In 2015 The Score hit the pop music scene seemingly out of nowhere. The duo was unsigned when its first single, “Oh My Love,” dropped at the start of that year. Only six months later — after being featured in a national supermarket campaign in Britain — the song hit 43 on the UK Singles chart and 17 on iTunes charts and was the most requested song on Shazam in all of 2015.

The band was quickly signed to Republic Records and released its debut EP Where Do You Run? last September. Comprised of Eddie Anthony (vocals/guitar) and Edan Dover (keyboard/producing), the musicians’ songwriting skills shines through, in part from years of playing and writing for others. 

Myspace caught up with Anthony and Dover to get to know a little more about them. Here are 10 things you should know about The Score.

Eddie And Edan Met Co-Writing For Kat Graham

Eddie and Edan were first introduced by a mutual friend at Universal Motown and were asked to work with Kat Graham when she was working on her debut EP for Interscope records. The two co wrote “Wanna Say,” the second single off her first EP Against The Wall.

The Two Didn’t Want To Start A Band Until They Met Each Other

Dover admits that they were completely content writing for other artists before they started working together. “Eddie and I had no idea we wanted to be artists when we first met. That wasn’t our intention. Eddie was doing pop lines with melody and lyrics and I was doing more production. We were working on songs hoping to get set up with pop artists before The Score was even a thought.”

Even Though They Are A Pop Group Edan Didn’t Listen To Pop Music Growing Up

Dover had a one track mind growing up. “My background is in jazz,” he divulges. “I grew up playing/learning jazz piano. I basically turned out mainstream pop music completely and only cared about jazz. It wasn’t until college that I started listening to or writing different kinds of music. I was only into jazz, funk, fusion and soul [and] playing jazz clubs in New York.”

Being a Jazz Pianist Was Intense For Edan

If you’ve ever watched the movie Whiplash you probably wondered how much of it is fact vs fiction in the Jazz scene. Dover attests to the intensity of competition. “It’s really intimidating to play in a jazz band because you’re surrounded by such amazing musicians,” he gushes. “I started Jazz at the beginning of my career so I was playing with all these amazing, more accomplished musicians. If you saw [Whiplash] there’s a lot of truth, in that everyone’s there to make music, but it’s also vibey and competitive. Pop music is a little bit more welcoming.”

He also swears his teachers still say phrases like cool cat and daddy-o, “They like speak a different language and I was just like, ‘What is my life right now?’”

The Band Started By Playing Rockwood Music Hall... A Lot

Rockwood Music Hall is a Lower East Side New York City venue that has been around for years. When Dover and Anthony first started The Score Rockwood had two stages, a small and a large. And the two marked the progress of their career from how they grew in the venue. 

“The first shows were definitely awkward….We started off playing off in the small room at a not great spot,” says Anthony. Dover notes it was something like Wednesday at 8pm. “But after a year of that, we got moved to the bigger room and started over on Thursday at 8pm.”

They’ve Come A Long Way From Rockwood Music Hall

Anthony says that a career highlight was playing Bottle Rock Music Festival in Napa this past May. “We were backstage when we got there and unloaded our gear and everything, and we were in our tent and we heard “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder being played and we thought it was just a track on a loudspeaker. But we were like, ‘Wait that sounds live,’ and it was Stevie Wonder sound checking. And it’s kind of surreal because we were going to be on that stage. It’s kind of crazy getting to play on the same stage that one of your idols/a general music legend is going to play. We had a 2pm slot Friday and it was still a lot of people and amazing to see people’s reactions to songs that you just formed in your head. You’ve played it in a studio, but then live people react. It’s surreal seeing that many people react positively to your music.”

The Score Is Constantly Working On New Music And Has A New EP Coming Out To Prove It

For the first EP the two, “were just holed up in Edan’s apartment writing every day,” says Anthony. And for the second EP? “We’re always writing...we’ve been working on this next one for 10 months now. We’ve accumulated like 30 songs, and the sound is a little harder than the first EP. I don’t want to say it’s more alternative, but it’s a little grittier. As we’ve had more time we’ve found more of what we want to be as a band. And what we’re trying to say with our music.” 

Edan Is Super Forgetful

We can all probably relate to the “OH NO,” moments that Dover feels regularly when forgetting or misplacing something while on tour. “I do so many stupid things. I left my laptop at security at LAX once. I just lost our keyboard stand and had to buy another one yesterday. When you go on tour you have to learn how to be responsible like have a checklist and make sure you have all the little things. You’d think that playing is where things go wrong, but it’s actually all the little things.”

Edan Is Learning From His Mistakes Though

“I feel like every single show I’m constantly paranoid about something going wrong,” Dover admits. “There was this one time we played a show at South By Southwest (SXSW) where [something went wrong with] my laptop. I’d put together a session with all my sounds on my laptop. Because our songs are pretty high production it’s a pretty complex setup, and we were doing a showcase for Republic [Records] at South By and they were already running behind. And I opened my laptop and I realized that I somehow saved over all of my sounds. So all my sounds for all the songs were gone….There was literally no time for me to do anything about it. So we just battled and I just played regular piano throughout the entire thing. Ever since then I make sure I have backups of everything.”

Their Next EP Is About These Ups And Downs

It may sound a little cliche when Anthony says that the new EP is, “about the highs and lows of being in a band.” But as you can tell from last month when the duo dropped “Unstoppable” — the first single off the new EP of the same name — the concepts can resonate with anyone. “We wanted to write a song about how we all struggle in life at different times, regardless if we're musicians or doctors or whatever. We're all down at some point but we can all feel unstoppable if we really want to."