Last year, I covered Billboard’s cover story on The Chainsmokers. The Chainsmokers consist of two douche-bros named Alex Pall and Drew Taggart. Drew is the younger, skinnier one, and Adam is the taller, douche-bro-ier looking one. The Billboard profile was, as I called it, “the portrait of two d-bag frat-bros.” They bragged about “p-ssy,” they name-dropped, they talked about measuring their douche-members. I even suggested at the time that “this is all some sort of bro-tastic performance art.” Guess what? That’s what Alex and Drew claim now. That Billboard misrepresented them. They aren’t really douche-bros, they are IRONIC douche-bros. Their performance for Billboard was meta-commentary on the douche-bro lifestyle. For realsies, bruh. Alex and Drew have a new profile in NME and you can read the whole piece here. Some highlights:

Drew on how they’re more than just dumb bros: “People are like, ‘Oh my God, they’re such bros,.’ And we’re like, ‘No! We’re making fun of bros!’”Alex, in particular, is determined to set the record straight. “I hope people can walk away from this article with a deeper sense of our purpose as artists and our true characters. We’re in this grey area where people are like, ‘I don’t get it, are these guys a**holes or not?’ I promise you, we’re not a**holes.”

Alex on the Billboard profile that made them seem like douches: “It affects you, because you don’t know how people are going to see that – [whether they’ll] take it at face value and walk away feeling you are that person. It’s not about apologising and back-pedalling. It’s about… I don’t want to say becoming better people, because that sounds cheesy. Just keeping it real, and understanding that not everyone’s on your team. Move forward. Make responsible decisions. Think about what it might look like to a kid who’s 10 years old, seeing what we do – how that might impact on the way they listen to our music and enjoy our antics.”

Drew on how fame has shifted his perspective: “We’ve been through a lot this past year. Dealing with becoming famous and having people look at your life in ways that no one gave a s**t about before. How that affects your relationships with people that you’re close to. And people that you’re not close to but who want to be close to you.”

Alex blatantly panders: “I think it’s important that we use our platform to do good and our music to connect with people on a real level. For example, yesterday, we got this email about a nine-year-old kid who was diagnosed with… I don’t want to say a terminal disease, but he was going to be incredibly ill for the rest of his life. His brain was unresponsive and the parents were devastated. But they played a video of us performing ‘Closer’ and it was the first time that he responded to anything. He was dancing around in his wheelchair. And the parents were crying. I can’t believe our music made this moment. The song means something so different to that family than it does to the frat kid in Delaware.”

[From NME]

I feel like Alex is the bigger douche, the Alpha Frat Boy, if you will, and Drew goes along with it for the most part. It’s just the vibe I’m getting. As for this argument they’re making, that they were just being silly and PLAYING at being chauvinistic d-bags as some sort of Commentary On Music… not buying it. I especially think this quote is telling: “Just keeping it real, and understanding that not everyone’s on your team.” Did you catch that? Alex thought Billboard was going to be on his “team,” Team Douche-Bro. Alex thinks that music journalists would automatically be on his team and like, help a douche-bro out by presenting him in the best light. Well, all I can say is that I’m glad these two guys got some media training.

PS… I still honestly believe that Drew called Halsey a “bald bitch” though.

Photos courtesy of WENN.