Tripolism Talks The Shapeshifters Drama, Coachella Debut

Tripolism dishes out the inside scoop on Coachella set prep, improvisation behind the decks, and why they’re not friends with The Shapeshifters… yet.

Less than two years ago, Bryn, Ras, and Fred, the producers behind Tripolism, were working day jobs, gigging and producing on nights and weekends. This month, they made their U.S. debut at Coachella, becoming one of the first Danish electronic acts to perform at the iconic Southern California festival.

The Copenhagen-based group has quickly garnered international attention for their authentic, free-form sets that merge pensive, euphoric atmospheres with irresistible dance floor heaters. Their debut single, “Dope Dance,” was named an “Essential New Tune” in 2023 by Pete Tong on BBC Radio 1. Then, in February, the trio followed up by releasing an unofficial-turned-official remix of “Lola’s Theme” by The Shapeshifters via Defected Records’ Glitterbox imprint. The remix shot to Beatport’s #1 slot soon after.

EDM Identity caught up with Tripolism at the Yuma tent just hours before they took the stage for their Coachella set during weekend two. Mirroring their palpable, good-natured chemistry on stage, Bryn, Ras, and Fred sat down for the interview and immediately began bouncing off one another’s vibes. They finished each other’s sentences, shared some cheeky details about why they’re not yet friends with The Shapeshifters, and even belted out a few impromptu lyrics. Read on for the whole conversation.

Stream The Shapeshifters – “Lola’s Theme” (Tripolism Remix) on SoundCloud:

So you’ve had a wild touring year, and it’s only April. From Tulum, Paris, London, Ibiza — what a whirlwind. It’s your Coachella debut and your US debut as well. How are you feeling?

Bryn: Good. A little tired, but good.

Fred: Yeah, we had just had weekend two of Coachella, and we went to Boston and then Montreal and then back to play yesterday, and we’re playing again today, so we’re starting to feel a little bit exhausted. But I mean, the sun is out.

Ras: I think when you watch the TV, and you hear the tennis players, they say, “Take one game at a time.” I never really understood it until now. Like, okay, take one gig at a time in your head. Because if you look at all that happened and what will happen, you just get almost a bit confused, and it’s too much to take in.

Bryn: All of us basically only slept two hours and came directly here yesterday. But as soon as you push play and you’re in the vibe, you’re just moving.

Photo Courtesy of Coachella

When did you find out you were playing Coachella? Were you together? Describe the experience of finding out.

Bryn: We were actually not all of us together. Ras had something in Denmark, so he couldn’t join me and Fred to play in Istanbul. So actually Fred knocked on my door in my hotel —

Fred: I saw an email with something in Coachella in the subject line, and I was like, ah, maybe the Coachella line up is out or something. And then I looked in the email and I saw that there was an actual offer, and I just fucking yelled. I yelled as loud I could, and then I ran to Bryn’s room and I was like, “Can you check the email, man?” I was like, “What?!”

Ras: It was very emotional. Almost cried.

Fred: We called Ras immediately. We were FaceTiming, and I think they also gave us a ten-minute warning that something was happening soon. “Check your inbox.” I think that a booker said that.

Ras: It’s also because, at least for me, I remember watching Daft Punk at Coachella 2006. It was one of the reasons I started listening to this music. I already did, but it made it explode. And so Coachella has just been this big, big, big, big, big thing all of our lives.

Photo Courtesy of Coachella

Coachella makes it a point to book artists who are moving and going somewhere, which you obviously are.

Ras: Yeah, you can look at it that way. But you can also say that if Coachella books you, then things will move.

Ras: Yeah, totally. We’ve been building up to this a whole year. Everything we do, it has been about Coachella. We made the documentary series.

Fred: Been on the horizon all the time, like, “It’s getting bigger and bigger.” So it’s a completely different life after Coachella.

C: How was the process of preparing for your Coachella sets?

Bryn: Actually, I think it wasn’t more than two weeks ago that we kind of finalized the set. I think the biggest consideration for us was, “Should we just play Tripolism music, or should we make a DJ set with some of our greatest tracks?” But all of a sudden, we were moved from 60 minutes to 90 minutes. So we had more time. Then we were like, “Okay, we actually have a really good 90-minute set with our own tracks.”

Ras: Yeah, it’s all Tripolism. I mean, there will be edits and remixes —

Fred: But we produced everything. Usually, we never prepare when we go and play DJ sets. We might know the first two or three tracks that we want to play, but then we improvise from there. We don’t even make a playlist — we just have this big playlist.

We wanted to make sure that we did something that was actually doable. And we were like, “Yeah, it’s a festival. People will probably want to listen to Tripolism and not just listen to a DJ set.” There’s so much cool music, but it just felt right to do all Tripolism.

Do you want to talk about the magic moments of realizing it was your destiny to form Tripolism?

Bryn: Yeah, I think there’ve been a lot of moments, but I think the one I remember the most was at my old job at a real estate agency. Fred called me from his job, the brewery where he was the marketing manager. I was like, “Dude, a festival called reworks in Greece wants to book us!”

Bryn: We were in the studio for three years at that time, it was just like a little hobby, you see. And it just made no sense that someone wanted to fly us in and give us money to play in Greece. This was only a year and a half ago.

If our music can bring a little bit of joy somewhere, then yeah, that’s helpful.

Fred, Tripolism

Fred: It was in January that we all went full time on the project. I already had the previous September. Before that, we still just had regular jobs and were grinding all week and then going to clubs on the weekend. So now —

Now you’re rock stars.

Fred: Oh no, I don’t know about that. But we get to chill a little bit more on the weekdays. So that’s good.

I watched a little bit of your “Copenhagen to Coachella” videos. I wanted to ask about you singing on the tracks “Lola’s Theme” and “Sunrise.” Can we expect more vocals in the future?

Ras: Yeah, for sure. It’s been like a trademark for us, and it came out of nothing. I remember at the beginning when we started making music, we talked about how we’re not supposed to sing on tracks. We didn’t think it was cool, actually. And then by mistake almost, we tried to sing together.

Fred: We were in the studio with a really good friend Nandu and another good friend Radeckt, and we were just drinking beers in the studio, having a good time. Nandu had this idea for some vocals and then —

Bryn: And then I just started singing falsetto.

Fred: We were like, “Yeah, let’s just give it a go and try and see.” And then it actually worked out pretty well. We just continued to do it even after the “Dope Dance” track. Working on tracks is also a bit easier for us if we just sing it than reach out to a lot of vocalists. It becomes a very long process when we could just take the mic and sing.

Bryn: Now, I think we’ve gotten to the point that when we sing on something, it actually takes the track in a completely different direction. I think our voices together make it sound so innocent, hopeful, happy, and careless. I love the vibe that it brings to a track.

Congrats on releasing the “Lola’s Theme” remix on Glitterbox in February. How did that specifically come about, and why “Lola’s Theme”?

Fred: Completely random. This is a good story.

Ras: I remember cleaning in my home. I found this Pete Tong list of Ibiza bangers, and I remember just shuffling it where I was vacuum cleaning, and then ‘Lola’s Theme’ came. I was just like, “Fuck, this is so cool.” Of course, I knew the track, but I had forgotten about it. Bryn and I were going to the studio that day, and he came to pick me up. In his car, “Lola’s Theme” was playing. He had it playing on the National Daily Radio.

Bryn: He was like, “Why are you listening to this?” I was like, “Dude, this is the first time I’ve heard the club edit. We should make an edit.” And he was like, “Yeah, for sure.”

Fred: And then Bryn and I went to the studio to make a quick edit, and then we were like —

Bryn: It was 2am, we had to leave. Do you remember that? And we were like, “We should sing on it.” And we were so tired. We were like, “I’m a different person” [singing, laughs].

Fred: So we started singing on it and then we were like, “Okay, let’s just send this out to a bunch of DJs.” We tried to make it an official remix, but we didn’t really get approval. We sort of just put it up on SoundCloud, and then all fucking hell broke loose. The Shapeshifters got really, really mad and tweeted about it.

Ras: He had his Shapeshifter army commenting, “This is the worst thing ever, I hate it.”

Fred: Defected Records wrote to us, “We’re going to shut down all of your accounts if you don’t take it down.”

Fred: It was a big, big, big mess. This just happened during an afternoon.

Bryn: But we were also a bit cocky, right? Because when we put it online, we were like, “Tripolism Unofficial Remix.” And then The Shapeshifters was like, “Guys, take it down.” And we changed the name to “Tripolism’s Definitely Unofficial Remix.”

Fred: And then in those couple of hours where it was live, it was just kind of spreading. And then some of the really big DJs started playing it.

Fred: Then, not even a year in —

Bryn: Half a year.

Fred: Yeah. We had a management team who kind of knew The Shapeshifters a little bit and knew the management from Defected Records. They could see that it was kind of everywhere at that moment, so maybe they should just release it.

Ras: In the end, it turned out to be really nice. But if you look at what we did, it wasn’t okay just to upload it without permission. But if we hadn’t done it that way, I don’t think it would’ve been out now, because it made so much pressure. That’s what happened when Keinemusik played it. Then a lot of other DJs wanted to have it, and the hype started.

We’re just three guys with a USB stick.
Bryn, Tripolism

Sometimes, it’s better to ask forgiveness instead of permission.

Fred: But this was a long forgiveness. Six months. Lesson learned. We’re probably not going to do it that way again.

Ras: It’s difficult to strike a good deal when you don’t have any cards to play. But yeah, we are happy that he said yes. But it’s not like we are good friends.

Bryn: We haven’t met him since.

How do you see Tripolism contributing to the tradition and future of house music?

Bryn: A lot of the time, DJs look so cool when they’re playing, not moving a lot, just chilling. And I was like that before, but when the three of us are together, we’re just dancing, vibing, interacting with the people behind us. I can really feel that we share a vibe with the people.

Fred: Also, it’s a bit cheesy to say, but I also think we just make music because we think it’s a lot of fun. And I don’t think we care too much about what direction the music really goes. If there’s a vibe, we just go with it. If it’s 2-step, or if it’s house music, or if it’s tech house or whatever, then we just go with the flow. We just make the music that we really enjoy.

Ras: We don’t even know what kind of genre we do. Happy house, dance house, feel-good house? We don’t know. So we don’t see ourselves as a house act specifically when it comes to the roots. We just mix.

Fred: We want to contribute good vibes and positivity in a world that sometimes looks as if it’s going in another direction. If our music can bring a little bit of joy somewhere, then yeah, that’s helpful.

Photo Courtesy of Coachella

Top Coachella sets or moments?

Ras: The first weekend, we were on stage playing the last track, and we hugged each other for quite a long time. And then I started crying on stage. That was very emotional also because we had our friends and family behind us and —

Fred: I had my kid and also all our friends there. It was very emotional being on stage and hearing our music being played, and people looked as if they were having a really good time.

Bryn: I would say my favorite moment, especially when the drop came in “Lola’s Theme,” was to see a full Yuma tent with hands in the air from front to back and people shouting. I never felt that kind of energy towards me. I was like, “Whoa.” I actually had to take a couple of steps back and take it in because it was really intense in a cool way.

Fred: But it was amazing. But I mean, going around here, looking at some of the other artists, there’s a lot of talent here. It’s very inspiring to look at and ask ourselves, “What can we do differently?” There are so many levels.

Bryn: We’re just three guys with a USB stick.

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