Krewella


Krewella is an American electronic dance music band from Northbrook, Illinois, United States, that formed in 2007. Their musical style has been mainly described as EDM, dance-rock, and dance-pop. However, Krewella's style has been influenced by a number of electronic sub genres, including progressive house, electro, dubstep, drum and bass, trap music and future bass.
Their debut EP, Play Hard, was released on June 18, 2012, exclusively on Beatport, followed by its release on other digital platforms on June 26, 2012. Later, their debut album, Get Wet, was released on September 24, 2013, on iTunes.
The band consists of sisters Jahan Yousaf and Yasmine Yousaf. Originally a trio, their third member and producer Kristopher Trindl left the band in 2014. The band's name stems from Jahan's misspelling of the word "cruel" when the two began writing music, and is not a reference to Cruella de Vil.

History

2007–2013: Formation and career beginnings

Krewella formed in 2007 and consisted of sisters Jahan and Yasmine Yousaf, whose father is of Pakistani descent, along with producer Kris Trindl. The three met as students at Glenbrook North High School. Their music is a blend of self-produced electro house and dubstep, with influences of many other EDM styles. All three members of the band have "6-8-10" tattoos to commemorate June 8, 2010, the day when the three agreed to give up their careers, schooling, and any other intentions for their lives, to dedicate all of their time to the band's joint music career. In December 2011 Monstercat signed Krewella; "Killin' It" was Krewella's first original song released by a label. Monstercat promoted Krewella with social media campaigns and partnered with EDM YouTube promotional channels for a larger platform. In June 2012, Krewella released their EP Play Hard. The second single, "Alive" peaked at number one on the US Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart and it also placed on the US Billboard Hot 100.
Krewella has headlined at EDM festivals around the globe including Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, Stereosonic, Spring Awakening, Sunburn Festival and Paradiso festival. These live performances earned them the 2012 International Dance Music Award for "Best Breakthrough Artist."
After their performance at Ultra Music Festival 2013, Billboard declared that "Krewella is going to be huge!" Their debut album Get Wet charted in the Top 10 of the US Billboard 200 in its first week. Krewella teamed up with producer group Cash Cash to make their second single "Live For The Night".

2014–2015: Lawsuit, Trindl's departure and'' Somewhere to Run ''

In January 2014, Krewella partnered with EDM lifestyle brand Electric Family to produce a collaboration bracelet for which 100% of the proceeds are donated to Dance For Paralysis. The partnership has raised over $17,000 as of April 2014.
In September 2014, it was announced that Trindl is no longer part of Krewella. Trindl subsequently filed a lawsuit against the sisters for $5 million, claiming that he was unfairly "thrown out" of the band. The Yousaf sisters countersued, claiming Trindl had drug and alcohol problems, "pretended to DJ" onstage, and ultimately resigned from the band.
On November 24, 2014, Krewella released their first single following Trindl's departure titled "Say Goodbye". The track reflects on the loss of a member and the lawsuit against the Yousaf sisters.
On March 23, 2015, Krewella released "Somewhere to Run" produced by Pegboard Nerds and others.
In June 2015, Krewella's "Somewhere to Run" was featured in the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority's "Krewellavator" marketing campaign. The spot was filmed in an actual elevator at the MGM Grand Las Vegas.
Krewella released Troll mix Vol. 14 - Return of the Trolls on August 15, 2015, its title a reference to the time gap following the previous one. This mix is the first released after Trindl's departure. The hour long mix features a new track from the sisters, named "Surrender the Throne". It also includes a new remix of their single "Somewhere to Run".
The sisters were featured on the single "Love Song to the Earth" alongside; Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Fergie, Colbie Caillat, Natasha Bedingfield, Leona Lewis, Sean Paul, Johnny Rzeznik, Angélique Kidjo, Kelsea Ballerini, Nicole Scherzinger, Christina Grimmie, Victoria Justice and Q'orianka Kilcher.
In August 2015, it was announced that Jahan and Yasmine Yousaf had settled the lawsuit with Kris Trindl out-of-court. The terms of the settlement were not made public.

2016: ''Ammunition''

Krewella announced in 2015, that they had been working on a new extended play, intended to be completed in time for a 2016 tour. From that time out prior to the release there were many snippets of upcoming music including the songs "Broken Record", "Helter Skelter", "Beggars", "Louder Than Bombs", "Friends", "Superstar" and "Marchin On".
The single "Beggars" was released on April 29, 2016. Krewella have stated that "Broken Record" will be released a week before Ammunition.
Krewella were set to present at the inaugural Electronic Music Awards which were supposed to be held on April 23, 2016, but were postponed to later in the year.
On April 29, 2016, Krewella released a 30-second video of Yasmine rapping to the tune of Kanye West's song "I Love Kanye" stating "F**k it, tomorrow we gon' give you all some new Krewella" prior to the release of the single "Beggars" with Diskord. The music video for the song was released at the same time.
On May 4, 2016, a video titled "Love, Yazzy" was released to the public of Yasmine speaking of her memories of Krewella since her beginnings with the band. The end of the video stated the release date of Ammunition which was May 20, 2016. Two days after this, a video titled "Love, Jahan" which talked about unity and a "krew without borders" before announcing a new, smaller more intimate SWEATBOX Tour. This headlining Fall tour spanned across 16 dates in North America and Canada and featured brand new music and their entire live band.
On May 10, 2016, the promotional single "Broken Record" was released.
On the last few days before the release, teasers for "Surrender the Throne", "Marching On", "Beggars", "Broken Record", "Ammunition", and "Can't Forget You" were released, with the latter being released one day before Ammunition's release.
On May 27, 2016, Krewella was featured on a single by Pegboard Nerds and NGHTMRE titled "Superstar" that did not make the final cut for the Ammunition EP.

2017–present: ''New World'' and ''Zer0''

In an interview with Gary Vee, the sisters stated that they were currently in the studio working on a follow up to Ammunition. They have since played more teasers, such as "Angels Cry", "dead af", "Team", and "Rise Up". "Team" was later released.
Krewella hinted at two new songs on their Snapchat while performing in Sydney for New Year's Eve. One of them is called "Be There". More teasers have been played since then, in fact there are almost 11 unreleased songs altogether. "Be There" was due to be released by the end of March, finally releasing on May 10, 2017. They also confirmed their own record label, named Mixed Kids Records, with "Be There" becoming their first release on it.
In 2017, Krewella partnered with dance-fitness program Zumba. They made a song called "I Got This" for their new STRONG program, which entails of workouts to high energy music. This has yet to be released, but it was teased on the STRONG Instagram page. On May 17, they played at a Zumba 'fitness concert' where they played a set while instructors and attendees performed a dance workout. Here, they teased a song called "Thrilla", which following the release of another single on May 31, 2017, a song called "Love Outta Me". They released the first part of their two part EP New World on June 8, 2017. They later announced their New World Tour with a video from Aladdin with Yasmine's face over Yasmine and Jahan's face appearing on random characters throughout.
Krewella estimated that New World Part 2 would be released by mid-2017, then later by early September 2017 and before their New World Tour, but neither of these release dates eventuated. Multiple teasers of possible songs exist, such as "dead af", "Rise Up", "New World", "Angels Cry", "I Got This", "Thrilla", "Alibi", "Like We", and multiple unnamed songs. They released a new single, "New World", on September 18, 2017, featuring Yellow Claw and Taylor Bennett. "Dead AF" was later released as a single on October 24, 2017.
On October 31, Krewella went on livestream from their tour bus on EDM social app 'WAV'. They mentioned that New World Part 2 should be released in 2018. They also teased five unreleased songs: "Run Away", "Bad Liar", "Alarm", "Ain't That Why", "Another Round" and "Angels Cry". "Another Round" with Pegboard Nerds was released on November 17, "Alarm" with Lookas was released on December 1, and "Ain't That Why" with R3HAB was released on December 8. "Angels Cry" followed on December 29, 2017, released through their fan phone line—anyone who texted the line previously received a text with a link, and anyone else can text "angel tears" to the number to receive it.
Krewella mentioned a version of "New World" featuring Chinese rapper VAVA. While Krewella were in China, they posted on social media with VAVA, appeared at one of her concerts in Beijing, and also filmed a music video for this version. It was released in January 2018.
As of July 2018, they are featured in Coke Studio Season 11 as featured artists and were also part of the well-received Season promo song "Hum Dekhenge" which was rendition of Poem written by Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Their featured Coke Studio debut song "Runaway" was an instant hit in Pakistan. The song also was a reconnect with their Pakistani roots. Paired with the raw power of Riaz Qadri and Ghulam Ali Qadri’s folk vocals, the bank brought their first fusion track about hijr. Primarily an English song, Jahan and Yasmine also sing in one of their native languages for the first time. The vocal harmonies combined with a driving dholak groove and soulful sarangi is what makes "Runaway" a tasteful juxtaposition. As of January 2020, the duo released a new track called "Greenlights", that has gained around 1.2 million views since this entry and would give Krewella their second number one on Billboard’s Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart in April 2020.

Members

  • Jahan Yousaf – DJ, vocals, producer, writer
  • Yasmine Yousaf – DJ, vocals, writer, producer, FX music controllers
  • Kris Trindl – DJ, producer, FX music controllers
Session/touring members
  • Frank Zummo – drums, percussion
  • Max Bernstein – lead guitar, rhythm guitar, keyboards

    Timeline


Discography

  • Get Wet
  • Zer0