The Party Starters: Tommy Noble
These Westmont Remix Masters Are On the Rise
“I could probably never stop eating,” Trevor Welch says as he dips his pizza crust in a puddle of honey on his plate. “Do you think we could order another pizza? I’m still really hungry.” Welch, along with Alex Quirk, make up the dynamic electronic dance duo known as Tommy Noble.
They don’t necessarily look the way that one expects “electro-dance” artists to look. They’ve traded shaved heads and skin-tight black T-shirts for shaggy hair and ripped jeans. But don’t let their slight statures and unassuming appearances fool you. These scraggly dudes make a potent combo, dishing up punishing beats and pulsating rhythms like artists far their senior.
“We’ve only released two original songs,” says Welch, “along with two remixes. Our debut single got to #14 on the electro-dance charts on Beat Port [a music site frequented by electronic music fans].” That, along with a remix of a song by Colorado-based band Breathe Carolina and a recent slot opening for Tiësto at the Santa Barbara Bowl, has been the highlight of the duo’s still-short résumé.
“It all started with a student-led dance at Westmont College,” Quirk explains between slices. “Trevor knew that I deejayed from going to a few impromptu dance parties and asked me if I wanted to try [to deejay the dance]. Since then, we kept making music together and talking about what we were experimenting with and what we were excited about.”
The studio is where Welch and Quirk now spend a lion’s share of their time. “We’re to the point, now, that we understand most of the electronic music that we listen to. But we put an emphasis on not recycling anything that we’ve used before,” Welch emphasizes. Equally unorthodox is the way the duo composes it’s tracks. “We go into each song knowing what we’re going to do,” Welch says. “We don’t just fiddle around and then post something online.”
Still in its infant stages, Tommy Noble has a long road ahead of it, but Welch and Quirk are eager to get started. They’re hungry, and their eyes every bit as big as their appetites. Visit soundcloud.com/tommynoble.
