Interview: David Schmitt of Breathe Carolina Talks Albums vs. Singles, 'Hello Fascination' At Sixteen, and Reuniting with Kyle Even at When We Were Young
Breathe Carolina has had a long journey. Starting as a band that combined elements of electronica, screamo, and metalcore, the duo previously comprised of David Schmitt and Kyle Even took the scene by storm, working their way up to constant stints on the main stage of the Vans Warped Tour and countless headlining tours in their own right. By late 2013, Even left the group, with Schmitt and the live band members regrouping and diving headfirst into the world of EDM.
For the last decade, Breathe Carolina has been comprised of Schmitt and DJ Tommy Cooperman, who released one full-length, DEADTHEALBUM, as well as a steady release of nightclub-ready singles each year. This weekend, Breathe Carolina will perform at When We Were Young in Las Vegas, a set that is guaranteed to feature a mashup of material new and old, reflecting on the legacy of the group nearly two decades later. Just days ago, Schmitt took to Instagram to announce that founding member Even will be returning to the stage to link up with the Denver, CO based group to perform a handful of fan favorite songs that will remain a surprise until the show.
Shameless caught up with Schmit prior to the show to talk about releasing singles versus albums, reuniting with Even at their upcoming set, and reflecting on their iconic Hello, Fascination album sixteen years later.
Note: Portions of this interview have been edited solely for the purposes of length and clarity.
Main Photo: David Schmitt of Breathe Carolina performing in Portland, OR // Main Photo Credit: Jared Stossel for Shameless SF/STAFF
The last album that Breathe Carolina released was in 2019, DEADTHEALBUM, and you’ve since released a handful of singles over the years, the most recent being 2025’s “Miracle” with Giacobbi. What prompted you as a group to release singles versus another album?
I mean it really comes down to…the album process is so hectic in a way. You have to go into it and gather a whole body of songs to make an album. There’s so much that comes with it. I think, for us, we had released [DEADTHEALBUM] in 2019. We had a whole tour around the album planned, but then COVID it and then everything got cancelled. It’s not like it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but you’re just kinda bummed out. We had so much planned for it. By the time that COVID was over and everything was done, the album had been out for two years.
The single route is a bit more freeing. You can play different singles with different labels, and you’re not locked in to a label where you have to put out three albums before you’re out of that deal. Since we were with Fearless, we told ourselves that we didn’t really want to sign any more record deals, you know? We would just sign a song here, do our thing with it, then move on, sign a song here, move on, do your thing with it. It let’s us do what we want to do rather than being locked in or do things that we feel like we have to do.
Breathe Carolina performing in San Francisco, CA // Main Photo Credit: Jared Stossel for Shameless SF/STAFF
Given that you guys have gone more of the DJ route and being in that world, I feel like there must be a little more freedom to go and do a single where it’s just you, one other person, a laptop and a few plugins, versus having to go into a studio where you have to track all the instruments and go through ten to twelve songs.
Yeah, it gives you more freedom. When you’re writing music, you have to be in a headspace where you’re not writing it for someone else. When you do these big album deals and a full album, you would constantly have people checking in going, “oh, how’s this going?” or giving suggestions, overlooking the whole process a lot. That kind of just kills your creativity. If you think something is really great, and then the label comes in and is like “yeah, we just don’t love this,” it just kills the vibe.
We work with a handful of labels that we trust and that really trust us. We’ll be like, “hey, we think that this song is perfect for us and for you at this time,” and they’re like, “Cool. Love it. Let’s go.” You just feel more free as a writer and as an artist.
You’ve been performing more as a DJ act versus the electro-rock live band people came to know you for over the years. But When We Were Young is obviously playing into the legacy of this scene, the history that comes with it, and it’s known for bringing acts that were a vital part of this scene to the stage. What can people expect from a Breathe Carolina set at When We Were Young in 2025? Is there a full band this time?
It’s gonna be a mix of both - we’re gonna bring our heavy DJ influence, but we’re gonna be having live drums and playing all the old songs. We are actually bringing back Kyle [Even], the original singer that started with me - he’s going to come and do the last four or five songs with me. It’ll be the first time that we’ve performed together in twelve years. We’re all pretty stoked.
Oh wow! That’s awesome! I was going to ask you about that actually, since he posted that photo that said “New Microphone! Who’s This?!” on his Instagram, tagging the festival. You commented a bunch of eye emojis underneath it. It seemed pretty clear that he wouldn’t be returning, but then that photo came up.
When we announced it, he wrote me. We’ve always remained on good terms, no bad blood or anything. At the very beginning, there was some weird stuff for us, but for the most part we’ve been pretty good. He was like, “Yo I live here! This is perfect. If there’s ever a place to do this, it’s this festival, for sure.”
Kyle Even and David Schmitt of Breathe Carolina performing in San Francisco, CA in 2010 // Main Photo Credit: Jared Stossel for Shameless SF/STAFF
I thought that too. I knew he lived in Las Vegas. That’s going to be a really special moment. Are you able to say what songs you’re going to be playing together, or is that going to be a surprise?
I mean, it’s gonna be a surprise, but it will be the expected songs that the fans will know. It’s not going to be any weird B-sides that the fans don’t really know or anything.
That’s awesome. Breathe has evolved so much as a project over the last two decades - going from MySpace bedroom electronica-screamo to electronic music that would fit at home on the biggest EDM festival stages. Now that you’ve been doing this style of music for some time now, is it still weird to be recognized as the scene band that did Hello Fascination and Hell Is What You Make It? What does it feel like to be in both of those worlds?
It’s so cool. We wouldn’t bring our, say, nightclub set to When We Were Young, you know? We really understand that this is a throwback festival, in a sense. There was never any moment for us where we were like, “Ah, we hate being in a band, we’re gonna do this now.” It was just naturally the evolution, and where we wanted to go. I just get to a point where I really don’t want to do the same thing over and over again. After awhile, it’s like “okay, I need to switch things up.”
With [this festival] coming about, we’ve done a couple of live shows in the last three years, maybe like two shows. So this, again, feels new after so long. It’s exciting and a moment. I think it will be cool. Honestly, it’s a bit tough sometimes. We’ll have a show at a Vegas nightclub, but there will be some older fans who show up thinking that it’s going to be like 2011 Breathe Carolina. That’s always hard to deal with because we can’t play Hello Fascination at a Vegas nightclub. It just doesn’t work, right? But then we have those fans in the crowd that are looking at us like, “What the hell is this?” It really pulls at me when that happens because I’m like, “fuck, I wanna make everybody happy.” But this is the sound that we’ve been doing for a while now. I’m like, “I’m not sure what you were expecting, but we can’t do that now.” It’s interesting. It goes both ways, and it’s cool; sometimes it’s a struggle.
I remember the summer when you guys first released Savages, the first record without Kyle, where you were still playing with a band, but it was becoming very electronically influenced. What was the feeling in your mind when you decided to go on stage as a DJ act, to put down the instrument, pick up the USB, and plug into the CDJs? Or was it really at point, like you said earlier, where you felt that you couldn’t do the same thing anymore?
It was a little bit of all of it. Of course we were a little fearful; we were starting over, in a sense. After that 2014 Warped Tour, we felt stuck. We didn’t know what we wanted to do. We didn’t have a clear vision of a next, say, “full band, singing” album. It felt that it we were to do something like that, it would have felt forced or rushed. We started making this style of music naturally, and we were naturally following our gut. Obviously it was kinda scary.
It took a long time for people to come around, as well as for people in the EDM space to look at us as a DJ act and not as a scene band, you know? It was not an overnight thing; it took years, really, for people to give us a chance.
I remember that there was one nightclub in Orange County that gave us a chance to go and do a full DJ show, not like a then Breathe Carolina show. They were the first ones to give us a chance, and it started trickling after that. We had a couple of festivals that were like, “alright, we’ll give you guys a shot”. It led us to be able to do it. It wasn’t without the people taking a chance and going, “this is kinda weird, because you guys are a scene/electronic/rock band, and now you’re doing this, so we don’t know what to expect.”
It’s almost like after you spend all that time starting a project from the ground up, doing Warped Tours and countless headlining tours and getting that door open, and then you’re back to trying to get that door open again. It just takes one person to open the door, but it’s like you’re back to that moment of starting over, but not really starting over.
Yeah, it was definitely weird. But we decided that we were going to stick to that. During that time, we knew that we couldn’t be double-dipping, trying to start this DJ/EDM thing, but then also playing these rock shows and rock tours. We really had to make a choice. It sucked at first because no one was sending us offers for the DJ stuff, and that’s what we wanted to do. But we were getting all these rock tour offers, so we just had to keep turning things down. It was tough, but we stuck to our guns. It feels like it’s almost been longer doing it this way [as a DJ group] then the other way around [as a band], which is crazy.
Hello Fascination is now sixteen years old. As we get closer to a festival like When We Were Young, which is caked in nostalgia, how does it make you feel when you hear the album is that old and still being listened to with such affection and dedication by the fan base?
It’s definitely weird! It’s funny - we made that first full album in my bedroom on a computer, It’s Classy, Not Classic, where nobody else touched it. Then it was like, “Oh! We’re signed to Fearless Records, we’re going to go to a studio studio and work with producers!” It was a whole different world. I remember it like it was yesterday, just because of how scary and intense it felt.
In that moment, we were still living in Denver at the time. We had to drive out to L.A. and stay there for three months to do the whole album. It’s wild to think that it’s that old. I remember it like it was yesterday, but it does still feel like it was a long time ago, at the very same time.
Breathe Carolina will perform on the Allianz Stage at 9:10 PM on Saturday, October 18th and Sunday, October 19th, 2025 at When We Were Young in Las Vegas, NV.
