The Brocks are Utah’s answer to electropop, and have been compared to M83, Empire of the Sun, Phoenix, and Miike Snow. You may have heard them on the Mountain Dew commercial “Arctic Surf,” an ad for Kenneth Cole’s “Mankind” cologne, or seen them in the EDC documentary The Electric Sky.

Dane Brock (lead singer/synths), Christian Darais (drums/sequencing), Morgan Ence (guitar/sampling), Ryan King (bass/backup vocals) create a totally organic sound using digital instruments, so it’s interesting to hear Brock say he got into EDM late. “My first experience was the live stream of EDC Las Vegas when Kaskade played our “Summer Nights” collab. I was totally blown away by the massiveness of it. I've never seen so many people in one place and I couldn't believe I was hearing my voice.”

The quintet (Brock’s brother Grant still writes with the band but doesn’t perform live with them) were all friends before they were bandmates and say they love making music together. “There was a certain level of cohesion between us right off the bat that made it super enjoyable,” Dane says.

Currently, the Brocks are putting the final touches on an album. In the meantime? Get to know the quintet a little better below.

Hometown: We're from all over. Bend, Oregon; Las Vegas; Sterling, Virginia; Pleasant Grove, Utah.

Homebase: Utah Valley

Why are you called the Brocks?

Dane: The Brocks started with just my brother and [me], so the name made sense then. He still writes with us but no longer performs live. We probably could have changed the name by now but we've been with it so long that it just feels right to keep it.

Describe your music to someone who's never heard you before.

Electronic music with a soul.

What is your songwriting process like versus your live renditions?

Usually Dane or Grant bring the skeleton of a song to the band and we all do our things to flesh it out. When we perform we try to bring the energy and thump of electronic music and the magic of a live rock performance together.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

Miike Snow, Empire of the Sun, Passion Pit.

Who would you love to collaborate with?

We'd love to get together with Bloodshy and Avant or Brandon Flowers.

Utah is not known to be a DJ hub. Does living there influence your music?

Starting our musical careers here, we never even thought of the DJ/producer thing as an option. It's all about live music. So maybe that's what lead us to incorporate the electronic dance stuff into our sound while still keeping it organic enough that we would fit on a bill with other local acts.

What's your relationship with Kaskade? How did he come to produce "Going Nowhere"?

Kaskade is actually pretty involved in the Provo music scene. He has collaborated with a ton of Utah artists and when he was asked to do the soundtrack for "Under the Electric Sky", our friend/producer Nate Pyfer showed him a demo of "Summer Nights." He loved it and wanted to get involved with more of our stuff.

What was the creative vision behind the "Going Nowhere" video? It reminds me of Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity."

The frustration of feeling like you're spinning your wheels but not really getting anywhere. Our friend Nick Rush at Paradox Digital came up with the concept and got access to a rotating room. He was the driving creative force behind the video.

Tell us the craziest thing that’s happened to the Brocks so far.

Opening for Kaskade in front of 15,000+ people at a free outdoor concert in Provo. They had to stop our set halfway through to tell everyone to tone it down and take a few steps back. Teenage girls on the front row were getting squeezed through the barrier bars like Play-Doh. It was insane.

If you were a hashtag, what would you be?

#goodthingscometothosewhowait

Do you have an awesome Myspace-related story as a musician?

Morgan: I learned how to code HTML & CSS through the old MySpace. I coded our current website.

Christian: Myspace was how I kind of got connected to the local music scene. I saw who was friends with who and who was supporting who. It was a cool online community that I got to dive into.