INTERVIEW: World’s First Cinema
Words by Lexi Schnell (@lexischell)
When you watch a movie in a crowded theater, you give your undivided attention to the experience itself. Your senses lock into the action on the screen and the sound from the speakers, and you’re completely immersed. World’s First Cinema replicate the moviegoing experience in their music. The Los Angeles-based duo— John Sinclair and Fil Thorpe— project a myriad of intimate emotions across widescreen soundscapes underpinned by scenes of alternative, indie, pop, and electronic.
A mutual friend invited John and Fil to a game night, and they naturally started chatting. A few weeks later, they met up for a session, cooking up their 2020 debut single “Can’t Feel Anything.” It eventually generated 2.2 million Spotify streams followed by “Red Run Cold” with 7.5 million Spotify streams. Both songs adorned their debut Rituals EP in 2021. They inspired tastemaker praise with “Supernatural.” Of the latter, The Line of Best Fit urged, “think Panic! at the Disco meets Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ – it’s fun, funky and spooky,” and WONDERLAND. attested, “the L.A.-based duo are redefining pop one theatrical rock melody at a time.” Carrying this momentum into 2022, “Young Beast” generated 1.7 million Spotify streams, and they teamed up with Punctual for the fan favorite “Castles.”
In the end, World’s First Cinema present an escape worthy of the big screen, and you’ll never want the credits to roll.
How did you and Fil meet and what was it like combining both of your sounds?
Absolutely. We met at a buddy's house party. It's, like, really generic and simple. But the time we worked together, it was just I mean, there wasn't a challenge to combine our styles. It was effortless. It was awesome. The session we had together, I knew it was gonna be more than just, like, a one or two off thing.
What can fans expect from your debut album, Something Of Wonder?
It's a bit of everything we do. You know, it's a snapshot in time of where we are right now, and, yeah, I'm really excited to share it.
As the cinematic side, there's a little bit of pop punk in there from Fil. We worked really hard on the production, and I think it's gonna shine. I think it's gonna show, like, a really cool facet of everything that World's First Cinema is.
If a new listener only had time to listen to one song of your songs, which should it be and why?
There are two answers to this, and there's the one I'm supposed to give and the one I am good to give. And that's “Broken.”
I think “Broken”, the one especially when coming out with the album, I think is, like, it's really fucking cool. It's different. I guess, like, a little glimpse of the future of where we wanna go.
If you could collab with any artist on this weekend’s lineup, who would it be?
Ooh, maybe nothing,nowhere?
Do you have any hidden talents outside of music?
No. That's it. Haha.
How's your first Warped Tour going so far?
Very excited— great. Sweaty.
What do you wish an interviewer would ask you about?
Oh, choose your own adventure. Haha. I don't know!
What about any side quests you wish you could plug?
Okay. Side quests. I'm teaching myself how to weld.
That sounds like a hidden talent!
Yeah, yeah. Maybe! […] I just, I was like, fuck it. I'll just buy a little, like, MIG yeah. Just like a little MIG welder, and then I immediately blew my violin in half with it. So yeah welding a lot harder than I thought it was. Yeah. We're working out the kinks. So, yeah, it's all good, though.
WORLD’S FIRST CINEMA’S DEBUT ALBUM, SOMETHING OF WONDER, WILL BE RELEASED ON JULY 11TH
PRE-SAVE HERE
WHERE TO FIND WORLD’S FIRST CINEMA
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