When Elon University’s Spring Show is held March 30, expect “Pandamonium” on the stage. The White Panda, consisting of Dan “DJ Griffi” Griffith and Tom “Procrast” Evans, began in 2009 when both boys were in college at the University of Southern California and Northwestern University, respectively. The White Panda has released free mixtapes like “Versus” and “Pandamonium,” while touring North America with artists including Wale, Mike Posner, Flo Rida and Chiddy Bang. The Pendulum caught up with Griffith to talk about the band members’ creative process, as well as their expectations for Friday’s show.
Tell me about the name The White Panda. Where did it come from?
I wish I had a cooler story for you, but it was kind of right in the beginning when we decided we wanted to start collaborating and releasing music that we came up with it. We threw it out and thought, everyone loves pandas, it’s super catchy and we just adopted it. There’s a theory that since I’m part Japanese, I have a little bit of the panda in me and Tom is the white part of it, so there’s a little theory going around there. But really, other than that, we were just trying to come up with a catchy name and all the rest — the white mask and acting crazy on stage — kind of came about after we had formed the group and everything.
How did you guys originally meet?
We’ve actually known each other for quite a long time. We grew up in the same hometown and went to the same elementary school, middle school and high school. We used to take piano lessons at the same studio, around when we were about seven or eight years old. So, we have been good friends for a while. When we went to college, (Tom) went to Northwestern and I went to USC, we both started falling in love with dance music and the idea of using samples and mashups. So we both decided to work on this new process together.
How did you get into the mashing process specifically?
That was pretty much having a laptop and owning software programs. There’s a lot of programs that can do that kind of stuff. We use a program called Ableton Live. A lot of it was trial and error and kind of trying to figure stuff out as we went along. We pretty much taught ourselves everything and tried to figure it out along the way. It all started with a basic laptop computer and some software, though.
I’m used to mashup artists typically being one person. Tell me a little bit about the process and how it works with two people.
At least in the very initial stages of a concept or an idea, it’s pretty individual. Even when we were working across the country it was kind of that way. I will either start with an idea and send it his way and he will either give me the approval to keep continuing it or give it his own little flavor. It starts with the individual’s concept, then we share the music with each other, critique it and improve it, continue sending a project file back and forth and keep coming up with a better product every revision.
It’s always amazed me how two completely different songs can mash. How do you know what songs will work together? Have you always been able to pick them out or have you gotten better at it over time?
I’d say we’ve probably gotten a little bit better as time has gone on. Now as professionals, we’re always listening for samples and new ideas. Even when I’m just in a cafe, eating lunch with some friends and there’s some song that I hear and like, I’ll make note of it and go home and start working in the studio on it. Just with all the time we’ve spent over the past couple of years we’ve gotten better at it and come up with more creative ideas.
Did you guys ever expect to get to this level and be so successful?
Not at all. We basically started this project and bought a domain, thewhitepanda.com, as a way to have our friends listen to our music. Our ultimate goal in the beginning was to make stuff for our friends and our friends’ parties. We never thought that it would get to this level in the beginning. We are really excited that it has come to this level but really in the beginning, it was just a little project we were doing for fun.
What should we expect for the concert at Elon on Friday?
You can definitely expect craziness. Basically, we like to make a lot of our set the stuff you like to hear at concerts — super upbeat party music as opposed to what you might hear in the studio — more mellow music. We’re going to be bringing a lot of energy and production. Basically, we just want to make it one big party for you guys.
What’s next for The White Panda?
Well, we just released a new tape a couple weeks ago, so in terms of another new album, that’s probably a ways away. A lot of the stuff we release is continuous tracks. The album we just released is a continuous album and it’s a minute and a half idea tracks. We’re going to start releasing some of the ideas we did for the first time on this tape into full songs. We’ll start trying to roll those out as the spring goes along. And then we’ll continue to come out with some new material this summer and hopefully look into some of the original production and remixing later in the year. And we will definitely keep continuing to put out new music and we’re excited about the rest of the year.
Finally, I’m sure you have a favorite song you’ve made.
Early on, there was one we made, “What You Know About Little Secrets,” sampling tracks by Passion Pit and T.I. and that was kind of right when we were starting and our initial first exposure on music blogs, so it really put us on the map. For me personally, it has a little special place in my heart. The one most recently that I’m proud of is “Midnight Life,” the M83 sample with Kanye West we released. That was a lot of original production there, and remixing of the actual M83 song and we’re definitely happy with how it turned out. It was pretty well received with our fans, and it’s always exciting when we get great feedback from them.