Far ahead from the prime days of Austrian collectives such as K BLVCK CLAN and Diese Gute, there are new boys in town ready to cause a momentum. After their recent release ‘Lakers’ which took the Austrian music community by surprise, we sat down with the pair that makes 721 $quad and discussed their upbringing, rise to stardom, and their favourite Lakers players as of late.
To begin with, where are you based and where do you both come from?
Luca: So I’m Luca and we both live in Bad Fischau. Originally, I’m from South Africa.
LJ: I’m Johnny and I live in Bad Fischau like Luca already mentioned. I on the other hand am originally from California..
How did you meet and then become 721 $quad?
LJ: In school actually or even a bit earlier. Since we both live in Bad Fischau and it’s a very small town, we’ve known each other since we were little. Also, through football practice, we became more and more closer.
When did you then decide to make music?
Luca: About 3 years ago I would say.
LJ: Around the first quarantine in 2020.
Luca: My sister’s friend is also a musician and we would head to his house. One day, he asked us ‘Do you guys want to record anything?’ and we just started from there.
You recently dropped a new single ‘Lakers’. How did it come to be?
Luca: We recorded the song around a year ago.
LJ: Even further down I believe. At the time, the Lakers were still good. *laugh*
Luca: We would place our entire energy on Johnny’s computer as we came to build our own little recording studio. The label then discovered us and this was actually produced by ANNY. As our first single, we chose ‘Lakers’ because they told us it was our strongest track.
You mentioned Antony, who is one of the founders of A&A record label. How did that relationship start?
LJ: Elia did a song with a viennese rapper. Unintentionally, we dropped a song at the same time as them and we just started talking to each other. Elia then wrote to us concerning the label because he was already in contact with Antony.
Luca: The label didn’t even exist at the time because it was at the very beginning.
LJ: Antony then contacted us and 2 years later, we’re here.
What’s next for 721 Squads? An EP? An album? Maybe a collaboration?
LJ: What’s coming is Elia’s album and Lakers will be on it.
Luca: We plan on dropping a few more singles and afterwards, our own EP will make its way.
LJ: That’s the plan.
As a final question; Who is your favourite basketball player and why?
Luca: Should I begin?
LJ: Yeah, go ahead.
Luca: My favourite basketball player is Kyrie Irving because of the way he plays with his hands.
LJ: You probably shouldn’t say this, right? Because he is controversial right now…
Luca: Maybe but it doesn’t matter for the sake of this conversation.
*Laughs*
LJ: For me, it would be Lebron James because I've been a Lakers fan since I started watching basketball. Also, I would watch basketball just because of Lebron. I like his way of playing and also how he behaves outside of the basketball field.
Thank you for your time.