Collaborating on musical endeavors is all about finding each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and Los Angeles-based duo thanks. have taken the time to figure out how their strengths and weaknesses work together.

When Steve Pagano and Mario Borgatta met at Berklee College of Music in 2009, music was something they immediately bonded over. Once they realized that they had the same goal when it came to working in music, they decided to work on that goal together.

“...Music was really the only thing we ever did so it felt pretty natural when we [started] making music together,” they said. “Once we moved out to Los Angeles, we wanted to find a creative outlet for ourselves that allowed us to be free of any other opinions and just have fun doing what we love.”

Both of them grew up listening to more artists in the indie genre and cite Modest Mouse, Wilco and Broken Social Scene as some of their earliest influences. Lately they’ve been taking additional influences in pop music and trying to utilize those sounds in the alternative indie soundscape.

Some of their other influences, however, happen more subconsciously. They have worked on records from world renown, critically acclaimed artists such as Muse, Foster The People and one of the artists featured on this website, Mallrat, to name a few.

“We are always searching for the best ways to incorporate different styles of music into the sound of thanks.,” they said. “...we tend to be listening to a lot of that same genre for a while, so it starts to come off in our own music as well.”

They have spent the last year focusing on writing, producing and mixing for various artists while finding time in between to work on their own music. Through these projects they were able to absorb a mixture of different writing styles and production sounds that they ultimately incorporated into some of their new music.

The first single of their new era, “Busy”, was a favorite amongst family and friends that got to hear it first. They felt it was the right song to start off the new year, and kept their overall theme of releasing genuinely fun songs.

“We write tons of styles, we have songs that sound like Bruce Springsteen and we have songs that sound like Post Malone,” they said in a press release. “It’s a very open-minded workflow when we’re working on thanks. It’s always for fun. If it’s not fun, it’s not thanks.”