On their latest single, "Vice," POP ETC frontman Chris Chu sings "No matter how hard I fight, it takes a hold of me." While he's presumably channeling an uneven relationship or insatiable habit, the same could be said of their music. There's something undeniable about their sonic, electronic-driven pop songs. They're catchy and hook-laden, without sounding overproduced. Alive with real instrumentation, prominent guitar chords and thumping percussion and bass-lines, POP ETC's songs set their own groove like winding roads you want to drive again.

We talked with Chu about their latest album Souvenir, penchant for cover songs, his love of Japan and whether they'd pull a-TLOP and go unconventional for their next release.

Hometown: Berkeley, CA
Homebase: Brooklyn, NY

How did the three of you initially meet and start making music together?
Well my brother and I have known each other for a while… obviously. We met Julian in Berkeley. I think at a party or something of mutual friends. His dad was a booker in town, and he got us one of our first shows at Bottom of The Hill in San Francisco.

How would you describe your collaboration process?
Its changed a lot over time. In the beginning, because I started the project without a band, I think I had a lot of pre-conceived ideas about the songs I was writing- how they should be arranged, how they should be played, etc. As time has passed and we’ve all learned to trust each other more our process has become much more collaborative. I trust Jon and Julian’s instincts as much as my own. We bounce every idea off each other, and we don’t release a song until all 3 of us sign off 100%.

You shared various recording stages of "What Am I Becoming?" - what was the feedback like? Any particularly interesting story?
Growing up I always was looking for demos and alternate versions of songs. I feel like it helped me learn a lot about songwriting and process that different artists go through. It’s always interesting to see how our fans latch on to certain versions of a song, and like one more than others. When we’re making music we’re always trying to “perfect” the arrangement, which is obviously impossible. It’s grounding to be reminded of how subjective music is.

You've said you wrote tons of songs and didn't feel like the album was ready for a quite a while - would you ever do a Life of Pablo Situation where you release an album and tweak the tracklist based on response?
Totally. We are thinking about ways to release our next album, and want to try and get away from the normal album release model. I’m not sure what that means exactly yet, but I’m hoping its a quicker and much more fluid process.

What happened to all the discarded songs?
They’re still floating around. In our head and on our hard drives. Some bits have ended up on other projects I’ve written/produced for. 90% will probably never be released unfortunately!