Sofi Tukker’s Camera Roll is A Dance Party, Ice Buckets Included
Tucker Halpen (left) and Sophie Hawley-Weld (right) of SOFI TUKKER
American DJ-dance music-duo Sofi Tukker has officially dropped their new EP Dancing On The People, bringing the “epicness” of their wild fans into their body-rocking dance music. The group, comprised of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, was born 5 years ago and has already received global recognition and two Grammy nominations: one for their 2017 single “Drinkee,” and most recently in 2018 for their debut album Treehouse. On previous tours, they have demonstrated their political activism by dedicating a portion of the ticket sales to nonprofits like Planned Parenthood and The Trevor Project; on their current North American tour, they’ve chosen to donate $1 from every ticket sale to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. With this topic still facing social stigma, the group opened up about supporting each other when things get too wild. “We do everything together and we work through things together,” Hawley-Weld told Interview. “If one of us is going through something, we have the other person to lean on in a way that just feels really supportive. That’s probably the biggest thing we do for each other.”
The title of their EP is also a lyric from their song “Purple Hat,” which resonates as a solemn vow that aptly dedicates itself to embracing yourself, one other, and the urge to dance. The title was drawn from a moment during their first ever Animal-Talk party, where fans were given an animal mask and urged to “go nuts” inside a Vancouver club decked out like a jungle. “It’s a really fun party. It literally looked like people on top of people. Everyone was jumping and they were overflowing into the DJ booth. It was this perfect vibe that felt like everyone was on top of everyone else,” says Halpern. So to kick off the release of their EP and upcoming world tour, Sofi Tukker invited us to party inside their camera roll, covering everything from recyclable fashion to an AI crush to being trapped in Hong Kong during the airport protests. Nonetheless, it’s always a party with them. “Everything we do is to try to bring people together and make them feel alive,” says Hawley-Weld. Vamos a la fiesta!
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SOPHIE HAWLEY-WELD: “Tucker is 6’7” and his height is always the first thing that people talk about when they meet us. People are always so shocked. And then they ask him if he played basketball. And then he says yes. And then we all meet each other. Tucker doesn’t fit in most doorways—and definitely not in airplanes. This is him doing his classic head duck in a toilet on the plane.”
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TUCKER HALPERN: “After every show, we get big buckets of ice delivered to our green room. This was an especially amazing delivery of ice after our show in Tokyo because the buckets were so huge. We stick our feet in them. We go crazy on stage and like to do it every night without breaking ourselves. Thank you ice.”
HAWLEY-WELD: “We ice every time we perform. We always go really crazy. I broke my foot on stage in Australia. I finished that show and then we actually took a month and a half to heal. We had to cancel shows because it’s not really our show unless we’re going crazy. That’s such a big part of what we do.”
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HALPERN: “I did my most detrimental work to my wallet in Hong Kong for sure. There’s like a million malls. You go into this mall and you walk into a store and you walk into the back and it becomes another store. It’s a bunch of stores in one store. I didn’t even know. It’s not a department store. It’s cool little street wear type places. And I don’t have any names for you because I don’t know what anything was called.”
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HAWLEY-WELD: “We found this in a parking lot in China. It was in the jungle at an abandoned beach and that was a pretty funny place to see a Supreme logo. It made us think ‘the hype beasts have no boundaries.'”
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HAWLEY-WELD: “We did an interview with an AI. Her name is Kizuna. She only speaks Japanese, but the entire interview we were smiling so much that our faces hurt. And Tucker had a crush on the AI. Although she would only kiss Sophie.”
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HALPERN: “Bought this watch in China. It’s made out of a recycled can. The company is really cool. They train underprivileged people in China how to make art out of things they find on the street. It helps support them and it’s beautiful! Fashion that is leaning towards being better for the universe and being sustainable is definitely a trend that we fully support.”
