By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Oct 21, 2014 at 9:16 AM

In early 2012, music fans found themselves entranced by two hypnotically romantic pop songs, "Open" and "The Fall," cryptically released onto YouTube with no artist information. The songs – and the videos accompanying them – were gorgeous, a dreamy high voice with just a touch of smokiness crooning intimate lyrics over seductively simple electronic arrangements. Everyone just wanted to know who was responsible for these new tunes.

It was an impressive little indie music mystery ... especially since it was essentially an accident.

"It’s weird; it wasn’t supposed to be secretive," said Michael Milosh, one half of the smooth electronic R&B pop duo Rhye. "Everyone kind of played it like it was this big secret, but my name was all over it, and if you Googled my name, you’d be able to find it."

Eventually his not-so-secret identity – as well as the identity of his Rhye compatriot Robin Hannibal – was discovered, but that didn't end all of the mystery. There are almost no photos of the two in association with Rhye, and they have yet to tell anyone what the band's name means. That hasn't ended music fans' infatuation with Rhye's soft, sultry odes to romance either. The duo released a full album, "Woman," the following year in 2013 that only continued the glowing critical praise. 

Now, Milosh and Hannibal are taking Rhye on the road, including a stop Friday night at The Pabst Theater. Before then, OnMilwaukee.com chatted with Milosh about the band's mysterious beginnings, bringing romance back to the radio and why he hates covers.

OnMilwaukee.com: The band’s introduction was interestingly cryptic and secretive, with your identities left in shadow. When did you guys decide that’s what you wanted to do with the first album?

Michael Milosh: Not because we wanted to be cryptic. Basically, I have two really distinct projects, and I basically write everything for both and to the vocals for both. There’s a very weird cross-pollination that can occur very easily, so when I started doing the Rhye thing, I just didn’t want to be competing with myself. That’s how it started.

I didn’t want to be in the photos, and also, I’m a pretty low-key kind of guy in terms of I’m not trying to be a rock star. Once it started the world started opening up and they wanted us to take tons of photos, it just wasn’t the right vibe. The music’s supposed to be just heard. It’s not supposed to be this image-heavy thing with pictures of me, wearing clothes that aren’t even what I’d normally wear. I just kind of felt icky about it.

So I was like, I just don’t want to lead with any photos of myself or Robin, and let’s just leave it at that.

OMC: So it was about putting the music first.

MM: Yeah. I’ve had a problem with the commercialization of music now. It’s so, just, kind of heavy-handed the way it’s marketed. I also didn’t think the Rhye record would do super well. I wasn’t planning this huge record; I just made the record, I loved what I sang, I felt really connected to what I sang and I was like, let’s get it out. I was amazed at how many people gravitated to it. It’s totally different than what I thought. I didn’t think of it that way.

But I was like, "OK, if people keep wanting to see us play, I’ll keep building up the set." So I changed the live set, and I incorporated my other songs, because I won’t do covers – that’s something I feel very strongly about. I wrote some new material, changed the songs, have different parts for them … it’s a little more trippy, actually, the live set.

OMC: Why are you so against covers?

MM: I’m against covers because I’m extremely – militant is the wrong word – but I really feel strongly that if you don’t understand the intentions behind the words you’re singing, then you’re not really singing something that’s authentic. For me, being authentic is much more important than singing a cover that’s going to do relatively well because people know it.

For me, 91 shows later, do I really want to be singing covers? No, I want to sing songs that I can connect to, that I feel I personally felt the emotions so when I sing it, I can hopefully convey it to the audience. I’m trying to do something a little more special rather than commercial.

OMC: It’s interesting that you’re premiering songs, like "Right Never Comes," during your live shows.

MM: Yeah, basically what I’m doing is that I have download codes, so that if you a poster at the concert, you get a download of the song. I’m not trying to make it this big iTunes thing.

OMC: That’s an interesting way of combining the recording aspect of being a musician with the live show, because that seems to be the weird dynamic growing in the industry right now. The recorded music almost seems like a sidenote to the live show, which is where people seem to be making their money.

MM: I don’t think it’s a sidenote, but I do think the industry has shifted toward a streaming-based industry that’s cannibalizing itself as we speak. Artists are, like, "Oh my god, I’m not making any money selling records, and I’m making a little bit of money touring, but it’s extremely hard." So they’re touring more.

Touring is amazing, but you have to temper it because you can kind of lose your mind if you’re never in a place for more than a couple of weeks. And you’re not being creative.

OMC: Your songs have such a romantic intimacy about them, something so honest in a music industry nowadays that’s about easy catchphrases and, as you said in a New York Times interview, sexualization. How do you feel romance fits into this new modern pop cultural world?

MM: Basically, the way I feel it fits into the world is that when people fall in love with each other, that’s real. And when Nicki Minaj writes a song called "Anaconda," that’s not real. When things are overly sexualized and hyped up like the Miley Cyrus phenomenon, twerking on stage, that’s not real. That’s like a spectacle; that is like a circus.

But romance, feeling love for someone and wanting to share your life with someone, most of us feel that – hopefully – at some point in our lives. I was never trying to fit into a spot. I write journalistic entries about things that have happened in my life, and for some reason, I feel entitled enough to put them out into the world.

I really feel like I’ve figured out how to isolate myself away from the major label and the people trying to sculpt your record for you. I don’t take money upfront for the record. That’s how the Rhye record came together, as well. There wasn’t a huge advance or people putting their five cents in here. We recorded it in a bedroom, put it together and obviously it got put out.

I think what happens is if you’re a manufactured artist or one heavily influenced by your label, that’s when you start to get into this commercialization of whatever you’re talking about. Usually, that gets pushed – especially if you’re female – toward sexualization, or if it’s like hip-hop, it gets into this hedonistic, kind of misogynistic world that, for whatever reason, sells a lot of records because they love delving into that in their minds.

OMC: The New York Times interview also hinted that your music seems like kind of reaction against the clutter of popular music and the current electronic craze.

MM: I wouldn’t say it was intentionally in my head, or I didn’t have this motive to create a reaction. I think fundamentally and emotionally, in my core, I have a personal reaction against kind of like the bastardization of electronic music. I think I’m a purist, you know? And even what’s happening with hip-hop. There’s some good hip-hop out there; I’m not saying there’s not. But I love a lot of ’90s hip-hop, and I love a lot of pre-gangster rap.

I think I have just a natural, in my nervous system, aversion anytime I feel like something’s been created as a commodity, and it’s no longer an artform. I get really grossed out by it. I don’t personally want to make that. I don’t want to make just a product that’s designed to generate an income. I try to make songs that I think are beautiful or that I think are in tune with what I’m feeling about the situations I am in.

OMC: Your songs are mostly about finding love and falling love when it seems a lot of popular songs focus on the heartbreak side. Why do you think that is?

MM: I can answer it simply and basically say that I think it’s very easy to be really cheesy when you’re singing about the positive side of love, and it’s a little easier to stay in a safe place that doesn’t go into cheese if you talk about the sadness. The happiness of love is very hard to write about without making it come across as a little kid’s cartoon. It can be very trivialized.

On a bigger level, if I was looking at it from a more sociological perspective or how the zeitgeist or collective consciousness is viewing this concept of heartbreak, I think there’s a lot of instability between relationships. It’s not easy to find someone you want to live with for the rest of your life. It’s not easy to find a person that you truly love.

I think this Western world we live in is highly aggressive in a lot of ways; we’re bombarded by sexuality and commodification of the female form. We’re also inundated with work. We don’t get to have as many joyous moments as we’d like to because most of us are working 60-70 hours a week. I think you’re going to get into this place where people are trying to listen to what they know, and that is heartbreak. 

OMC: The obvious comparison that was made with this record was Sade, especially when people were uncertain about who was behind the album. Was that weird in the beginning that people thought you were Sade, or were you prepared for that?

MM: It’s funny because I’ve had other people mention it before. On a lot of my earlier records, I was really shy and learning how to produce, so I don’t think I was really flexing my voice very much. I’d sing a little bit lower, but people were already mentioning that I sounded like Sade. They’d say, "You’ve got a Sade kind of vibe," and I’d be like, "Alright, whatever." So it wasn’t unfamiliar to me that people would compare me to her.

I’m not a Sade fan. I don’t have anything against her; I just never have been this Sade dude who listens to tons of Sade or anything like that. I just happen to have a voice that has a similar timbre to her voice.

OMC: What is the best or weirdest guess you’ve heard for what Rhye means?

MM: People have guessed or made jokes that it’s rye bread or something, but no one’s pieced it together if it’s an acronym or if it’s a part of a word or if it’s another language into English. No one really understands what it is. 

OMC: So I’m assuming this means you won’t tell me?

MM: (laughs) I don’t tell anyone.

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.