No Pants Party & Vanilla Ace Collaborate on New Release “Never Knew” [Interview]

The exceptional tech house duo, No Pants Party welcomes us into their crazy world with all their grand 2020 ventures. With the hopes to kick-start their dance music career after making a big move to LA, best friends Jamie and Kiraleigh, have showcased their unique charisma and extraordinary talents to the house music scene. Now, No Pants Party is thrilled to reveal their stellar collaboration with Vanilla Ace “Never Knew” out now on Toolroom Records.

This new single is part of the renowned imprint’s House Party Vol. 2 series, a compilation of Toolroom hits from this year to date. The diversified 20-track mix is the perfect compilation to showcase their fun-filled sounds to house music and Toolroom fans worldwide. After listening to just one dose of this high-energy tune, there is no surprise how it instantly captured the Toolroom family’s attention.

“Never Knew” has listeners grooving right from the start. It is stacked with immersive bass lines and superbly designed tech house beats. The provocative buildup before each drop leaves us craving more, and once the drop hits, the listener cannot fight the urge to literally dance their pants off. The track also symbolizes the duo’s flourishing relationship with UK house music guru, Vanilla Ace, who has been a mentor for their music career. They even collaborated on a b2b mix for Toolroom Radio a few days back.

No Pants Party has a lot more in store for us in the months to come. Between a few more fresh releases and new episodes of their Hangover Club Radio mixes, start preparing for house music madness. The talented pair was able to share more insight on “Never Knew” and more in our exclusive Nocturnal Times interview.

Read our full Q&A with No Pants Party below:

Nocturnal Times: Thanks for chatting with us! Tell us more about your background story as a duo. How did you both meet and what led you to pursue a career in electronic music together?

No Pants Party: Our friendship started over ten years ago, back when we lived in Seattle. We used to work in retail together and instantly bonded over our impressive clothes-folding and beer-drinking abilities. We were also both starting to get into electronic music at that time and started going to shows regularly. At some point, we started noticing that we rarely saw female DJs and started thinking “Hey, maybe we could be up on that stage too!” Our obsession with the music grew and grew, and we eventually decided to just go for it! 

Nocturnal Times: How did you come up with your DJ name?

No Pants Party: We were on our way to EDC Las Vegas in 2012 and were all dressed up in our rave outfits when a hotel security guard yelled at us for not wearing pants in the casino. After that, as a joke, we started an Instagram account called @wedontwearpants where we posted pictures of us doing random things in our underwear, like riding the subway or cooking dinner. When we started to DJ, we decided we needed a name that was a little shorter and decided to add ‘party’ (because why not?) and the rest is history!

Nocturnal Times: As a flourishing DJ duo, have you experienced any challenges or downfalls in this male-dominated industry throughout your career so far?

No Pants Party: For sure. It can sometimes feel like we aren’t treated equally to our male counterparts. For example, there is often a tendency to market an artist as a “female DJ” rather than just a DJ. Or event organizers will promote an all-female lineup, which seems like it’s sending a message that we can’t play with the boys for whatever reason. However, it does seem like attitudes in general are shifting within dance music, and we are all for it!

Nocturnal Times: Tell us more about your adventures in LA since your big move from Seattle. What have been your favorite events and clubs to perform at so far?

No Pants Party: Playing at Sound for Space Yacht is an absolute blast! That crowd GOES HARD. We also had an amazing time on Groove Cruise and would love to do it again. Also, Avalon Hollywood will always be a favorite since that’s the first club we ever played here!

Nocturnal Times: How would you describe your signature sound? Were there any artists that inspired this particular house-heavy sound?

No Pants Party: Unpretentious party-ready tech house is what we like to call it! We stick to driving bass lines, playful vocal samples, and lots of hats. We don’t like to take music too seriously–we really just want to throw a party, so everyone can forget their troubles and have fun! Some of our biggest influences have been Green Velvet, Gene Farris, and Eli Brown. Green Velvet has always nailed the perfect bass sounds, plus all of his vocals are so entertaining. When we first started producing, we’d go back and forth with Eli Brown tracks trying to get our hats to sound like his. “MORE HATS!” is a pretty common saying in the studio here.

Nocturnal Times: Your Hangover Club Radio mixes have been a huge hit lately! What was your intention for these hour-long mixes?

No Pants Party: We love digging for music and wanted a way to share all the new stuff that’s getting us excited every month! And we know our fan base likes to party, so the ‘Hangover Club’ theme felt like something everyone could identify with. Our lifestyle tends to involve a lot of late nights, so we’ve had our share of rough mornings and we know they have too. We release the mixes on Sunday mornings as our way of saying, “We feel you, but you can do it! Let’s keep it going!” Grab a mimosa and join the Hangover Club! 

Nocturnal Times: We are just as excited for your collaboration with Vanilla Ace on “Never Knew” as you are. Can you share more insight on how the collaboration came about in the first place?

No Pants Party: Vanilla Ace has been a favorite of ours for years and we play his music all the time. We were so excited to have the opportunity to open for him here in LA and had a chance to chat at the show. He was really nice, so we stayed in touch. When we finished “Concentration” and “Out of Control” we thought they would be a great fit for his label, WyldCard Records, and luckily he thought so too! We also had some tracks started at the time that seemed like they could use his magic touch. Out of the bunch, he really liked “Never Knew” and the collab was born.

Nocturnal Times: How does it feel to have this track released on Toolroom Records, one of house music’s most prestigious imprints?

No Pants Party: It’s unreal! We’ve been following Mark Knight and Toolroom forever, so we feel like we accomplished a major goal with this release. 

Nocturnal Times: Are there other upcoming projects or releases we should be keeping an eye out for? Or any special surprises you would like to share with us?

No Pants Party: The positive side of quarantine is that we’ve had more time to work on music, so we’ve wrapped up a few new tracks. For one of them, we decided to try writing our own lyrics rather than using whatever fun vocal samples we find–which is what we’ve usually done in the past. We had a friend record them and we think we definitely accomplished our goal of coming up with something “kind of dumb, but really catchy” haha. Also, we’re working with Vanilla Ace again on a remix that’s coming out on WyldCard in October, and it’s sounding like it’s going to be a heater!