One month and a million views after the release of Olivia O’Brien’s music video for “NOW,” the east coast’s princes of remixes PINEO & LOEB have taken a melodic stab at the track, signing a deal with Island Records in the process.
The release of PINEO & LOEB’s 2019 album — the magnificent ELEVATION, absolutely resplendent in remixes — and their more recent release of “This Is Your Life,” remixing the new Glass Tiger track and featuring veteran east coast rocker Matt Mays performing backing vocals, was enough to catch the ears of the major label.
The jump from Glass Tiger to Olivia O’Brien may seem like a big one, but considering the creative backflips PINEO & LOEB have nimbly performed, taking us from Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” to Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” to The Verve’s “Lucky Man” within a few quick bounds on the latest album, they’ve regularly proven that they can make a track their own while making use of an opportunity to bring entirely different audiences together.
“There’s a discernible thread between the two tracks,” says Mitchell Pineo. “Glass Tiger’s fanbase and Olivia O’Brien’s fanbase are generally 40 years apart, so working to create music that could connect people of all ages is really exciting for us.”
PINEO & LOEB’s is the first official remix of Olivia O’Brien’s new single. O’Brien previously topped the charts in 2016 with “I Hate U, I Love U,” written with Gnash and is now signed to Island Records herself.
“She recently collaborated with 24kGolden, Tinashe, Black Bear, G-Easy. Her big breakout hit she wrote almost had a billion plays on Spotify and half a billion on YouTube,” says Pineo. “I love it. The video is really amazing.”
“The track interpolates the hook from Akon’s big hit, ‘Right Now,’ which was approved with his blessings. A few people commented on the preview and asked if that was intentional.”
In creating their remix of “NOW,” the duo listened to only about 5 seconds of original instrumentals, to get a feel for it, before diving in and making it their own. The duo say they worked on it for a full eight straight days recording various arrangements. It wasn’t until they had finished creating their track that they finally listened to Olivia O’Brien’s full song.
“We started with piano chords and drums and really tried to get the emotion down. We warped the overall vocal to go *along with a 4/4 house beat rather than the trap rhythm of the original. We made the actual chorus fairly stripped down so it’s more of a sing and clap along part that sets up the high energy of the instrumental drop section. We only listened to the full original after we had basically finished our version and we were surprised how different it was!
“We approach it as if it’s our original song with Olivia O’Brien, the new PINEO & LOEB single. That makes it fun and exciting for us rather than doing something derivative. It’s quite nerve-wracking to put ourselves out there like that we’re so thrilled her and her team loved it too.”
As for PINEO & LOEB’s newfound relationship with Island Records, it’s just the first foray into a new adventure.
“Island is a really amazing label with a great history: Bon Jovi, Elton John, Bob Marley, The Killers Fall Out Boy Jessie Reyez, Avicii, Drake, U2…,” notes Pineo. “So we only signed the one track with them. We’re not exclusive but we’re excited to do more with them and see if we can sign more tracks.”