Friendzone - Alone (feat. Sara Skinner) [via ReverbNation]

Recently we partnered with ReverbNation for a competition to find a new emerging artist for Acid Stag to shine a little light on. We received over 900 submissions across various genres from all around the world, and today we’re excited to share our winner with you.

Friendzone is a fairly new project out of Salt Lake City USA, and as the name suggests is the coming together of two friends, Jesse Woods and Hayden Warzek. Their latest single ‘Alone’ featuring Sara Skinner was an easy win for us, and I’m sure you’ll be able to understand why.

We also asked Friendzone a few questions….

Did you have any expectations of winning this ReverbNation competition with Acid Stag?
Ideally we never try to go into something with expectations of winning; we just put our best foot forward and wait to see what happens but we were ecstatic to find out we won!

How did the project “Friendzone” begin?

Friendzone began as a friendship really. We moved in together by chance when Jesse needed a place to live last minute and Hayden had an open bedroom. We were both in separate duos at that time where one partner wasn’t as involved and we spent hours every day DJing together in the living room. We both had something the other was lacking and we’re going to make this as cliche as possible but “we complete each other.” We also both have such a similar love and passion for music and wanting to create a moment that truly inspires others and helps them be happy. If even one person can come to a show or listen to our music and leave all their inhibitions behind and it makes them happy then we’ve done our job.

Loving this new single ‘Alone’ – can you give us some insight into the writing process?
Alone started out as a drunken idea on a plane ride back from a festival and the original project title was “Drunk Things ID.” Hayden hated it, Jesse and our manager Ali Gay (shoutout Ali) loved it. Fortunately we kept the project and it evolved into the demo we sent to Sara Skinner who we had formed a Twitter friendship with. She loved it and within a week we had the vocals back which were so good we didn’t need to ask for any edits.

Collaborating is such a big thing these days and some amazing music can come of it as well – what would be your dream collaboration?
Our dream collab hands down would be The Chainsmokers. We met at a Chainsmokers concert and they really inspired and shaped who we are as artists. At this point they have been such a huge help to our project and we always know we can send them our unreleased tracks for quick and honest feedback. It’s amazing that some of the busiest dudes in the industry can be so down to earth.

What can we expect from “Friendzone” in 2020?
2020 is hopefully going to be a big year! We’ve always believed content is everything but with our busy schedules something we need to work on. Moving forward we want to develop our YouTube channel and start releasing some videos that highlight who we are as people and show our personality. Then of course new music! We’re already working on 3-4 originals with a newer sound that we want to develop.

And speaking of collabs 2020 will be the first year we release music with other producers, working on music with our friends Nikademis and Emogee.