Alex Ingalls and Casey Schneider, a DJ duo from Minnesota known as TWINSICK, visited The Canopy Club on Feb. 16 as a stop on their “Hard Launch” tour. This was the pair’s second time visiting Champaign-Urbana after performing at the KAMS LineLeap event in 2023.

TWINSICK sat down with The Daily Illini to talk about new music, touring and how they got their start.

The Daily Illini: So, how did all this start?

Alex Ingalls: Casey loves this question.

Casey Schneider: I started making music when I was probably 16 years old. In my senior year of high school, I would open up for artists like Two Friends, or kind of similar sizes to that, at the local EDM club in Minneapolis, where we’re from. I was doing the 9 p.m., the earliest slot. There were probably three people there when I was playing, but it was just fun to get club experience under my belt. 

Alex, at the time, was doing photography and videography for the artists that were headlining. So he would shoot all these after movies and photos for these artists. After one of the shows, I was done with my set, and I was just hanging out, and we just started talking. He was getting into DJing at the time, and he was getting a lot more gigs. We were just like, “Let’s just start a group like, who cares?” You know, there was no thought process to it.

Alex: The name, everything we came up with the same day. We had no plan; we didn’t know what we were doing.  We actually got the name — everyone thinks we’re twins, but we’re from Minneapolis, St. Paul. It’s the Twin Cities and the Minnesota Twins. We got the name from there, and we just ran with it and never looked back. 

DI: At what point in your career did you guys have the “We made it moment,” if you guys have already had it? If you didn’t, what moment do you think that will be?

Casey: We definitely haven’t had it yet. 

Alex: We don’t even feel like we’re close. We’re still having even more fun than we did when we started. We’re just two Minnesota kids just going to the club. Nothing feels any different than when we first started, but we have noticed recently a lot more fans coming to the shows, like more diehard fans, and people actually care, which is pretty cool to see. It’s motivating, for sure, so it’s been fun.

Casey: Yeah, a big part of our growth for the TWINSICK project is when we release remixes, specifically on TikTok, and people would find us through that. 

DI: You guys have had a lot of collaborations, one of them being Loud Luxury, along with many other artists. What would you say your favorite collab has been?

Alex: I’d say some of our favorites aren’t out yet.

Casey: I feel like the most meaningful is the Chainsmokers remix we did in 2019 just because that was a huge step in TWINSICK as a project. They’re huge inspirations for us, always killing it since day one. They’re kind of the reason we got into this whole thing. It was cool to go full circle and do an official project with them. 

DI: Let’s talk a little bit about the “Hard Launch” tour. What’s special about this tour?

Casey: This is our first real run at the best, our favorite clubs in the country, kind of the top-tier clubs. It was awesome to put a concept behind the tour as well. We’ve never really done that before, where there’s a clear vision. In the past, it’s kind of like you just go to a club, and you play whatever sound system, and if they have a video screen, sick, that’s cool. Now, it’s like every single club or venue that we’re playing has that stuff built in, and we can really get creative with it. We’ll make new visuals for certain cities or, like, kind of just personalize every single show and play new songs for these new cities. That really takes it up a notch.

DI: This is your guys’ second time in Champaign-Urbana. Your first time was at KAMS with LineLeap. Can you tell me a little bit about your last visit?

Casey: That was fun. That’s a perfect example — last time, we just kind of pulled up, and we played at a bar, and you get what you get, you know. It was great energy, really intimate. 

Alex: A lot of people came through, and people pulled up, and it was like a random day of the week. This time, we’re excited because we feel like we have a grip on it now with what we’re doing at this venue and stuff like that. It’s the Hard Launch tour.

DI: You guys talked a little bit about new music coming through. What is your guys’ creative process when it comes to making music? You guys are always on the road, city after city — how does that work?

Casey: Yeah, it was really exciting. We just spent a week in Los Angeles, which we’ve never done before. We got to work with some awesome writers, producers and vocalists, and we’re getting to a point where our music is what we’ve wanted to make over time. As an artist, it’s super hard to find that creative spark, but we finally are getting there, so that Los Angeles trip was super special for us. We’re definitely going to keep making trips like that special. It’s impossible to work at, like, a Holiday Inn or whatever it is.

Alex: But sometimes those Holiday Inns are where you get an idea. Some of the best stuff comes from those. It’s just kind of random. Whenever an idea sparks, I know. We just drove from Minnesota to LA to film a music video, and like in the last two hours, Casey was driving, and then he had this idea. We had to have our filmer jump in the driver’s seat and take over just so he could work on his computer.

DI: What is your biggest advice for someone who wants to get into the field?

Alex: I would say there are two ways to look at it. Don’t get discouraged; some of the stuff, if it’s content, music or anything, the stuff you think is the best in the world might not settle with the rest of the world. Don’t get discouraged by that. And just staying consistent with everything you do, whether it’s releasing music, posting on social media, playing shows, just everything. Take the breaks that are needed, but just don’t give up.

Casey: You got to really want it. Momentum is super important. The moment that you lose momentum as an artist, it takes a toll on you, and it takes a toll on your career.

Alex: The third one, I would say, is to make sure you can sleep on airplanes because that’s our bed. I think we did the math. In a year, we’ll spend almost close to two months on an airplane. We’re taking like six flights a week.

DI: Did you guys come into this career prepared with any of that advice? 

Alex: We’ve just figured it out, and luckily, we are able to sleep on airplanes, but sometimes you just don’t have a choice.

Casey: You got to be open-minded, even if it’s a show you’re not really excited about — personally, we love all shows. But, just in general, if you’re feeling a little down because of some other reason, you have to just go into the weekend, full steam, like, “This is gonna be the best weekend ever.” Because we’re lucky to have this job and just so fortunate that we’re in this position where we can do this.

DI: Is there somewhere that you guys want to play eventually, anything specific? 

Casey: Easy answer.

Alex: What’s that? 

Casey: Lolla. I mean, I went to that festival when I was 15 or 16. I went like five years in a row. It’s always been a dream of ours to play that. That’d be incredible. 

Alex: We’ve also done like four shows in Europe now. So, anything we can do in Europe, we always want to do that. Spending more time in Europe and especially just seeing new countries and stuff. It’s really cool.

DI: How do you guys differentiate your music from other EDM artists?

Casey: I think, right now, there’s a lot of tech-house, which is cool, but we’re just trying to make sure we’re in our own lane. We’re doing more melodic stuff but kind of incorporating pieces of all genres. But we kind of stick to our melodic roots. All of our big stuff hits you in the feels. When it’s playing, you’re like, “Damn, this is something special.”

Alex: But also some that you can pregame to. There’s a good happy medium between that, and it’s hard to find, but I feel like we’re starting to figure it out.

DI: You guys started with “Somebody Else” dropping in 2019 and then all the way to “California Baby.” What was the progression between the two?

Casey: I think it kind of goes with the trends of what’s popping. Back in 2019, “Somebody Else” was like this big, future bass song. I guess that’s what we called it. That’s what everyone was making at the time. Over time, house has just taken over. We wanted to kind of blend those styles where it still has some elements, like melodic elements of that original stuff that we did back in 2019. But the new stuff has more of a house-driven tempo and beat and all that stuff. So, we always hold a piece of our original stuff.

DI: What are the top three songs you guys play to make everyone go crazy?

Alex: “Electric Love.” Number one. It’s always like everyone screams. I feel like it’s a song everybody knows, but people kind of forget about it. Or like they wouldn’t normally hear it in a club, so when they hear it, they want to scream it. We kind of — not always — but we play “Innerbloom” by Rüfüs Du Sol towards the end, and it’s a feelsy-moment. Everyone knows that song. 

Casey: And third, “California Baby.” 

Alex: It’s been hitting. We saw some people screaming the lyrics this last weekend. That was pretty cool to see. 

DI: What’s a song that you guys put into your show that you were just like, this is a complete joke, we’re just throwing it in there, but everyone goes crazy?

Alex: I’d say “Call Her Daddy.” That song was just like a joke. That was like when that podcast was really popping in the beginning. We actually listened to like, I don’t know how many podcasts and stitched them together to make her vocal sound like that. So that song, and I don’t know, “Fireball.” 

Casey: “Fireball” is a good one. 

Alex: We play “Fireball” sometimes and just drink a bunch of Fireball. Everyone goes crazy. Everyone hates “Fireball” but loves Fireball. I don’t know, love-hate relationship.

DI: You guys said you just played a couple of shows in Europe. How different was that compared to playing at universities and U.S. cities?

Alex: (Shows in Europe) go late. We didn’t go on, I don’t think, till, like, 1:30 or 2 in the morning. We played till probably almost 5 a.m. It’s a late night. The cities we played in had a lot of study-abroad kids, so they know a lot of our singalong stuff that we play, and a lot of them I’ve actually seen at shows and stuff. People are always putting up signs that say, “You played our frat in Alabama” or something like that. 

Casey: There’s this energy of college kids when they go abroad, so they’re like, “Okay, we’re in Barcelona, we heard Barcelona was crazy. We have to go crazy.” So they’re ready to go all night.

Alex: They’re not leaving anything behind. They’re going all out, which is fun.

DI: You guys talked about some new music. Can we expect that during or after the tour? Is it just a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing when you guys are going to drop?

Alex: For our original music, like stuff on Spotify and Apple Music, it’ll probably be a little bit until probably after the tour for that. In terms of remixes and stuff, we can wake up tomorrow and want to release a new remix. That’s just kind of how it goes. That’s the fun about them; we just wake up and post it. There’s no big crazy promo and stuff like that. 

Casey: Especially with TikTok. You can post a TikTok like you were saying earlier, and you’re going to have no idea. Any video goes viral nowadays, and it can be the least expected thing. You can post something, and then people are like, “I need this,” and then you have no other choice but to put it out.

Alex: They’re in your DMs threatening you.

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