Photo Credit: Jimmy Fontaine
Cash Cash came to Electric Zoo to make a statement. The trio tore down the house at Randall's Island on September 4th in front of a sea of thousands of fans that were singing along to every word of their entire set. Jean Paul Makhlouf, Samuel Warren Frisch and Alexander Luke Makhlouf traveled a long road to get to the top of the mountain. When describing what the group felt right after leaving the E-Zoo main stage, Jean said, "Unfuckingbelievable. It was amazing. This is our hometown pretty much. We are from the New Jersey/New York area. It was one of those moments where we got to play for our friends and family in front of such a large crowd. It was overpowering. It just hit us like a train." The Cash Cash train is now speeding straight ahead with no stoplight in sight. Jean continued to reflect on the experience of playing Electric Zoo. "There's something special about the shows in the tri-state area. They are always memorable and we will remember a night like this for the rest of our lives."
The hometown boys are no strangers to putting in hard work to make a name for themselves. Jean explained how Cash Cash came to be the DJs that we all love and know. "It's been a long ride," Jean said. He continued, "Sam and I have known each other since the third grade. Alex is my brother. We started to produce in high school when we were really young. Sam and I were messing around with our computers and eventually our stuff started to sound good after enough trial and error. Eventually I was like...'Holy shit. I think we got something here.' It took us a long time. The whole process was amazing. It made us humble. We worked our asses off to finally get that big return on it." The return included a new album entitled Blood, Sweat & 3 Years that dropped earlier in the summer. Samuel Warren Frisch said with a smile on his face, "It's been dope. We've been through a bunch of different labels. We explored a lot of different styles over the years so it's amazing to see it all come together on a huge stage like we played tonight." The song "Take Me Home" featuring Bebe Rexha established the men as major players in the EDM world where the competition is fierce and unforgiving.
"Take Me Home" came just at the right time for the guys. Cash Cash were just about to call it quits as the song took on a life its own. Jean recalled, "The really cool thing about that song was that it came around the time that we were all really down. It was a dark time in our careers. We didn't know what we were going to do. We were all bumming out. We just moved back home. We were not killing it. We linked up with Bebe for that one. It was ironic, the whole 'Take Me Home' thing. We came home. We recorded the song in our home basement studio. It came together really quickly and we knew we had something special when we played it back. It gave us chills. It gave us that feeling that we tapped into something cool that people would react to." The people ate up "Take Me Home" and made Cash Cash along with Bebe Rexha household names.
Photo Credit: Jabari Jacobs
"It was interesting. We were on similar paths as far as our careers go," Jean told me. He continued with a grin that glowed, "She didn't know what she was doing. We had no idea what we were doing. We linked together on this song and it literally sparked our careers. We love Bebe." The spark was just what the guys were looking for. Since the release of "Take Me Home," Cash Cash has been able to travel all over the world and create remixes for some of the most powerful performers in the music industry. Sam explained how they go about remixing popular tracks. "We usually work with someone who has a cool voice like Katy Perry or Bruno Mars. We work with artists that we feel that we can put our own touch on." Jean quickly followed up by saying, "It's cool to see artists come after us now. It makes us feel like these people respect what we are doing. When we see an email in our inbox like Kelly Clarkson wants us to remix her next single, I'm like...Hell yeah! Let's do it." Working with a vast amount of talented people helped give Cash Cash a confidence boost in order to perform in front of large audiences all over the globe.
Jean remembered getting the opportunity to play a massive show featuring the electronic music duo, Jus†ice. He told me, "We played in South Korea. We were direct support for Jus†ice. There were about 40,000 people that night. Jus†ice is one of the reasons why we do what we do. They are a huge influence for us and on our sound. It was a defining moment where we are like...Holy shit. We are in South Korea right now with 40,000 people singing back our songs and not even just 'Take Me Home.' Just all of our songs on top of their lungs. We made music in our basement and how did it get here exactly? And afterwords seeing Jus†ice go up...It was just awesome. They were so cool too. They were just chilling. No ego." The memories that Cash Cash have created still stay with the group to this day. Jean nodded his head in disbelief, "Every year we have moments like that. We always wonder what's next. Could it get any better after hearing our song on the radio? Then it's like 40,000 people singing our song in South Korea. Now it's Electric Zoo. This is probably the loudest crowd I've ever heard sing 'Take Me Home'. I'm just excited to see what tomorrow has in store." If tomorrow is anything like the atmosphere that the guys helped create at E-Zoo, they can proudly call themselves the kings of New York City and New Jersey.
Cash Cash hinted that their best is yet to come. Sam said with a wink and a smile, "We are constantly working on music and new remixes. It's an exciting time for us." Jean told me that their long road to the top was worth it to get to this moment in time. He said with an air of confidence, "It opened up the doors for us to evolve. Our whole career we have slowly evolved. It was never one day that there was a change. The change was a slow morph that makes sense to see where we are now."