Five years later they’re still in the basement making music. This latest studio is populated with computers, a vintage Moog synth – a gift to them from Moogfest – and loads of recording equipment set up on a wooden door turned into a makeshift desk.

An air conditioner hums in the corner and a framed record celebrating the gold certification of ODESZA’s ‘Say My Name’ hangs over the couch. Down here it is dim and cool, an ideal place to escape the heat and make music. In more ways than one, this is what Harrison and Clayton have been doing for the past year.

ODESZA toured relentlessly behind Summer’s Gone, sleeping in the back of U-Haul vans while en route to gigs, doing 24 sets in 26 days on their first European tour, and playing for audiences as small as four in pocket-sized clubs and dive bars across the United States. (Clayton asked his parents to lend him $1000 to pay his way through this first tour. They agreed to loan him the cash as long as he got a “real job” when he got back.) Many of these early shows lost money. The pace was intense.

“There were a few points on the road,” Clayton says, “where it was like, ‘What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why can’t I just go home?’”

But the plan set forth by ODESZA and their management team – gradually build a fanbase through non-stop touring – worked. Dive bars turned into large clubs, then massive amphitheaters and both mainstream mega-festivals like Coachella and smaller indie gatherings like California’s Lightning in a Bottle. When Clayton’s parents saw him play Sasquatch, a Washington state fest Clayton had attended for years as a fan, they knew their son had found his real job. And yes, he paid them back.

Much of ODESZA’s second album, 2014’s In Return, was recorded on the road. With this LP the duo focused on sharpening its songwriting skills and incorporating vocalists. They were “incredibly scared” to release the album, fearing its stylistic shift would cost them some of their hard-earned fanbase. In fact, the opposite happened.

The LP hit number one on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Chart and the RAC remix of ‘Say My Name’ was nominated for a Grammy. Crowds got bigger, set times better. The men often looked at each other while performing with their with jaws dropped at the thousands of people cheering for them.

They played hundreds of shows in the three years following In Return’s release and call this period both the manifestation of their wildest dreams and a physically and emotionally grueling experience. When it was time to make another album, they retreated to this basement.