mixer and killed it entirely mid-party.
16:32Another one was retrieved out of the freezer, which the bar stores it in for unknown reasons.
16:40The party resumes.
16:42I think it's just, there's endless amounts of these micro-stories, but there was one night
16:46at Home Sweet Home in New York that was sort of the zenith of chaos in that way.
16:52Nice.
16:52I won't name names, though.
16:54Maybe one day.
16:55Yeah.
16:55I just got a few more.
16:56Thank you for the time.
16:57Appreciate you visiting K-Rock before your Coachella set weekend, too.
17:01Your shows, your DJ sets, your performances have become like an event, like a true event for
17:07people.
17:08They dress up.
17:09They bring their friends.
17:10Your look was kind of like a Halloween, a trendy Halloween costume last year.
17:15What's the wildest or like best fan experience you've had lately, recently?
17:23Well, a lot of people make sort of tribute songs, which I think is very funny.
17:29Like people will make music in my style because it's become so recognizable.
17:34So, I'm always a little bit flattered and entertained by that.
17:39I think fan-wise, I think it's just, Halloween was actually kind of a crazy moment for me.
17:46Just, I was back in New York and walking around the East Village and I was dressed up as a sailor
17:53and everybody else is dressed up as me.
17:55So, that was pretty weird to like sort of try and keep my head down and, you know, a group of
18:01people dressed as me walking past and they go, hey, and I just kept walking very quickly.
18:06But it was surreal, to say the least.
18:09What a crazy, bizarro world you were living in at that time, that moment.
18:13You're going to be on the road with Justice for a few shows coming up.
18:16Anything you're excited about in particular for those?
18:18Yeah.
18:19Um, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, so you might have to cut it, but I did do
18:23a remix of one of their songs.
18:25I don't know if that's going to come out, but I'm excited to play that probably as part
18:29of the set, as long as I have their blessing.
18:33Um, yeah, I think it's, uh, it's a cool moment for me, you know, because they were just so
18:38influential in my understanding and love of dance music at a really young age.
18:44Like at that same time that I was listening to Marky Moon, I also had, you know,
18:48lacrosse burn to a CD and I had discovery burn to a CD and just having the opportunity to
18:54open for them, um, it's just a total honor.
18:58And I think teenage me would just freak out if he knew that that was happening.
19:02So you just sold out seven shows in New York, right?
19:07Um, there's rumors of like, maybe like a low key, like DJ set in LA coming up this week.
19:14Is there anything you can tease there or talk about now?
19:16Yeah, there, there definitely will be a surprise DJ set in LA, uh, next week.
19:22The shows and babies in New York, they're all going to have surprise guests.
19:26So I think those will probably be revealed either day of, or you'll just have to find
19:32out later who you missed or didn't.
19:34Um, that's about it keep an eye on the dare social media for, for updates on that potentially.
19:41Um, uh, what's wrong with New York?
19:44The debut album, a deluxe edition coming out on June 13th, uh, LCA, a new song already released.
19:50Uh, what can you tell us about the, uh, deluxe version of the record that's coming?
19:53Yeah.
19:53The deluxe version is just, uh, three songs that I made during the process of writing
20:00the album alongside many others, but I felt these three were suitable for release.
20:06One of them is a cover of a sort of more obscure British band called the sound, uh, that I sort
20:14of changed radically.
20:17And the other track cheeky, which everything's been, you know, announced on streaming, but that
20:24one's sort of a really early demo that, uh, just never made the cut, but it's, I've been
20:30playing in my live sets a lot.
20:31So a lot of people know it and I think are awaiting that one.
20:35So I'm pretty excited about that one.
20:37June 13th.
20:38Make sure you get that, uh, I'll get you out of here on this.
20:40Um, you know, we've been talking about your history a little bit, how fast things are happening,
20:44how you're such an important producer and DJ in the world right now.
20:47When you think about who you were just a couple of years ago, right?
20:50Like substitute teaching, DJing in clubs before you blew up.
20:55Um, what would that version of yourself then say about what's going on with you right now?
21:02Uh, I really don't know.
21:03I think it would be interesting.
21:05I think things a lot about what's happened in the last two years or three years has been
21:10very, very intentional, uh, music wise and style wise.
21:15And, you know, who I am DJing with or remixing.
21:20Uh, but a lot of it has just been a complete shock the way that people respond or, you know,
21:26the fact that I'm playing at Coachella is mind blowing.
21:30I think, uh, if you told past me where everything is at now, he probably wouldn't believe you.
21:38Uh, but I think if, if he was forced to confront the truth, he would be pretty excited.
21:43So it's good.
21:45So happy for you, man.
21:47Um, the success, the music, it's inspiring as someone who's been coming to Coachella for like
21:52over 20 years now to see someone like you just existing and making music and really lighting
21:56that fire for us who have been, you know, into this music for so long.
22:00Um, girls is a song that we were listening to in K rock meetings for, for months and months.
22:05And it got to the point where it actually inspired a show called K rock EQ, which we have now
22:11on Saturday nights at midnight, which is all things electronic music.
22:13And, you know, the genesis of that show existing now is based on your song and you and girls.
22:18That's great.
22:19So, so thank you for that.
22:21Thank you for taking so much time with K rock here at Coachella.
22:23My pleasure.
22:24Uh, miles the DJ backstage at Coachella with the dare.