A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
When a pair of musicians are called the future, maybe you'd expect more than just keys and drums. But that is what Grammy Award-winning singer and rapper Anderson .Paak calls DOMi and JD Beck, the future. They have a long list of famous fans and collaborators from Herbie Hancock to Snoop Dogg. They've even shared the stage with Thundercat and Ariana Grande.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THEM CHANGES")
ARIANA GRANDE: (Singing) Somebody tell me what I'm supposed to do.
MARTÍNEZ: DOMi plays keys. JD Beck is on drums. They've been playing music together since they were teenagers. They're now in their 20s, and their second album is called "Who Asked?"
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVELY MASQUERADE")
DOMI AND JD BECK: (Singing) Silly faces we show, lovely masquerade. The expression so faux, life is a parade. While your puppets dance blind, would you be betrayed? We're not the trusting kind, lovely masquerade.
MARTÍNEZ: A lot of people call their music jazz. But their sound is not so easy to define, so I asked them about it. I did a ton of research on both of you. And I went to Wikipedia that claims that you two are a jazz duo. So let's start with the duo part. Can we all agree that you two are a duo?
DOMI: That we agree.
JD BECK: Yep.
MARTÍNEZ: That's fine. That's a good - OK, good, good. Now, what about the jazz part?
DOMI: That's up to everybody's opinion, I guess.
BECK: Yeah, it's hard to say. I think we're inspired by jazz. We grew up playing it. I don't know if you could call us that. I mean, I don't know.
DOMI: Like, everybody can say whatever they want. So whatever they want, whatever is being said, it's all correct, it's all wrong.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Now, JD, you once described your musical approach as let's play everything imaginable and try to do something weird. So how would you describe this album, "Who Asked?"
BECK: That sounds like a 14-year-old me quote.
(LAUGHTER)
BECK: I mean, for this, I guess I stand by that quote. I don't know. But not everything imaginable. I think what I meant was everything we can imagine because, (laughter) you know, we're trying to just push ourselves and make music that we haven't heard before.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CLIMBING HIGH")
DOMI AND JD BECK: (Singing) Learning the rules, conscious of the games we play. It's up to you to follow through. You write the script and choose your role each day.
MARTÍNEZ: And that's the interesting part, at least for me when I think of what artists do, is that, you know, does the artist kind of just sit in the moment and just play whatever comes to them? Or are they thinking about pushing themselves kind of further into - like, into different areas?
BECK: Everything we do, we're always second-guessing everything, like, if we're doing enough. Every, like, month, we feel like idiots 'cause we learn something that completely could've changed our entire approach for, like, a year or something, you know? That's always happening. We're just trying not to be surprised by stuff we learn but also learn surprising things.
MARTÍNEZ: So that's just super reassuring for me to hear, to hear that two people as talented as both of you actually have monthly regrets. I mean, it sounds like. I mean, that sounds reassuring, that...
DOMI: Daily.
MARTÍNEZ: Daily? OK, daily regrets. Wow.
DOMI: Well, that's the only way to push. You know, if you really truly want to push, you have to have a quality standard that is personal and abide by it, you know? And so obviously, yeah, every day, we're happy of stuff. But we're also like, oh, yeah, we got to do this better. You know, we never go to bed at night and we're like, we killed it today, you know (laughter)?
BECK: Yeah, that never happens.
MARTÍNEZ: That never happens?
DOMI: We can do...
MARTÍNEZ: Come on, really?
DOMI: No, not really, because there's always one part that we're like, ah, damn it. You know, but we need to tell ourselves that in order to do better next time, you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF DOMI AND JD BECK'S "GIANT NUTS")
MARTÍNEZ: Now, I noticed that humor is a big part of your sound. For example, you once renamed your version of John Coltrane's song "Giant Steps," "Giant Nuts," so humor.
(LAUGHTER)
DOMI: Yes.
MARTÍNEZ: Humor - why is humor such a big part of your sound?
BECK: I don't know if it's a part of the sound. I think it's just an easy way for us to be natural with the stuff we're doing. I think if we tried to be super serious all the time, it wouldn't be real.
DOMI: Yeah, we stay ourselves, you know? That's how we are just behind closed doors. This is how we joke around and stuff. But on this new record, it's all, like, very deep and stuff.
BECK: (Laughter) There's nothing really funny on the album, but...
DOMI: Yeah, there's nothing funny on it. But just because we treat art the most serious thing ever, that doesn't mean we should treat ourselves seriously, you know?
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So I want to play this song, "Growing Older." Let's hear "Growing Older."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GROWING OLDER")
DOMI AND JD BECK: (Singing) Days cascading out of sight, younger ways like fleeting light, time worn gently on the face. Seasons change, we're growing older
MARTÍNEZ: Days cascading out of sight, younger ways like fleeting light, time worn gently on the face. Seasons change, we're growing older. My goodness, why are these thoughts creeping into your music?
DOMI: I think it's because we're around a lot of people who care so much about age. Personally, I think I've heard so much, like, oh, man, age, time is going so fast and stuff. And I don't necessarily agree or think we should care about it that much. But it's always lingering, you know? Also, we're growing older because we started playing instruments so young. And we've...
MARTÍNEZ: Oh, yeah, yeah.
DOMI: We've practiced so much and stuff. So for us, the concept of time is a little different because - well, for me, my childhood was 25,000 hours of practice.
MARTÍNEZ: So considering that both of you have been playing music publicly since you were in the single digits age-wise, do you each see yourselves as mature musicians?
DOMI: No (laughter).
BECK: Yeah, absolutely not.
DOMI: I don't. The concept of maturity always was messed up for me because I have bad memories of that word being thrown around. Like, my classical piano teacher would always say, like, you need more maturity to play that piece. So, of course, the first thing I would go - I would do is, you know, practice that piece, just to make them mad.
BECK: Yeah, I think a lot of our playing is in spite of maturity. Maturity is never a concern.
(LAUGHTER)
DOMI: Yeah, no.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOMI AND JD BECK SONG, "RAIN")
MARTÍNEZ: DOMi and JD Beck's new album is called "Who Asked?" DOMi, JD, thanks a lot.
DOMI: Thank you so much.
BECK: Yeah, thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RAIN")
DOMI AND JD BECK: (Singing) Rain pours. It's safe inside. Not naive, yet we divide. The rain pours, we hide inside. Not blind, but we still divide. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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