Tony Oller and Malcolm David Kelley of MKTO talk about their inspirations and new music [Exclusive]

Tony Oller and Malcolm David Kelley are the boys of MKTO, the band responsible for one of 2013's catchiest songs, "Classic." It's been two years since the hit song flooded airwaves, three since MKTO put out their first single, "Thank You," in November of 2012, and five years since the duo met in 2010 while auditioning for the Nickelodeon show Gigantic.

The two became fast friends and it wasn't long before MKTO, a band that expertly blends pop, rap and hints of other genres to create a unique, fresh-flavored sound, was born.

Since then, the LA-based duo have released a self-titled full album, toured with another pop-sensation group, Emblem 3 and performed independent shows across the country. This year, they released a four-track EP called Bad Girls and they're currently in the midst of completing a second full album.

TheCelebrityCafe.com had the chance to talk to the busy guys after their Oct. 8 performance at the Topsfield Fair in Topsfield, Massachusetts. Among other subjects, Oller and Kelley (whom Oller sometimes refers to as Mal) talked about the upcoming album and fresh EP, what their MKTO experience has been like and their other professional experiences, like starring on TV shows — Oller was on the Disney Channel's As the Bell Rings with Demi Lovato and Kelley portrayed Walt on ABC's hit show Lost.

Here's what MKTO shared:

TheCelebrityCafe.com: When you guys met, what was your first impression of one another?

Malcolm David Kelley: Two young crazy guys auditioning playing best friends and then becoming best friends. Sometimes in an audition process you never know who you're gonna meet but we just clicked, had a good time, ended up doing the show together. You have a lot of down time while shooting a TV show so we were just in the trailers, making music, having a good time, that's one of the things we bonded over.

The show ended, we met our producer, put stuff up on Youtube, they loved it, the fans loved it. We talked about taking it serious and formed into MKTO.

TCC: How would you describe what you each bring to the group as individuals?

Tony Oller: I think it's a good balance because we both grew up listening to a lot of the same music, but we — when you have a friend you always come through kind of different backgrounds but similar at the same time, so I think it's just... I love singing and Mal's a great singer as well, but I'm a terrible rapper and I don't know one thing about rap. But I love rap and to work with somebody who's as good as Mal is, it's just fun. It makes it where I can do the hook or something and he can write the verses or vice versa, but it's always nice. We always call songwriting like finding puzzle pieces and everything's a puzzle piece, so it works out.

TCC: Does the name MKTO come from your initials and for Misfit Kids and Total Outcasts, as I've read?

TO: It's initials, but for the first record, we just wanted to relate to people who have been in our shoes and have dealt with — bullying's a big thing — but you know it's not something we necessarily want to explain every time. For the name, we had so many weird names. We wanted to be "Role Models" for a little while. I don't know why — because we're just us, we're not trying to be anything we're not.

MK: It was supposed to be sarcastic.

TO: Yeah, it didn't come off right... so MKTO stems for our initials.

TCC: With your interest in wanting to relate to people, do you always consciously try to make your songs have positive messages?

TO: Regardless of the role models thing, I think we always want to have a song that has a good message just because I feel like it's a good story. We want to — even if it's a sad song, hopefully there's an ending that makes it a little more uplifting. Because we all go through our sad moments but I feel like music in general is supposed to kind of bring you out of  that funk and make you feel a little bit different, so we try to make uplifting songs and make them real at the same time.

TCC: "Classic" put you on the map in a big way. When did you know you had a hit and how did that feel?

TO: We worked [on] that record for a long time. When we first started working that record we were in a van. A white van. And traveling all across the country, us and five people, it was just jam packed. We slept in there. It was a hustle but it led to, I mean we sold over 2 million [records] out here, which was incredible to us and something you always hope for but when it happens, it's surreal. We were like two kids in a candy shop, ecstatic and excited. I think when we started getting the big checks [was when it sunk in]. We got nicer places. We could get cars  [from that song] — well that song led to doing so many shows. It just was a great experience and something we hope to follow up with on this second record.

TCC: Tell me about this upcoming record.

MK: The new EP is great. We think it's a great representation of the sound we have for the album. We're never really going for one sound. We want to be a collaboration of almost every genre of music. So we'd kind of like to keep that going within the music and we think the songs we have are powerful. "Monaco" is a great song, "Just Imagine It." We're speaking about things that are going on, just making it relatable and catchy at the same time. "Afraid of the Dark" — sometimes we like to play with the 808s, get that sound in there. So yeah we love the EP. We just can't wait for the rest of the album to be out.

TCC: When will that be?

TO: No, but it's crazy because, the good thing about it in general, when you're writing music is you pretty much have  material every day if you watch the news, or anything for that matter. There's always so much stuff going on.  So, I don't know if we have the exact date but hopefully by the beginning or middle of next year.

TCC: Do you guys write your own songs?

TO: Yeah, the one thing that's great about all this, especially with our first record, we just really took a lot of time to learn, because  we can write melodies all day but there's such a structured formula to writing a song, that it's one of those things where we just try to write the best melodies we can, come up with concepts. Then we go on and write with our producers. Most of the time it will be they'll send us tracks, which is really cool because they send us such different — like there's 808s and subby and weird stuff. But then we have a studio in our house so we just write, send it, email's great.

Then we find time when we're all in LA, we get together and go OK, this idea works, the bridge could be better, let's work on the bridge, we like the chorus, etc. We come in with kind of a sloppy puzzle that we think can be a cool puzzle then we make it so.

TCC: What has been your favorite song to work on so far?

MK: I mean it's hard to pick one. They're all like our babies, you just watch them grow into these big things. Especially when you perform, you know "Monaco" is such a big song — watching the crowd get involved, "Just Imagine It," they're all strong songs.  Just to watch people, the way they react just gives us  a different feeling. "Classic" is definitely one of those songs that everybody's singing and dancing to. "Thank You" is one of those, so it's hard for me to pick. But off this new EP, "Just Imagine It" is one of my favorites.

TCC: Let's talk about your shows. Tony, you were on Nickelodeon's As the Bell Rings.

[Oller laughs, seemingly a bit abashed].

TO: I have no regrets.

TCC: How was that experience?

TO: The weird thing about that, which was really cool, because education is really important to my family. Finishing high school was important to me even though I hated it. I liked school I just hated a lot of the people. It was really cool because we shot in Austin [Texas] and I'm from Houston so basically I would just take a month off. Thankfully, my teachers  allowed me to do the work over there and you'd have a teacher — you do that with any time you're under 18 [on a show], you have to do school every day. It's the same thing [Malcolm] did for Lost.

It was great because it allowed me to finish high school and still work, do another one of my dreams. And if it wasn't for that show I wouldn't have had money saved up to move out to LA when I was 18.  So it was nice.

TCC: Malcolm, how was it being on such an iconic show like Lost?

MK: That was amazing. Just watching it grow, it's kind of like the same thing with [MKTO], you never really know. We didn't know what to expect when we shot the pilot. The fact that it did what it did was amazing and I'm just glad to be a part of that. It was just a lot of fun. It was different from being a kid in Hawaii, being homeschooled like he was saying. It was a great experience and I actually learned a lot.

TCC: When you started acting was your ultimate goal acting or music?

TO: When we started acting, I think we always liked music. We just weren't really sure. Even with [MKTO], like [Malcolm] said, we were very — we both had loved making music and were putting it up on YouTube. We shot one  video for this cover that we really enjoyed by Chris Brown and Chipmunk called "Champion." That got us our producers and our label and we got signed from that and it was awesome. I didn't have too much social media growing up and it's really cool to see how much it can positively affect one's life.

MK: Definitely timing [mattered]. We got to grow and speak about what's going on. It would've been different if we were younger and writing songs, but now we get to speak our minds and make it relatable to people our age, so it's pretty cool.

TCC: It's surprising that you got signed off Youtube despite having had connections to Disney and with your TV work.

TO: It was one of those things where it's like 5 seconds of love and then if you're not doing anything it's back to the hustle. There's a lot of hustling in the business of music regardless  of what we had previously, but it was worth it.

TCC: Do you get recognized more from your shows or MKTO?

TO: A little bit of both.

MK: The fact that they can share love for the stuff we do on TV or our music and find out about our music or vice versa, we think it's great. It's all entertainment  and that's what we're aiming for, just making everybody happy. The stuff we did on TV, we did an episode of Wahlburger's.

TO: Mark and all of them are awesome. It was amazing.

TCC: Getting back to the music specifically, do you have anyone in particular you really want to collaborate with in the future?

TO: Yeah, anybody really. We like a lot of people. I think it's the — we're really grateful to have had Ne-Yo on the first record. He's such an incredible dude, we still occasionally see him, we know his whole crew and he's just a really nice person. So I think it's like working with those,  working with people you don't necessarily expect to work with but it kind of comes out as something cool... We love it, we just like music in general . It's cool to do a...

MK: Sam Smith

TO: Sam Smith would be nice.