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Take Kinetics & One Love’s new single, “Halley’s Comet” home.

Happy 10,000th!!! Thanks to everyone who has been reading – mom, grandma, you’re the best. Next stop, 100,000! Just kidding. Hopefully within my lifetime I’ll see that number. In true Jillboard tradition, of course I have to make a special post for a special number. Sooooo….here’s my interview with Kinetics & One Love. If that name doesn’t sound familiar to you, it will soon. You know that song “Airplanes” by B.o.B and Hayley Williams? Yea, they wrote that. For all those people who have been wishing on airplanes instead of shooting stars, Jillboard brings you the guys behind your song of Summer 2010.

Jeremy Dussolliet, a songwriter and rapper, self-titled as “Kinetics” (K: “Kinetic energy is the energy of motion…I’m just trying to make moving music”), and Tim Sommers, songwriter and producer, self-titled as “One Love” (O: “Music is the one love of my life”), are a force to be reckoned with nowadays. With platinum hit “Airplanes” in their recent past, this songwriting duo has a lot planned. Their future holds a new mixtape, their Morning After Tour (of east coast colleges/universities), and most excitingly, “write two or three more platinum singles, sign a record deal, release an album, start a clothing line, write an album that goes down in history as a classic. Then just lamp in Egypt for awhile.”

The humorous, talented duo claim to be -3000 human years, come from a colony on the mothership, and “came preprogrammed with a software package that lets us play all instruments”. Promoting their new single “Halley’s Comet”, these aliens also can perform time travel. Personally, I find this fact unimpressive compared to their songwriting deal with Warner Music Group. I can time travel too guys, it’s not that special…

So how did these boys come together? From what I’ve heard, their colony on the mothership wasn’t that small.
K: “We met as freshmen at Cornell University, at our first dorm meeting of the year. You know those ice breakers when you go around the room and everyone has to say one interesting thing about themselves? Well I decided to say that I rap, and asked if any other musicians wanted to collaborate with me – to which the entire room just stared back at me blankly. Except for this one kid sitting across the room slumped in his chair, who spoke up to say that he played drums and was down to collaborate.”

O: “Well, that’s only half true…we actually met for the first time when we started training for this mission. But then we had our memories erased so we could play a more convincing human and not accidentally blow our own cover. So I guess when we crossed paths at Cornell you can say that’s when we met again for the first time…”

Gotcha. Getting used to this whole robotic alien idea, I asked when they knew they wanted to pursue a music career. Realizing my idiocy, they replied “It wasn’t really up to us…it was just one of the mission objectives.” My bad, guys. My bad.

Though entertaining, they are audibly very serious about their music. Kinetics is strongly influenced by emcees like Nas & Common, and more recently Lupe Fiasco. “I just have a lot of respect for writers that are really passionate about a certain issue and determined to get their point across… I’ve been bumpin’ [to] B.o.B and Kid Cudi…they can make you dance but they also a have a nerdy side to them, so you know there’s going to be substance in the music.” A huge Eminem fan as well, Kinetics says that Em’s flow “levels above everything else…I promise you I’m not just saying this because I’m another white rapper.” One Love looks up to songwriters and producers like Dr. Luke (Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, every pop song you know, “Party In The USA”, “California Gurls”) and J.R. Rotem (Rihanna’s “S.O.S.” Sean Kingston, Jason DeRulo, every other pop song you know), “who have been serious musicians their entire lives…they have so much other knowledge and experience under their belt. I hope to use my years of musical experience and training to, one day, be as successful as people like this.”

Now for some “Airplanes” talk.

O: “We wrote and recorded “Airplanes” in our frat house at Cornell. At the time, we had absolutely no intention of selling it, nor did we think it had any commercial appeal…One of our boys handed it off to his friend who was interning at Atlantic Records, and she handed it off to some of the senior A&Rs, and they all really liked ‘Airplanes’, and the next thing you know we’re sitting in Atlantic’s NYC office discussing a songwriting deal”.

One year later, B.o.B & Hayley Williams released the song that changed their lives – It went platinum, was placed on the Charlie St. Cloud trailer, was on the VMAs… The list goes on.

K: “For me, the defining moment came about 2 weeks after the song was released, when all you had to do was Google the words, “can we pretend,” and you could see that every few seconds people from across the world were Tweeting the chorus or using it as their Facebook status. That’s when it really hit us. That’s when you just stop and say to yourself, “Wow, we wrote lyrics that the entire planet is reciting right now.”

To Kinetics, the chorus behind “Airplanes” is one of “hope and optimism” and “making due with what you have until your situation improves”. Their original version was a love song – “B.o.B and Em took it into a completely different direction with their verses. But I think that makes it that much cooler – it just shows how one idea can be interpreted in drastically different ways by different artists.” Check out the synthy, amazing original here.

After recently working with Wynter Gordon multiple times, K & O rave about their fellow breakout artist – “That girl can sing anything you give her, at any time, no warm-up needed, and just absolutely kill it. She’s also an amazing writer, so we can go into the studio with nothing planned and play tennis with a stupid idea until an entire song materializes.”

What a crazy ride these guys have been on this past year! As for Kinetics’ favorite moment of being in the music industry thus far – “Getting a phone call from our contact at Atlantic and hearing her play Eminem’s “Airplanes” verse through the phone. To collaborate with one of your favorite musicians, even if that collaboration is only behind the scenes, is one of the trippiest and most rewarding things to happen to someone trying to break into the scene.” Chilling. Dream come true.

Though hoping for their next #1 to be as artists rather than just songwriters, they seem truly grateful for the success they have seen thus far. Make sure you catch these guys on their Morning After Tour, I know I will!

As for my favorite part of the interview…

K: “The best place for news, concert dates, and new releases is our fan page, www.facebook.com/kineticsmusic, followed only by Jillboard Top 100! Check back here over the next couple of weeks as we release a new track with Wynter Gordon called ‘Sign Language'”.

“Kinetics in ya headphones!”

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