Michael & Demitri Lerios - Fox Wilde Interview
Doug Burke:
Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host Doug Burke. Today we're here with the brothers Michael and Demitri Lerios, of the band Fox Wilde.
The brothers Michael and Demitri Lerios of Fox Wilde, began playing together when they were children. The sons of 90s yacht rock Pablo Cruise founder, Cory Lerios, they formed the band Fox Wilde after writing music for pop stars like Demi Lovato and James Maslow. They're both multi-instrumentalists, and they write songs with a strong pop sensibility. So much so that their songs have garnered over 1,000,000 streams on Spotify.
I am here with the band Fox Wilde, which consists of Michael and Demitri Lerios.
Michael Lerios:
Yes, thanks for having us.
Doug Burke:
No, it's great for you guys to be here. Why don't we just do an overview of your band, and who you guys are? Just a quick snapshot, and then we'll dive into one of your songs?
Demitri Lerios:
great.
Michael Lerios:
Let's do it, yeah. I mean, to kick it off, Demitri and I are obviously the same last name, brothers. I'm older, he's my baby brother. Just getting into music, and what got us into music was our father. Our dad is Cory Lerios, who was part of the band Pablo Cruise in the 70s, and 80s. Growing up we were always around music, and playing music, and learning instruments. It was really a passion of ours. Demitri and I came to play together through building a friendship through music. I don't know Demitri if you want to-
Demitri Lerios:
That's right. Due to the age gap, I always wanted to hang out with Michael. But the fact that he was the older brother, he didn't want to hang out with his younger brother. I saw he was picking up guitars. My ideal was, what does a guitar player need? They need a drummer. I started playing drums. I picked it up, and that was really the first incarnation of our musical experience together. We would just jam for hours. It was probably not very good. Actually, I can probably say it wasn't good. I think from being in that experience together, playing together, we got this second hand, looking at each other, we knew where we were going when we were playing. That led into where we are today.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. That was the beginning of us playing together. We had a band before Fox Wilde, and we were signed to Universal. We were under David Foster, and it was very pop act. Demitri was playing drums for that band. He wasn't the front man, he was back there jamming away, banging away. When that band ended that's when we started writing together, writing music, and we wrote one of our first songs three years ago. That was the beginning of Fox Wilde. We realized that the connection we had playing live went further than just a live show. It went into writing the music, and connecting through the melodies, and the lyrics, and sharing this growth in our life, and going through things, and being brothers. It was very easy for us to connect and open up to each other when we were writing these songs. I think three years ago was really when we hit that stride, that Fox Wilde was born.
Doug Burke:
So, you guys sent me four songs you want to talk about, Soap, Strangers On the Run, Angel, and Life.
Michael Lerios:
Yes.
Doug Burke:
Which one do we want to talk about first?
Demitri Lerios:
That's a good question. We can talk about Soap.
Doug Burke:
Soap.
Demitri Lerios:
I think Soap is a nice place to start.
Doug Burke:
A pretty risque song.
Michael Lerios:
Yes.
Doug Burke:
Some hints of its brusqueness.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. I think Soap wasn't the first song we wrote together, but it was definitely that first song of Fox Wilde. And we were coming out of this very pop driven band. In our last band we were able to write with a lot of great writers and producers in the pop world. During that time we soaked up a lot of that knowledge of how to write those songs, and what pop writing meant. I think Soap was that old to those songwriters, and producers we worked with, and kind of what we learned in a nutshell. We were bridging the gap with our own style, but also keeping it very pop with the choruses, and the hooks, and things like that.
Demitri Lerios:
I think to add to that, the reason Soap is special, I think, even though it wasn't the first song we had written together, it was, as Michael said, it was the first real song that felt like Fox Wilde, or at least the beginning of Fox Wilde. We were coming off of a dry spell of writing actually. We weren't really writing a lot at that time. Soap happened, when we went in, I had the riff for Soap, and it was kind of that - I showed Michael and he goes, "Do you have a title?" We usually like to write from a title. And I go, "No, I don't. I mean, this thing is called Soap." I usually name my projects just random things. I'll see something, and I'll go, "Okay, let's name it." Sometimes it'll be just so random, and it was Soap. He kind of goes, "I kind of like Soap." I was like, "Really?" He goes, "Yes. Soap." We started jumping back and forth, and we were going, "Yeah, there could be something to it." I think that was one of the fun parts about writing the song, because it was ... We had given it that title, and we were like, "How do we make this interesting?" And kind of did turn into a risque kind of concept.
Michael Lerios:
We tried to keep the edge.
Demitri Lerios:
That was a special moment for us. And I think also what made it special is it was the first song we released. We were so lucky to have the response we did have. We didn't expect to have that response to the song, and people genuinely seemed to like it. That was a nice thing for us, just because I think we were coming off that dry spell of writing, and we were like, "What are we going to write?" After Soap, the next songs led from that-
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, from that one song.
Demitri Lerios:
One song.
Michael Lerios:
It was kind of a trilogy of that, of songs that we wrote.
Doug Burke:
So, Soap is about taking a bath?
Michael Lerios:
It is, you got it. It's about being clean, it's hygiene, it's important.
Doug Burke:
What is Soap about for you guys?
Michael Lerios:
Well, I think writing the lyrics. I think when we were writing those lyrics, it was very much like Demitri said, we had this title, and it was like, that's a cool title that's off the wall. It's like, how do we make this work, and make it cool?
Demitri Lerios:
In all honesty it was kind of an exercise, because we were coming off that dry spell. I don't think it was anything very personal. However, there are times where you're like, the lyrics do-
Michael Lerios:
The double entendre is a very fun way to write music. It was very much something we learned from writing with past writers. We were in the room with guys like Andreas Carlsson, and people who wrote very well crafted pop music, that sometimes had these double entendres that it'd be like, you dig into the lyrics, and you're like, "Oh."
Demitri Lerios:
To piggyback off that, Andreas, a little backstory of who he is. He is one of our mentors. And for really a better part of those years of being signed, he took us under his wing, and taught us the trades of writing pop songs. Andreas has written Bye Bye Bye, I Wanted That Way. He really knows the pop realm, and it was really an incredible experience to soak up all that knowledge.
Demitri Lerios:
I think we were all soaking up all that knowledge. We were coming into Fox Wilde going, "How do we do that? How do we do what he's doing?"
Michael Lerios:
Yeah.
Demitri Lerios:
That's the story of Soap, I think. It was also a relationship song.
Michael Lerios:
That's right.
Demitri Lerios:
It is. At the core of it is the idea of I know that this is love. What is it?
Michael Lerios:
I just want you close.
Demitri Lerios:
That I just want you close. It is a relationship song. In a different way of a normal relationship song.
Michael Lerios:
I mean, it's definitely being very straightforward to your significant other or somebody that you want to be intimate with. I mean, one of my good friends, he's like, "Whenever I want to seal the deal with the girl driving in a car, I always put on Soap."
Doug Burke:
That's a good endorsement.
Michael Lerios:
He's like, "That's my subtle way of.
Doug Burke:
Subliminal messaging-
Michael Lerios:
Right. When we wrote it, it was three years ago. Demitri wasn't in a relationship with anybody. I was just getting into a relationship with my girlfriend, but it was very much like, when you want somebody, you're on a date with somebody, and there are sparks flying. That's kind of what you're feeling. It's being forward, but it's not being too forward. It's like it's a pop song. It's like, what's wrong with that? Soap.
Doug Burke:
Talk to me about the video?
Michael Lerios:
The video was actually a really cool situation, because we weren't playing live shows at the time. We were studio guys. We are also composers. So, we're always in studio writing music. We were like, "You know what? What would be really cool would be to create this live aspect." That people don't really see, because we weren't playing live music yet. We got a bunch of girls, great female players. They were all real good players. It wasn't like we just hired some girls to get up there and pretend like they're playing. We set up this situation where it was like a live deal. We didn't play any live shows. When he got up, it was like, even for me, I hadn't seen him behind from outside of the drums. He was always in the back banging away. It shed a light on, I think where Fox Wilde is even today with our live show. It's like, that's really what we wanted to capture was this energy, and this boldness of being up there and having a front man who is being a front man, and a showman. That was like a door opening for us, and we did actually two other things of ours, same kind of videos, like a performance video. We really wanted people to interact with that live aspect.
Demitri Lerios:
That's a good point. I think that video actually - I didn't know what it was going to be.
Michael Lerios:
It was like foreshadowing it.
Demitri Lerios:
In a way. And the fact that we have two female players in our band, for us it's bringing a light to female players, because there is a lot of them out there, but not a lot of people know about female players being really as great as they are. We're happy that they're a part of this band. And it really brings in the whole live aspect. It brings the whole level.
Doug Burke:
Tell me the names of your bass player and your drummer.
Demitri Lerios:
We have Caroline Cirone, and we have-
Michael Lerios:
Fer Fuentes, who plays with us a lot. Then Christine Prada?
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah.
Michael Lerios:
She actually just played with us for Sundance. This was our first shows with her. She's an amazing drummer.
Doug Burke:
One of the interesting things, I never see a person, like your brother jump in and play the drums on another person's drum set like you do. Two people playing a single drum set at the same time. I've seen two people playing two drum sets. That was unique. It was kind of like this, "Well, thank you."
Michael Lerios:
That's right. We like to show that, we like to make things different, and bring in a new dynamic to our show, and create things. I mean, the fact that he was a drummer, because in that set, when we do that part, it's a jam. They call it a jam. It's taking people back to what we used to do, me and him. We literally used to sit in a room and just jam like that for hours. Some shows we will go on for hours in that jam set. I mean, it really is bringing people into us being brothers, and what we used to do, he used to be on the drums, I used to be playing guitar, and we'd come up with the riffs.
Demitri Lerios:
It's creating a dynamic within our show that's putting a show on. Giving elements that instead of just playing song to song, it gives it a bit more of this showmanship, I guess.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. It's very unique and very cool.
Demitri Lerios:
Christine is an incredible drummer.
Michael Lerios:
Thank you.
Demitri Lerios:
Who doesn't love a good drum soul? It's always fun.
Doug Burke:
This is the first Fox Wilde song that's released?
Michael Lerios:
That was released, yes.
Doug Burke:
Do you remember where you were when you heard it on the radio the first time?
Michael Lerios:
I don't know.
Demitri Lerios:
Can we hear it?
Michael Lerios:
That one, I don't know if we got radio playing that one.
Demitri Lerios:
I would say with that one, new radio is on a playlist. We got on a pretty big playlist. I do remember seeing that playlist and we were like, "Wow, we're with these big names." It was a pop rising. I mean, they had 750,000 followers or something. For us, we were like, "What?"
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, it was a Spotify playlist. That was one of their recommendation engine playlist.
Demitri Lerios:
Exactly, and Soap was on that, and we were very fortunate to have that. Because in this environment, radio is great, but Spotify, when you get on those playlists ... This is two years ago. Now, the playlisting game is a whole another animal.
Michael Lerios:
A whole different animal, yeah.
Demitri Lerios:
I do remember seeing that.
Michael Lerios:
But it's kind of sad though.
Demitri Lerios:
You could see the ticks of the plays going up day by day. That's an exciting feeling, where your work is liked. At least you hope.
Doug Burke:
Anything else on Soap? The lyrics, very risque. We can talk about some of them. Let me slide my fingers down your spine. I just want you satisfied. Oh let me drip down slipping on your skin. The steam keeps rising. That's the break?
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, that's our break.
Demitri Lerios:
That's the break.
Doug Burke:
The bridge.
Michael Lerios:
Hearing it as poetry is, I get it. It is very risque. Well, should we talk about it? I mean, let's see. When it was written, I was 18? Right?
Doug Burke:
Yeah, you were of age, it's cool.
Michael Lerios:
I didn't mean it like that. I was just saying, I think at 18, you're just-
Doug Burke:
Yeah man, your hormones are -
Michael Lerios:
I don't know.
Doug Burke:
I think it sounds better when you sing it than when I read it.
Demitri Lerios:
Totally. Even I am like, huh.
Michael Lerios:
I will say that song was heavily inspired by Prince with the fall cedos in the song, and the riff.
Demitri Lerios:
Definitely, that's true.
Michael Lerios:
I think we were trying to cop that vibe of, what would Prince write? What would Prince say? It's the things that you want to say to somebody but it's exactly that. If you were to say that to a girl, they would be like, "You're out of your mind."
Doug Burke:
Slap in the face.
Demitri Lerios:
Slap you.
Michael Lerios:
Slap you in the face. So, you put it in a song. You write the lyrics down, you sing it. It sounds way better. The girl will accept it. That's also, that comes into songwriting. It's like sometimes you do put these lyrics in, and you write about things that you never would normally say. I think that also just goes to the escapism of writing music, and why we write music. It's saying those things that sometimes are in your head that you don't want to voice, and just a poetic voice.
Demitri Lerios:
Well, actually, to add to that, that is where the character of Fox Wilde came from. To give you a backstory of what Fox Wilde, what it is, is it's an alter-ego that lives inside each and every one of us. It's kind of the ultra confident person that lives inside you, that you don't really think you have, but if you tap into it, if you tap into Fox Wilde, you have it. It's kind of like a Mr. Miyagi thing, or something. To the point of the lyrics of Soap, it is this, "Well, in real life, I don't think I would ever say that. Right?" But with Fox Wilde, it becomes a whole new world of confidence, and it's this ... And it's for anybody. It could be for whatever Fox Wilde means to you as your alter-ego. I think that's where it's looking back in high school, I never danced, I never sung. I never liked it.
Doug Burke:
You do now.
Demitri Lerios:
I do now. But I never liked it. I was actually very embarrassed. I was really embarrassed to do those things. Then suddenly Fox Wilde gave this confidence, this character, and when I tapped into it, it was like, "Maybe this character does dance. Maybe he does sing." That's what it is. It's doing things that you won't normally think you could do, but achieving it in the sense that you can strive to do those things.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, like we can do the dirty laundry on the floor.
Michael Lerios:
That's just because our mom would always yell at us about our laundry. You got to do it at some point.
Doug Burke:
I like that double entendre, I think that's a really good one.
Michael Lerios:
Thank you.
Doug Burke:
I think I'm going to use it on my wife. Be like, "Yeah, put it in the drier."
Michael Lerios:
That didn't work out like you thought.
Doug Burke:
Right.
Doug Burke:
You want to talk about Strangers On the Run or Angel?
Michael Lerios:
We could do, maybe Life.
Doug Burke:
You want to do Life first?
Michael Lerios:
Or you wanted to do -
Doug Burke:
Because Life is I think your heaviest song.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And really stylistically different in a unique way.
Demitri Lerios:
Indeed.
Michael Lerios:
Yes.
Doug Burke:
This is about two friends Jeff and Brendan Crockett.
Michael Lerios:
Yes.
Doug Burke:
I noticed it was dedicated to them on your video.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, it was dedicated to them.
Doug Burke:
Tell me who they were.
Michael Lerios:
Jeff and Brendan, Jeff was one of my best friends in high school and middle school. I grew up with him in middle school. Actually, first time I ever met Jeff we got in a fist fight. Middle school, he punched me in the face, we were on the ground rolling around. Principal picks us up, we both get in trouble, but after that it was lik best friends.
Demitri Lerios:
That's how all good friendships start.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Do you remember what the fight was about?
Michael Lerios:
No, I don't. Not at all. It was two kids going at it. I think we were both very set in our ways. We knew the people we were, and we weren't really followers I guess. We butt heads. We grew up together, and four years ago he was in a car accident, and his brother was in the car with him, and they passed away. It was a heavy blow. It was really tough for me, and the friends around me, because we had a good group of friends, and we were all buddies. Came out of high school together, and we always stick around even through college and everything. Even during that time, we lost an aunt, and then we lost our grandfather. It was, all these things, boom, boom, boom. Losing people that are really close to you is just like unexplainable. I mean, it's the worst thing you can go through. Demitri came to me with this song. He came to me with the music.
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah. I had the music, and the demo of just the chorus. What is life? What is life without you by my side? What is life? It's not time to say goodbye. I had that. I actually think you came in with, it's not time to say goodbye. I had the chorus, and the melodies, and the idea. All I had was the verse of woke up this morning, felt so incomplete. That was it. I didn't know where to go with it. I showed it to Michael, and Michael came in and really formed the song into what it is, and the lyrics that they are. That song was definitely a very personal song. I knew Jeff, and I knew his brother, a little bit. Not as-
Michael Lerios:
Jeff was always, he'd always stay at the house, sleepovers.
Demitri Lerios:
He'd always show me music, and he'd always go, "Hey, listen to this song." He had really good taste in music.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, he did.
Demitri Lerios:
Which is good. That song, writing it, would you say it flowed out of you?
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. I mean, I think that there are some songs that you take days, and weeks to write, and it takes forever. Some songs, you write them, and then you're done with it, and then you forget how you even got there. Like you said, it flows out of you, and the lyrics are just there on the page. I think this song was also, we'd written Soap, we'd written Lonely-Inn, Rosé and Veuve, our other songs that were very pop. This song bridged the gap into things that are very personal, and there is way more depth to those lyrics. I think it was a transitional point, and a turning point for our songwriting, and where the music was for Fox Wilde. Because like you said, it was a departure. It was a departure from what we had before.
Demitri Lerios:
One of the things about that song is we were writing from feeling.
Doug Burke:
Sure. Personal feeling.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah.
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah, strictly from feeling. I think what was interesting was, when he came with the lyrics that it was, that story, the verses, it was interesting. Of course, that's what that is about I think when I was writing, and I think maybe I was a bit more like, my friends were going to college. It was a different experience of growing up and having a different perspective on that lyric of what is life without you by my side? I do think when bringing it to Michael, it became a more solidified idea, in that sense. Yeah, that was-
Doug Burke:
Pretty heavy stuff for young guys to be writing about, and thinking about when most of your other stuff is about chasing girls, or something.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. That's the thing. It was very much this departure for us. It was like biting the bullet of, we'd been in the room writing pop songs ... Sometimes when you're writing those pop songs, you have to dig into your emotions, and things like that, but it's always fun. It's always trying to have that fun energy, and everything. This was like totally opposite. It's like digging into those feelings that you don't want to think about, that you don't want to revisit. That is what songwriting is too. It dives into that realm of saying the things you don't want to say or thinking about the things you don't want to think.
Demitri Lerios:
Yesterday actually somebody Instagrammed us about that song. They tagged us and they said listening to the song. We said, "Thank you." They said, "I just lost my grandmother and the song is super meaningful." To add to that, the fact that it helps other people, or other people are listening to it. It just happened yesterday.
Michael Lerios:
I saw that.
Demitri Lerios:
That is meaningful to us. Because again it's a strange thing, you're in there, writing it for yourself, and then you put it out, and it affects other people, either the same way or differently. Even though that's what music is, music affects everybody differently, but you don't really realize that when you're writing something like that. You don't realize it, and hearing those messages, and hearing people say that is so meaningful.
Doug Burke:
Have you played it for Jeff and Brendan's parents?
Michael Lerios:
They have heard it. I don't know if they've heard it in a live setting, but their sisters have. I still keep in touch with the older sister, and see her every once in a while.
Doug Burke:
That's got to be emotional.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, it is very emotional, definitely playing that song. We play it in certain sets, but that's a heavy one too.
Doug Burke:
When do you play it in a set?
Michael Lerios:
The last time we actually played that song was another heavy situation for us in our community was in Thousand Oaks, was it two years ago now?
Demitri Lerios:
It was last year.
Michael Lerios:
It was last year. Last year there was a-
Demitri Lerios:
The shooting at-
Michael Lerios:
Shooting at a club in our community called Borderline.
Demitri Lerios:
Borderline.
Michael Lerios:
We did a benefit for Borderline, for all the victims' families, and everything, and we played that song. That was one of the last times we played it, and it was-
Demitri Lerios:
That was a heavy moment.
Michael Lerios:
It was in commemoration for ... Because we knew people who were in the shooting, and affected by it. It was a huge blow to our community, because we come from a very quiet place, right?
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah.
Michael Lerios:
It's very quiet. Nobody knows-
Demitri Lerios:
It was just a really hard time for the community, and for those people. And immediately after, 24 hours later we were hit with one of the biggest fires, the Woolsey fires.
Doug Burke:
Back to back.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. It was the next day.
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah, within a 24 hour span. We had 300,000 people displaced. We were honored to be asked to play that song in that setting. I think we played that about a month later, to honor everybody. That was the last time we played the tune. The tune is a, it's an interesting tune, because we do, we like playing it, we do like sharing that message. However, sometimes in clubs in L.A it's a harder song to come across, because our set is very live. It's very energy filled. I think it does take people, they're like, "You're playing a slow song." We used to do it in some clubs. People would come up and go, "That's a beautiful song. Thank you." And all that stuff. But, I don't think it was giving it the attention it deserved.
Doug Burke:
It's when everybody is sweating and needs a break, and you want to calm the crowd down.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, calm the crowd down.
Demitri Lerios:
Exactly, but I think it didn't serve the song as well as it could when people are at the bar, just really loud and stuff. It's a hard song to-
Michael Lerios:
Communicate.
Demitri Lerios:
Communicate in those settings. We don't play it in those types of settings.
Doug Burke:
Demitri, you played piano on this, and you wrote it on piano?
Demitri Lerios:
I did, yes.
Doug Burke:
What key did you write it in?
Demitri Lerios:
What key?
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Demitri Lerios:
I wrote it in the Key of C, the people's key.
Doug Burke:
The people's key. That's good. Why is it the people's key? I never heard of that.
Demitri Lerios:
You know what? I don't know why either.
Michael Lerios:
Or middle C.
Demitri Lerios:
Middle C, our father always tells us that's the people's key. Middle C, it's like, from there you can get to another key. Yeah, I wrote it at night. I wrote just that piano part. That was a rare moment where I decided to record what I was singing. I don't usually do that. I recorded a voice note, but this was a rare moment where I was like, "All right, I'm going to actually record the piano. I'm going to record the," I mean, really what the song is today is the bones of what was recorded for me from the demo. I mean, I don't think I have the demo with me. But to listen to the demo, it's very similar in that sense. I think Michael came, and he cleaned some lyrics up, and he was like, "How about you fix that?" It turned into what it was.
Doug Burke:
And you took it to the studio and produced it?
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah. From there, we do everything really in our bedrooms. So, it's all there. Right when he heard it-
Doug Burke:
So you're self producing it this way? David Foster is known well-
Demitri Lerios:
No.
Michael Lerios:
No. We're completely independent now.
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah, Soap was produced ... Taking into that process if we can just quickly, I guess it's not really ... I mean, it's us. We're in there, we're producing everything, every song, every composition, every arrangement is us. It all comes from what we're hearing, and feeling.
Demitri Lerios:
That's really what I love to do is the production side of stuff. We come together and really hash things out. So, as of Life, as he heard it, right when Michael gives the go, that's when we start going in there together and really going, "How do we make this bigger, and better?"
Michael Lerios:
Pulling it apart and shaping it. It becomes a process. I mean, that song, I do remember. It was like, because he played it for me, and I was instantly like, "I'm going through this. That's the only thing on my mind." So I'm like, "This feels emotional. This sounds emotional." But there was also this uplifting feeling, which was nice, because I've never really written a song like that, and I'm sure you haven't, but it's like, when you write those kinds of songs, you don't want it to be so down and depressing. We did want to make it-
Demitri Lerios:
It's a form of therapy to boost your morale as you're-
Michael Lerios:
Uplifting, but it was also this thing where we wanted to keep it intimate. That's why it's very heavy piano driven, where most of our songs are guitar. It's like riffs and stuff like that. Something on the piano is really cool.
Michael Lerios:
We had that after the bridge, or even in the bridge. And then the guitar solo, it becomes very uplifting, and powerful. That's what we wanted-
Doug Burke:
So, transformative?
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, we wanted it to communicate into that world.
Doug Burke:
So, this song must make audiences cry from time to time?
Michael Lerios:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
I think that's great songwriting frankly, if you do that.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. Thank you.
Doug Burke:
Have you guys ever cried when you sing this song?
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, I definitely have.
Doug Burke:
You have?
Michael Lerios:
I definitely have.
Doug Burke:
Is that hard when you're up there on stage, when you're crying and playing?
Michael Lerios:
I mean, I don't have to sing all the lyrics. So, I'm kind of-
Doug Burke:
Just playing and crying ... Don't cry into your-
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. It's definitely been like, I'm not going to break down.
Demitri Lerios:
Pull yourself together man.
Michael Lerios:
There is those moments where it's this feeling that's it's almost like a tingling feeling. Then it just wells up, and you got to take a deep breath. Because those lyrics says like, "When we were 17." I remember being 17 with Jeff, and we thought we knew it all, we were just doing whatever we wanted. Nothing was going to get in our way, we weren't going to get in trouble. None of that.
Demitri Lerios:
Hakuna Matata
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, it was very much, we spent a lot of time together, and had great moments. And that's what that song is. When you're thinking of those moments, it hits you sometimes.
Demitri Lerios:
I think for me, the most emotional I've gotten was playing it for the Borderline benefit.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. That was-
Doug Burke:
I can imagine.
Demitri Lerios:
That was just a different deal. A deal you didn't think ... It was just a different thing.
Doug Burke:
You didn't want to be there, but you had to be there.
Demitri Lerios:
We were completely honored and grateful to at least give something back to the community. It's like-
Doug Burke:
What do you do?
Demitri Lerios:
How do you give to families that are ... I mean, it's just such a devastating thing. It was a strange time, because I think everybody ... My friends, it was like this, you hear about it on the news, you hear about shootings, but the fact that it happens in your backyard is a whole another thing. It hits you completely different, because you've driven past the place, you've been to the place. It's like, wow. Being there, playing it for all those people. That was a really, we had a choir.
Michael Lerios:
It was very powerful.
Demitri Lerios:
It was a powerful moment.
Michael Lerios:
It was a very cool, powerful thing.
Demitri Lerios:
I hope we did our part, or tried to.
Doug Burke:
What do you want to talk about next? Strangers On the Run or Angel?
Demitri Lerios:
We can go to Strangers On the Run.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, let's do that.
Demitri Lerios:
Let's do that. Strangers is a fun one. The reason strangers are interested from everything is we had this idea of writing a song from start to finish, completely live basically. On YouTube you can see the process of us sitting in a room going to ... It's cut down. We cut it down, but you can see the whole process of having the idea of finishing it. That was an idea we thought going into, what do we do? We had it planned that we were going to film something. We both came in, Michael came in, and I had the riff, it's all on YouTube. You can watch this unfold, and how it records, and how we sit there, and hashed lyrics back and forth. That was really where this song came from. This song was just an idea of pure creativity. Just straight farm to table approach to showing how ... This was released the same day. It was kind of like we were showing this-
Doug Burke:
You wrote this, and made this, and released it in one day?
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah. We had it set up, so released the next day. Just the way SoundCloud and-
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, the distribution worked. We wrote it in a day, we edited it-
Demitri Lerios:
Edited, it took two days to do it?
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, and then we released it.
Demitri Lerios:
Then we released it. If it started on a Monday when we did it, full thought, and then we had it released on Thursday.
Doug Burke:
What's it about?
Demitri Lerios:
Strangers On the Run. That's a great question. Strangers On the Run, when it was written ... I had the - I had this rough idea of just two people, they don't know each other, they're doing separate things, and we're going to see their lives unfold. That was it. I told Michael that concept, being the genius he is, he came in. It was kind of like ... What was great about Strangers On the Run, the title, it was like, the moment he said it, it was like, of course, that's the title. We've been sitting here for however long. Of course that's the title, which is great. He kind of got the vision right away, and he was like, "Hey, that's two Strangers On the Run, how Strangers On the Run sound." I was like, "That sounds really cool. Seems great." We built it from that, we built the stories of these people who are living kind of just like-
Michael Lerios:
Just kind of like living in L.A, especially. It's like, being the age that we are, going out, having friends that everybody is trying to do something, and get their life to a certain place. Sometimes people feel like they're always doing the wrong thing, or nobody gets what they're doing. If you explain to somebody, "Oh man, my job is just so tough. I need to go do something else." People, they feel like nobody really relates to them. This song is about two people. They don't know each other, but they're essentially living the same life of just trying to make it in the world, and having somebody understand them.
Demitri Lerios:
That's the parallel that we were creating. Two different people, two different experiences. Again, what's crazy is when you really think about it ... When you think about what other people are doing right now when we're talking, we're having this conversation, it's wild. It's crazy. It's like somebody is seeing a movie, whatever. When you really get into deep though of it. It's kind of like, how do you create this story of that experience of two people that don't know each other, but they're living these parallels?
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. I mean, I have friends that are going to business school or they're trying to be lawyers. They're thinking the same thing that I'm thinking about, I'm trying to be a musician, and I'm like, "Man, I should have just gone to college and got my MBA. And gotten into business." But they're thinking the opposite. They're like, "I wish I was an influencer." They're always thinking they're doing the wrong thing. I think it's really a testament to one where we are in the world today of everything just moving so quickly. And people don't feel like they understand each other. Sometimes you don't feel like your neighbor understands you. This is that song of like, listen, we're on the same path. You have your dreams, you have what you want to do. Stick to it. Stick to who you are, and do what you set your goals out to be.
Demitri Lerios:
The passion of that, what you're talking about, I think the best lyric, and I could be wrong, you might think of something else, she knows what it's like to love like a woman. He knows what it's like to fight like a man, they're just searching the world for someone to understand. Two Strangers On the Run. To me that lyric really tied the whole thing together, where I was like, "Wow." There was just this powerful thing of, she knows what it's like to love like a woman. With the music it's kind of like they feel-
Michael Lerios:
If you're a girl you feel like, he doesn't like me, but I can't give so much love. Or you're a guy, and you're like, I'm so capable of something, but people don't think I am. You stick to your path. They're just searching for somebody to understand them, but they also have to understand who they are themselves. I think that's at least for me, and I think you too, it's like growing up in this world of music, and it's like a fight all the time. You're working as hard as you can. It's a passion, but it's also, you got to stick to your guns. You have to keep belling through when people are like, "Oh no, you're going to get turned down." You hear that story all the time. You hear it more than just in music and entertainment, it's everybody who is trying to do something that they believe in, or the passion that they have.
Demitri Lerios:
Two points, the one on that, on the passion is like, we sometimes don't say we're going to play a show, we're going to fight. Because it is like a fight.
Michael Lerios:
It's a brawl.
Demitri Lerios:
Because when we get up there, it's a fight to get people to either sway our way or they're not going to. That's a hard thing as an artist. It's a hard thing to face people that aren't really digging it. And you can see their faces. It's much worse for comedians. If you don't laugh, you didn't do well.
Michael Lerios:
You get it.
Doug Burke:
You've never been heckled, have you?
Demitri Lerios:
I don't think so. I hope not.
Michael Lerios:
I don't think we've been heckled, no.
Doug Burke:
Have you ever had stuff thrown at you? That could happen.
Demitri Lerios:
It could.
Doug Burke:
Well, I guess you're good enough that it doesn't happen.
Demitri Lerios:
Well, knock on wood. I think it is just the thing that being aware that it is that fight, and my second point was, where the bridge comes in. It was this, hey kid, hold your head up high. I'm so bad with lyrics.
Michael Lerios:
The sun don't shine when you don't-
Demitri Lerios:
The sun you don't shine when ... It's great, just saying all this stuff for the past two days. The sun don't shine when you don't shine. Help me out here-
Michael Lerios:
You've come too far to change your mind, why don't you just give yourself a try?
Doug Burke:
Give yourself a try.
Demitri Lerios:
Right. That to me is also another glue to the kind of sentiment of just like keep striving, keep pushing forward. You feel like a stranger. I mean, look, every day I feel like, everybody is always like, "Nobody understands me." You know what I mean? It's a common feeling. This song was for that feeling, kind of like, "Hey, you know what? Keep dancing on your own. Keep doing your thing. Keep moving forward. Keep striving." It all ties back to the principle and the lifestyle of Fox Wilde, it's like, strive for greatness, continue to move forth, and do what you love. And that thing that you're talking about of just like-
Michael Lerios:
Do what you want to do. Be who you want to be and believe in it. You got to take hits along the way.
Demitri Lerios:
We're all Strangers On the Run. That's the thing. There is that saying like, I see it all the time. Nobody knows what they're actually doing, they're just doing it. If you think about it anything, I never knew exactly what I was doing, but you learned to actually do it.
Michael Lerios:
You had the passion to do it and to stick through it.
Demitri Lerios:
I didn't know how to play drums when I first played drums, but I just had that stranger on the run moment where it was like, I'm going to push on through.
Doug Burke:
I just want to bang on the drum all day.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah.
Demitri Lerios:
Exactly.
Doug Burke:
First time I heard the song I thought it's a boy meets girl, and the boy is going to get the girl, and maybe they'll break up, and the boy never gets the girl, and the girl never gets the boy. They just remain strangers.
Michael Lerios:
Exactly. Strangers On the Run, two Strangers On the Run.
Doug Burke:
Interesting.
Demitri Lerios:
I really like that you said that. That's really good.
Michael Lerios:
That's where we were, because we were going back and forth when we were writing it. I remember we were like, "Do they know each other? Do they meet each other? Is it a love story?" We were like, "No, it's not a love story between them. It's a love story between-
Doug Burke:
Between life and them.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, between life and them. And what they're doing. It's like, she's out of luck, and out of time.
Demitri Lerios:
A misfit lover in her mind.
Michael Lerios:
In her mind. She feels like -
Demitri Lerios:
Sorry. I was just trying to-
Michael Lerios:
It's that mentality that everybody has. It's like, I'm not good enough. I'm out of time. I'm out of luck. I'm too far gone to try this. I'm too old to do that. It's just that life that you need to live of keep pushing forward, and following you. It isn't about a love story between this girl and the guy. It's just that they live the same life, and they don't even know it.
Demitri Lerios:
It's story based, but oddly enough it's personal.
Michael Lerios:
It's very personal.
Demitri Lerios:
I guess when you write you think you're writing for somebody else, but really it's the thing you're ... What's the thing when you give advice to somebody, the advice you're giving to somebody is actually the advice you should take.
Doug Burke:
You should be following.
Demitri Lerios:
You should be following.
Doug Burke:
It's easier to tell other people what to do.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, it is.
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah, it is. I think Strangers On the Run is maybe a perfect example of having the about telling people to get moving forward, but we're the ones who should take that advice, because I think in that moment we were feeling down and out.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, definitely.
Demitri Lerios:
Being a musician is feeling down and out a lot of time. You're always, this should be our biography.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, coming in the next show.
Doug Burke:
It doesn't look like that when you guys get on the stage.
Michael Lerios:
Thank you.
Demitri Lerios:
Well, thank you.
Doug Burke:
You have the energy.
Demitri Lerios:
Thank you.
Michael Lerios:
Thank you.
Doug Burke:
It doesn't look like you're down and out. People seem to want you guys to play more.
Michael Lerios:
Thank you.
Demitri Lerios:
That is true.
Doug Burke:
So, that's a good thing.
Demitri Lerios:
Philosophically down and out, and out of time.
Doug Burke:
Good. Strangers On the Run.
Doug Burke:
Should we wrap it up by talking about Angel?
Michael Lerios:
Let's do it.
Demitri Lerios:
Let's do it.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Doug Burke:
Angel.
Demitri Lerios:
Angel.
Doug Burke:
By Fox Wilde.
Demitri Lerios:
Angel is also an interesting one, because this was another moment ... I think this is the ... I would maybe say the third installment of Fox Wilde. If we had Soap as our first installment, and Life as our second bridge.
Michael Lerios:
Transitional-
Demitri Lerios:
A transition. Angel, and Strangers On the Run ties on to Angel, because Angel we wrote as our third installment as Fox Wilde, but it was in the dry spell of writing again. We hadn't written for a good amount of time.
Michael Lerios:
A couple of months.
Demitri Lerios:
A couple of months.
Michael Lerios:
Music for Fox Wilde, songs for Fox Wilde.
Demitri Lerios:
We were always writing, but I think when you try to sit down and write for yourself, it becomes a task. Angel happened. Suddenly, I had gone to see The Def Leppard and Journey. I went with my best buddy. I called him up and I go, "Hey." We met these girls, we were out, and they came up to talk to us, and we were blown away because we had never had that happen. We were like, "What are you talking to us for?" We were stunned. We had a great time with them. They asked us for our numbers.
Doug Burke:
They weren't in Fox Wilde, can I talk to you? They had no idea that you were in Fox Wilde?
Demitri Lerios:
No, not all. They were just really friendly girls. And I was with my buddy this night.
Doug Burke:
And you were friendly guys.
Demitri Lerios:
I guess so. I told my buddy, I said, "Hey Journey and Def Leppard's playing. Let's go to a concert with them. We went, we had a good time. Nothing came of that, but it was a great time we had. I was blown away by the show. I was just like, this music is crazy. Two days later, I picked up the guitar, and I played this riff, and I was trying to hash out the riff for hours, I mean, literally hours. I went in I think at 8:00 in the morning, and I didn't come out until 1:00 with something. Just the riff, just the opening riff. I was really, because I knew there was something, but I'm like, "There has to be this thing there." I had the riff, got it, showed Michael, and that was when we started getting the song going. We figured out the chorus riff together. We did that together. Laid that down. Michael had left, and I just from one thing, I have a voice note of it, of just the whole chorus. Just Angel, I know there is something on your heart tonight. That whole chorus was there, just written. Then the genius came in again, and Michael was like-
Michael Lerios:
What was that?
Demitri Lerios:
That's you. What you do. You come in at the most crucial points, because it's taking it five steps farther than where it can be. This was the start of really where our record is going, where our live show is. Angel started, he came in with ... I had the melodies, and we call them the shotgun verse, but those lyrics, Michael was very specific, and particular about how he was placing the lyrics. I mean, if you want to talk on that front part, just that front lyric-
Michael Lerios:
The verse actually came pretty quickly, because it was this energy, and I could feel it. It was where our live show was going, because just to digress a little bit, the live show is so high energy, and some of the songs we were playing that were earlier on weren't that high energy, and people were always like, "These songs are rock and roll, and they sound so different than the record." It was because, it was like go time, and we would hit the stage, and play these songs. When this song, when Demitri started writing this, I was like, "This is perfect for a live show. This just sounds like a live show." Those lyrics came actually pretty quick in the beginning. It was almost like rapping. In my mind, it was almost like Aerosmith. He's just so quick, and it's always a tongue-twister. We had to duplicate that for the second verse. The second verse actually took longer, because it was like, we need that same energy, and that boldness, and that bombastic-
Demitri Lerios:
I'll admit, I put him through the ringer.
Michael Lerios:
Well, that's also part of our process. I'll be sitting over there writing lyrics, and I'm like, "Okay, should I say this one? Is this one the better?"
Demitri Lerios:
We bounce off together. We usually throw lyrics out, but when he gets quiet, I know he's thinking of things. When he's quiet, he's clearly got some stuff, but he's just like-
Michael Lerios:
Is it good enough? Is it right? We're pretty hard on each other when we're writing, because we want it to be great. We don't hold any punches with each other.
Demitri Lerios:
That's one of the great things about being brothers, being siblings is-
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, I can punch him in the face, and we go get lunch, and we're fine.
Demitri Lerios:
I think it's hard being sometimes when you write with other people you want to save feelings. Sometimes you're not getting to the best thing you can get, because you're trying to be kind-
Michael Lerios:
Holding punches.
Demitri Lerios:
And diplomatic about the situation. I think with us, it's kind of like, "Hey man, that's not going to fly here. What else you got?" I think he wrote five different versions of the second verse.
Demitri Lerios:
With everything we've talked about today, going back to our schooling in pop music, and writing, this is kind of the epitome of everything we've learned in a sense.
Michael Lerios:
Also it comes a lot from our father. I mean, we talk about going back and forth between us two-
Demitri Lerios:
He's the third member of Fox Wilde.
Doug Burke:
Is he really?
Michael Lerios:
Yes. When we write a chorus, when we have some kind of a song, he hears it. We play it for him. And he's always like, "Let me hear what you got. Play me stuff."
Doug Burke:
That's nerve-racking. Playing for your dad from Pablo Cruise.
Michael Lerios:
He's got a pulse on songwriting, and great songwriting, and catchy songwriting. That's where it's hard, because we're so headstrong, and it's like, "Yeah dad, yeah, yeah, yeah." But deep down he'll give his notes.
Demitri Lerios:
He's right.
Michael Lerios:
He'll say, "You should do this, that, and the other." We don't know, it's like, this is what it's supposed to be.
Demitri Lerios:
Then we'll do our thing. Take us 15 hours to do it. Waste the time and then we go, "God, he was right. We should do what he was saying."
Michael Lerios:
Yeah.
Demitri Lerios:
We end up doing the little, whatever it is. Those little-
Michael Lerios:
To what you were saying about our songwriting and everything, and how it was formed. That is very much what we learned. We learned it from our dad. We learned it from Andreas, and being in the room with all these great pop producers, and songwriters. They would take forever on lyrics, just to sound it-
Demitri Lerios:
Except for I Want It That Way. Just let that one slide.
Doug Burke:
That came right out.
Demitri Lerios:
The story in that is, those are dummy lyrics. So, if you listen to it, none of it makes sense. I never want to hear you say I want it that way. It's like, what does that-
Doug Burke:
What does that mean?
Michael Lerios:
The thing we learned with them is, everything needs to sound good. It doesn't sound matter if it makes sense necessarily.
Demitri Lerios:
Correct.
Michael Lerios:
If it sounds good-
Demitri Lerios:
Perfect example is that song.
Michael Lerios:
To just listening it. Because they would go in and they would sing stuff that's just gibberish.
Doug Burke:
I call that invisible language of songwriting. It's a combination of the words and sounds.
Demitri Lerios:
Would you consider that the melody?
Doug Burke:
You have a melody, but there is tone, there is speech, there is different elements of sound, and there is different instruments that you use to make sound. Then there are these words, these lyrics. You combine them, and it's this invisible language.
Michael Lerios:
It's a very interesting thing, because you have what they call the western writers like Bob Dylan and stuff who, he didn't really rhyme all the time. His lyrics were just like, it was poetry. It was very in depth. The things he was saying had meaning and depth. Where, you listen to some pop music, and there is not really too much going on there, but some of the words they're using they're choosing them for a certain reason, because they sound good. They have this, it's like ... It's this sound when you say certain words that just cut through the music.
Demitri Lerios:
It's specific things that lock into our head of sayings that to that point sound good. But you won't normally say it in a normal conversation. I think it's just like, one of the best examples that I can think off the top of my head is Cake By The Ocean. Have you ever heard this song?
Doug Burke:
No.
Demitri Lerios:
It's a song by a band called DNCE, but it was written by some Swedish writers called Mattman & Robin. They're amazing producers and writers, and Justin Trenter as well. They were in a session, they were asking, "What's that drink cake by the ocean?" They were thinking sex on the beach. That's one of those things where-
Michael Lerios:
That's like a great title.
Demitri Lerios:
It's a great title. I think people sometimes talk down on-
Doug Burke:
I was just MacArthur Park. Someone left the cake out in the rain. That line never made sense to me. I don't think I can take it, they left the cake out in the rain. It took so long to bake it.
Demitri Lerios:
That's one of the brilliant things of pop writing is that it seems so dumb, seems so simple, but it's so effective. I think that was at that time, Soap was kind of our process of trying to figure out how do we take soap, a bar of soap, and turn that into a concept that feels relatable?
Doug Burke:
The second verse that you belabored over, is this the one, and now I'm looking up as she calls out my name to come. I don't believe in fate but God sent her from up above-
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
A single revelation of religion, I am saved, I am saved?
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Those are very religious overtones to say the least. This is these two girls that are hitting on you in a bar. Right? That's a religious experience of sorts that happens to a guy.
Michael Lerios:
I think that his encounter with the girls, it was mostly like the Def Leppard and stuff. That's where this-
Demitri Lerios:
You were talking about the two girls where I went to Def Leppard with?
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Demitri Lerios:
No, that story I just told mainly because I saw Def Leppard and Journey.
Doug Burke:
So, it doesn't relate to this religious experience?
Demitri Lerios:
No.
Doug Burke:
That's not a religious experience for you? Two girls hitting on you in a bar?
Demitri Lerios:
No. I can see how that got mixed up.
Doug Burke:
She calls out my name to come over.
Demitri Lerios:
Actually, oddly enough, that's weird.
Doug Burke:
That's what I was saying, I was reading into that. I'm reading too much into it, right?
Michael Lerios:
No. You're right. The lyrics and stuff. I was just starting to date this girl. She's my girlfriend now, but she didn't want to have anything to do with me. I was just infatuated with her. You actually just met your girlfriend.
Demitri Lerios:
Maybe, yeah.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. You just met your girlfriend. We were going through this infatuation period-
Demitri Lerios:
She's going to kill me.
Michael Lerios:
- enough to that one.
Doug Burke:
That was a religious experience for you, I'm sure.
Demitri Lerios:
Yes.
Michael Lerios:
We were going-
Doug Burke:
You're saved.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah. We were going through these things, and it was kind of like an, I am saved moment. My girlfriend, I was very infatuated with her. Before I met her I was going out a bunch and partying and stuff, but when I met her, I was like, "Just hang out with me. Let me take you to dinner." she-
Demitri Lerios:
Angel.
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, she was really that kind of person.
Doug Burke:
Did she know that you wrote this about her?
Michael Lerios:
Yeah, she knows that all the song is about a girl.
Doug Burke:
So you wrote this about a girl, and then you sing this for the girl. How did she react? Is it like? How did she react?
Michael Lerios:
She comes to all our shows. I never sit-
Doug Burke:
How did she react Michael the first time you sang the song? Did you tell her, "Hey, I wrote this song about you?"
Michael Lerios:
She's like, "Yeah, whatever."
Doug Burke:
Really? It's like that nonplussed attitude? Like, it's another one of your songs. It's better than Soap. I'm not getting in the bathtub with you.
Michael Lerios:
No, she won't fan over me, just because I tell her I wrote a song for her. She's like, "You probably use that line-
Doug Burke:
That doesn't work? I always thought that would work for the songwriter.
Michael Lerios:
She's like, "You've used that line way too many times. It's not going to work on me."
Demitri Lerios:
To me it's a taboo. I keep it very-
Doug Burke:
You don't tell the girl you wrote about her?
Demitri Lerios:
No.
Doug Burke:
Never?
Demitri Lerios:
No, because it's my diary.
Doug Burke:
It's going to make it universal for everybody. It should be about everybody.
Demitri Lerios:
Yeah, but also it's like, there is this therapeutic way of writing, keeping it interpreted for everybody. Because I feel like if you-
Doug Burke:
Universal.
Demitri Lerios:
If you give your cards out right away. It's kind of like, "All right. Well, we know what that's about."
Doug Burke:
Got it. Angel, anything else we want to say on Angel?
Demitri Lerios:
It's a good tune.
Michael Lerios:
That's the new beginning. It's not out yet.
Doug Burke:
When is it coming out?
Michael Lerios:
That is coming out in the spring?
Doug Burke:
What's your album?
Michael Lerios:
We're looking to release this as a single, and then we're finishing the album, which is very much in line with this song. Strangers On the Run is a precursor to all this new music that we're going to start releasing.
Demitri Lerios:
We're still playing live though.
Michael Lerios:
We do play live. If you come out to our show, you'll be able to hear that song.
Doug Burke:
Great. Well, I have to thank you Michael and Demitri Lerios.
Michael Lerios:
Thanks.
Demitri Lerios:
Thank you.
Doug Burke:
From the brand Fox Wilde.
Demitri Lerios:
Thank you.
Michael Lerios:
Thank you.
Doug Burke:
Hopefully you had a good time here.
Demitri Lerios:
We did, thank you very much.
Michael Lerios:
We did.
Doug Burke:
Thank you.
