The uplifting force of Cash Cash brings fans to their feet dancing and singing the lyrics to the sounds of synthetic electric pop and EDM. The unique and handsome trio is composed of two brothers – Jean Paul Makhlouf and Alexander Luke Makhlouf – and best friend Samuel Warren Frisch. Originally called “The Consequence,” in 2008 their name was changed to Cash Cash. They produce, record, edit, mix and master all of their own songs. Their newest single “Surrender” promises to bring down the house and ensure the fact that you’ll be singing it over and over again all day long.
I was fortunate to catch Jean Paul (aka JP) in between sessions and was immediately impressed by his dedication and enthusiasm to music and the music industry. He was very inspirational and enchanting…and he’s amazing to look at as well!
JP,how did you come up with the name “Cash Cash”?
We had a different name, so when we had to come up with a new name, there was all this legal stuff around us. Everybody was after our cash, and we don’t even have any yet. We kinda just laughed and said, “Let’s name our group Cash Cash.”
Currently you have an EP out, and I understand that next year you will be coming out with a new album.
Yeah, we’re working on an album right now. We just put out a single called “Surrender.” We’re going song by song right now. Our last single “Take Me Home” did well, then after that we released a song called “Lightning,” which had a singer from “The GooGoo Dolls.” Our current single right now is “Surrender.”
Yes, I’ve heard them all and they are amazing. You do a lot of festivals, correct?
Yeah, the festivals for us are a lot of fun. There’s just a lot of people, and when the crowd sings back some of the lyrics, it’s really good. It feels amazing, and it just brings a lot of different groups together. Different styles just kinda mash up, and it’s all in one place. The club shows are great to do. It’s good to have a good balance of everything I think.
You guys are New York based?
Jersey.
New York, New Jersey. Same vicinity, same thing!
Yeah, right, same thing! You’ve got a New York accent yourself.
I’m from Brooklyn. Now you have been together as a group for a while.
My younger brother’s in the group, and Sam has been my best friend since third grade.
How cute! JP, if you could pick two celebrities to be your parents, who would they be?
I would probably say Adam Levine and Katy Perry.
Good parents . So when you wake up in the morning and have your coffee or whatever it is that you do, from there on what motivates you?
I think for us, it’s kind of the fact that we get to play shows like four or five days a week and then come back in the studio for a few days. It’s kind of like the shows inspire the music, and the music inspires the show. It’s a cycle that keeps happening. We have a good balance between the two, because when we’re too busy in the studio we kinda just forget about the energy of people. Outside emotion is just kind of buried in four walls. Then we go out and play the festivals and the shows, we kind of just feed off of the people’s energy. Just meeting people. We’re influenced by everything. We listen to other music, past and present, friendships, relationships, all that stuff has a part in the writing, especially when we’re working with the artists we feature with.
You feature a lot of amazing artists. How do you find them or decide who you want to do songs with?
We work with people we like and we really hit it off with – Bebe Rexha with our first single, and we’ve been huge GooGoo Dolls fans forever, and working with John Legend was just amazing. A lot of times it starts for us as just a remix. We’ve remixed some songs for this group Krewella, and they liked the remix so much they asked us to do an original track together, and we ended up producing their song “Live for the Night.” Same with Capital Cities. They’re such a great band. And then after that we got in the studio to work on a song, and hopefully we can finish that up soon.
If you weren’t doing what you’re doing, what would you be doing?
For me personally I would be doing something with animals. I love animals, always loved them. But I feel like all of us kind of just made our lives out of music. Music is pretty much the only thing we know at this point. It’s the only thing we can do every day and not get sick of.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I think we’re going to be still in music of course. I don’t see anything stopping us. We’re one of those groups that are not afraid to change, try new things, new features, try new sounds, so I think the music’s gotta change. I don’t think music ever stays the same. I think the production involved kind of takes twists and turns. We take a little bit from the past, a little bit from the future and kinda mix it with the present. I think we’re just gonna be doing a lot of different stuff, not really questioning it too much, just gonna go where our gut is.
The music industry is tough sometimes.
Yeah, it’s definitely a tough one.
You guys produce, mix and master all of your own stuff, correct?
Sure.
Is there anything out there you’d like to promote for yourselves?
The fact that we produce our own music is obviously something we’re really proud of. A lot of guys produce their stuff, and then they just send it off for mixing and editing and all that. We do everything from editing to mixing, recording – up until the very end it’s all done by us. You just kind of learn through trial and error over the years. A sound that works for us and “Surrender,” the newest single. That’s what we’re promoting.
Any tours coming up?
All of our tours are on our website cashcashmusic.com. They’re obviously changing all the time too. We’re touring throughout the year. We’re in different cities all the time.
What’s the one thing in life that you would like me to know about you?
Me personally or the group?
Either, your choice.
For us as a group too, we’ve been a group of people who always did things for ourselves. We never relied on other people. We make things happen ourselves just like being smart business people. We have a passion, just rising to the music industry as well. It’s one of those things when we look back, it’s just because we’re really working really hard. It’s kind of like one of those things like you don’t wanna take money from someone. It just ties into the whole band name too Cash Cash. It’s kinda funny because we just really take pride in that, that we just did it ourselves and got the fire going. People kind of rely on too many different things. Sometimes that goes wrong, cause nobody can really market yourself better than yourself. You’re the one who has to know what you want.
I am looking forward to hearing a lot from you guys in the future because your sound is incredible. I just loved the Michael Jackson song.
That was a fun one, yeah.
You are amazing.
Do you have any other questions, one of those weird ones?
I have plenty of weird ones.
OK, I’ll go for something weird, and we’ll end with that.
If you were a porn star, what would your name be?
I think my name would be Spanky Kensington. It would be your pet and I think your street name, right?
True, true. Now is there any advice you would like to share?
To any up-and-coming producers out there, I would say keep doing what you’re doing, and if anybody has a dream outside of music, you just gotta go for it. Do what you want, because a lot of times we could have given up. We had some really big road blocks, really big speed bumps, but we stuck with it. We got dropped from record labels. We could have just said, “Let’s just do things that we don’t like just to pay the bills,” but we said no. We stuck it out, and finally all the hard work paid off.
The story of your life just hit the headlines. What would it read?
“Guy Creates the Biggest Turtle Zoo Ever!”
