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Photo by Colin Matsui

For casi, that sentiment is bigger than a mission statement. It’s the natural result of two friends creating the kind of music they wish existed when they were younger.

Made up of lifelong friends Eli Edwards and Xay Young, the Spanaway, Washington duo has spent the last twelve years growing alongside one another. What began as a friendship between two kids in a predominantly white suburb outside Tacoma eventually became something much bigger. Over the years, Eli and Xay navigated heartbreak, uncertainty, dead-end jobs, and the often complicated process of figuring out who they wanted to be. By the time they sat down to make CASI, they had more than a decade’s worth of experiences, conversations, and hard-earned perspective to pull from.

You can hear that history throughout the album. Across ten tracks, the duo wrestles with isolation, grief, mental health struggles, financial instability, and the pressures of early adulthood. The record crashes between hip-hop, hardcore, emo, and nü-metal with little concern for convention, but its strongest moments come from the stories at its center. Whether reflecting on loss, questioning their future, or channeling frustration with the world around them, Eli and Xay write with a candor that makes even the most personal moments feel universal.

In many ways, CASI feels like a document of everything they’ve experienced together up to this point: the late-night phone calls, the shared ambitions, the moments of doubt, and the belief that there had to be something more waiting on the other side of it all. Ahead of the release of their self-titled debut, Ones To Watch caught up with the duo to discuss growing up in Spanaway, making politically conscious art, and finally sharing the project they’ve spent years building toward.

You’ve known each other since fifth grade. What’s your earliest memory of one another, and how accurate was that first impression?

X: I thought he was weird. He had hella short soccer shorts and wore tight ass skinny jeans, but he was always drawing, and I thought that was hella cool.

E: Xay seemed like one of those kids who acts out because they don’t have that many homies. I was right on the money.

What’s a story from growing up in Spanaway that still feels like it explains who casi is today?

X&E : We caught the #1 bus from Tcc to Spanaway broke as fuck. We went into godfathers and deadass like were asking for scraps of pizza crusts and old breadsticks. It’s funny because it was the same godfathers we met at and the same godfathers I applied to during COVID. No scraps were found but we ran those water cups to the ground 

You’ve spent more than a decade growing up together. What’s something about the other person that still surprises you.

E: I always find it interesting what hobbies this guy gets into, like when we were in high school he wanted to be a bug scientist for like 6 months. As of recently, bro has purchased an unreasonable amount of plants and literally turned his room into a terrarium. He’s also a very fast learner, Xay learned how to play guitar good enough to write this album in like a year and a half.

X: I’ve always admired how much this guy is a jack of all trades. One minute, he’s giving a nigga a bald fade with a bleach and the next day he’s plotting on a costume idea he always wanted to design. It’s cool seeing someone just want to absorb and create in an almost childlike way

This is your debut album, but it’s also self-titled. What made this feel like the project that deserved to introduce casi to the world?

X&E: This album is deserving of that self-titled debut stamp because of all the years of trial and error that were funneled into it. Everything we’ve learned from each other and game we’ve soaked up from guys like Ben Zaidi really turned this record into the high-definition quality that we’ve been striving to achieve. Everything was thrown into this, get rich or die trying.

When did these songs stop feeling like individual tracks and start feeling like CASI?

X&E: Thinking back on it in retrospect, so many of these songs were being made at such a chaotic and pivotal time in our lives. After the making of human stereotype, substance and trigger we started hearing a story that was connected through pressure, perspective, and pain 

You both bring different experiences and perspectives into the project. Are there things that one of you is better at expressing in a song than the other?

E: Xay has a very poetic way of talking about grief and longing that I respect.

X: Does a good job exploring isolation on this album, that I admire greatly

What did making this album teach you about each other that you didn’t know before?

X&E: How to share the stage . 

The record moves between hip-hop, hardcore, emo, and nü-metal without ever feeling confined to one genre. What do those sounds have in common for you emotionally?

E: each of those genres being a strong immediate reaction out of me, I don’t know what emotion it is exactly, but I’m always chasing those goosebumps. 

X: Longing. 

Is there a song on the record that feels like the emotional center of the album, even if it isn’t the most obvious choice?

X: “human stereotype.” The song was written before a heavy loss in my life and when I listen back to it, I find comfort almost as if I wrote the song about feelings and hardships I would soon face.

E: It’s a toss-up between “substance” and “D.O.A” for me, those verses were really hard for me to write and even tough to perform sometimes.

The record tackles isolation, mental health, family struggles, financial pressure, and finding your place in the world. Were there conversations you were having with each other during that period that naturally found their way into the songs?

X: For sure. While Eli was back and forth between Seattle and LA we’d talk on the phone at least every 2/3 times a week. Being that we weren’t as close in proximity as we had been for so long when we finally did speak to one another especially in person the conversations felt a lot more heavy. 

E: adding on to that I can vividly remember a night in January of last year that I was driving in circles around DTLA waiting for a door dash order & xay and I probably spent 4 hours on the phone talking about how tired of this life we’re were and trying to decide a plan to get out of this cycle. That same night I sent him the demo to “im hungover and went to church”  

Was there a moment during the making of this album when one of you shared something personal that ended up changing the direction of a song?

XE: There never really was that definitive moment where either of us said something that changed anything so drastically, but overall the conversations we had while recording definitely bled into the writing process 

The album feels deeply personal, but it’s also engaging with larger social and political realities. There are moments that touch on issues like immigration, identity, and the current political climate. What responsibility, if any, do you feel as artists when it comes to addressing those realities in your music? (On a personal note, I’m Latina with immigrant parents, so I think what y’all are doing is so damn badass.)

X&E: As artists I think it’s our job to absorb what we see, feel and experience in our daily environments and use that as inspiration for the art we create. People give us their ears and their minds and while we have that i do believe it’s our job to tell people what the fuck is going on. We live our lives, have our individual experience and then talk to each other about them on a daily basis; so every time we’re in the studio it’s a reflection of that

Was there ever a point before this album where either of you questioned whether music was still the path forward? What kept you going?

X: I had been working at BJ’s for awhile and my head just wasn’t in the best place. I started questioning what I was doing with my life. I was fighting a losing battle with imposter syndrome and the idea of returning to college started forcing its way into my mind. I found myself applying to college and feeding the idea of striving for a nicer paying job. When school was about to start our first tour came up and during the beginning of tour my classes were gonna be starting and that’s when I realized like that was my crossroad and I told myself if I go on tour it’s for me but then I asked myself if I go to college who am I really doing it for? 

You’ve spent 12 years building toward this moment. What’s been the most rewarding part of finally sharing this project with people?

XE: For us, it’s playing these shows and inspiring the youth. At shows, it’s always sick seeing younger kids, especially black kids come up to us and feel seen. Showing them black music can sound like this. It does sound like this.

If fifth-grade Eli and Xay could hear this album today, what do you think would surprise them most?

X: They’d for sure be surprised that something like this exists in the first place let alone we made it. Little Xay would love the heavy drums

E: Kid me would be obsessed with our mascot.

Listen to CASI below: