In the digital age, releasing good music and waiting for it to find an audience is no longer enough. Artists now lean into social media to connect with listeners as authentically as they can, while labels work overtime to cultivate online fanbases in the name of grassroots marketing. It’s a delicate dance that came to a sudden halt in 2020 as the music industry went on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There were some holdouts, however, including the genre-defying dance duo SOFI TUKKER.
For more than a year, Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern livestreamed DJ sets from their living room. While the dance community was quick to adapt to new ways of sharing music during the pandemic, SOFI TUKKER went a step further: They let fans into their lives by sharing their emotional ups and downs, asking for feedback on demos, and constantly test-driving new music. Before too long, the “Freak Fam”—a community of far-flung partygoers—came into being. “People from all around the world would show up and join each other on the chat and then in a Zoom room to dance and be with each other,” Hawley-Weld remembers. “It felt like our DJ sets were an excuse to meet up with like-minded people who all wanted to dance, dress up, feel connected, and let loose.”
Moreover, it was a chance to give fans a peek behind the curtain as SOFI TUKKER shared various works-in-progress, hooks, and nascent song ideas. “We were hungry for outside feedback and inspiration beyond the four walls of our house,” Hawley-Weld says. “It was so helpful to be able to play the in-progress music during the sets and then see how people reacted.” There was a drawback, however. Fans grew attached to songs that were eventually set aside or never finished. “There are still people asking for versions of songs we played during that time that probably will never see the light of day.”
Perhaps given the timing and circumstances, members of the self-appointed Freak Fam bonded not only with SOFI TUKKER, but also with each other, as they discovered similarities that went well beyond their shared longing for dancefloor abandon. “People really did start to feel like family, coaching each other through loss and hardship,” Hawley-Weld says. “There are still worldwide Freak Fam meetups, and the stories people tell us about how they got each other through the pandemic are so beautiful and heartwarming.”
“People seem down for us to take them on the journey we believe in going on, and that’s the ultimate privilege as an artist.” —Sophie Hawley-Weld
With the world returning to something akin to normal, SOFI TUKKER is finally able to party with the Freak Fam in person as they embark on a series of festival dates that began with a scene-stealing set at Coachella. Keen to make up for lost time, the duo has crafted a stage show that allows them to showcase their manic creative energy in real time while also building on the interactivity of their community-shaping pandemic DJ sets. For starters, the duo built a rainforest-inspired playground complete with musical monkey bars.
“We used to call it the book tree,” Halpern says of the whimsical contraption. “It started as books with contact microphones on them.” As SOFI TUKKER got bigger, the book tree evolved into a jungle gym. “It’s cool because we can swing from the monkey bars,” he continues. “There’s also a merry-go-round in the middle that you can spin around on, arches that you can play within, and a trampoline in the back corner.”
In this FLOOD exclusive video below, watch SOFI TUKKER take us on a day in the life behind their interactive stage show at Governors Ball Music Festival in New York.
While their stage production gets increasingly lavish, the duo is determined to stay true to their offbeat, community-based roots. “Even though we’ve added a ton of stuff and the team has grown, it’s always grown carefully and thoughtfully,” Halpern says. “Everyone understands the ethos of what we’re trying to do, how we want to treat people around us, and how we want to make the crowds feel.” That theory was put to the test at Coachella as SOFI TUKKER performed their most high-profile set to date. “It really felt like the start of a new era,” Halpern adds. “It was scary because it was the first time we ever performed the new show and it was at Coachella.”
After all, the Indio-based festival has always been a measuring stick for the band. They made their desert debut in 2017 with an afternoon set in the searing sun, progressed to a nighttime slot in a tent in 2019, and then brought their elaborate show and collaborative ethos to an outdoor stage for a prestigious evening set this year. It’s a given that the Freak Fam will dance along, but ushering the uninitiated into SOFI TUKKER’s unique world takes work. “I like to make eye contact with people,” Hawley-Weld says. “It’s a conversation.”
Halpern, on the other hand, draws from his sports background (he was a promising basketball player before falling in love with music). “We try to be really intentional about making the show interactive, making people move and clap and sing back. We have this thing that brings out a competitive attitude, where we put one festival’s crowd against another festival’s crowd and then rate them,” Halpern explains. “Even if people don’t know the words to the songs, by the end, they want to win! They want their festival to be the best experience. It’s a really fun thing to see work.”
“We try to be really intentional about making the show interactive, making people move and clap and sing back.” —Tucker Halpern
The approach also happens to work outside of the dance music bubble. “In that case, we know we really have to go and grab the crowd because they may not know who we are,” Halpern says. “We might have to really extend into the back of the crowd and try to engage everyone.” A recent example was this year’s Governors Ball in NYC where the lineup was dominated by R&B and hip-hop acts. “We weren’t exactly sure how it was going to go,” Halpern says. “To our pleasant surprise, it was incredible.”
With a series of European festivals now behind them and their summer shows coming to an end, SOFI TUKKER is slowly chipping away at their third album—the follow-up to 2022’s Wet Tennis. While the duo has largely kept the project under wraps, they’ve dropped a couple of stand-alone singles in 2023: namely “Jacaré’ and “Trompa,” the latter of which soundtracks Major League Soccer on Apple TV.
Photos at Governor’s Ball 2023 by Julia Drummond
Both songs were inspired by an extended stay in Brazil, a location that’s strongly influenced their music from the very beginning. “It was very revitalizing,” Hawley-Weld says of the trip. “It’s been a source of inspiration for us since the beginning of the band.” The singer-songwriter, who’s of German heritage (by way of Canada, Italy, and the US), has spent considerable time in Brazil, and enjoyed showing her bandmate where so much of her creative vision comes from. “This trip and being at Carnival really was illuminating and next-level inspiring,” Halpern chimes in.
However, the duo can’t quite decide whether either track is indicative of the new record. “I wouldn’t necessarily say those are a hint of what’s to come,” Hawley-Weld says, while Halpern takes a slightly different stance: “Well, they are a little.” After a pause, the duo’s vocalist reconsiders her opinion. “They’re not not [indicative], but a lot of it’s not in Portuguese,” she elaborates. “One of the reasons why they might feel indicative of what’s next is that they represent a return to our roots—we’ve kind of returned back to the things that we originally bonded over.”
And their roots are based in the free-flowing exchange of ideas, eclectic influences, and unrelenting sonic experimentation. “Every song sort of gets formed in a different way,” Halpern says. “Sometimes we go in with guitar lines in our heads or in our notes on our phones, sometimes Sophie goes in with poems beforehand.” Hawley-Weld concurs: “It depends on what the vibe is telling me it needs to be,” she says. “I always look at what the song is telling me it needs.”
One of the many advantages of having the Freak Fam at their back is freedom to explore new sounds and subvert expectations—after all, their fan base thrives on SOFI TUKKER’s sonic quirks. “We love that people expect us to be experimental and weird,” Hawley-Weld says. “We don’t feel pigeonholed into genres or sounds, and we get to make the music that’s inspiring us in the moment.” It ultimately comes down to trust. “People seem down for us to take them on the journey we believe in going on, and that’s the ultimate privilege as an artist.”
That understanding also extends to interactions in the real world. “I was walking down the street and somebody stopped me and asked, ‘How are your migraines doing?’” Hawley-Weld laughs. “It’s so cool that they knew about something I’m struggling with and not just what music I’m releasing.” Halpern then volunteers an example of his own. “People will say ‘Tuck’ and I’ll always turn because they say it like a friend,” he says. “And that’s exactly what it feels like, we’re lucky we have friends all over the place.”
“We love that people expect us to be experimental and weird. We don’t feel pigeonholed into genres or sounds, and we get to make the music that’s inspiring us in the moment.” —Sophie Hawley-Weld
As much as they enjoy being on the road and bumping into the Freak Fam in their natural habitat, the duo occasionally struggles with their hectic touring schedule. “We try not to ping-pong as much between continents, and we’re not in a constant state of jet lag like we used to be because we’re getting better at saying ‘no’ sometimes and prioritizing sustainability,” Hawley-Weld says. “I also work really hard at keeping up my routines, like walking and working out, which make me feel amazing and grounded while on the road.”
For Halpern, juggling touring and relationships is especially hard. “Being able to keep a relationship is definitely the biggest challenge we talk about a lot,” he says. “Just being able to give someone else the time and energy they deserve becomes hard with our schedule and goals. That goes for friendships and family, too.” Given the amount of time they spend together on the road, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Hawley-Weld and Halpern ache for distance when they get time off. As it turns out, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, they’re roommates.
“Crazily enough, we live together even when we aren’t on the road,” Hawley-Weld says. “We had the choice to live separately, but life’s more fun and productive when we live together.” Not that they spend every waking hour in each other’s company. “We do our own thing and have our separate lives, but we continue to choose to spend time together even when we don’t have to.” Do they ever get on each other’s nerves? “We’ve also gotten good at realizing that when we are bickering, it’s usually because we’re exhausted or anxious,” she says.
“The pandemic gave us the reality check that you can’t take anything for granted. Knowing that a new thing could come and we might not be able to do this for a while absolutely changes your mentality.” —Tucker Halpern
With new music on the way and a busier touring schedule than ever, SOFI TUKKER is in the position to reflect on their steady ascent in the music world as they progress up the bill at major festivals around the world. “The pandemic gave us the reality check that you can’t take anything for granted,” Halpern says. “Knowing that a new thing could come and we might not be able to do this for a while, or ever again, absolutely changes your mentality.”
For Hawley-Weld it’s all about taking stock of how far they’ve come. “I journal every night, so I’m constantly reflecting on what’s happening in my inner and outer world,” she says. “And a huge part of that is celebrating when we do hit milestones and making sure, as cheesy as it sounds, that it’s about the journey.” After all, the destination is unknown. SOFI TUKKER just knows they’ll be taking the Freak Fam along for the ride. “Finding ways to make live shows even more interactive will always be the future,” Halpern says. “Having the audience feel like a part of the show rather than just watching it is everything to us.” FL
