There are a lot of unspoken things with me and Nimai [Larson]. We're very yin and yang, neither one of us really treads on each other's toes. She's this wizard of the rhythm world, and I know nothing about that, but I can dabble with melody and lyrics and that's something she doesn't really have any interest in. We complement each other in that way.
Taraka LarsonMy parents both renounced their material lives and were living as monks at an ashram in L.A. when they met each other. So we were always raised in this environment and when we moved to the ashram in Florida it was just like, "Oh, wow, now all of a sudden there's more people like us," because we were growing up in the middle of Texas with our parents, always being the weirdos.
Taraka LarsonI always look at that stuff as something that's not a separate entity from the music but a visual representation of the music. I feel like your external appearance should be in harmony with your internal appearance. That's mainly our approach to the visuals.
Taraka LarsonOne of the reasons why I chose to live in New York was that there is this sense of your environment constantly changing.
Taraka LarsonI really wanted to be able to make the music that acknowledged the metaphysical aspect of extreme sports because when I started watching GoPro videos, the thing that struck me the most was that the sound seemed completely detached from the imagery.
Taraka LarsonI feel like utopia is neither here nor there. It's in that sort of space where you feel the most present, and that can be on tour [or] at home. It's easier to get to that place on tour because your environment is constantly changing, and from a very primal, evolutionary perspective, you have heightened awareness when you're in an unfamiliar place, so it's easier to access that state.
Taraka Larson