Locally Grown: PeaceTreaty
"We’re hoping with this album we can reach different heights around the world."
In a world where the updated version of everyone’s secret rock star fantasy is commanding the dance floor as DJ, it’s no small feat to not only get signed by Steve Aoki’s label Dim Mak Records, but also receive continual support from musical heavy hitters like Diplo, Afrojack and Wolfgang Gartner. Big room house duo PeaceTreaty managed to accomplish all this and more within a year of forming in January 2010. Made up of two Orange County natives and high school friends Josh Anaya and Angelo Patino, the boys reconnected that year after Anaya began spinning at local warehouse parties and then playing around with his own productions, first dabbling in hip-hop, then moving towards electronic. EDM was beginning to really explode in the U.S., but the dance culture was still new to Anaya, whose first big introduction to the scene was attending Electric Daisy Carnival in 2009. He admits, “I used to listen to techno [and] house when I was little, but I didn’t even know what I was listening to because they were my sister’s CDs.”
Still, Anaya felt the strains of a new musical passion igniting, and he reached out to Patino, who had just completed a chamber choir/guitar program in college. The two were soon making bootlegs and remixing tracks, which caught Aoki’s attention quickly and led to the early 2011 release of their first EP through Dim Mak. Following the first release, productivity only increased. Along with remixing tracks for everyone from Aoki to Dada Life and Moby, they've been working on an EP for Sebastian Ingrosso’s Refune label and in between toured the world playing gigs—most recently at Laidback Luke’s Super You&Me party in New York City.
Though PeaceTreaty lists a haphazard range of influences on their bio page that range from Jimi Hendrix to Boys Noize, they prefer not to box themselves into a particular genre. As Patino puts it, “We just like our tracks to have a lot of energy and be pretty much in your face.” The aim of their music makes sense, since their strength lies on those fated dance floors, where their remixes dominate—and it’s not hard to see why. Partygoers go absolutely nuts for these two, and even though PeaceTreaty has by now played for 10,000 people at Beyond Wonderland and headlined the electro stage at Nocturnal Wonderland, they still respond to what core fans—their friends think. “When we go out with [our friends] we [like] seeing them have fun with different tracks, what they like. They have input on what we create.”
Lately, all the creating has gone into their much buzzed about first full-length album release in September, which they say will continue their current progressive house musical path, while also dabbling in a little dubstep and melodic tracks. But the main draw of the 12-track album is the collaborations, which include Hot Mouth, John Dahlback, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, and Bassjackers.
‘In Time’ is the first single from the album. Released just yesterday, it features sultry vocals from 19-year-old newcomer Anabel Englund, whose YouTube covers of Adele and Feist impressed the duo enough to contact her. The rest of the almost-finished album has come together through a combination of revamped pre-released tracks, as well as completely new ones. Though Anaya says that production time found the two sometimes working around the clock and waking up in the studio, right now they’re back to doing what makes them go — playing shows. “We want to make sure we’re stepping it up every time [and] giving better and better productions,” says Patino. Upcoming highlights include a stint at Belgium’s Tomorrowland festival and New York City’s Electric Zoo. Still, the boys couldn’t be more excited to finally show just how much their music has matured through the album release. “We’re hoping with this album we can reach different heights around the world,” says Anaya. “That would be really cool.”
Top image by Neil Favila
