Photos courtesy of Alli Sports

The Cool Kids hit the underground music scene a few years back with hits like "Gold in a Pager", "Black Mags" and "'88". Antoine "Sir Michael Rocks" Reed and Evan "Chuck English" Ingersoll reppin' Chicago, meet via Myspace in '05 and soon started recording together. Since then, they've toured with MIA, performed at the annual Rock the Bells hip-hop concert and have had their songs featured in a number of video games and commercials including the Nike "Most Valuable Puppets" with Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, all without putting out an album. With a few EP's the Cool Kids have been waiting to take the scene by storm, putting time and effort into "blowing minds" without just "trying to shine". I had a quick chat with the guys before their concert at the Dew Tour in Breck Iast weekend, where they talked about record deals, Twitter and of course, snowboarding. —TS

You guys have been performaning within the ski and snowboard industry lately. Are you into snowboarding at all?

Chuck: I am. I haven't done much of it because I just don't have the time. Plus we live in the coldest city ever so going on a winter vacation, I'm just not that into it.

Mikey: I've been snowboarding a few times. It's fun. It's fun as hell. I wanted to go today, but we didn't have enough time today to squeeze it in, but it's definitely fun.

And you we're doing some things with Mountain Dew. Is that how you got involved with the Dew Tour?

Chuck: Yeah. we're putting a record out with 'em. It's coming out next year, so it all makes sense, ya know? We just tie it in a couple different events and it all makes sense because we're already working with the team and everything.

I was at the Red Rocks show and video premiere deal.

Mike: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was crazy.

Chuck: Where the fuck did all those people come from? That was tight.

Have you just been touring around lately? Are you trying to put out the album pretty soon?

Chuck: Yeah, we're just trying to put out the record really. We've been focusing on that. We've been having little shows, different cities but as far as a big tour, we haven't done that yet. We've been waiting to put out the record.

You've performed with M.I.A. and some pretty cool artists.

Chuck: Yeah. Now it's our time to kinda be us. I don't know if it's been in our cards to be held back or it wasn't. It was bad luck. Now I'm starting to think it was good luck because by the time this record comes out, with how much we've worked on it and what it sounds like. It's gonna be bananas.

You've put a lot of time and effort into it.

Chuck: I just think we're good at what we do and this is just a day and age where all the people that are shining are more concerned with shining. And we're like the non-shiners just way more concerned with being dope. So we've had all this time, while all these people have been screwing up and making really whack music and just trying to get a Bentley or something like that. I bought nothing but gear for like two years, just stacking up keyboards. Since we've been like swinging through label lawsuits, we just had an opportunity to make like 100 to 200 more songs. Not 200 songs like that, but we had like two years. Now it's like bananas.

You guys met via Myspace?

Mike: Yeah. Like in '05.

How can people reach you on the web?

Mike: They can't. Haha. I'm off the internet.

Chuck: I mean Twitter, but that shit doesn't count. I want to talk to people like my friends. I can't talk to people by association. I never did that shit on Myspace. I can't be like, "oh you guys are not cool like me because I do what I do." You're just on Twitter like I am, on your cell phone. I'm not cooler than you so. It's not like contact us there for music. That is the nice part of life. You actually have the choice or not, because it gives fans a little bit more of a chance to find out if they like you. Especially with Twiiter you can ruin shit fast. Your favorite artist can be your least favorite artist in a matter of 30 minutes.

Totally.

Chuck: So I use Twitter to be like "Yo, I'm at the grocery store." I remember one of the first Twitter's I made I was walking into a Target and I could put my shopping cart basket on this little elevation thing, and I just Twitpic'd it like "Yo, this shit's cool." And actually, I don't want anyone to have anything to say until we put this album out.

Do you have a set date or anything yet?

Chuck: I mean, said dates are like not even up to you.

Mike: Early next year though. That's the ballpark.

Chuck: As soon as fucking possible is really what I'm going for. I just want everyone to know, it ain't us. I want to give people the full project. If we wanted to put something out just on iTunes we could do that but I didn't get into this for that. I want people to be able to open something up and have a day of full music, where you just listen to our shit all day. If you have it on iTunes, you'll download it and get back to it. You'll be surfing the internet, forget you got it. I didn't work that hard for that shit. I'd rather you go to the store. Don't just be lazy.

People have become lazy for sure.

Chuck: Because it's just easy. People just wanna make money and put their album out iTunes. iTunes album buying is whack. Unless you're looking for an album you couldn't find and iTunes has it. I don't want to take the sport out of it because we didn't take the sport out of it.

Follow Mikey on Twitter and Chuck too.