Coming to help you work it out, may we present The Fire and the Reason, an electro/baile-funk/dance carnival from New York. The easy-on-the-eyes duo are coming to Boston for a performance at Cool Ranch on June 30th. We got to drill them for a few tibdits of information before they make you dance. And dance you will.

–Kristen Schaer

The Fire and Reason “Do It Again (Remix Version)” from The Fire and Reason on Vimeo.

Tell us a little more about your sound and influences.

We are influenced by pretty much everything and anything. Steve tends to veer more towards heavy electro/beats and rock and I love pop. So you mix both of those together and you get what we consider EDGY POP. We are also influenced by our Latin culture, we sing songs in Portuguese, and Spanish, as well as incorporating rhythms and sounds from Brazil, Paraguay, and Ecuador– where our backgrounds are. We have a few “Baile-Funk” Style songs that are always crowd-pleasers, although most people don’t know what we are singing about– they love the beats.

How did you come together as a duo?

I met Steve a few years back, when I snuck into a show that he was doing with his old band Radiate– I was underage so my sister and I snuck in after I heard this insane sound coming out of the club. After the band was done I went straight up to Steve and said “Hi I’m Bella, I’m a singer too…” We got in touch and soon enough he broke up that group to focus on The Fire and the Reason full time. We started out as a duo, writing songs on Garage Band, evolved into a 4-piece rock band, and have come around full circle so to speak, to being a duo once again, just like when we started off.

You’ve done some performances for Logo TV. Tell us about your connection with them.

Well we have been quite fortunate to be honest, we have a lot of amazing people that have come into our lives, and have really fallen in love with our music, and have supported and helped us incredibly. One of those people is Kevin Graves, who works with everyone (Larry Tee, DJs Are Not Rockstars Records, etc.) who played some of our music for Jeremiah Silva from Logo- Jermiah liked what he heard and said that he wanted us to be part of the Second Annual New Now Next Awards that he was putting together. We were ecstatic to be asked to perform, and then getting nominated for Brink of Fame: Music Artist, and winning was just completely icing on an already delicious 7 tier cake– I mean to be put in the same category as Lykke Li, LMFAO, Ladyhawke, Morningwood, and more and win is pretty surreal, especially for a pretty new, unsigned act.

Tell us some more about your remix album and collaboration with Larry Tee.

Well we have a remix series coming out this summer on DJ’s are Not Rockstars, which is Larry Tee and Alexander Technqiue’s record label. Over the past year we have had some amazing DJs/Producers ask to remix some of our tracks, and we actually amassed like over 15 hot Remixes. Steve and I spoke with our managers, who also are part owners of DANR Records, about putting out some of these remixes, which had already started to leak on the internet, just to give them a proper release, hence the remix series. I think we are looking to release a 3 song EP every month over the summer, so check it out because their are some amazing electro-dance-rock tracks coming out. Larry Tee, the godfather/creator of Electro-Clash. To have him as a friend and an early supporter has been incredible. We also have a few collaborations that we are working on that will see release very soon as well– can’t give everything away!

What’s the story about your name?

The name… yes, the truth is that it’s a line from a song that Steve actually wrote before he even met me. He was thinking of starting a project that was more dance-rock (less heavy-rock like his previous group) and wrote a song called “OUCH” that had the line- “I am the fire and the reason, don’t underestimate this sound.” So when we were bouncing around names, it sort of came up. The other choice we were thinking about was The Amazon, because it is the river that flows through both of our countries, Ecuador and Brazil, but I think with me being a female frontwoman, we would have gotten way more wonder woman questions and references. I like the name, it’s very open to interpretation, and people are always coming up to us, to tell us what it means to them… so I love it!