The Cool Kids

The Cool Kids are officially back. After a lengthy hiatus, Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish have decided the timing was right to pick up where they left off and have already released two new singles: “Running Man” and “Connect Four” ahead of their upcoming 2017 release, Special Edition Grand Master Deluxe. As the duo was in Miami attending Art Basel, they had some time to talk about their reunion, rappers going crazy and why 2008’s The Bake Sale EP never would have happened without skateboarding and Vicodin. —Kyle Eustice

- Kyle Eustice

Nice to have you back. One of my favorite tracks is “Gold And A Pager” from 2008’s The Bake Sale where you sample N.W.A.

Chuck: Ha. Tight. On the newer ones, we’re not trying to pay attention to what we did before. We’re just trying to be us now and make stuff that’s cool. It seems to be working out. Everybody loves the two singles we put out and I wouldn’t say bottom of the barrel because we don’t make bottom of the barrel stuff, but these are not album songs and people are gravitating to them.

I played “Connect Four” five times the day it came out. You guys were definitely missed. After saying The Cool Kids are “never coming back,” what changed?

Mikey: At the time, we wanted to give ourselves room to grow as artists instead of just as a group. Since the beginning, when you’re attached at the hip for a couple years, you kind of fall into a groove of working as a duo for everything and there’s time when you really need to go off and venture off on your own to work on yourself a little bit more and to gain new abilities you didn’t really have before.

What did you learn?