AJR Went from Street Performing to Creating Their Own Genre

New York City residents are all too familiar with buskers, or street performers, especially those of downtown Washington Square Park. Indie-pop trio AJR spent plenty of time vying for the attentions of passersby before eventually capturing the hearts of millions via Youtube with "I'm Ready."

Brothers Adam, Jack and Ryan Met, set to drop their debut album Living Room in September, tell Trending 10 host Katie Van Buren how street performing has impacted their career.

"Street performing in general was really amazing; it really prepared us for performing today in front of a bunch of people," Jack explains. "When people are walking by that couldn't care less that you're there, it's kind of the most nervous we've ever been."

AJR call their unique, self-created genre "spokestep," which they describe as "taking vocals and making them crazy in a song." Similar to dubstep, spokestep involves rehashing an element's overall structure.

"Because we created everything in the living room, from the writing to the production, we decided to do some stuff that was a little outside of the box. And because dubstep takes the bass and stretches it out and messes it up, we tried to do the same thing with vocals," Adam explains.

And there seems to be potential for a spokestep-influenced cover of Iggy Azalea's "Fancy," a jam that AJR already have an affinity for.

Check out Fuse's exclusive interview above, and be sure to follow AJR on Twitter and Vine. Catch new episodes of Trending 10 weeknights at 5/4c! Find Fuse in your area.