Impromptu Interview with Midnight Conspiracy
When you hear the name Midnight Conspiracy, you think of something ominous — dark, and sinister. Their stage setup is a huge eye staring straight through you, and their music penetrates in the same fashion. Even though their sound is hard-hitting and their persona very mysterious, Luis and Mikul are surprisingly chill guys. Playing at Spring Awakening Music Festival in Soldier Field for a second time, these Chicago natives love where they’re going, and they know where they came from. Sensible Reason caught up with Midnight Conspiracy on Day 2 of the festival for a few questions. Here’s what went down…
SR: What’s the idea behind “the eye” and the Midnight Conspiracy name?
Luis: I think right now we’re just trying to have fun with it. But originally, the symbolism came from a movie called El Tapo. We really loved the movie so we thought “let’s incorporate it into our set,” and it kind of caught on, so we kept doing it from there.
So the eye is based off of that?
Luis: Yeah, we took it originally from that movie. It’s kind of an old Egyptian symbol.
People tend to tie it to the Illuminati, right?
Luis: People take it a little too seriously. We like the way it looks, we like the imagery and realistically we want to have fun. It’s not like we’re initiating people and sacrificing lambs or shit like that. We’re trying to have a fun time.
So how did you come up with Midnight Conspiracy? Are you part of a conspiracy? Did you figure one out?
Luis: I think at the time I was really obsessed with the concept of conspiracies in the sense that for one, I don’t really feel that conspiracies are true. I almost feel like people need an excuse for all the messed up things that happen in the world. So, they ascribe a conspiracy to it. Like every presidential assassination, or the reason of the 99% to 1%. It almost has to be a conspiracy, because I feel like people feel helpless most of the time. It’s like mythology, we feel the need to explain things.
What’s the best musical experience you’ve ever had?
Luis: One of my best moments of my life was playing Lollapalooza. It was on Sunday at noon, the crowd was massive, they all came to see us, it went crazy at noon and then we were done and they all left. And I grew up in Chicago, I wanted to play that festival for a long time. Hopping fences to get to the festival, so to actually play it, be a part of it, so that was pretty special and a huge point in our career. Definitely a milestone for us. That was a couple years ago.
Do you have a usual set or do you cater to the crowd?
Luis: We just have fun with the crowd, or even this time we played for an extra hour. So, we just crammed in more music and had fun with the crowd. DJ Snake got caught up in traffic so we played an extra long set on the main stage. Which was pretty awesome, and at that point we just want people to go crazy, we don’t care.
What would be your ideal festival?
Luis: They’re all really fun.
What if you weren’t an artist?
Luis: I’ve never been but I really want to go to Burning Man to see what that’s about.
Mikul: Yeah, I never thought about that. I was thinking a huge boat party. Like a HARD boat party.
Luis: Or maybe go somewhere crazy like a Japanese festival and see all the Japanese people go crazy. Something out of context.
Mikul, what is the food that gets stuck in your mustache most?
Mikul: Probably anything soup related like Chinese Pho, or any Chinese food, it all gets in there.
How do you guys feel about Spring Awakening?
Luis: We played here two years ago. Last year we did EDC instead, and from this year and two years ago it’s so much bigger now. I was surprised how all the stages were massive now compared to two years ago. I was shocked, it’s awesome. It’s good for Chicago.
Do you have any groupies?
Luis: (Laughs) I mean, I don’t like the word “groupie” per say. I like to look at people as individual human beings that are each unique in their own special way. So yeah, I have a lot of people like that in my life.
Mikul: I guess anybody that we party with at one of our shows. Anyone that wants to get down with us and get into what we’re doing and share that same vibe with us.
Luis: The whole crowd is my groupie.
At what point did you guys realize you were doing something big?
Mikul: Probably our Lollapalooza show. That was huge for us.
Luis: But I feel like it didn’t hit me until later. I feel like you’re just so busy and consumed by doing everything you’re doing that you don’t realize what’s going on. It’s not until you actually sit down for a second and think, “Wow, I’ve actually done some cool stuff.” For me, I just wanted to DJ outside of my bedroom. That was my goal. And now we’re playing festivals, it all kind of happened. We set a goal.
Do you guys make a point to be mysterious? On your website, your names aren’t there.
Luis: That’s true. I do prefer to be a little incognito.
Mikul: We want to be more of a thing that people want to be a part of. I don’t think the group is trying to be incognito, I think more in terms of ourselves personally we’re not trying to be like the face of Midnight Conspiracy.
Luis: Yeah, I think our personalities, we don’t necessarily want glory for ourselves. It’s nice because that’s kind of why we built the eye. To experience the show with people, not necessarily want your adoration.
How did you get to where you are today?
Luis: It’s an egocentric world, and industry. And for us, we needed a lot of help to get to where we are. We worked from the ground up and I understand that so when people need help, you do the best you can. We did everything ourselves, we didn’t really have managers or agents.
Mikul: We built our own name through people knowing who we were, and helping to support us online and sharing everything we’re doing with people.
Luis: Even hitting up bloggers, saying “Hey, check out this music,” or even writers like you. You need their help just as much as we need yours. So, I understand.
These guys were extremely down to earth, excited to speak their minds, and really showed a true appreciation for what we stood for as music bloggers. They’re Chicago natives that represent their city and appreciate where they came from. The Midnight Conspiracy they’ve built piques everyone’s interest, yet it’s simply a manifestation of this duo’s love for entertaining. We thank them for being who they are and wish them the best!
