Laze and Royal

LAZE & ROYAL
(Biography)

Every once in a while a group comes along with both undeniable mass appeal and a truly forward-thinking sound. Meet Laze & Royal, two 19 year old singing/rapping brothers who are also the writers and producers of their own material. Having spent nearly a decade honing their craft on stage and in the studio, Laze & Royal are now poised for breakout success with their debut single "Like A Pistol".
"Like A Pistol" — with its crunchy guitars, swaggering synthesizers, and a club-ready banging beat — appeals to rock fans, hip-hop heads and pop princesses alike. As Royal says: "'Like A Pistol' is next level for us. It's not just an urban record, it has a different sound." Laze agrees: "When we wrote it we knew we had created something new."
Laze & Royal's devotion to their music runs deep. Born to an African-American father (who sang tenor for the Platters) and an Austrian/Sicilian mother (herself a stage singer), the brothers were raised in Los Angeles solely by their mother. "Our mom was always playing some Al Green or The Platters in the house," says Laze. "Of course for us like every other young kid at first we were all about Michael Jackson. Then through our older brother Jeff we got into Snoop, N.W.A, Sublime, Eve 6 and Nirvana."
Under these eclectic influences, Laze & Royal began singing and rapping, and were only 11 years old when they were discovered by producer Christopher "Tricky" Stewart (Atlanta-based co-creator of Rihanna's "Umbrella"). At that age the pair were, by their own admission, more interested in playing video games than in recording. Nevertheless their brief association with Stewart was an eye-opener.
"We realized that if we took music seriously it could be a career, we could make something out of it," says Royal. "So when we were 12 our mom bought us a little recording set-up. She had no money so couldn't pay the electricity bill that month so we had to wait a month, but we started getting it together."
Then bad news struck. Their mother Rhea received a terminal cancer diagnosis when the brothers were 13. She initially beat cancer, only to be subsequently diagnosed a second and third time. Incredibly, she has outlived all three terminal diagnoses, and while currently hospitalized her health is improving. "She's a huge inspiration for us," says Laze. "Knowing how hard she's fought keeps us motivated." As Royal puts it, "Our mother is our biggest fan. We talk to her every day, and when we visit her in the hospital she's got our records and t-shirts around her bed. She put as much into our career as any single mother possibly could."
Also crucial to their career is Laze & Royal's current manager, David Esterson of Monopoly Music. Esterson met Laze & Royal when they were 14, providing them with a ProTools-equipped studio and pushing them to become a self-contained writing/producing/recording team without equal. As Laze explains: "As far as other artists in our age bracket, there's no one hands-on like us. We write and produce and record everything ourselves."
Laze & Royal's hard work paid off when in 2006, recording under the name 2XL, they signed with Tommy Boy Records. As 2XL they scored a hit with the Scott Storch-produced "Magic City" featuring Unk. Although the Tommy Boy situation didn't wholly pan out, Laze & Royal remained in the studio working on new music. It was during that burst of creativity that they wrote "Like Pistol", the song proved to be a turning point in their lives.
"Like A Pistol" grabbed the attention of BMI's 2007 Pop Songwriter of the year, Kara DioGuardi. Having created platinum hits for artists including Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson, and Santana, DioGuardi fell in love with Laze & Royal right away.
As Laze explains: "In February 2008 we were sending out CDRs we burned ourselves, and sending emails blasts to A&Rs. We already knew who Kara DioGuardi was, she's such a huge songwriter, and we got a call that she wanted to meet us at Warner Bros. We came in thinking it'd be just another label meeting and we'd go see Iron Man afterwards. Kara said, 'You've got a hot record. What else you got?' We played her some other songs and she said, 'You're not leaving. Hold on.' Within twenty minutes she'd walked us into [Warner Bros' CEO] Tom Whalley's office and they were saying, 'We want this. We need you here.' We said, 'Can we go get some food and talk this over?' And they said, 'No. We'll bring food in. You're not leaving.' Eight hours later the deal was signed."
With "Like A Pistol" catching fire at radio and their on-line fan-base exploding, Laze & Royal are hard at work on their debut album. A regular day in the studio includes the creation of two or three complete new songs. As Laze explains, "We've been working together for so long, we see eye-to-eye on pretty much everything. I'll play keyboards and he'll lay down a drum pattern and they'll fit together perfectly. The process is fast." Royal adds: "We don't finish anything that doesn't have the potential to be a single, or album cut. It has to have a purpose."
While the tracks that will make their album have yet to be determined, Laze & Royal promise that their diverse musical tastes will be represented. "We're a product of America," says Laze. "We represent diversity, just like a lot of other kids." Royal picks up the idea: "In society everything has to fit a category. 'Put it in rock or put it in hip-hop.' 'That belongs over there.' 'That person is black and Asian but they look more Asian so put them in the Asian category.' But that's not all they are. Kids on their iPods go from 50 Cent to Jesse McCartney to Amy Winehouse, that's the way we listen to music. So we do what we feel, we switch it up. To us, music doesn't have boundaries. It's either good or it's not."

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For additional information, contact:

Angela Burke/Warner Bros. Records (818) 953-3211; Angela.Burke@wbr.com