Dave 1 blames it on the funk.
The guitarist/vocalist for the duo Chromeo said funk is the bond between he and keyboardist/synth player P-Thugg.
"Funk music was really how we became friends in high school," Dave 1 (born David Macklovitch) said during a phone conversation from Calgary, Canada.
"We discovered old funk records together, and that's how it all began."
Dave 1 said he and P-Thugg (Patrick Gemayel) couldn't help but get into hip-hop when they decided to play music together.
"There's not a lot of hip-hop in Chromeo, but you can see it in the attitude," Dave 1 said. "You see, the people who fall under our generation were influenced by hip-hop. It was the most influential music of the '90s, which is considered its golden era."
The duo had humble beginnings and were thrown a curve ball when they were offered a record contract.
"We never thought about it what we were doing," Dave 1 said. "Everything happened organically, and it felt natural.
"I mean, we got offered a record deal and didn't know what to do. So we put some demos together and put out our first album ('She's in Control') in 2004."
The first couple of years were difficult for Chromeo.
"People didn't take us seriously," Dave 1 said. "We didn't have a fan base, and people didn't get the references behind the music. But we lived through it."
On Sept. 14, Chromeo will release its third album, "Business Casual," the follow-up to 2007's "Fancy Footwork."
"We took a different approach to 'Business Casual,' " Dave 1 said. "We wanted something that was more based on chord progressions instead of simple riffs, although the album starts off with a couple of songs that are riff driven.
"So we wrote most of the songs using piano and vocals, and then built the arrangements later."
In addition to the songwriting, the duo upped the ante with the arrangements and musicality.
"Everything about the new record is a little more sophisticated," Dave 1 said. "There are complex string arrangements and vocal harmonies. And there are more breakdowns in the songs.
" 'Fancy Footwork' was a big record for us," he said. "So we needed to make something different or it would have gotten boring."
As always, Dave 1 could have kept tweaking songs to no end, but the two have come up with a solution as to knowing when a song is done.
"It's basically when P forces me to stop doing stuff," he said with a laugh. "I'll add little things until the last minute. I'll come back with pages and pages of notes. But he tells me when I'm done."
Chromeo recently played a gig at the Bonnaroo Festival with Daryl Hall.
"That was a dream come true," Dave 1 said. "But what's more is we're playing in front of huge crowds. We would never sell out 1,000- or 2,000-seaters. But we're doing that and more. There's so much going on with us that it makes us humble and thankful."
If you go…
What: Big Boi, Chromeo
Where: Pioneer Park, 300 West and 300 South
When: Aug. 19, 7 p.m.
How much: free
e-mail: scott@desnews.com