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For reasons related to the brain’s love of speed and the straightforward pleasure of an open road and a volume dial turned all the way up, music just sounds better in the car. These behind the wheel moments are what Drove wants their music not only to soundtrack, but to emulate.

“Some music makes you want to pump the gas and other music makes you want to chill out and enjoy the view,” says Drove’s Teun Wouters, “but in the car, music hits different.”

After meeting while attending nearby high schools in their native Den Helder,  the Dutch duo – Wouters and Eli Salomons – bonded over a shared love of music, albeit different flavors of it. “I had only made music before with a band ” says Wouters. “Eli, on the other hand, had only produced electronic music from a laptop”.

After casually making music together for a few years, the guys got serious during the pandemic, developing their sound in the studio amidst lockdowns. This period was crucial, offering uninterrupted time to experiment with melding electronic productions and live elements, a process that ultimately created the dreamy, transportive style that’s become their calling card. In those claustrophobic days of the pandemic, this music felt to them like the freedom of a full tank of gas. Road-testing new tracks also become a key part of their process, hence the name Drove.

“As soon as we're done making a song,” Salomons says, “we always get in the car, crank the volume and experience the song while driving.”

Drove was soon off to the races – landing their first release with STMPD, the label from Dutch powerhouse Martin Garrix. Simultaneously, one of their demos reached Dillon Francis, who became their collaborator on the sexy, thumping “Places,” from Drove’s 2021 debut EP Dusk. Since its release, the song has been streamed nearly nine million times on Spotify alone.

Released via STMPD, Dusk and follow up EP Dawn created the momentum that earned Drove marquee bookings when live events resumed. Suddenly, Wouters and Salomons went from their tiny studio to some of the dance scene’s most prestigious stages, including Tomorrowland in Belgium,  Creamfields in the U.K., a New Year’s Eve set in Goa, India and Ibiza’s club mecca Ushuaïa.

“It's overwhelming to be in front of a big crowd and feel the energy and emotion,” says Wouters. The guys have taken the emotional intensity of these high experiences and melded them into their new EP, crafted over six months and forthcoming via Kygo’s Palm Tree Records. This deep, sophisticated and lyrically vulnerable music demonstrates an even more evolved balance between live instruments and electronic production, a sound that helps place Drove alongside acts like Bob Moses and RÜFÜS DÜ SOL. They plan to incorporate both styles of music-making into upcoming live sets, making, Salomons says, “performances more of an experience.”

Whether you’re hearing it one of these shows, while listening in an actual car or when turning it on and cruising down the highway of your mind, Drove’s music is picking up speed. Come along for the ride.