Dynamic trio Levity has quickly become the most sought-after group in electronic music after their last-minute surprise Electric Forest set blew up the internet.
More recently their song ‘”Flip It” has been played by nearly every big artist in the scene and amassed over 4 million streams on Spotify.
Success was quick for this group, from meeting in 2017 at the University of Iowa and teaching themselves DJ software, to earning residencies at clubs they used to check IDs at, to now having two songs released by record giant Deadbeats and gearing up for their first headline tour.
The gentlemen of Levity, PJ Carberry, John Hauldren, and Josh Tarum, feel incredibly lucky and a little bit in awe of how the stars have aligned to bring them the life they live today. Humility is not lacking in this group so I’ll be the first to tell you that hard work and natural talent have played a huge role in their accomplishments.
Carberry and Hauldren tell EDM Maniac the highly anticipated story of their Electric Forest set and how they hope mega-companies will preserve the magic of music festivals as they become more mainstream.
Josh was unfortunately unable to join the interview due to being a full-time med student. He soon hopes to finish out med school and then focus on music with the group.
EDM Maniac: How did you come up with the name Levity?
PJ: It was actually kind of an inebriated idea *nervous laugh*. We were in my room trying to figure out a name. We were doing everything from going through Wikipedia to doing random generators and all the names sucked.
‘Levitate’ and ‘gravity’ were the words that spoke to us and my high idea was just split them down the middle and combine the two to make ‘Levity.’ I thought it was the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard of at the time.
John: Then a month later my mom said, “You guys know ‘levity’ is a real word, right?”
EDM Maniac: Wait, is it?
John: Yes! It means treating serious matters with humor. Which worked out anyway because that’s our personalities. Our coping mechanism is humor.
EDM Maniac: So funny how that works! OK, I need to hear this Electric Forest story. How did you end up getting a spot?
John: That was insane! It’s a long story so here we go:
I had gone to Vegas and I was at a craps table. I was doing really well and you know, when you do well the whole table does well. So the table was in high spirits and the person next to me started chatting me up. Turns out she was the talent buyer for Electric Forest. So, naturally, I told her that I make music and we exchanged Instagrams. That was kind of that.
Fast-forward, I end up going to Electric Forest with my girlfriend and another friend. A long string of events led me to bumping into the talent buyer on the grounds before the festival started. She said she had seen my stuff on Instagram and said we were killing it and to let her know if we needed anything throughout the weekend.
Sure enough, we had problems with our camping pass and were basically stranded. I felt bad reaching out to the talent buyer for something that wasn’t her issue but my girlfriend had convinced me that she would want me to.
I messaged her and she said, “We will figure it out in the morning. Just stay at my cabin for the night, I have a pull-out mattress you can use.”
So, we did. In the morning, the talent buyer came out to the living room with her laptop and basically was like, “Someone just canceled their set because their flight got delayed. I need to fill this spot, are you down to hop in?”
Obviously, I said yes. I called PJ –
PJ: I got the text at work, I was working at Carvana at the time. And all the message said was, “Boys, we’re playing Electric Forest.” And of course I’m like, you’re joking.
Then I was thinking, ok, maybe he snagged a renegade spot, because we had talked about trying to play those. I texted back, “What do you mean?”
John said, “We’re playing the Honeycomb stage at 7:30PM tonight.” I thought, wait, that’s like an actual stage at Electric Forest.
Immediately I called my boss and said, “Hey, I got booked to play Electric Forest. I have to leave, like, now.”
I went home, packed the car, and got there 30 minutes before we were set to go on stage.
John: When we started there were like maybe 50 people and by the end of it, we were completely packed out. I think it was the perfect storm of it being the first day of the festival plus not too many bass artists on the lineup for Thursday, so there was just a lot of high energy. People were exploring the forest and heard us and literally just started running.
It was such a turning point for us, I just thought it was crazy.
Videos of the set got posted on the internet and it snowballed from there.
EDM Maniac: Since then, powerhouses such as Louis The Child, Zeds Dead, SIPPY, Hamdi, and ATLiens have played out your song “Flip It” at their shows. Did you know in that moment how pivotal that would be for your careers?
PJ: I had a feeling. But nothing like this.
John: Yeah, nothing like this. I just thought it was really cool and fun honestly. The energy at that set was incredible.
PJ: It was special, very very special. I had no idea it would turn into this though. Favorite hour of my life, 100%. It’s cool to see artists that we’ve looked up to for so long play out our music.
EDM Maniac: There’s a certain magic to unique festivals, like Electric Forest, that I think can be lost when they become more mainstream and bought out by such huge companies. Especially with the spike in ticket prices we’ve seen this year.
I would love to hear your thoughts as not only artists but long-time attendees on the future of music festivals and how that magic can be preserved.
John: You know, we’ve had those fears too. Especially with festivals like Electric Forest, because they are so special and you leave that festival feeling some type of way. But so far, we haven’t been disappointed.
PJ: I think a lot of it is the people. They make festivals so special. Yes, the grounds themselves are very sacred and cool but it would be nothing without the people. They’re the ones that carry on the legacy of Electric Forest.
I think that even if a big company comes in and tries to take over a festival, if the people continue to show up and be accepting and continue the traditions of Electric Forest, it’ll all be fine.
John: One thing that I would like to see more of from big festivals is transparency. I think Lost Lands had given a list of things they had updated or reasons why their prices increased and seeing that money go back into the festival and our experience is important.
Just knowing that the extra money isn’t being pocketed is important for people to feel more comfortable spending more money.
PJ: I think we are also seeing trends of the price spike not being accepted. Coachella, for instance, has been really slow to sell tickets. I think that sends a message to festivals that maybe they’re charging too much.
Featured image by Kevin Trunda
