WILEY

There are some artist projects that feel carefully constructed. Then there are the ones that feel like two best friends had an idea, followed it way too far, and somehow ended up building an entire universe around it.

MILEY DUO is the latter.

Behind the project are Los Angeles producers Jasper Harris and Aaron Shadrow, two longtime friends whose careers began largely behind the scenes, producing for other artists before turning the strange, dense ideas they had been collecting for years into something of their own. What started as a place for music that didn’t quite have a home became an artist project, then a visual world, then a live show, and eventually something they simply refer to as Miley Duo.

Their latest album, WILEY, feels like the clearest expression of that world yet. They call it their “adrenaline album” its the kind of record that makes you want to drive too fast, move too quickly, and generally do things that are probably physically impossible.

Even the title WILEY is a clue. It’s MILEY upside down and according to the duo, it should be listened to upside down whenever possible.

The album’s tracklist follows the same logic. “Lights Camera Cameron Dallas,” “shrillex wassup,” “no bass” the names feel less like traditional song titles and more like inside jokes that somehow became official pieces of the world. That’s because, for MILEY Duo, they are.

When we sat down with Jasper and Aaron, they were already onto the next thing. As they explain, releasing an album doesn’t really mean the creative process is over. If anything, it means they’re already thinking three albums ahead.

Alexa Garcia (CULT MACHINE): WILEY just came out last week, and after spending so much time with something privately—building it, molding it—it’s kind of a weird moment now that it’s finally out. Do you guys ever get to a point where you don’t know what to do with yourselves after the creative process ends?

Aaron Shadrow: The next thing is always being worked on. We’re just always thinking of albums. Three albums down the line, four albums that are lined up. We’re working on it right now, and we’re always very excited by the next thing.

We’re really, really proud of this album, and we’ve never been more excited to share it. But the creative process doesn’t necessarily end once the project comes out. It typically means we’re in the middle of the next creative process.

Jasper Harris: I would say, yeah, now that it’s out, there’s something magical about seeing it out that makes me feel more inspired than even before. I don’t know. That’s always how I feel—once it’s out, I’m even more inspired for the future.

A: You guys called this your “adrenaline album.” So by “adrenaline album,” what do you imagine people doing when listening to it?

JH: Like, really fast hand shapes and movements.

AS: You fidgeting or—

JH: Like, and driving—

AS: And driving cars 500 miles an hour, somehow.

MILEY: Just doing things that are, like, physically impossible.

AS: Yeah, like, everybody—if everyone was just walking in, like, super speed, like this.

That sense of movement is essentially the point. WILEY isn’t interested in sitting still, and neither are the people who made it.

Even the album title came before the music itself had fully taken shape. Once they landed on WILEY, the rest of the world began to form around it.

A: When I was reading through the album names, you guys have a song called “Lights Camera Cameron Dallas,” and it’s objectively one of the most interesting titles. Where did that come from?

AS: We came up with the title WILEY before we came up with anything else. And that immediately inspired us to kind of go down this path of our wild, sort of zany, crazy album.

We had an idea of how all the names would be a little quirky or just kind of catch you off guard. And when we were throwing name ideas out, I don’t know why, but the “Lights, Camera, Action” song just felt cinematic.

So it felt like a “Lights, Camera, Action” thing, and I was like, “How can I make Jasper laugh in this moment?” I just said, “Lights Camera Dallas,” and then we both just immediately fell.

AS: We just thought that was funny.

JH: Because WILEY is really MILEY upside down, so—it also should be listened to upside down as much as possible.

A: That’s, like, totally—I put myself upside down, or, like, upside down the album.

JH: That’d be the best listening environment. Just, like, an upside-down environment.

A: Then you feel adrenaline rushing to your head.

JH: Exactly, pretty much.

The joke could have ended there. Instead, it became a music video.

AS: We had a fun time with the titles. And then we dreamt—I don’t know if you saw, but once Aaron had that genius moment, then it became our dream to have Cameron Dallas do a video.

A: Okay, ’cause I did see him—

JH: Have you seen the music video?

A: No, I haven’t. I’ll have to look at it, ’cause I did see how he had posted it on his Story and everything.

And, um, it’s kind of silly, ’cause when you first search you guys up, like, on TikTok, it’s “Lights Cameron Dallas” edits.

JH: What? That’s awesome.

A: And it’s an edit to Cameron Dallas. And I was like, okay, I was wondering if you guys had any correlation with him beforehand, or if he just heard about it and it was just a fun little thing.

JH: Literally just like, after Aaron came up with the name, it just became our dream. So, get in touch with him.

AS: Yeah. And just make a video where we throw lights at Cameron Dallas.

There’s no better video we could possibly make for the song than just blasting Cameron Dallas with strobe lights.

And we tried to get in touch with him before the song came out, but once it came out, it found its way to him. And then it was a really fast process. He was super open to the idea of being in a video for us, and kind of within three days, we booked the whole team.

We made the whole concept. Jasper edited the entire video in Ableton, which is not normally where videos are made, but it did an amazing job. And we just got it out as fast as we could because we were so inspired by the idea and wanted to see it come to life.

MILEY: I think you should say a big thank you to Cameron Dallas in this, because it’s just our dream come true. I think it’s our best piece of art we ever made so far.

If there’s one thing that makes the MILEY universe make more sense, it’s knowing that the duo has a very specific ritual for naming their songs.

They make the music first. Then they get in the car.

A: With the names of the songs on the album, is it kind of to get you at first hand? Because when you look at it, you’re kind of like, “Okay, what is this?” When you’re coming up with the names, how does that kind of happen?

JH: Every time we come up with names, we make the album, we have all the files, and we get in the car, and we drive very fast all around Los Angeles. And that’s when the ideas come to us.

We only name songs in the car.

A: Really?

MILEY: Yeah.

AS: It’s a very sacred ritual in the Miley camp.

MILEY: It is.

AS: We always make the albums more or less with a theme in mind. So, with Ecosystem, we knew we wanted to make, like, an Earth-forward—

JH: Yeah.

AS: And with Snow Day, we knew we wanted it to feel like an off day in the winter and have a cold-weather feeling.

But once the music’s actually done, that’s when we do the big drive—being on the move—and naming all the songs to the theme of the music.

A: And that’s kind of how I can picture you listening to the album. Just driving super fast, kind of how you said it’s your adrenaline album. Just doing something, I don’t know, not boring, honestly.

JH: Yeah.

JH: I’m so excited about this album. Feels like my favorite album we made yet.

FROM HOARDED IDEAS TO MILEY

Before MILEY became an artist project, Jasper and Aaron were producers. Their unreleased instrumentals and demos began developing their own following, largely because the music already felt complete without vocals.

Eventually, they realized they were sitting on too many ideas to keep them to themselves.

A: You guys have built, like, this really insane cult following around your unreleased instrumentals and other demos. How did the whole world around the unreleased music start? Did that help you guys pursue, like, “Hey, we need to come together, be a duo, and get this out there”?

JH: Yeah, basically, Aaron and I are, you know, firstly, pop music producers. And we found that we were making a lot of ideas for artists that were—

JH: They were so dense. Like, a lot of the ideas were so dense on their own and felt so complete. They didn’t necessarily have a super strong place for an artist to hop on with their vocals all the time.

But there were pieces that we felt like we were going back and listening to, and hearing the potential of these songs that they could be.

AS: After so many years of having the ideas and just kind of stockpiling them and being, like, hoarding them, we were like, “Why do we do this? Why do we hoard these ideas?”

We love listening to them, even though they have the potential to be these huge pop songs. We feel so strongly connected to them as is, and there’s really no reason that the world shouldn’t hear it.

JH: Yeah, that was the impetus.

And then it became, like, a much more— as we started to release music, it became more of an intentional project. Um, to the point now where Miley takes up a lot of our time and creative energy and was, like, a big focus for us.

We make pretty much everything now specifically for Miley, whereas kind of in the inception of Miley, a lot of it was coming from those, like, leftover ideas that weren’t finding homes with other artists, which is kind of what led us to become artists ourselves with it.

PRODUCING FOR OTHER ARTISTS VS. MAKING MILEY

The difference between producing for another artist and making MILEY is ultimately freedom.

A: You’ve worked with artists like Camila Cabello, Charli XCX, 2hollis, and Ian. Does making music for Miley feel like using a completely different creative muscle?

JH: I would say Miley is our freest outlet, but I would also say that it exercises way more muscles a lot of the time than the production does.

Because I think that there’s just so much more that goes into being an artist and, like, building out a world.

And when we do that with other artists, most of the time, it’s just building out the musical world. And having Miley has been an amazing opportunity to learn how to present ourselves in so many other ways than just the music.

So I would say that it’s super free, and it’s super inspiring, because we get to do so many things on our terms that we didn’t necessarily get to do before.

But also, muscles that we’re not necessarily as used to flexing from our production careers.

A: So it’s kind of liberating now. You don’t have to answer to someone else’s vision, and you also have this whole other aspect of building a brand—this is how we’re gonna present ourselves, this is what our concerts are gonna look like. Previously, you didn’t have to work on that end of the music spectrum.

AS: I think with all things Miley, which is exciting now because we have our first shows ever, and, you know, a lot of these videos are our first videos ever.

Everything with Miley has been super putting one idea in front of the next idea, and just following our intuition, and it’s led us to the most amazing places.

And that’s kind of the most exciting thing about the project to me, is every single time an opportunity arises, we take it, and then we figure out how to, like, best—um, I don’t even know the word I’m looking for—but the best… be Miley, like, the new opportunity.

So I’d say that every single thing that we do is sort of completely based off our own intuition.

JH: Everything’s a butterfly effect—in the Miley Garden.

A: It’s Miley Garden.

AS: Yeah, yeah.

They don’t seem particularly interested in knowing exactly where the project is going. They just keep following it.

MILEY WAS BORN FROM FRIENDSHIP

A: Was this something you guys had always wanted to do, or was it recently you kind of connected with each other?

JH: No, I think our friendship birthed Miley.

I don’t think it was anything either of us were planning on doing. It just was the byproduct of us having the best time as friends and feeling free together as friends, and just running around—

JH: Being silly boys together.

Their friendship, it turns out, has always operated on the same logic as the project itself: one ridiculous idea leading to another.

JH: I’d say that’s, you know, kind of how our friendship is very much the way that Miley is. Our friendship has always been built off of, like, one crazy idea leading to the next crazy idea.

And we’ve been at each other’s sides for like five years straight, and I don’t think that Miley could be as free of a space and as exciting a space if we didn’t have that extremely close friendship and, like, you know, this kind of—uh, what’s the word I’m looking for? Telekinetic connection with each other.

AS: Yeah, and I feel like Miley’s, like, as we get a little bit—as we age a little bit—in this big world, it’s, like, our way of maintaining inner youth.

And, like, that sort of, to us, has been a big theme for the project, is inner youth and playfulness. And that’s who we are together, and maintaining that spark as a pair is so important to us.

I think we keep it alive in each other, and we hope it translates into the music.

THE UNIVERSE WANTED THEM TO MEET

The story of how Jasper and Aaron became friends sounds less like a standard industry origin story and more like something that was apparently supposed to happen all along.

They grew up around the same people in Los Angeles. Their girlfriends were best friends. They shared friends who repeatedly insisted they would get along.

They still didn’t like each other.

A: How did you guys meet?

JH: Basically, Aaron and I were always destined to be friends, but we never were. We grew up in similar circles in LA, and we had all these crazy connections that were, like, all the universe was always trying to get us to be friends.

It was, like, in high school, our girlfriends are best friends. We shared a best friend who was always like, “You guys would love each other.”

But, like, Aaron was, like, a total rock star, and he was, like, super swag. And I was, like, an electronic music nerd.

JH: We had this friend who was always trying to introduce us, and we were both just like, “Fuck that guy. I don’t wanna hang out with that guy.”

We were both, like, kind of hating each other from afar.

A: Like a little competition?

JH: Not even—not maybe. I don’t know. I would say not necessarily inherently with each other, but just with, like, the concept of other musicians our age in general.

Because we just wanted to be, like, the cool musician of our respective little world at the time.

AS: I don’t know if I agree with that. Maybe I was, at least.

JH: That was Aaron. I just didn’t want to hang out with him. I was just like, “This guy, like, smokes drugs, does rock and roll.”

Eventually, life intervened.

Aaron had been touring and playing guitar and drums for various artists. Jasper was beginning to establish himself as a producer. Then COVID shut down touring, leaving Aaron uncertain about where his career was headed.

Around the same time, he learned that Jasper had produced for Playboi Carti—Aaron’s favorite artist.

Then he had a dream.

AS: The year 2021—like, New Year turned—and I had a dream, like, January 1st or 2nd, 2021.

Right before I went to sleep, like, the universe told me, “You need to reach out to Jasper Harris. He has something for you.”

I thought at the time, maybe he had information for me or some sort of tip on how to be a producer. But the universe just told me inherently, like, “I need to reach out to Jasper Harris.”

I don’t really know why, but, like, I have to reach out to him.

JH: And then he reached out to me.

AS: Yeah. And he was like, “Can we do, like, a Zoom about how you do music?”

JH: And I was like, “All right. I’ll talk to this guy for, like, ten minutes.”

I made it a Zoom, and then what I thought was gonna be a pity call turned into five straight years of best friendship every day, making music with my brother for the rest of my life.

This man changed my life and showed me how to be goated.

AS: I think what is interesting is, I do truly feel like the universe kept us apart in childhood because they knew that we were gonna be best friends in our adulthood.

And because we have so much of the same life experience—same school, same friends, same girlfriends who knew each other in high school—it feels like we’ve known each other since we were 10 because we have that same community.

But, you know, really, like, the last five years we’ve been inseparable, and Jasper has really taught me everything I know about being a pop producer.

He says I taught him everything about being swag, and he taught me everything about being goated.

So, it was a very mutually beneficial relationship.

JH: Truly, truly symbiotic.

“WE’VE SOBBED IN EACH OTHER’S ARMS”

It becomes obvious pretty quickly that Jasper and Aaron aren’t just close in the way that creative partners are close. They talk about each other with the kind of sincerity usually reserved for people who have known each other their entire lives.

A: The way you guys talk about each other so kindly—everyone needs a friend. How Jasper talks about you, like, his eyes are twinkling and everything reminiscing on that story.

AS: It’s true. I mean, we really connect with other people who have best friends like us. It’s such a special and unique experience, and I wish everybody had a best friend like I have in Jasper.

It’s like the most special relationship of my life.

AS: I would wish it upon my worst enemy.

A: Okay. That’s so fire.

JH: I don’t think people have any idea how much this transcends music.

The things we’ve done together—unspeakable.

AS: Unspeakable things, for sure.

That level of intimacy naturally bleeds into the music. There isn’t really room for embarrassment when the person sitting across from you has already seen every version of you.

AS: I’ve seen every inch of this man’s body.

JH: And vice versa.

A: I bet that vulnerability comes into the music. You really can’t put a bad idea out there because you’re like, “Dude, I’ve seen—I know and seen everything.”

AS: Yeah. There’s no more hiding any vulnerability.

MILEY: We’ve cried.

MILEY: We’ve cried together.

JH: We have sobbed in each other’s arms.

Which raises an important question: does MILEY have a sad side?

Apparently, very much so.

SAD MILEY

A: Is there a sad Miley song? What’s your go-to cry?

AS: Hold up. There’s a sad one that just came out. Track four. What’s that called? Is that, like, “Music I Like, Easy Yes”?

JH: Oh, yeah. “Music I Like, Easy Yes” is a terribly sad musical tale.

A: Okay, that’s gonna have to be my add to, like, the cry playlist.

AS: I would say “Human Kiss” is the one that makes me feel—

Yeah, the most sad.

But I think, in general, sad art makes you feel happy because it makes you feel, like, a communal sense of struggle that we all go through as people.

So even sad songs make me feel happy, and “Human Kiss” has that bittersweetness that has connected with me from my favorite sad songs.

JH: I also really like where the WILEY things are, because to me, it sounds like when snails are falling in love.

You can check that.

A: These song titles are just amazing. Like, the more I hear the song titles, I’m like, wow, this is great.

JH: Yeah. “no bass” has no bass.

The explanation behind the titles is actually much simpler than their names suggest.

MILEY: The reason that I think the titles translate as being really fun and just, you know, intriguing in any ways is because they’re literally just me and Jasper trying to make each other laugh.

That’s the only place they can come from. Literally from, like, “How can I make my best friend happy in this moment? What is gonna put a smile on his face?”

And that’s, like, really not only where the titles come from, but in a lot of ways, the music.

When we’re making the music, it’s, like, always a thing of, like, “What can I do right now on the song that I know is gonna make Jasper light up?” Or he knows this is gonna make me light up.

Otherwise, such a fun way to make music together.

WHAT MAKES SOMETHING “MILEY”?

At some point, MILEY stops being a band name and starts sounding more like a classification system.

There are things that are Miley. There are things that are not Miley.

And, according to them, there’s no debate.

A: When you guys write a song, produce it, making it, how much is Jasper and how much is Aaron? Would you say mostly it’s 50/50?

JH: Miley is one.

A: Miley is one. Okay!! I mean, that’s a perfect answer.

AS: Miley makes all the songs. It’s all songs.

A: Miley itself doesn’t feel like it fits into just one genre. Is it more interested in creating your own little universe?

JH: Miley has a fully established sonic brand that is, like—I don’t know. I feel like it’s its own.

Would you agree, right?

AS: Yeah, I definitely agree.

I think that what is special about Miley, to me, and Jasper is that a lot of the times when we’re working on music, or working on a piece of content, or anything that is related back to Miley, we pretty much just ask each other—

MILEY: “Is this Miley?”

A: Yeah.

AS: And we both know the answer.

Either something is Miley or it isn’t. That’s when we’re working on music, that’s when we’re coming up with how to do a show, or it’s when we’re at the park and we point at things where we’re like, “Is that Miley?”

And it either is or it isn’t. We always both know.

JH: Ask us three things right now. Any three things you can think of in the world. We’ll tell you.

A: Oh my gosh, that’s Miley??

JH: We don’t need the objects, anything you want. We’ll tell you.

A: I’m just gonna say whatever’s coming to my head, even how lame it is. Is grilled cheese Miley?

JH: Well, that’s such a crazy answer.

AS: I think by Miley—

JH: I think that’s—very Miley.

A: Ooh, let me see, let me see.

JH: That’s a fire one.

A: Grilled cheese? That was the first thing.

MILEY: Oh my God, that’s pretty Miley.

A: Taking a portable water bottle. Is that Miley?

MILEY: Okay, that’s Miley.

MILEY: Eco-friendly.

JH: Okay, absolutely.

Might be even more Miley than grilled cheese.

A: More. Okay.

Opening up for Tiffany Day?

JH: Is super Miley.

AS: The most Miley of all.

THERE IS NO THOUGHT. THERE IS JUST DO.

For all the thought that goes into building the larger MILEY world, the actual music-making process seems almost aggressively instinctive.

A: Was there ever a song where you guys were just playing in the studio, doing some random stuff, and then it accidentally became a song?

JH: There is no thought. There is just do.

A: It’s kind of like Yoda over there.

JH: It’s just true.

AS: I think that it takes just, like, one spark of playing something random where we both look at each other and we’re like, “That’s a thing.”

And then it becomes a thing as fast as it possibly can, and then we can move on to the next one.

MILEY: Yeah. That’s how it’s always been.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

By the end of our conversation, Jasper was already on his way to another music session at Electric Lady Studios. Naturally, there was only time for two final questions.

The first was simple: if MILEY were a physical place, where would it exist?

A: If Miley were a physical place, where would it be?

JH: That’s such a good question.

Um… it’s like the land of, like, Where the Wild Things Are.

A: Like, Where the Wild Things Are?

AS: Yeah. I think that’s the perfect way to put it.

I would say it’s the dichotomy of Where the Wild Things Are and the white room with the strobe lights.

It’s all the places where overstimulation can possibly happen.

It’s an answer that probably explains MILEY better than any genre label could.

A little chaotic. A little surreal. Extremely overstimulating. And somehow still playful.

“ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE”

A: When someone discovers Miley through WILEY today, before they even know what they’re listening to or who you guys are, what do you hope they feel when listening to that album?

JH: Like anything is possible—

AS: Inspired, for sure. Inspired.

Just like, yeah, okay with being happy, and just being as happy and as joyful and as themselves as possible.

JH: You’re snapping Aaron.

A: Yeah, that’s a beautiful answer.

Maybe that’s ultimately what MILEY is trying to protect: the ability to be ridiculous, curious, emotional, overstimulated, and completely yourself without needing to explain why.

There’s no elaborate formula behind it. There’s no fixed genre waiting to be assigned. There’s just two best friends who found a space where they can make each other laugh, follow their instincts, and see how far one idea can take them.

The result is WILEY—an album that is best listened to upside down, preferably while driving too fast, with absolutely no idea where you’re going.

MILEY: Put up the MILEY M.

JH: Yeah, join us.

Catch MILEY DUO live as they open for Tiffany Day in San Francisco — [GET TICKETS HERE].