Nea Agostini – MDMA

By starrymag | October 27, 2021

By: Lisa Steinberg

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

 

A) Good and honest music … Well, it’s also some mix of Indie & rock & pop.

 

Who are some of your musical influences?

 

Nea & Ale: We have a huge influence on Blues Music (BB King, Clapton, Albert King, SRV, Muddy Waters, etc.). We had our first gigs at sixteen- and seventeen-years old jamming at local bars to some Blues music. Then, we started performing as side musicians for international blues artists who needed a local band to support them for their shows in Chile.

Nea: But, in my case, John Mayer has been a great influence specially on how to bring that blues guitar into songwriting and pop music and also my favorite guitar player is Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits.

Ale: I have a big influence in the 80’s music, especially Phil Collins because he is a singer and a drummer and showed me drummer can be as important as a frontman.

 

Q) You spent time at the Modern School of Music and Accademia Del Suono & Berklee College of Music. What did you personally take to heart and embrace from your time there that you have carried with you to making music over the years?

 

Nea: This is a great question. I think what I mostly learned or reaffirmed from studying music at three great music schools in three different countries is that the best music school is a stage at a local bar with an audience.

Ale: Connections and people that will lead in music industry in the future.

 

Q) Talk about the story behind your new song “MDMA.”

 

Nea & Ale: This is a song about addiction, about being addicted to that one person who gets all of your attention. We wrote this song in March 2020 during local quarantines, and we had this catchy chorus but for months we couldn’t write a verse that would make sense. So, one day we tried writing it in Italian (which is our second native language) and it fit perfectly. A couple weeks after we went into the studio and finished it.

 

Q) What do you think it is about the song that fans connect to?

 

Nea & Ale: We think they connect mostly to the energy of the song and the different rhythms and dynamics.

 

Q) How does the video for the track play into the message behind it?

 

Nea & Ale: This is actually what we call a “pandemic video.” We originally had other plans for the video, but there were heavy restrictions due to COVID and that forced us to improvise a new video. Since we couldn’t get together a staff of people for a full music video production, we just decided to make a video of us performing the song with our instruments in the middle of the woods in the ‘’Cordillera De Los Andes’’ at night and it was freezing!!

 

Q) Why was it so important for you to record the song in Spanish and Italian?

 

Nea & Ale: We have always wanted to record a song that had our two native languages. We grew up in Chile and we would speak Italian at home and Spanish at school with our friends, so both languages are part of our culture.

 

Q) What is your song writing process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?

 

Nea: It’s always different. The way it’s been working for the last couple of years is that either me or Ale would bring a new music idea onto the table (it could be just a beat, a melody or a full song) and then we discuss it and we would maybe at first start working on it separately until we feel it’s interesting enough to finish it and show it to our producer.

 

Q) Mat Den lent a hand with production on “MDMA,” but how much of hand do you have in the production of your music?

 

Nea & Ale: Mat is a very energetic producer and he’s always looking for ways to make each song the best it could be. We’ve been working and producing with him at a distance since COVID-19 (We are in Chile, and he is in Italy) and it has been an interesting process.

We like our producer to have the freedom of doing his work and putting his talent into our music, but we would say we are involved 100% on each process of each song, from day one to release day, marketing, booking, etc. etc.

 

Q) Will there be a full album or EP coming in the near future?

 

Nea & Ale: We have been releasing singles every two or three months. They will all eventually end in an LP with some new songs. That would be great.

 

Q) Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what makes those locations so significant to you?

 

Nea & Ale: We both agree that performing in Argentina is the most significant location to us, mainly because it’s the country we’ve been touring at for the longest time and because they have a huge respect for artists.

 

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

 

Nea & Ale: We are always open to collaborate with passionate musicians, producers or anyone who is willing to give their best to the music!

 

Q) What does it mean to you to have so much success in the music industry with your brother by your side?

 

Nea: It would be boring without him, we complement each other.

Ale: It’s great. It makes everything easier.

 

Q) You are a part of social media. Why is that such an important way for you to connect with your fans?

 

Nea & Ale: It’s faster and easier to connect, to discover new artists and to reach more fans, but at the same time it’s harder to get attention because there is thousands of artists trying to get attention in the same platform. Social media is a part of our job and we like keeping up to it.

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

 

Nea & Ale: We always tell them that our music is available for whenever you may need it. It could be perfect for someone’s Sunday mornings or for anyone’s workout. Thank you for enjoying our music!