Lustmord

You’ve been around for a quite a while and have been interviewed a great many times, so I’m trying not to ask questions that you may have gotten 100000 times over. Forgive me if I do not achieve this.
Noted. I’ll let you know if you do ;)

Since you’ve been through so much, let us start with the present. What are you up to now in terms of LUSTMORD, are you working on anything new?
I’m pretty much always working on Lustmord in some capacity, though not 24/7. It usually means working on sounds to use for the next album, which I’ll often do at the same time as when I’m creating a library for another project. I’m often distracted by other projects, particularly of the day-job variety, though often they’re not that much removed by what I do for Lustmord. I’ve just finished working on one such project and while there are a few other things I’m working on, I have started preparing the next Lustmord album. There is also an album I started on earlier this year, but that’s on the back-burner for now, while I wait for additional sounds that are required for it.

Your last full length, Carbon Core, was released at the end of 2004. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
I was approached by Cam De Leon (aka Happy Pencil) to create the sounds for the Happy Pencil site (www.happypencil.com), which I did. As well as for a short QuickTime movie of Cams work. From that I got the idea to expand the soundtrack to the site into a full album, which I did.

Let’s take it back a little bit. From where does the term Lustmord come, and why did you choose that for a name?
That’s one of those questions I’ve been asked many many times

Do you consider that name to be identification for yourself as an artist, or is it simply a project?
Well.. I never refer to myself as an artist, and its a project.

What year did Lustmord begin?
I started in 1980, but I don’t think anything was recorded until 1981.

In the beginning, what was your intention in starting Lustmord?
The main thing at the beginning was finding my own voice, that Lustmord sound, it took me a year or two to get there. Lustmord started because I wasn’t hearing a kind of music that I wanted to hear, and it seemed the only way of doing so was to create it myself. The irony is that after the time I spend working on an album (including mixing, mastering etc) I’m tired of it and the last thing I’ll want to do is listen to my own material. I also have no interest in music by people who copy that style, I don’t see the point.

Do you notice that people cop your style?
I come across some of it. Either somebody points it out to me or somebody approaches me to collaborate on something in that style, but I only see the point of collaboration if its more unusual or is fun.

Let me backtrack. You said: Lustmord started because “I wasn’t hearing a kind of music that I wanted to hear, and it seemed the only way of doing so was to create it myself.” Is that still your motivation to this day?
Pretty much so yes, and its become the way I express myself and my ideas (though I tend to deliberately obscure them).

A lot of people seem to have many descriptions for the Lustmord sound. From your perspective, how would you describe it (or better how would you describe WHAT YOUR TRYING TO DO with it) for those who may never have heard?
I’ve never bothered to describe it. What I try to do is literally create a space that you enter into that otherwise doesn’t exist. What that space is, or what you do there is up to the person experiencing it. While there are more specific ideas involved, I don’t go into explaining them as I prefer to give clues rather than be specific, it’s an important part of the process.

I’ve noticed that you give credit to the punk movement for shaping your development as an artist. Can you give me a little info on the influence it had on you?
The influence (and I’m talking about the original movement of 76-77, not the imitators who came later and who lost the point entirely) was the just getting up and doing it attitude. I’ve never known how to play an instrument or read and write music and while there are times when that’s a hindrance, I think its important to do my thing regardless.

You have another project called Aricebo. Can you tell me a little about that?
I released an album under that name about ten (?) years ago. I had planned to record a follow-up album eventually, though I’ve no idea when if at all. Some of the ideas have and no doubt will, be absorbed into other projects as is often the case.

Do you have anything else in the works aside from Aricebo and LM (not including that which is JOB related)?
A few, which will see the light of day eventually. The one closest to completion at the moment is a collaboration with Buzz from Melvins, though this might well mutate into something else by the time its finished.

In the past it seems that you have been adamant about making sure people separate what you do as Lustmord from what you do as a day job, although your website offers information on both. Do you still feel that it is important for people to not mix these up?
Hell, it’s not a big deal to me and I really don’t care what people think, but it can be a bit silly when someone suggests I somehow sold out or am doing Lustmord a disservice (as if I give a fuck) by working on movies for example. Who cares ? Such things are just jobs to pay the rent like any other job. And since I never sold in to start with the point is mute. Actually it amuses me, but I do like to make it clear that any perceived glamor or such nonsense associated with working on things like movies is bullshit. A job is a job, regardless of the popularity or obscurity of the results.

How did you become involved with Hollywood?
I’m not involved with Hollywood. I’ve worked on a few movies that’s all. I was asked by someone I knew if I’d move to LA to help them on the soundtrack work they were doing.

Do you think you could you give some advice to up and coming sound designers who may be interested in working in this field?
To be honest I can’t, unless you have a specific question. I don’t have any secrets to give I’m afraid, I just do what I do.

I guess it helps to know some one, or in your case, when someone knows you.
Very much so, there isn’t much chance in people being interested in your work if they’re not aware of it after all.

Coming from punk, which seems to have had a very anti-corporation sentiment do you feel any kind of difficulty in working directly with large corporations
Of course not. I loathe them, but I’m a realist.

Do you ever get criticized for it? Do you think those critics have any valid points to make?
I’m not aware of any specific criticism so I can’t comment. Do you have an example in mind?

The “someone suggests I some how sold out” sentiment would be an example.
That just makes me laugh as I never sold in to start with. It really is a day job like any other. Nobody said I sold out when I worked in a paint factory. But yes, you’re right, I don’t care if someone is silly enough to think that. Its their problem not mine.

I’m very curious about your studio set up, can you tell me about some of the hardware/software that you use. Studio monitors, mics, companies you support, etc.
I use an Apple G5, with about 800 Gig of hard drive space, a MIDI keyboard as an input, a Mackie Universal Controller, Logic 7.1 and a bunch of other software. No external mixer, effects or instruments other than my trusty EMS Synthi AKS.

Do you have a favorite piece of gear at the moment?

Yes. Altiverb by Audio Ease.

After so many years of being entrenched in sound design, how do you stay motivated and interested to keep going and innovating?
If it wasn’t fun I would stop. I’ve always been inspired by sounds and at the moment it seems I always will be. It is important to do other things with it though, like collaborations or do some work on commercials for example.

Do you buy music?
Of course. I spent $300 on CDs last week.

Can you name any current producers/musicians that you give respect to or enjoy listening to?
There are many and my tastes are varied. At the moment I am enjoying some of Tom Middletons remixes.

What do you think of the Cold Meat label?
Roger is a nice guy. The label doesn’t release the kind of music I listen too. Why do you ask?

Are you sick of the word DARK?
It’s just a word.

What is your definition of industrial music/culture?
Industrial music was music put out by the record label Industrial in the late 70s/early 80s. Industrial culture? There is no such thing.

Do you believe in an Illuminati conspiracy?
No, but its a very interesting conspiracy, one of the better ones. I don’t believe in any of the classic conspiracies, but I enjoy reading about them. The real conspiracies are much more mundane, but at the same time crazy.

OK, THAT SEEMS TO BE IT. AGAIN, MUCH GRATITUDE, I DID LEARN A THING OR TWO.
You’re welcome :)

2011/03/30 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

Los Crudos

An Interview I did with Los Crudos from1999. Enjoy.

Let’s start with some background information. Who are you, and where are you guys from?
J — I’m Jose, I play guitar for Los Crudos. I’m from Chicago born and raised.
E — My name’s Ebro, I play drums. I’m from Columbus Ohio, but I lived most of my life in Delkalb Illinois, which is close to Chicago.
Juan — I’m Juan. I play the bass and I’m living in Chicago right now.
[M — Martin, vocalist, is not in the discussion at this point].

How long have you been together?
J — Los Crudos, as a band, has been together for about seven years now. Ebro’s been in the band for almost three. Juan was in the band prior, so it adds up to about two, two and a half for him.

Why did you start Los Crudos?
J — Well, we really liked punk. I think the whole idea is that we liked punk and we didn’t see any hard-core punk bands that we totally related to. We thought there might be a way for us to say something that we wanted to say – about being Latin American growing up in the United States and feeling alienated. Not alienated from the scene, because the scene is full of people who feel alienated, but just feeling that and wanting to find a way of expressing how it is to grow up the way we did. Also, it wasn’t our idea to play shows everywhere. We just wanted to see how it would work out playing shows in the neighborhood. Playing shows for other younger people like us. DIY shows. And we just figured out that we had more and more shit to say.
E — See, Juan and Martin started the band…
J — You used to see us…
E — Yes, I saw them when they first started and shit.

What did you think of them back in the day?
E — I thought it was cool that an actual hard-core hand existed in Chicago. There was a lapse of time when many bands just weren’t that good. There weren’t that many bands actually speaking about things, you know? I thought it was cool that they spoke in Spanish also, because in the US no band had done that. My family speaks Spanish, so I related to that. I just thought it was good that there was a real hard-core band in Chicago; because for a long chunk of time there weren’t any.

What bands have influenced your style?
E — Old Italian .shit.
J — Ya, old and fast.
SSD
J — Old Boston stuff, old DC stuff. A lot of old European and South American stuff. Music from all over the world;  Japanese shit.

What got you into hard-core to begin with? Can you to define the term, at least from your own perspective?
J — I got into it because of the music and the message. I got into it when I was already older, like 14 or 15. It still means the same thing to me, even though like the scene itself, I’ve evolved. It still pretty much means the same thing: An attitude, a message and not feeling guilty. In general, punk always has been a way of fighting for yourself, but not in a way that’s selfish.
E — I got into it through skate boarding, and I listened to heavy metal shit. I bought a MISFITS album one day because I saw people wearing their T-shirts. I thought it looked interesting, so I picked it up. I was about ten years old. I got into it through that. Hard-core is a lot of different things. It’s a good way for people to express ideas and communicate with each other. It’s also a way to have fun. It’s given me things that I’ve been able to take into my personal life. Things that are important. It’s influenced me in how I deal with other people. I guess that’s what it means to me. It will always be about the music, but a lot of people get something more out of it, like ideas that they can take in and do shit with in their actual lives. That’s better than just worrying about what is ‘punk’ and ‘hard-core ‘. You know what I mean?
Yes, the definitions.
E — Exactly.

Well, I was going to ask you next how you think hard-core has changed your life, if you’d like to comment more on that…
Juan — I don’t know.
J — It put holes in his ears…
(Laughter)
How has it affected the way you look at the world?
Juan — I see things in a more open minded way. It helped me to think over things that I thought negatively about in the past. It just helped me to understand things that I didn’t understand before.

What’s up with all the lineup changes over the years, what happened with the other members?
J — They just ate all our food, so every time someone gets bigger in the band, we kick them out. The original bass player for Crudos, his name was Oscar, and he was also the lead singer of another band I was in. He left because it was just a bad scene. So after about a year and a half he decided that we’d probably be in a better mood if he wasn’t playing with us. We found another guy named Lenin, a friend of ours. He played with us for about two and a half, three years. He went to Europe, so Juan decided to come out with us to play bass. He’s been our bass player for the last year and a half. Ebro came in after Joel, who was the original drummer. He left after like the second year or something.
E — Juan played drums for a tour and we had. This guy Brian played drums for a tour, also. But I guess me and Joel are the guys who’ve been in with the drums for the longest time.
J — [Joel] left because he didn’t want to mix music with politics.
E — I guess he wanted to make money off the music and shit, and you can’t do that with Los Crudos. You can’t do that with a hard-core band, so…

How do you feel about trying to live up to the other drummers’ styles?
E — He was a really good drummer, but I can play most of the shit that he can play. I can play the stuff that…
J — We have pictures of [Ebro] with longer hair.
E — Ya, I was trying to look like him. No I don’t try to look like his ass, fuck that. I don’t wanna look like Jesus Christ (laughter). He’s a really good drummer, but I can pretty much play what he plays, at least in these songs. I never felt that I had to live up to a certain standard.
J– There’s something beyond music that lets us play together. We get along. If we don’t get along, no one’s going to want to play. If we don’t back up the words that we use when we play… it doesn’t make any sense to play with somebody who doesn’t mean it or feel it.
E — With hard-core, it’s like, ever since crossover, people worry too much if somebody’s an excellent musician. If a bunch of kids started a band and they didn’t know how to play, but I could feel their energy…
J — Their soul…
E — That’s ten million times better than a bunch of old fucks who are great musicians, but you can ‘t feel what they’re playing. If there isn’t any soul in it, I don’t think it really matters. With Crudos, there’s something more than music.
J — It’s not about the technical shit
E — It’s about communicating ideas, meeting people, things like that.

I know that you guys put a lot of emphasis on the lyrical content. Can you tell me a little about some of the subject matter?
J — The first two years were pretty much trying to figure out the basis of how to express the fundamentals of us growing up in the United States. There ar e a lot of songs that deal with youth violence and gay culture in the neighborhoods, and how that affects us. The songs aren’t that long. They’re not studies. They’re more about things that affect us personally. Things we’ve gone through and have seen. Shit that happens to our friends or other people like us, and the possible reasons for those situations. Maybe if we have a little bit of insight, we can communicate how we feel that things can be improved. A lot of songs have to do with violence amongst youth, U. S. foreign policy in Latin America, gender issues, and everything from domestic abuse to… well, there’s lots of things to sing about. A lot of bad things to sing about.
[Martin, joins the discussion]
Maybe you want to comment on this question?
M — I’ve been putting an emphasis on some of the local stuff that’s been happening in Chicago right now. Our neighborhood is going through a lot of changes, especially as far as gentrification goes. We’re also dealing with people who are supposedly part of the community; they come from the some racial background and all that, but as far as their ideas and trying to represent and support the neighborhood and community, it’s all been a farce. They’ve been selling everybody out. So there’s a lot of tension in the neighborhood right now between many different people. That’s really been a focal point for me, as far as the environment where we are at. We wrote a song recently called `Achicados’, which deals with that. It means ‘cowards’. It’s certain people in the community who have literally turned their backs on everybody, and don’t want to face what’s really happening. It’s been hard because there’s a lot of anger and a lot of tension as of late. But there’s so many different songs, we write about so much. About our histories, about what happens to family members, friends, etc… It’s about life.

Would you consider your selves a political band? Do you have any political ideologies which you, as a unit, try to represent?
M — No. As a band, we don’t. We are four very different people with different ideas. We basically come together and agree on what the lyrics will be about. We are just into promoting thought,dialogue, change, and things of that nature. We don’t work under one party or group because we don’t have that in our beliefs. We try to take something good from a lot of different things. That’s what we take, the good from everything. Whatever we don’t like about a certain party, we don’t utilize.
E — We recognize the same problems, all four of us, but I wouldn’t say that were an anarchist band [for example]. A lot of bands do that, but for me, I don’t want to put myself under some type of political label. Often times these ideas – people who call themselves anarchist or communist – were written by Europeans, hundreds of years ago. Maybe they were good ideas, but a lot of them don’t have a basis in present day America.
M — Its limiting. The thing is, just to add to what Ebro said, there’s so much happening at all times. I’m really into new ideas, thoughts, and generating new things. That’s why, in a way, it’s not healthy to put yourself into a certain slot.
When you play live you interact with the audience, talking with them and offering explanations. Do you enjoy playing live? What kind of impact do you think it has on people?
M — Sometimes I enjoy playing and sometimes it depends on what’s going on. What the elements of the show are. There might be a show I don’t like, it all depends. As far as what kind of an impact do we try to have on people… I don’t know. We just try to present the ideas that we have, and what happens, happens. Usually the feed hack we get from people is very positive. There may be a certain thing that was said that the people really felt they could relate to. There’s nothing planned in that sense. When I talk in between songs, I never say, ‘OK, this is what I’m going to talk about: A, B, C, and D today’. It’s not like that. It’s in the moment. What I’m feeling, and thinking in relation to that song. That’s how it comes out.
E — The only impact that I would want the hand to have on people is to inspire them to go out and do stuff for themselves. If they want to take in what we’re saying, hopefully they can get something out of it. I would just want to inspire someone to go out and do something that is important to them. We’re not trying to say ‘oh, you should do this, and do that’. We’re presenting ideas to people, and hopefully they can get something out of it.

How has this tour been going for you? Has the audience response been good?
E — Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. There are people that want to listen and care about shit, and there are people who show up to be at a show. We’ve only been on tour for a week and a half, but it’s been going all right so far.
M — I’ve been enjoying myself, been hanging out with many people and eating a lot.

Where have you played?
J — We started in Columbus then Philly, DC, Pittsburgh, Jersey and Albany. Two shows in New York, ABC [No Rio] and a loft space in Brooklyn. After that, Providence Rhode Island and now we’re here in Boston.

How does it compare to the last tour?
J — Last US tour? We played a lot of, I don’t want to say spaces that are cooler… we just saw different spaces. On this tour already, we played one or two clubs that were kind of wired. Not wired but just clubs, you know. All the other shows were pretty much organized in spaces like today’s church. Yesterday was this cool art space in Rhode Island called Fort Thunder. Really nice, really cool. Playing ABC No Rio was nice. The loft space was cool, too. In general, just seeing different spaces we haven’t played before has been a good experience. In Philly we played two buildings over from where we played before, but it seems like the energy was more eager there. Other than that, we can’t say anything; we still have two months left.

Do you enjoy playing Boston?
J — That’s why we try to get here early, so we can see and figure out if we’re going to leave.
E– These kids are wak. I don’t like Boston. (Laughter)

Have you had any negative experiences on this tour?
E– The only negative experiences that we’ve had was when we played those lame ass clubs. It’s cool if it’s the only place that people have to do shows. It’s better than not having any shows at all. But I get sick of the light system and big stages…
M — Los Crudos, on a fucking stage with lights and all that, it doesn’t work. It’s not good.
You have to interact.
F — It feels fake, like there isn’t any connection between us and the people we’re playing for. It’s like, they’re just standing there.
Like you guys are the entertainment.
M — Yaaa, it sucks.

You have been together for a long time, what inspires you to keep going with Crudos?
J — Things have to be done that we start. We sometimes don’t get to finish off some of the projects that we’ve started, but there’s always shit to talk about. That’s something which is on the line all the time, whether or not we should keep going. It’s based on a belief. We don’t have a set schedule, like ‘in 1999 we’re going to do this, and we’re going to do that’. It’s just based on what’s necessary and needed.
M — I just believe in what it is that we’re about. I have a lot of faith still with what the band could possibly do and offer. That’s why I keep on doing it. If I really felt that we were at the point where it just wasn’t worth it, I wouldn’t continue. I think that there’s still so much to be done. I’m still into what we’re doing. I still think we have energy and power. I don’t think that it’s gotten diluted to where it’s not even worth making the effort. There’s still a lot of power behind the band.
E — I haven’t been in the hand for that long, so…

I have some questions for you. Are you the only drummer in Illinois, or what?
(Laughter)
E — That’s what it seems like. The people in the bands I’ve played with have been people that I’ve known. It just ends up that they need a drummer, so I’ll start playing drums for them. There are kids in Chicago learning drums now, but not that many. To be honest, there aren’t that many drummers. That’s why I kind of end up doing it.

I have some questions for you. Are you the only drummer in Illinois, or what?
(Laughter)
E — That’s what it seems like. The people in the bands I’ve played with have been people that I’ve known. It just ends up that they need a drummer, so I’ll start playing drums for them. There are kids in Chicago learning drums now, but not that many. To be honest, there aren’t that many drummers. That’s why I kind of end up doing it.
How many bands do you drum for?
E — Right now it’s only two.
Charles Bronson.
E — Including Charles Bronson, that was three. I play for another hand called MK Ultra. So right now it’s two.

Are there any Questions that I haven’t asked? An issue that you’d like to talk about?
J — Maybe the DIY aspect of the band. Maybe you didn’t ask about the DIY aspect of the band.

What are you trying to do in regards to keeping things DIY?
J — Every tour that we do, we do it along those lines. We don’t deal with agencies… we don’t come across that. For us, it’s not a thought. By organizing things ourselves, we are able to come in contact with the people who have been writing to Martin, and work with them to do a DIY show in their country or town. And from that, maybe they can empower themselves more, and maybe we can empower ourselves more, from that experience.

What does DIY means to you?
J — It means control in our own hands. It means us deciding what we’re going to do with the hand, deciding what we want to do with a T-shirt, a record, a show, or an idea.
M — It’s mainly about keeping control over everything we do and making it accessible to people. That’s what we believe in. Also, not letting things slip out of our hands. Not letting people manipulate what it is that we have created and started.

So no major labels for you guys in the future…
M — No. Hell no.

2011/03/28 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

Q-Unique

An Interview I did with Q-Unique, 2005. Enjoy.

Q-Unique , formerly of Arsonists fame, took time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions. Short and to the point, he talks about his new solo joint “Vengeance is Mine”.

How’s it going?
Everything’s cool, just kinda bummed. Fucking Bush won. Fucking garbage.

OK, you have a new album out called “Vengeance is Mine”. Where did that title come from?
I’m attacking life with a vengeance, after going through all the bullshit that life can be unfair with, and situations that I’ve faced unnecessarily, in and out of this fucking circus we call the music industry… now vengeance is mine.

This is your first solo recording, tell me about the process you went through in writing it…
It took a lot of soul-searching and reflecting. It became therapeutic. A lot of revealing, so I had to bring my wall of defense down, and also a lot of opinion so I had to “grab my balls” and speak up. So, that’s it, the world of Q-unique, the real Q-unique. My experiences, my opinions, my perverseness, my anger, my sick sense of humor, my passion.

Word. Who produced the record, and what kind of sound are you going for on this?
The producers are Necro, Jug Jug from the Beatnuts, Context, Phase 1, S. Groove of i3, and myself (Q-unique). I was going for a gritty sound. Edgy and at times a sound of excellence. And then sometimes, dark and emotional.

You used to be in a group called the Arsonists, tell me about your experience with them.
It was life changing. With that group, my life went from the streets to the world, but on our terms… speakin’ on any specific experience would take up a few pages. Let’s just say that it was one of the most important moments in my career.

Have you changed as a lyricist since your involvement? How does this record differ from the recordings you did with them?
Now, I’ve matured in my thoughts, opinions, and intentions. What’s different is that I’m now an individual. There is no compromise with my thoughts and ideas. My rhyme style has grown, the flow patterns are much more precise, and the subject matter is serious and very revealing. Much more graphic as well, I definitely didn’t hold back on my inner thoughts.

So when you were with the group there was more of a compromise that you had to make?
Ya because you had to make sure that what you were saying was going to be co-signed by the rest of the group . You didn’t want to make anyone feel unsure or uncomfortable with your ideas so there was a voting process and discussions about subject matter. Plus the Arsonists were known for a particular way of rhyming and performing, and they were recognized for a certain kind of subject matter.

Your record is coming out on Uncle Howie, how did you hook up with Ill Bill [CEO]?
Well Bill and I worked at Fat Beats together in NY, so we became really good friends, plus our groups did a lot of shows together. To me Arsonists, Non Phixion and Company Flow spearheaded the independent movement of the mid nineties. Toward the end of the Arsonists, it was Bill who reached out to me, and said “Let’s do this Q solo joint”. He really believes in me.

He’s a cool guy. He has a lot of love to give.
Bill is a brother to me. It’s beyond this rap shit. My son calls him uncle Bill .

Let’s get into some background info. Where are you from?
I was born in Brooklyn, raised in the Bronx, and now I’m back in Brooklyn.

How has growing up in those areas influenced your interest in hip hop?
Well I was there when hip hop was a baby learning to walk. So I know its roots and foundation. I was raised in hip hop.

How long have you been rhyming for?
Around 17 years. Something like that.

What is your affiliation with the Rock Steady Crew, how did you hook up with them?
I am a senior member, Crazy Legs made me a member around 1989-1990…I was actually the first member to be put in the crew since it was revamped in the early 90′s.

Word… what does it take to get into a crew like Rock Steady? They must have strict requirements…
You got to have pure intentions when it comes to hip hop, and your brains have to be in the right place. Ultimately you gotta have skill with something extra. Almost like a glow… the force… but that’s all on Crazy Legs.

Are you involved in any of the other elements (i.e. writing and DJing) ?
I used to do all of it as a child growing up in the Bronx and then becoming an RSC -it becomes your world, but now I just focus on what brings me more satisfaction, rhyming and producing.

So you’re not dancing as much anymore?
I don’t dance I just pick up my pants and do the rock away… lean back.

How important is the live performance for you? I was fortunate enough to see you at the Middle East with Bill and you guys brought it.
Live performance is as important as a doctor doing open heart surgery… and coming out successful.

What is the difference between a rapper, and an MC?
I don’t know dawg. The shit is a mess in the MC / rapper world. I don’t even think about that anymore. I just do what’s right to me. Fuck what certain people come to a conclusion with, and really I don’t give a fuck who’s definition it is.

OK. What does it take to master the craft, at least?
To be able to move the crowd, lyrically and spiritually.

Something that’s been on my mind: Everyone seems to be capitalizing off of the idea of BEEF right now. Although beef is a part of the history, what is your take on all these conflicts that seem to be going on everywhere? (Personal note: I’m in Boston, and there seems to be some shit going on between here and NYC… )
First, if there is any beef between NY and Boston, it’s based on baseball. That’s it, ‘cause I got love for Boston. Ed OG, Mr. Lif, Akrobatik, Guru…
As for Capitalizing on beef… shit… right now hip hop or rap seems to be capitalizing on everything in its path. Beef, getting shot, car accidents, like I said, it’s a circus.

Good point. You are surely still considered to be an underground rapper. Do you have any qualms about being in that realm after so many years of involvement in the culture, or do you enjoy the freedom of what the underground can give you, such as complete creative control without compromise?
I just consider myself an artist and an entertainer. The whole underground thing is whatever to me. I hear garbage in both the underground and commercial world, so fuck them both.

You seem bitter at the state of things…
I’m not bitter at all, I just really couldn’t give a fuck about any rapper that aint runnin’ with me. Why should I?

So what else are you involved with (in and out of hip hop) — anything you’d like to promote in this interview?
I’m beginning a production team with Ill Bill called the Hit Mongers, and just looking for new talent to bring up…

What is a production team, what does starting one entail??
For me and Bill, it’s just the logic of knowing that we are not going to rap forever, but we are deeply rooted in this business and that’s the next thing on our plate. To produce. What it entails, I could tell ya, but then I’d have to kill you… Our blueprint is classified information.

Fair enough. You have a web site, tell me about that.
Q-unique.com is a way for my friends and fans to keep up on what I’m presently doing. It’s got my tour dates, my videos, music and contact info… I’ll be addin’ more [content] soon.

What does the future hold for you, what are you working towards?
I want to excel in entertainment. Doing things on TV and movies, and put out a couple of more albums… go down in history as one of the greatest.

In your mind, what is hip hop?
Hip hop is a top to bottom Seen piece on the 6 train. It’s Crazy Legs explaining how he made up the back spin in the movie Style Wars. It’s KRSone battling Melle Mel, it’s Red Alert on a Saturday night, it’s Nas’ Illmatic, it’s Public Enemy, it’s the Jungle Brothers. It’s NWA, it’s Ice Cube, it’s Q-bert, it’s a Cope 2 throw up. It’s Bambaata teaching the streets. It’s been a lot of these things, and now…. it’s me (actually it’s always been me).

Where will people be able to buy your record?
All over the place, the big chain stores like Tower Records, Best Buy, Virgin Mega Store, Sam Goody, and all the ma and pa stores like Fat Beats , Hip Hop Site .com, Mr. Bongos, Basement records, Sandbox Automatic.com, Stacks Vinyl, and all the rest of the best.

Any shouts?
Shouts to the whole Uncle Howie fam, Psychological fam, Jedi Mind Tricks, my son and RSC.

2011/03/27 | Categories: Interviews | 2 Comments

raison d’être

An interview that I did with Peter Andersson/raison d’être, 2004. Enjoy.

Tell me about the subject matter and the inspiration behind it.
It’s based on a concept. Requiem for Abandoned Souls should be seen as some sort of mass for abandoned souls, souls without hope. Not only human souls, but also anything humans put a soul on. An old house could have a soul, in the sense that something could be felt in the atmosphere, its something alive and organic yet still dead and empty. I think this feeling of a soul is stronger in old, abandoned and desolated objects than in other objects. That is where parts of the inspiration come from for this album. It’s something about the history of an object. Requiem for Abandoned Souls contains five parts; they should be seen as part of a whole. It’s a continuous journey from start to end. It should not be seen as a traditional religious mass, it should more be seen as ritual of catharsis of the soul where the abandonment disintegrates and instead becomes a part of the whole.

Who else were you listening to at the when you first started out?
SPK, Dead Can Dance, Delerium, Robert Rich, Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Cure, TG, Nocturnal Emissions, Einsturzende Neubauten, Klinik and similar.

Tell me about some of your side projects. It seems that each one of your projects reflects a different side of your personality, so how do they differ from raison d’être in sound, theme, etc.?
Stratvm Terror
Stratvm Terror is nothing but the harsh side of Peter Andersson, also joined by an old friend. This project first appeared in 1993 and has since then become an impressive industrial noise monster machine of terror. After a few tapes and four CD releases this project has almost reached the same acclaimed status as raison d’être. Stratvm Terror offers aggressive and loud frequencies for the whole spectrum of the ears that will play havoc with the brain. Listening to Stratvm Terror probably means a forced damage of the listeners cerebral area, an enjoyable yet hazardous experience.

Necrophorus
Starting as a companion to raison d’être in 1991, Necrophorus is the project, which is closest to raison d’etre in sound. However, instead of emphasizing desolation and darkness like raison d’etre, Necrophorus mostly deals with a lighter and more sensitive side. Also the instrumentation is softer and more relaxed and synthesized. Three CD’s and a 10″ vinyl disc have been released by Necrophorus so far, offering a great alternative to the dark world of raison d’être.

Atomine Elektrine
Named after a nuclear power plant and inspired by the electronic space music of the 70’s, I let out my version of this musical direction in the beginning of 1992, and since then expressed on three CD’s during the 90’s. Though after subsequently becoming more experimental, it may be difficult to hear the original inspirational sources in the music of Atomine Elektrine, however the thematic interest in the vast space and small atoms remain unaltered.

Panzar
With a special predilection for armored vehicles, Panzar was established in the year 2000. Longing for the sound of early BDN and alike, a 7″ vinyl single was released in late 2000 and a CD, ‘Human Degeneration’, was released in 2003 containing a boiling, grunting and slow, deep noise sound accompanied by heavy percussion.

Bocksholm
After some years of confusion by having two persons with the name Peter Andersson, both grown up in the small industrial town called Boxholm and making industrial music on the CMI label, there was almost no choice but to collaborate with each other in a project named Bocksholm (the old spelling of Boxholm). The collaboration between raison d’être and Deutsch Nepal started in 1998 and since then Bocksholm has released two CDs which reflects the bad childhood environment of the ironworks in Boxholm.

Svasti-ayanam
Svasti-ayanam was a temporary project I had a few days in 1993 and 1994, inspired by Tibetan, ethnic, tribal and ritual elements and finally presented on a tape-release, later re-issued on CD.

Cataclyst
Cataclyst was another temporary project around 1992 together with and the female half of the CMI band Institut, combining atmospheric industrial with rhythmic elements.

Grismannen
Least known of my projects, but still notorious, is Grismannen, or The Pig Man in English. In fact, this is his oldest project, from 1989, still alive and going strong. I also have a perverted part of my mind, which is expressed through Grismannen, though only Swedish people will fully understand the content of the lyrics in the native language. Experimental and funny, Grismannen has released a few CD’s and several tapes in strictly limited editions.

Who are some of the people who you have worked with in these projects?
Most of them are only I alone, but Bocksholm is with Lina B Doll from Deutsch Nepal and Cataclyst was with Johanna Rosenqvist from Institut. I am doing Stratvm Terror together with an old friend of mine, Tobias Larsson; he is a drummer and singer in some Doom and metal bands.

Do you feel that Raison is the most popular of all your projects, and if so, why is that?
Yes it’s the most popular of my projects, because the raison d’être albums sell much better than the albums of my other projects. It’s my main project; it’s been around since 1991 and is well-known by now.

How are your record sales? I know that in the US, this kind of music is almost completely overlooked. (In Boston, for example, a Dark Ambient artist will play to only about 3 people – the noise/pe scene, however, seems to be a bit larger.)
Pretty good I think, haven’t got the royalty statement from CMI for some time now but I know the raison d’être albums sell pretty well, at least in Europe (Germany, Italy, France is best). From what I know it’s good selling in United States as well. Too bad it seems with the non-interest for dark ambient live performances, but on the other hand there has not been many big dark-ambient bands from Europe playing live in the US.

OK, that’s it. I thank you very much for your time!

2011/03/23 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

Jay Randall/Agoraphobic Nosebleed

An Interview I did with Jay Randall in 1999. Enjoy.

Let’s start this interview by talking about your new project: Unholy Bmx. What are you trying to do here?
Basically I’m using the whole digital hard-core medium to more of an extreme music method, stealing everything. I mean, there’s just so many fucking bands. There’s so much to steal from. I’m mixing that with some power electronics, which I do more in Japanese Torture Comedy hour, but I’m trying to get that in there too. One thing about Unholy BMX, it just pretty much, hopefully, will inspire a lot of other people just to do it themselves, you know.

DIY.
DIY right down to the line. You don’t have to filter shit through a whole bunch of people, you know? There’s always some stupid kid from your town that knows how to play drums but is like, in a stupid fucking band. They’re into like, Strife and shit. That shit’s wak. So, you know, just steal everything. Do it yourself. Technology’s fucking there man. No one’s using it. Everyone’s afraid that people are going to think they’re like Depeche Mode or some shit. But, I don’t know, I’m kicking out heavy jams on my crap, so…

Screw it.
Just plug in man, and do it yourself.

This is just you, right?
UBMX is just mostly me. The kid I was working with tonight, his name is Danny D’Angelo. He’s kind of undecided about his future, whether or not he wants to spend it with a project. As my equipment gets better, I’ll be able to bring a better live set every time I play. Even if it’s just me from now on, you’ll know it’s going to be good.

Where did the name come from?
I was watching the new Zoo York video, and there’s some mad session with a BMX kid. It was just crazy. I was just mad blunted and thinking about the cross. I just came up to it.

How many shows have you played as Unholy BMX?
I think I’m up to four now. I tried playing with Quadilliacha and I closed this Lawrence place down. I guess I was too loud. I guess I was clashing with some bar people and some reggae band that was trying to jam some ill shit upstairs. I had all these bar guys crossing their arms. I also played with No Less and Dead Bodies Everywhere. That was pretty cool Dude, all my love goes to No Less. Those guys are in hard times.

There was a death in the circle.
Ya, it’s fucking ill

How long have you been doing the Unholy thing?
I’ve been at it for about three months. It’s been going really well. I’ve got a lot of other projects going on also. One with Kurt Converge [Three Ring Inferno]. The last electronic piece I played tonight was a Three Ring Inferno track. It’s sort of like an electronic ambient project. It’s some pretty deep shit. I’m doing that, the Unholy BMX, and I just got asked to join Isis as their electronics person. Also, of course, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, which is my true love, as well as everything that surrounds Japanese Torture Comedy Hour. Scott Hull lost interest in doing it, so it’s all me now, doing electronic stuff. That’s my main stay. I just do tapes constantly. Just get that shit out of my system.

Where are you from? How’s life in the boondocks?
I’m from the North Shore. I’m from Danvers, MA. I’ve lived there all my life. Dude, I don’t know, ride of Paul Revere and shit. It’s unholy ground up there with the witch burnings and hangings and that shit. That’s some hyper critical shit.

Do you go to the witch museum?
No, I’ve only been once, and it was fishes and giggles for this kid who was from out of town. Actually, it was Steve Makita from Apartment 213. Him and his fiancé Karen were down. They were all into that witch stuff, man. They wanted to visit the unholy grounds and walk around. We got some funny pictures from there. They were climbing up this painted-on rope latter from the pirate museum and stuff. Mad crazy.

Now what’s up with Agoraphobic nosebleed? What’s going on with you guys?
Right now we’re demoing stuff for a split CD with Converge on Relapse. We just had Jason from Suppression join the band full time as a bass player. I guess we’re going to get some flow from the suit and ties down in Philly, to get some real gear to play out the way we want with the drum machine.

You guys  haven’t played out yet...
It’s because I’ve got a bad back, we can’t be lugging a drum set around.

That’s what I heard.
Right. It’s the American dream. Wounded veteran. The American waste land, reaping the benefit checks.

Now, AnB is just you and another guy named Scott Hull…
For a long time Scott bounced different people around on vocals. I mean, it was crazy. It was like open mic night at the Agoraphobic Nosebleed club. But seriously, we had every one from Aaron Ulcer to like, dude – Richard from Enemy Soil. I mean, just about everybody grabbed up on the mic on some of the records. But it’s always been Scott, man. That kid gets all my love. He’s a machine. He just cranks these songs out. Pro-productive all the time. It’s like he’s a programming whiz. He just comes out with the phatest jams. We’re going to be on like 38 different records and comps by the end of this year. It’s like, everyone’s all rehearsing and getting their drummers in shape. Their Strife drummers. Them tool niggas, you know… But seriously. You whip a drummer into shape. You put up with a lot of bullshit. You get a bad back. Get a fuckin’ drum machine. They’re like four hundred bucks. Less headache dude. Seriously, everyone should get one. Everyone should get a sampler and just start making music and stealing peoples shit.

Samplers don’t argue with you.
They take all of my shit.

So Scott does all of the programming?
Scott Hull, man. He’s the master. He’s the master of disaster.

He’s from Virginia?
He’s from all over. He’s from parts unknown. He was an army brat when he was a kid. He played drums in his dad’s jazz band and stuff. He just knows music inside and out. That’s cool. We hang out and jam like Cryptic Slaughter and shit. Celtic Frost. He’s into the old jams. He’s bad. Check out our new split with GOB on Bad Card. It’s like, we do all 80’s thrash stuff. It sounds like MOD on… I don’t know man… uppers.

What’s the AnB lyrical content?
Well, I never really touched on any political themes. It’s just like, any commentaries I have have mostly to do with social applications and my relationships with society. Droppin’ it politically is all good, but it’s like, everyone’s doing that. Everyone’s got a good message, but it’s been said 18,000 times. I just write down weird analogies and shit I’m thinking. I come from a social perspective that’s just frustrated and enclosed. I don’t know, that’s just where I’m at a good percentage of the time. That’s where it comes from. And I’ll tell you, we haven’t printed lyrics for the clean plate 7″. And they’ll probably keep going unprinted, because my lyrics were pretty raw on that. We had a lot of people writing to us wondering what them songs were all about, just from the song titles. It was just, when I joined the band, I was in another place then. I was like, in trouble then. It’s cool though. The lyrics are starting to lighten up a little bit. We have a little humor that came across on Honky Reduction. I’m actually doing an Unholy BMX remix of the whole Honky Reduction album. that’s going to come out on a split 10″ with Wadge on Regurgitated Semen records. It’s going to be called Conky Dong: Honky Reduction Revisited. I’ve got this ultra-white guy with the smallest pekker you’ve ever seen in your life for the cover. We’re going to do all these plays on words. All the Agoraphobic songs from Honky Reduction. Just a preview. We have one called Torn apart by Dirk Digglers dingo. It’s just going to be mad digital hard-core havoc. I’m excited for people to hear it. And, like I said, a touch of humor here and there.

AnB recently signed with Relapse… tell me about that.
The shit with Relapse, it’s been pretty cool. They’ve been supportive. The CD that we put out by them wasn’t even going to be on their label. It was kind of like an F-you to a label that sort of gave us the cold shoulder; a label who we recorded the CD for. We were even talking to Relapse then. Relapse started out the way a lot of other small labels start out, and I wouldn’t be surprised if any one of those labels did what we all hope to do. Make a life out of what we love. Those guys, their distro might be a little pricey or whatever, but man, if you can’t find it anywhere else… hey, that’s all I’ve got to say.

Word.
It’s like, who cares, you know? They’re capitalist pigs just like us all.

Capitalist casualties.
Dude, their just making a buck and paying for their fuck, you know?

You’ve got to feed your family.
You got to feed your family and you might as well do it fucking pumpin’ out Mortician records and some bullshit like that. It’s better than being a lawyer or some shit.

Japanese Torture Comedy Hour, what’s that all about?
I actually met Scott because I was so into their electronics. The fact that he was local just blew my mind. At that time, I was just starting up my label called Heart Plug, which I’ll talk about a little later. I was really good friends with Steve Makita from Apt 213, who also has a noise project called Lockweld. He put me in touch with Scott and I decided to put out a Lockweld/JTCH split CD. We went all out. We put about six hundred dollars of mastering into it. It’s one of the loudest CD’s you can get your hands on. Chris Leamy, who used to jam with Scott, Andrew Cokes who runs Bernard Studios, and Scott himself, completed all of the tracks for that CD. They asked us, me and my friend Shawn to join JTCH because they thought we were mad fucked-up enough to handle the Japanese Torture. That’s when I made the unholy union with Scott and started doing vocals for Agoraphobic. We sunk ourselves into doing electronics every weekend at Bernard. We have a split with tape with Lasse Marhaug, which just came out, and a split with MSBR that we’re really happy about. That came out on a label from the Czech Republic. We have a CD that just came out on Self Abuse, and we have a comp track coming out on Self Abuse also. Scott did a Pure series disk which came out on RRR records, which is what I fell in love with. This hooked me in like crazy, by the gills.

Total noise stuff?
It’s total power electronics. He starts out with the most generic KMFDM type drum beat in the beginning, then, for the next sixty minutes, he just smears and crushes the shit out of it It’s like happy Gilmore whacking one off the T. It’s crazy shit. But the JTCH now, that’s all me. Scott’s lost interest. He’s so busy with Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic. I just got mad into the electronic thing. I’ve still got my head there. I’m the only one currently in JTCH. I have a CD currently coming out on Relapse’s Release which is entitled Voltage Monster. The last twenty minutes is all remixes of everyone from Merzbow to Macronympha. I also have comp tracks on Release Your Mind Volume 2, which is a really nice box set of things for someone who’s just hearing electronic music for the first time. You know, the dark side of it. We’re not talking Dee-Lite. No disrespect, but this stuff is cold, No Ministry ether. No hillbilly guitar stuff. It’s cold.

What bands are you listening to these days?
The only thing I’ve been buying is DJ comp CD’s. Not like techno bullshit, but real DJshit…

X-men?
Ya, X-ecutioners. Roc Raida is the man. I’ve been chillin’ to the Herbie Hancock, and listening to a lot of jazz. I try to keep my main stay of what I’m listening to well away from what I’m doing musically.

That’s a good Idea, you might get burnt out.
It’s not so much that as I steal stuff enough from people. If I was listening to it all the time, I’d always be like: “Wow, I’ve got to gaink that for Unholy.” It’s like, steal everything. I listen to that stuff, and it’s like, I form a habit Dude. Spin that Noothgrush record again… I think I heard something.

What influences your idea to create?
What influences my idea to create? I don’t know man. You know what actually influences it, crazy Japanamation movies. Thinking about a bunch of Asian heads sittin’ around and creating that shit is just crazy. That stuff looks real. That stuff is mad warped. And I say, If people can do that, man… if people can do that, then hell, I can at least make some crappy music.

Right on.
That’s what gets me up in the morning. Never mind heart surgery or a cure for cancer. Fucking animation. I just don’t understand. Those guys got skills I aint even relating to. Can I give props to some bands?

Go for it.
Prophetic Disclosure. Holy shit. Six months this bands been together. Best sounding demo I’ve ever heard in my life. They destroy. From Maine, man. Crazy moosehead grind. ID, too. You all have to check out Jason ID’s digital grind band called Voltron. There are talks about putting out an Unholy split, if someone wants to hook that up. And, Guernica… They’ve just got it together. We’re going to be putting out a split from them and Kojack, which is Jason from Suppression’s two man bass and drums destruction squad. That will be coming out on my label- Heart Plug.

talk aboutyour label…
Pop that too?

It’s your interview.
All right, The next things up to bat… we’re putting out a noise project from Joey of EYEHATEGOD called Transaxis Oracle. Also, a split five inch from Noothgrush and Suppression. Heart Plug records, Chaotic Noise, and Satan’s Pimp, we’re all putting out a 99 band CD compilation including everyone from Amps for Christ to Guernica to Agoraphobic to Locust. It’s amazing, everybody’s on this comp. We have power electronics, also. Nearly every third track. If you dig noise, Richard Ramirez, Experimental Farm… everybody’s on there. It’s a great compilation. It totally rips. And there’s some funny surprises on their too. We’re going to get that out very soon. It’s called Audio Terrorism. Other stuff I’ve got lined up is the EYEHATEGOD/Southern Nihilistic Front split and Tomsk-7/ Seven foot Spleen split. I’m trying to get that together now, because for some reason or other Seven foot Spleen keeps jumping on my turntable. They’re ugly.

All right, what does UBMX have out, and where can people reach you?
I’ve got a split CD coming out with Pig Destroyer on Satan’s Pimp. It’s going to be wicked cool. John Pimp has got a good aesthetic. He just always puts out a nice product. I know us and Pig Destroyer are definitely going to put our best foot forward. Pig Destroyer are busy people. They’ve got a split coming up with Orchid, which might be out by now, I don’t know. Plus, there doing an LP for 625, tons of comp tracks, and once again, the split with UBMX. So their busy boys right now. I’ve just seen them in Virginia. They rocked. They’re tight. They sound like Discordance Axis on a heavier hate trip. It’s rockin’.

Thanks a lot man, stay cool…

2011/03/21 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

K the I???

An interview that I did with KtheI??? from 2004. Enjoy!

Ok, let’s start with a little personal info. Who are you and what do you do?
My name is KtheI???, and I’m an underground Hip Hop artist from Cambridge Mass. I’m an underground Hip Hop artists for the advanced music listener, because it’s definitely some spaced out type stuff. Quite intricate. And I’ve been up in Cambridge for most of my life, representing all around the Cambridge / Boston area. I was down with a crew called Rebel Alliance and many other local crews with people like Virtuoso. I’m an MC growing, basically, to make it short.

How did you start rhyming and how long have you been doing this for?
I became an MC through my cousins. My cousins got me into Hip Hop many years ago. They were doing talent shows back in the days with famous groups like Top Choice Click and ED O.G… way back in the days. They got me into it and wrote a couple of rhymes for me. It was just a joke at first, but I kicked what they wrote and eventually realized that I wanted to start doing it by myself. I started doing this about twelve years ago, so I’ve been into it most of my life. Ever since I was a kid.

You said that you were from Cambridge. How was it growing up there?
Back in the days, the Cambridge and Boston area was incredible. Growing up there got me motivated to do many different things. It expanded my mind and I began putting rhymes together that were a little different than the norm. Quite abnormal, to tell you the truth. And there were a lot of abnormal MC’s in the area, so it was like a bonding. Artist like 7L&Esoteric, Mr. Lif, Karma, way back in the days when I used to run with them, Virtuoso, all of them, they got me into the scene. They got me into shows when I was underage, because they are older than me. So when I was 16, and the show was 21 plus, at places like Western Front, they would be like: “ya, ya, he’s with us”. I would go there and just chill. It got me motivated because there was so much Hip Hop around me. And so much different types of Hip Hop, which made it incredible and got me energized to do it.

Can you describe your style of rhyming and what sets you apart from other people in Hip Hop today?
My style of rhyming… I call myself “boom bap”, but I cannot say only that. It’s boom bap, complex, out of this world at times. Very different. There are many one-word descriptions that I could use for myself. Intelligent. My style is something that is out there, unique. I didn’t emulate it off of any one. It’s called years of listening to many different types of music and not only Hip Hop. I will go from Trip Hop to Jazz to Rock, and always stay open. And when you put that openness into what you feel you want to accomplish, it can create completely different things. You’ll have many influences coming together to create this one. It’s definitely different.

After you started writing and getting into the scene, who influenced you in the early days? Who are the people who influence you now?
The early days, 7L&Esoteric, Karma, the whole Rebel Alliance crew really. Lif, Virtuoso, FaktsOne. Also, Company Flow of course. Wu-Tang, back in the day. Roots. Common Sense was like my favorite MC for a long time. He was just angry with his. There are just so many artists. I could be here all day. There are so many artists, even from unknown places. I listen to the Anticon thing, Sole… They all impress me because it’s all different. It all influenced. That’s what people have to understand, if you are always one-track minded you will always be in that one track dimension. That’s the bottom line. I make sure to stay in the fifth dimension (laughter).

So your brain is just open to whatever comes up.
Basically. I don’t think about what I want to do. It just comes to me.

I know you have a lot of projects going on now, what have you been up to lately?
Lately I’ve been incredibly busy. I’ve been working on a collaboration with my friend from Sweden. He’s in a group called Stacs of Stamina. His name is Johan. He’s doing production and I’m going to rhyme on it. It’s going to be dope. Eventually I will be working with my boy TheButterflyswift. That’s my man, and we are going to be putting a little something to together called ‘We Missed the Train’. That’s a little crew, it’s going to be different. I’m also working with this crew Distorted Megabytes, the heads I came to the show with tonight. That includes my man Mud Buddha, OptimisGFN1 , DiverseOne, TSE, we’re mega deep… Holmes, Rev.Al. Also I’m working with these heads who are my boys that I grew up with, around my neighborhood in Cambridge. It’s me, my boy BrokenKlutch, my boy Rubber Bandit, Shawn Doe, Digistance, Mic Strategist, Str8-A, we’re mega deep too. So there are multiple things going on. I’m working on my solo EP at the moment which is completely produced by me. I wanted to take some time to have one of those under my belt. It’s going to be called, ‘Me, myself, K the third person I’. It’s a little weird. It goes in and out of this abnormal state.

Besides rocking the mic, have you participated in any of the other Elements of Hip Hop?
Oh ya. I at least try to conquer all of the Elements of Hip Hop. I will attempt at everything, and what I accomplish I will continue. For example, I used to write Graffiti and I was getting up and that was all good. But when I got into the music world and felt that I was going to make it somewhere, I had to put that element down… in the illegal aspect that is. You don’t want people following you. Plus it’s a super felony out here in Boston. As far as DJing, I have a turntable. One turntable is a gemini, piece of crap, but I also have a Technique. I use the Technique to cut with and I’m learning. I can put basic cuts on my solo record. I actually put cuts on the record, which is something that I hadn’t told anybody, but now they know. So I put on cuts myself. And breakin”, I used to Pop and Lock. I used to go to this spot in Jamaica Plain, at the Henagin school. I actually was taught by Domino of the Floor Lords, and it was pretty dope. I used to get my break on. My Pop and Lock on. I actually had some Windmills at one point in time. That’s all of the elements that I have tried out. MC is obviously my first thing. And I plan to eventually get some DJ thing going on, but for now that is just for myself. At least for the moment.

You have a group called Polymorphik, tell me about that.
Polymorphik, yes. That’s my man The Butterflyswift, who I’m doing the duo with, and my boy Theory. It’s not in the forefront anymore. We have put it away for a little while because we want to accomplish all of these multiple things that we have in the works first, to get our name out, and then we will come back to it. Polymorphic is more of a personal thing. It’s not even a group that we plan to just distribute to everybody. It impresses me that you remember the name because lots of people don’t know the name and we like to keep it quiet until it’s real. It’s not real yet. The stuff the we do as a threesome, us three, is incredible. But we keep it to ourselves because it’s more personal. We have mad many Polymorphik songs, but we have not distributed it to anyone, ever. And I distribute all that I can to people.

When the time comes…
When the time comes, it will be here, and you will definitely enjoy it.
At this point in Hip Hop’s life many genres of rap music have been born. Commercial, independent, battle, gangster, progressive, underground, etc… what do you think about that and where does Kthe I??? fit into it?
Right now, the commercial industry… I don’t even like to get into that, but everybody knows the obvious. Puff Daddy is controlling the industry. And there are other artists, like Jay Z, who have the industry in their hands. But in the underground, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a Def Jux world right now. It’s a Def Jux world and it’s an Anticon world. You know, people who have a name and their name is out, and they are releasing incredible music. You’re going to be in control if you are releasing volumes of incredible music.

Def Jux has the quality control…
They have the quality control. And also, Chicago. Chicago is incredible. People sleep on Chicago, but I’m teaming up with some MC’s now, that I’m about to leak right now, ’cause I’ve been waiting to tell somebody… There are some Chicago crews that are ready to come out and represent with me. My boy Vile, my boy Full Exposure, Aural, Drool, all these kids, they are incredibly deep and doing some advanced type music. And sometimes it’s Boom Bap, but it’s not your average normal Boom Bap. It’s more that 2003, or more like 30,003 type Boom Bap. It’s out there. And right now, who I’m actually waiting to represent is my man Big Jus. I just came back from Atlanta and I did a few songs with him that are coming out on a single. It’s actually produced by a guy named Orko from Sandiago. He did some stuff for Saul Williams. He’s produced some stuff for me also. I went out to Atlanta with my boys Mud and Holmes about two weeks ago and it was great. I had a nice experience. We laced three tracks. The first was myself, Jus, and Orko. The second was Myself with Jus on production. And the third was just me with Orko on production. It was pretty off the hook. And in the spring, when the spring hits, Jus is starting his own label. His own personal label, and he’s trying to get me on. He’s trying to help me out and has been a huge support. I respect him a lot.

He’s definitely an underground icon.
Ya, it’s funny when people that you respect a lot, you end up meeting them and they give you the same love that you give them. It’s one of the best experiences I ever had. And also meeting Orko, that was a bonus surprise. I respected his music so much already, but he was such a down-low person… and just to go there and meet him also… and now he’s like “Oh ya, call me, you want production, you got that”. Everything this year is working and it’s what I’ve always wanted. It’s working in all my plans, my plans are coming together this year.

It’s wonderful to see you smile, dog.
It’s incredible this year.

Ok, here’s some off the topic questions. What do you think about crossing the genres, such as when a Mos Def decides to tour with a Ja Rule? Is that a hinder or a help?
I would say that in some ways it helps and in some ways it does not. Sometimes, in a major way, it does not help at all. It can help if, for example, an underground artist or group like Company Flow went on tour with Wu-Tang at the time of 36 Chambers. Big group. Major label. But that would work because Wu-Tang were rugged back in the day, and they attracted the kind of audience that would respond to a group like Co-Flow who were also rugged. On the other hand, if a group like Co-Flow went on tour with someone like Ja Rule, that would be completely different. Now you’re taking a group that is very gritty and putting them on tour with somebody who is completely soft. That doesn’t mix. Wu-Tang and Def Jux make more sense than Def Jux and Ja Rule. With the first, you’ll get a solidified ruggedness, but with the second you’re mixing rugged with some real corny stuff. It doesn’t work. Actually Vast Aire of Cannibal Ox did a show with Ghost Face Killah. Ghost face had just released a great album, and Vast did a show with him. That helped him a lot because the fans who are into Ghost Face are now buying the Can-Ox album. And that’s how it works.

Mos really is going on tour with Ja Rule.
Ya, but you see, that’s not going to work for him. Well, It might work because he has more of a main stream appeal. He’s underground, but you could see in the beginning that he was bound to eventually make a different move. It might work.

Where did your name come from, and what’s with the question marks?
Oh, (laughter) OK. My name comes from… on the Streets they call me Kiki. That’s my nick name. And way back in the day I kicked this rhyme that started off: “Well it’s the K the I the K the I”, basically spelling it out like they used to do, K-solo steese. And someone told me “you should keep that as your name, I think it works. K the I, no one is going to copy that”. I was like, “that’s true”. At first I didn’t like it, but as time went on, I realized that it flowed better than Kiki. I looked at it as two separate letters in the beginning, but the more you say it, it flows well. Then I got attached to it. And the question marks… 3 is my lucky number. The three question marks. Now the first question mark represents to the person who is seeing or hearing about me, it will represent: “K the I… who is that?”, you follow… The second will just solidify that sentiment, “Oh my god, who really is that??”. The expression gets a little stronger. And the third, well that adds complete confusion now. “OK what’s going on here, who is this kid K the I???”. That is the name I wanted for myself, and it stands for what I created it as. People will come up to me on the street, “I heard you before, I heard about you”, and that’s good.

If the name stands out…
Yes. And as time goes on, more meaning comes out. The three question marks came at the end. It built up. First, 3 was the lucky number and then I realized what it could really mean to me.

Who have you been playing shows with lately, have you toured at all?
I haven’t toured at all. I plan to hopefully with this Swedish group, my boy Johan again, Stacs of Stamina. We’re planning on going on a European tour for which he wants to bring me and my boy One Day. That will be great. We plan to hit Amsterdam, Paris, Germany, Holland, just everywhere. We plan to go crazy. He has a lot of venues because he is a big name out there. His group is a big name in the European scene. As for shows, I just finished performing two nights ago in Portland Maine at this spot called The Skinny. I performed with my man Jamie Walker and KGB who used to be in the group Live Poets. Sole was the headliner. He’s cool, me and him kicked it for a second. He’s real cool, and he actually heard of my name, also. I was surprised, things are building. Tonight, I’m doing a show here at the Asia in Cambridge Mass, representing my area.

Ok, You said you produce. Besides me, who are your favorite producers?
Besides you (laughter), The Butterflyswift, my boy BrokenKlutch, Digi Stance, all these kids that I’m pretty cool with. Big Jus is pretty dope on the beats. Johan, Orko, El-P, man there are so many. My man Arc, who is down with Definitive Jux, he actually made some beats for my 12 inch coming out. There’s so many artists. My boy KaeoFLUX, who I released a compilation with. Wow. I like my beats, it took me a little while to get used to them because they are not the most normal things.

Like everything else you do, right…
Yes.

Aight, this is because I’ve known you personally… How do you stay the friendliest kid in hip hop?
Oh… I don’t know, man. It’s because I’m a happy person. My mother raised me right.

No doubt.
Ya, It’s just like, there is no need for me to get mad. Even if it’s something that might make me angry in the aspect of someone putting me down for example. An MC dissing or something… I just stay happy. There is no need for me to get mad. Eventually good things will happen if you always stay humble. That’s how I feel. And it’s better to in-take if you get something great handed to you, and appreciate it. If you’re going to be ignorant about life, then when you get something good you’ll take advantage of it and use it to disrespect people. Say you blow up and you were a mean person and never appreciated the people who helped you out, they helped you but you didn’t see because you were so angry all the time. You disrespect them and I don’t like that. If somebody helps me man, I appreciate that. I never will disrespect somebody because I get “bigger” than them or whatever. If somebody helps me, I always remember that. I always remember. If I get to the point where I even get a little money to help somebody else, I’ll do that. Even if it’s a magazine. If I get big man, you got a publisher coming.
Oh ya…
And I’m serious about that stuff. Just because you have to look at it like that. You have to help people. I don’t want to be one of those heads who leaves my area and no one remembers about me and no one cares about me because I didn’t care about them. That sucks.

Well said. If there is somebody out there who is hating the state of rap today because they were never exposed to the underground, and the many different qualities of this music, what are some of the things you might say to that person?
I would just tell the person to have an open mind about things. I have a huge mind about things. I never keep my brain closed to something that might be interesting. How do you know if you don’t like Hip Hop if you have not heard all that there is to hear in Hip Hop? I can say something like, “I don’t like commercial Hip Hop”, but then there might be a commercial head that gets me open. But he’s still commercial. You can not be like that. On the reverse, some people within Hip Hop might say, “You’re on a different thing, you won’t attract a crowd”. Well, why don’t they sit down and listen to what I actually got to pull off? Someone might think that I’m talking about nothing in my lyrics. But if they just took some time, ten minutes, to actually think about what I’m saying, they would notice that I do make sense. Friends of mine, and this is what I like the most, when I release a song they will tell me different things about the song every time I see them. “Yo, I understand what you meant at that part now”, and two weeks later, it’s like, “oh now I understand the whole song!”. And they’ll come back to me later still and say something like “I didn’t know you snuck that in”… so they are listening, and I respect that a lot. You cannot close your mind to things.

What’s the last record that got you way open? Dopest record you bought this year?
Dopest record this year? Man. I buy lots of records. I support. I don’t know, one of them would be the Deltron 3030, that was incredible. That wasn’t even this year.

That was a few years ago.
Ya, I still listen to it. That’s how bad that record is. Um, Qwel, from Chicago. He just released two albums. I just bought the Rubber Ducky Experiment, it’s a pretty dope album. The Illogic record.
Got Lyrics?
Ya, Got Lyrics?. That’s a great record.

The Aesop Record was good.
Aes-Rock is dope too. The El-P album was dope. T.O.J.’s my song. That’s my favorite song this year. I’m real impressed this year with the Bata One album, a compilation that all my friends put out. There’s never been a time when I could say that I was impressed by a complete project that I have been on. There were multiple artists and I know they put their heart into it. It came out real good, and we’ve been getting good press about it.
KtheI???

Tell me your discography, and then tell me what you have planned for release in the near future.
My discography.. all right, The first thing is the Powers of Sun 12 inch, Which is me and my man Christ on Mutant Records. The Komadose Productions BetaOne CD which is me and all my boys from Cambridge with the Lost Channel. The Distorted Megabytes CD. And The Forgotten Realm bootleg which is older, more experimental songs than what I do now. The stuff I do now is still spaced out, but back then it was out of this world Hip Hop. I still do that when I’m on the solo tip, but when I work with heads, I try to just make it some rawness.
Coming on many different levels…
I like to come on many different levels. I know personally, when I’m by myself in my own little trapped mind state, it’s going to be something crazy. My EP is really really weird. As for the future, I have a 12-inch coming out. The Teletron 12-inch produced by The Butterflyswift. Yes I say his name a lot, because that’s my boy. He’s a strong supporter of what I do. He produced the main song on that record which is called Teletron 1. Also, Arc from Definitive Jux, he gave me a beat for that record. Hopefully the Orko and Big Jus tracks will be featured on there also. That will happen if it comes out Jus’ label. If not, the record might come out on Ninja Tune. BigJus is releasing his album on Ninja Tune and he’s sending my package down with it. I have multiple things in the plan. My solo project should be coming out by the Spring. I’m waiting to see my options with labels. And the 12-inch should drop in March. The promotional team is getting ready for that right now and I’m going to Chicago for it. It’s funny that I’m getting down with a Chicago label, I never expected that. Chicago is just dope. I’m getting down with them. They have a label out there called 2064. They used to be a major graff crew out there. They basically turned that into a Hip Hop organization to put out records and so forth. They respected my stuff, my boy Vile. I produced something for his record, and a lot of other cats out there. There is also the collaboration with my boy Johan, that should be out by the spring. That gets the Europeans on my side. Stacs of Stamina is respected out there. Ok, A special treat… In the spring also, there might be a KtheI??? and Big Jus EP coming out. I’m going back there in may and putting in some work. Me and him talked and we agreed that I’m going to spend a month there in M ay.

Holly itch. Word up man, I’m happy for you. And I thank you for hooking this interview!

2011/03/20 | Categories: Interviews | 1 Comment

Lab Report

       MatthewSchultz     

I remember reading that Lydia Lunch went through a similar experience (past life/concentration camp – only she was the victim) It’s fascinating and makes sense when one looks at/hears your work.
I never heard that about her. Now I am bummed that I didn’t get to talk to her about this. You are right, it does make sense. She was paid by Martin to play with Pigface in Chicago. She showed up and didn’t like the sound check for Pigface. She was ranting and raving, really pissed that she agreed to play with Pigface. Then Lab Report did our sound check. I was playing the ATG. She walked up on stage and stood next to the instrument. She was mesmerized. After the sound check she exclaimed, ‘I will perform, with these guys!’ She was so relieved and happy. Martin was furious. I believe he billed Lab Report her fee to perform for Pigface. She did a wonderful rant with us that was on Unhealthy. Genisis P. Orridge played on that CD too. He always said ‘You guys sound like my old band called TG. Have you ever heard Throbbing Gristle?’ Of course I had, and they were one of my most influential bands in my very early youth.

 

Now, your sculptures are very interesting to me. I want to ask you about the process that you go through when putting one together.
There might be a vague idea or image I want to make or create. Then I just start moving. My hands put things together and the next thing you know, its done. Sometimes I don’t know what the piece means until a long time after its completion. Once it took me a year to figure this one piece out. It is all the different characters at work.

What kind of materials do you work with?
Mixed media. I’m a welder, so metal frames etc. I use latex and a lot of rubber. I also like waxes. I like textures, sonically and physically.

Naturally you have different themes, but all of your sculptures seem to connect on that eerie and even disturbing level. They remind me of a Lab Report record and certainly tie into your personality. Can you tell me a little bit about what you were going for in some of the pieces that can be found on your website?
It all seems to be coming from dark space, doesn’t it? Well, I still think they are beautiful in their grossness. I am the catalyst for the characters. They filter through me. I give their different elements cohesion. So there are different ideas but they get filtered through my creative process.
Actually, I really want to own a haunted house. I think that would be the culmination of all my talents into one single thing. I mean, what else could I put all these mediums together in? A haunted house or Horror movie. A lot of the sexual pieces are from the Gypsies rape, like Bug Box. Sexuality works with The Coat, also, in the sense that men disgust me with their collection of woman. They aren’t in it for the relationship, they are just collecting trophies. That’s what the coat is. It also refers to the idea that expensive fashion can get you a woman. Although, my twist was to put the coat on a woman. Suspension is about modern medicine, initially, but they are all interpretive. That’s what makes art, right?

You also work with the medium of film, and have about 7 available on your site. I haven’t been able to see them, so can you give me an idea about what I might expect or what you were going for?
Get that QuickTime Real Player plug-in and watch ’em! I went to school for film production, so these mean a lot to me. My favorite is Bush Laden Hitler. I made that a couple of weeks after September 11th. I knew then (and there are a shit load of books out now backing this up) that our civil liberties would be repealed. Plus, from my German WWII perspective, I had seen this all before with Hitler. Bush is following the same plan, the same timeline, to the dot, as Hitler used. Anyone who denies this is blind and scared of the truth, or an uneducated-history-ignorant idiot. That is why I am trying to move out of the US. This is not my country any longer. His Middle Name is Wayne is an amusing feel good romp about a serial killer. Medical is a tripped out version of the sculpture Suspension with a little porn thrown in to make you question what sexual attraction is. The Final Shot is an autobiographical therapeutic piece I did on heroin addiction. Blue Mood is a textural piece that asks the viewer where a serial killers sexual excitement comes from. I superimposed porn with murder scenes. Interestingly enough, it’s not as silly as it sounds. I pulled tight shots of vaginas and gunshot wounds, and you really can’t tell the difference.

On a political note, do you believe that there is an Illuminati?
Absolutely. Yet I am not certain it is so secretive. For instance, the WTO. Have you ever heard of the seminars that they offer their elite businessmen? They had titles like, ‘The complete Dominance and Control of the Female Demographic 8 – 14 years.’ Coke Cola runs numbers for the global intake of liquid for all humans on the planet. There is a term for this (although I have since forgotten it). They have an admitted goal of converting the majority of the global intake of fluids to Coke products. That is, straight up, global domination without being a country.

 

 

I’ve been investigating the Hegelian dialectic process and controlled conflict, very scary stuff.
I have researched a bit of that theory. One idea is where the left and right don’t really exist. It’s created or made up. If you see how the left works against itself you would believe it. Kerry couldn’t have tried less to get elected. Now he sits on 50 million in unused campaign funds that could be used to recount the disputed election results in many states. But he conceded right away. What a wimp. Scull and Bones baby!

Lets get into your photography, what is WASTELAND?
This is a sub site that I made featuring my photography of the dilapidated Wisconsin Steal Mill and the fourth worst toxic site in the US – The Oklahoma Oil Refinery. I got Mesothelioma from filming the last one, but it was worth it. Spectacularly beautiful! They remind me of battle fields from the past. That Oklahoma site literally had asbestos blowing right into my mouth while I was filming. I had limited time to shoot. I had to do it.

What is your Ural Journal?
The Russian URAL was stolen from the Germans during WWII and they didn’t change the style at all from the Wehrmacht side car model. I bought one a couple of years ago. It was the German Panzer Commander inside of me who felt wonderful driving that thing all around. I needed a rally though. Anyway, I made a web site covering the adventures that I had with the bikeirate taxi drivers and guns, etc. Check it out through mattschultz.com.

You also design clothing, tell me about that.
Again, it’s the German Commander inside. A while back I decided to allow him to speak more to formulate ideas to give me more information. What did he want? What did he need to say? He was railing on about Bush and Hitler and I thought he probably needed to express himself more. So I started doing research and I ran across these German reenactors. Quite a crazy bunch and you can see their sites on a general web search of WWII German reenactors. Anyway, I felt most comfortable, at that time, wearing German WWII clothes. So I bought a panzer outfit and some other artillery. Some times when I go out, I look like the Wehrmacht has just marched into town. Don’t get me wrong here, I am not a Nazi. On the contrary, I’m super liberal. Actually, I am a Libertarian. But in the end, the clothes are just cool looking. That’s really what they come down to. Cool looking clothes. I am considering doing a militant power band with Paul Raven (Killing Joke, Pigface). We have been talking it over. It would be M4P. Militants For Peace. It would not only be a music project but a legitimate political organization for anti-imperialistic folks who see the necessity to fight.

You have two websites up now, tell me all about them (is it true that people can only buy your CDs from your website?).
I just split up the art site from the music site. Some people didn’t like the political blog I used to have on the Lab Report site. My warnings about Fascist America scared them too much. Alas, I had to take the blog off of the other site as my three biggest viewers (after doing stats on the site) were the US government, the US military and Quantico military. They were checking my site every hour on the hour. So I figured I didn’t want to open myself up any more. You might not know, but the artists were some of the first to be rounded up by the Gestapo. The artist and the homosexuals. Look what won the election for these Nazis. Moral issues! I have some gay friends who are truly worried about the Christian moral issue. Just wait. It is coming. The second largest industrial complex in the US, after the Military, is the prison industrial complex. It’s free on-shore slave labor.
I’m aware.

Tell me an interesting story from back in the day.
I met this Beautiful blond dominatrix from a torturous band (I can’t be specific here) when they just started out. They only had a demo. She was great and we discussed pathology and forensics. It was spectacular to have such a wonderful conversation with a med student of such grand beauty. She enjoyed the ATG and was particularly interested in the Hemostats that I used to play the instrument. Plus she fancied my lab coat with bugs on it. After the show she was checking out my demo and I gave it to her. Well she was so pleased with it that she grabbed my coat and dragged me to the car. We took off cruising through late night Florida. I had no idea where we were going. Finally we pulled up to Eye Bank. She had the keys and we went inside. It was 3 in the morning and there was no one around. She showed me around the Eye Bank, the microscopes et al. Then she opened this drawer. It was filled with white plastic jars. They were filled with eye balls. Donor eyes that were too old to transplant. They were used for student to practice on. I was ogling over the eyes when I felt something slip into my lab coat pocket. She placed a jar of eyes in there. I still have them today. They are a prize possession for me. But don’t tell any one. OK?

Is there anything else that you would like to promote in this interview?
People should buy all of my artwork so I can move to a country that shares my ideals of art, tolerance and education. I will sell it all off, cheap! If anyone knows of anyone in New Zealand or Europe that can help out. I am very talented and will work for food.

Thank you very much for your time, Matt.
Thank you so much.

WWW.MATTSCULTZ.COM
WWW.LABREPORT.COM

 

2011/03/19 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

SYTE

An interview I did with my friend Syte in 2004. Enjoy.

How long have you been writing, and what got you interested in it?
I’ve been writing since 98, so it’s been about six years. I was always interested in graff since I was a little kid, but I didn’t get a lot of exposure to it, growing up in the suburbs and shit. Then one day someone showed me a graffiti magazine. That was it. That’s all I wanted to do. I was running around showing everyone I knew, amazed at what people could do with aerosol. I thought the medium was fresh. I started playing around with black books coming up and boom, started painting my ass off.

So you’ve been painting since 98?
99 mostly. I was just tagging in 98. Then I went all out, bombing in 99/2000.

How did you get your name?
I think I was staying home from school one day or some shit, drawing. I was drawing some skateboard dudes standing around. All the sudden I was like ‘ah ya’, started drawing some Trybe letters behind them… I thought that was cool, so I started writing trybe. A year latter Tribal Gear came out and every one was on this tribe/tribal shit, I was like ‘fuck this’. Plus the name got real hot, so I changed it up. I started writing Hyste for a while and that was just kind of wak, so I changed up the letters and it eventually turned into Syte.

Where are you from?
Uh, you know, around the way. Out west. Idaho, maybe. I was a nomad growing up, lived all over the place.

What brought you to Boston?
Graffiti. Just wanted to write in the city, go to art school. I really wanted to be urbanized. That’s all I cared about really. Just to feed off of the vibe of the city.

Why not NYC?
I’d be there right now if I could afford it. Plus I have friends in Boston, so I like it here. I just went on a trip to Italy and seen all the cities over there. I like Boston a little bit more now. Got some European flavor, seen some history, but I missed it here. I’d probably just get eaten up in New York. Boston you can just kick it here easy.

Do you think this city gets the respect it deserves?
Boston doesn’t get any respect as far as I know about. Maybe some old school writers like SPone and Alert get rep, but I think Boston is going to have to break out of the old school habits. It’s good to do what you do, but from my perspective people need to innovate more, be more experimental and not be afraid to do a bad piece. Like Dream said, the worst piece you’ll do you’ll learn so much, and the next piece you’ll burn even harder. If people keep it safe all the time to never fuck up, they’ll never learn anything at all. You’ll just slow yourself down.

You think that there is stagnation going on?
I think that there are too many writers out there that have been writing for so long that they’re stuck in a rut. It happens, it can happen to all of us, but you have to try to keep innovating.

Who from Boston did you look up to back in the day?
There’s a lot. Wombat, SPone, I used to like Ryze a lot. I looked up to Tease, Kode… he clued me into some shit. That’s pretty much who I thought Boston had to offer. Zone, also, to an extent.

Who do you roll with and what is the significance of having a crew?
I basically roll with EDA, I rep FAT crew and RUN crew. It’s just fun to paint with kids. It’s fun to rep and you’ve got to have some back. It doesn’t hurt to have back in this game. To do productions, you’re going to want everyone’s name up on that wall. Put together your styles and see what comes out.

How deep are you?
Uh, not so deep. EDA is the fullest one I’d say. Right now that’s what I push the most. We’re building it up slowly. Not trying to be about being deep, just trying to be about burning like everyone.

What does it take to get down with a crew like EDA – what standards to you all have for people coming in?
You have to have something to bring to the crew, some different element that we’re not doing. You’ve definitely got to have your shit clean, crispy. You have to be able to burn hard and at the same time bomb. For me, I’m all about the piecing and productions now, so I’d want some one who is willing to put some time in and not just fuck around like, sometimes they’re down sometimes they’re not. Basically me, Wet and Beyond, we got this crew started. They got it started and put me down, but it always seems like we’re painting and pushing it. That’s the core of the crew, I’d say.

How’d you meet those guys?
(Laughter) fucking randomly, got all whacked out and went into some bathroom, left my black book in there with pictures of me with urbs and shit. Next thing I know Wet is giving me my black book like “yo, what’s up… you forgot this shit”? Then they hooked up some shit in the book that I thought was fresh. After that I would see them around and they would show me outlines. I always jocked them real heard because they were better at letters than I was at the time, but I had a lot more ups than they did. So they showed me how to do the letter thing and I showed them where to go to bomb and how to get up real nice. Beyond showed me how to do the letter thing, that’s who I got a lot of my flavor from, and wet showed me how to paint clean and crisp… and Kode showed me how to bomb.

Funny you mention that name, Kode’s from my city.
Oh ya, I was a mad toy and that kid was like, ‘oh you want to paint?’ First time we went out painting we hit the orange line and that summer we just went crazy. We’d hit the orange line, then take a cab to the green line, then take a cab over to the red line, just hitting every line – every tunnel in the whole fucking transit system. Been up in that shit. Then shit got all hot, and now I have different priorities, but you’ve got to do that coming out. Let people know you’re out there.

Do you find that there is a lot of drama between crews and writers?
Obviously there’s gossipy drama and all that bullshit… I try to stick with people who are down for the art and not just in it for the rep or to be in the game. A lot of people get into it because they think its cool to be a writer; you’ve got to come at it from an artistic point of view. I think it’s dope to be a writer, but I’m trying to do the art. I’m not trying to make a name so I can go out and get girls or front on the Internet. At this point, fuck; I don’t really care what people think about my shit. I do it for myself and my crew. I’ve had beef galore over some toy shit. Kids are so into it for being a thug – they can’t burn a wall but they want to beat you up because they’re fucking jealous basically. That’s what it comes down to. Lots of jealousy, the toy mentality. I try to let it roll off my back, but you spend all that money and time piecing just to get dissed, it’s like ‘what the fuck?’

How do you handle that?
They get smacked down, when it comes down to it. Every time we seem to run into each other, that’s what happens.

Is beef detrimental to the culture, or does it push writers to progress with their styles?
I think it definitely pushes writers to get better because you know heads are always checking your shit. Competition. But when it comes down to personal vendettas and toys not being put in there place… you’ve got toy’s out there who think that they’re kings just because they fucking get up so much, but they really just suck. That is detrimental because toys will beef with everyone and dope pieces will get dissed. The other mentality is that pieces have to get painted over because there are not enough spaces to paint, so people have to paint the same walls over and over again. It doesn’t have to be like that. That takes away from it. Real battles would be great. People should just stop running their mouths and fucking battle on the wall. Set a time and place and see who can burn the freshest. That’s what the shits about, graffiti right? We need to keep it fucking graff. Fuck all the drama.

Would unity within the scene be important to you?
Graffiti has a lot of potential that’s not realized because a lot of people have given it a bad name. There are only a handful of people out there who are just amazingly burning shit and being cleaver with the paint. They get this bad rep from all these toys out there. It’s a fucked up cycle how you have to go from being a toy, doing all this damage, to eventually elevating… most writers elevate to the point to where they just want to do pieces and burn and do something flavorful that the community can actually like. In that respect, I want graffiti to just blow up and have people embrace it. I just want people to do some positive shit so we can have a mural on every corner of every building, just cover the world in graff and art and letters. I want people to stop seeing it as some terrible vandalism and see the letters how we see them. With the flavor and the movement, the tilt, and what the letter expresses, you know what I’m saying?

For people who don’t know about this movement, what is the difference between tags, bombing and piecing, and which is the most important?
They are all important, equally. When it comes down to it, though, if you can’t do a fucking piece then what’s the point? When you go out with friends or you go out to battle on a wall, you piece it. You have to bomb to get your name and rep up, and also it’s fun to bomb, but it’s a different kind of skill. You can have the illest bombers but they can’t piece. If you can combine all three, that’s when you’ll really be a king. You’ve got to have your street tags; you’ve got to have your throws/etches/and whatever else you want to do to get up, and you’ve got to piece. You have to paint trains also. You know, freights. Just do it all. We all wish we could get up more. To risk a felony charge and put your life on the line for that shit every night, it takes a lot of dedication. But on that tip, if you’re just out there piecing and you never go bombing, that’s not good either. I love to piece, but you could spend all week painting a fucking piece. I think to be a king you have to do all three, for sure.

I’ve seen it from all perspectives – from the point where people don’t even find piecing relevant at all…
I don’t know, just my personal experience for what graff is to me, it’s definitely changed a lot. I used to have this crazy yearning to write on everything and let everyone know I was up – get my name out there. After going to jail a couple times, going to court all these times, you get a little shook. You start to reevaluate all this shit like “do I really want to pay all these fines and community service and risk time just so I can get one marker tag up?” You start to try to take that energy and put it into something that is a little less hot. At that time, it was piecing for me. It took getting arrested for me to start piecing.

Where do your artistic influences come from, outside of graff?
Graffiti is obviously my passion, but other artists would be like Egon Sheil and that whole 5-10 movement – I think it’s called the Vienna movement. Clempt. I liked MC Esher a lot, as a kid growing up. All that graphic stuff. And I do graphic design as a profession, so that influenced me. My trip to Europe influenced me, seeing all of the old school art, the Sistine Chapel and all of the classic shit. Basically I look at everything, from what is in front of me right now, to the classic renaissance paintings, and try to find elements within them, shapes that flow right etc, and incorporate it into my graff. I try to take it all in and keep changing to keep it interesting, so I don’t continue doing the same thing.

How would you say that you have progressed over the years? When I first started noticing you, you weren’t doing dimensionals, for example.
Ya, that’s obviously what happens when I paint with this fucking Wet kid all the time (laughter). I wanted to be able to do what he was doing and to make sure that I could swing the 3D shit. Also, I think it has a lot of potential. I got board of the 2D thing so 3D keeps it changing up the stiles. Basically now I can paint a little cleaner than I could. I learned some tricks and techniques of how to paint better and I’m always trying to make my shit as hot and crispy and burnerific as I can. Just keep it wild but not have stupid bullshit floating in my piece. Not overboard with the wild style, because you can get carried with that shit.

You think it can be too wild?
I think, sometimes, I’ve gone overboard with some effect to where it just starts to get cluttered. Right now, I’m feeling like the ill straight letters, and throw some wild kicks on here and there – have it burn like that. That’s where I’m at right now. I just want my shit to be clean so that it looks just as good in front of you as it does in the picture. Paint my piece for people who want to come and look up close on it. I want you to come up and bug on some little one-inch cut or something.

How important is originality in graffiti?
It’s everything. The more original styles you have the better you are. You have to either be born with it or have a drive to learn. It’s hard to come up with a style, but also it’s hard to break a style once you have it. I just do what comes naturally. Just the other day I was doing a piece, thing looked like a goddamn fucking Matallica logo (laughter). When I was a little kid I was all drawing Matallica logos on my shit. Maybe that influenced me somehow. The symmetrical letters that I always end up being drawn back to. But I hope it’s not the fucking Matallica logo, man (mad laughter).

So what sets you apart from other writers that you see around?
Um… It seems like a lot of writers are caught up in the game. I’m not anti-social, but I just kind of do my own thing in my own little world. I’m not trying to be a graffiti superstar of the new millennium. Lately I’ve been in hiding, trying to burn. I like to think that I keep trying to elevate, though. There are a lot of writers out there doing that as well, but I like to think of myself as being innovative. A lot of people have told me that I get the most improved award or something. The way I came out was total toyism. Now I’m rocking EDA and trying to king shit. Many writers, it seems, have been writing a lot longer than me and they are stuck at this certain level. I’m trying to be on this next level shit all the time. That is probably the biggest difference with me, how I came out I was a total toy asshole. Bombed stupid shit everywhere. People were like “this kid sucks, get him away”. All that hatred made me want to burn harder to prove something. I fed off that. I think that was different – where some people just come out fresh already and get better and better, I felt that I had to prove myself after I showed everyone how wak I was. I sort of went through a whole learning process in front of everyone. I think there are other writers who can relate that to there own experiences, and they can see how I’ve improved.

Do you have themes inside your pieces; I noticed one with the Illuminati eye…
Oh ya. I try to throw a theme in there now and again, some times with the letters sometimes trying to incorporate some tricky kind of thing. I like the whole Illuminati, third eye, site, vision, you know – foresight. That’s really what I was trying to come up with when I was first writing Syte. I was going to throw a ‘4’ in front of it. The whole inner site, know thyself… knowledge of self and the whole ‘site beyond site’ thing. All that shit.

I talk to a lot of other artists who don’t know anything about graffiti. When they see it they bring up some good points. Many artists I talk to say that it seems very stylized and repetitive, which it can be. So what does it take to keep it fresh and original, and what is the next step for this art form?
I think right now graffiti is at a place where people are starting to realize – and maybe the next generation, our kids, will see this – that graffiti is not such a heinous evil thing which only little fucking punks do. They’ll realize it for the art form that it is, and see the capabilities that it has to be amazing. How it lends itself to so many different fades, lines, 3d to 2d, etc. But right now, to grasp public attention, the kids who are out bombing bubbly throw ups and tagging shit everywhere need to start piecing. The public is never going to embrace tagging as a valid art form. It’s the pieces that people look at and not realize that aerosol did it. That’s what is going to impress them. If you do a piece that doesn’t look at all like it was done with spray paint, it just looks like some big sticker you put on there or something, clean and crisp with no fuck ups, people will look at that and be amazed that it came from some kid with a spray can. Maybe that’s when they’ll start to think, “That shit is pretty cool, not just some vandalism that people should be getting arrested for all the time”. It could really do some thing for the community if we had more legal walls. There would be a lot less stupid vandalism, because kids would have somewhere to go to flex. You close the walls, communities are just asking for it. I’ve lived in this area for a minute, and I only know about the spot we’re at today,  and a few others. You’d think that there would be more hidden little spots, but the more cameras they put up and the more old buildings they knock down, the harder it gets. I’ve lost so many places. I hope my kids can do graff. There will be no places. The whole world will be covered in video cameras by then, probably.

What does it take to be a great writer in the new millennium?
Just to stay innovative. To be the best you have to be on some Kem 3A type shit. You have to be traveling around the world, setting people off in different countries…

It’s not enough to be all city any more, you have to be all world?
It seems like it. To be the best you have to have your shit in magazines and on the Internet, and not just impress one city. It’s cool – I’m content just trying to be king of Boston. But to be all out mac daddy, you have to take trips and bomb trains in Europe and shit. I bombed a lot when I went over there, but I didn’t have anybody to go paint trains with. I wish I did.

What is a KING and what does it take to be a king in 2004?
If you’re a king, people either want to write with you or fight with you. That’s what it comes down to. Once people get to a style that can be bitten, or said to be original, people will jock that style and you’ll be a king. The people who came here today, we king it. We came up with some styles and we rock it. After that, it becomes a matter of taste. Some people like coffee, some people like fucking coffee with sugar. Whatever. It becomes a matter of opinion, once you have a style that can really be said to be fresh, that’s when you have it. I might think one is better than the other but that’s just my opinion. Once you get to that level, you’re a king. You have to be all city also, of course. You have to have your tags running so people know your name. You have to be ready to burn. You know, it takes a lot of nights running down train tracks and shit like that. Jumping over the third rail.

Are you still doing yards?
Right now I’m hiding. My boy got knocked and I’m shook. I’m in all his flicks and I’m scared, I’m buggin’.

Is it worth the risk?
It gets to a point where it is such a habit that you can’t even help yourself. Why would I want to go out there and burn? You just get that itch. You want to get up so bad, walking down the street seeing all these tags; you start bugging out like “they’re getting up and I’m not”. Next thing you know, you’re bombing the whole fucking street up. I fiend for it. Getting arrested helps slow you down a little bit, but every time I’m in the city I just want to bust. It’s just like crack or something. I just think about the shit all day when I’m at work. When I wake up and go to sleep, I just want to burn. I try to take that energy and put it towards piecing, just do a better and better piece every time. I think I’ll be painting for as long as I know, I’ll probably be painting until I’m dead.

In your own mind, what is the biggest problem with graffiti today. Either between writers themselves or writers and government, and what would be your solution?
That’s a good question. I think that beef here and there is healthy for the movement. I think the real problem is the city and its view on it. It shouldn’t be such a harsh punishment with felony charges of malicious destruction, just for trying to be artsy. Granted, it should be a crime with a punishment, but let the punishment fit the crime. Having to paint over your shit or do some kind of a community service if you get caught. Right now, they’re just trying to enslave you. They view it as such a horrible crime, putting kids in fucking jail for doing art. It doesn’t seem like society has it’s priorities straight. Society is not embracing the artists at all. Especially this movement, it’s so unknown and underground. It’s the only real art movement going on right now in America. And people are really missing out because they are so closed-minded. They just want to stop it and squash it. Nancy (Boston’s vandal squad) crushes kids art talent left and right. Who knows how many writers she’s fucking taken out. Those are all kids who could have elevated and brought their stiles better. It’s an art form, you can’t deny that. It’s always going to be around. They should just embrace it instead of trying to fight it all the time.

Buffing trains – here’s a solution, give a couple of legal trains for people to paint on the regular. It sounds crazy, but just give us a fucking outlet. Don’t make me sit in the shit like some bum trying to paint my art. I don’t mind being grimy, but… and of course writers have to take it upon themselves to go out there and make things happen. You have to ask people if they want a mural, or get yourself to level where you can paint murals and try to get jobs and make money off that shit. Me and my boy are doing a skate shop in Rockland, going to get some money and have fun. That’s what I like to do. I like to do my art and have people watch. Festivals or concerts where they set up walls where you can paint and people are walking by and shit.

The thing I’ve always liked about graff is that it’s a guerilla art form. It formed in the same way as punk and other movements. I don’t think the state likes anything that is not under their control, or that they can’t tax, so they make it as difficult as they can.
It’s true; they don’t know how to make money off of it so they’re afraid of it. I know where you’re coming from. It’s the same thing with skateboarding… I have a lot of qualms with society. And when graffiti came along, I embraced it because it’s emphatically denying authority. That’s what EDA stood for in the beginning.

So those are the biggest problems, what are the biggest pluses?
Just beautifying the city when it’s all run down and gross. You got a nice beautiful burner right there for people to look at every day instead of some shitty peeling wall, or some crappy throw-ups. It might make some peoples day instead of it being all dreary and gray. They buff the whole highway, you know? It seems like it would look a lot cooler to me if it had some interesting shapes and colors instead of gray buff the whole way down. And for me personally, the memories I’m going to have. Me and my boys coming off and making people happy through the artwork. That’s all I’m trying to do.

Who are your favorite writers now, and what makes them great?
I love EDA of course. We have a lot to learn, but we’re one of the freshest crews in the area. The people I look up to most would have to be 3A, Kem and Ges. They’re on that next level that I’m trying to get up to. Just burn insanely hard and travel around the world and meet amazing people at festivals and shit. I also look up to Ewok and Sew from Philly. I like Bates and Sick. I like a lot of different styles. I like old Dream, rest in peace. Spone.

What’s in store for the future?
Well, I’m just trying to finish this piece today and who knows what is next (laughter). I’m torn right now between bombing and… Syte is ether going to go all the way legal or all the way crazy. Who knows. I just want to start doing more productions and shit that people will see. Legal walls. I also want to bomb freights and keep my freight numbers up, but right now I’m really trying to rock in the public eye.

2011/03/17 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

Caul

An Interview that I did with CAUL from 2006. ENJOY…

2011/03/17 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

Guernica

An Interview I did with Guernica in 1999. Enjoy.

Introduce yourselves:
Dan— My name is Dan, I play bass and do the low vocals.
I’m Ryan— I play guitar, back up noise, and high screams.
Eman— I play drums.

When did you first decide you wanted to become a band?
Ryan— About two years ago
Dan— We met… What year is it now? [laughter]
Eman— In the winter of ’96.
Dan— No, in the summer of ’96. We formed…
Ryan— In the spring.
Dan— Ya. Lesion [the original name] met in the spring of ’96, and formed in the summer.
Ryan— And we played our first show…
Eman— December second, 1996.
Ryan— We wanted to become a band as soon as we met each other, that’s what we bonded on. Music and hard-core.
Dan— That’s why I started hanging out with them, because of music.

Where are you from?
Eman— I ‘m from Brockton Mass
Ryan— Holbrook Mass.
Dan— I’m from Brockton, also.

Describe your sound.
Eman— I’d almost go to death.
Ryan— Based off of hard-core. It’s all different sounds tied together.
Dan— I’d describe it as real abrasive hard-core fueled by strong feelings of negativity and meant to enrage or depress the listener.
Ryan— …Or touch their heart and make them feel love. We just try make it a therapy for the listener. To release aggression when they hear it. Because, when I listen to music, that’s what I get out of it.
Eman— It’s very angry.

What are you angry at?
Ryan— Our selves, existence…
Eman— Every one has problems, man. It’s just how you deal with them. This is just a good way to deal with, at least, my problems.

You feel like, when you play, it releases your anger?
Eman— Shit. Ya man. Hell yes. That’s like one of the main releases of stress for me. You know, rather than starting fights or whatever, I just beat
the fuck out of my drums. It’s better than carrying a chip on your shoulder. You don’t want to do that.
Ryan— I don’t know, it’s like a statement. The whole thing is one statement.
Dan— It’s about people relating to it. Relating to those feelings that we ‘re trying to conger up.
Ryan— It’s good to have a recording of it, because it makes it last for ever.

Dan

Would you consider yourselves, ideologically, a punk/hard-core band? I know that your trying to keep it DIY, and I’ve heard you say it’s not about the money
Dan— We’ve been quoted as saying that on many occasions.
Ryan— When we play a show, we expect to gel…
Dan— We have a four dollar minimum. [laughter]. Ideologically, it’s a hard-core band because it’s all DIY. It’s raw self expression and staying true to ones self.
Eman— The music might come of as metal, but the ideas behind it are more punk.
Ryan— It’s like we live punk . We don’t live in a rich manor. We don’t have a stage act or high tech gear that metal bands have to perform with. We don’t have any lights.
Eman— We may have the riffs, but we don’t have the attitude.
No big muscles.
Dan— Or tattoo’s, or spikes. We ‘re just scraping by.
Ryan— We have no image to convey to people, it’s just ourselves.
Dan— Right. It’s just about the sound.

Can you define the term hard-core?

Ryan— The term is self explanatory. The core is hard. For us, it’s not living up to any one’s standards of what you should be. That’s what I think of as hard-core.
Eman— I see it as a dope sound, with… sincerity. When it’s dope, heavy craziness, with sincerity.
Ryan— Hard-core can be a whole ideal for just being a person.
Dan— Ya.
Eman— And it’s about how much we put into it.
Ryan— Just to the point, you know.

Lets get into the lyrics, tell me about them. Do you have politics?
Ryan— I write the lyrics. They ‘re just about conscious realizations of what you hate about yourself and the world you live in. Abstract descriptions of inner and outer struggle that I obsess over. Some of the older writings were more ‘socialized’, but the newer lyrics are more based on yourself and those close to you. Coping with your body, mind, and the whole thought process which is derived from that. They’re based on that as well as everyday frustrations that I deal with and hope others can relate to. I use a lot of metaphors for the reader to interpret because I don’t want my opinions to stand for all.
Dan— Politically… I don’t think anything about the band is to push a certain motive or agenda. It’s more like, different forms of self expression coming together under one title. Of which, people can think whatever they want.
Ryan— My lyrics are more abstract. I may write lyrics thinking one thing, but some one else may see them completely different.
Dan— We put all these ideas out there, and you should come up to us and tell us what you think about it.

Would you consider your selves to be more on the serious side with what your trying to present? It seems there’s a lot of seriousness behind the material, unlike Spazz or A/C where they have a sense of humor…
Eman— It’s definitely meant to be taken seriously. It’s all sincerity, I believe.
Ryan— there’s no bullshit, we ‘re just trying to say things the way they are. We may come off as bitter, but that’s the way we see things. We don’t want to hide the way we feel.
Dan— We don’t want to waste any time or energy.
Ryan— Well… we do the way we live, but not with the time that we put into the act of creating music.

Eman

What is DIY?
Ryan— Having no mass identity by nature and working from it.
Eman— Bustin’ your own balls to get shit done.
Ryan— Practicing in cat shit to make up new songs [Ryan’s filthy-ass basement]
Eman— The litter box, that’s where we practice.
Ryan— Nails slicking out of the ceiling when you play, digging into your skull. It’s all about equipment breaking all the time.
Dan— But we have to do it.
Ryan— We ‘re like the poorest band. Our amps are broken. We have no equipment…
Eman— We ‘re such losers, this is how bad we suck.
Dan— kids all hooking up the scene themselves. Deciding to put on a show yourself, because there’s no other way anyone could see you band. People sharing some intimate piece of themselves with a room full of people.

How do you like the scene out here- does it treat you well?
Ryan— Sometimes we don’t think so. We have spurts where we do have a good amount of shows, but then there’s spaces of time where it’s months before we actually get a show.
Eman— You mean like, how do the individual people like us, or how the shows are?
Dan— I don’t think there’s much of a scene for real heavy hard-core in Boston at all. Shows like that just don’t happen tot much.

How do the kids take to you?
Eman— We do get props from lots of kids, but a lot of times the scene seems like… there’s social engagements that I want nothing to do with.
Ryan—Sometimes we feel that we don’t fit into some of the social circles that exist here in Boston.
Eman— Over all, when we do get daps, It’s cool.
Dan— We have some solid supporters.
Ryan— A t least we’d like to think so.
Dan— We ‘re just not so down with people that we get offered shows as soon as they come around. I think that it’s because we don’t see those people much, and they don’t know what we’re doing because we live out here. They all see each other all the time. A lot of people think we broke up and shit because we haven’t played out in so long.

What do you think you could do to try to bring up the scene here in Boston?
Dan— Try to put on more shows and try to encourage people to do their own thing, no matter what it is. Make a movie, or a zine, maybe a puppet show, make some food and throw a party.
Ryan— It would be better if we could develop friendships with all of our fans, because it seems like that’s the way things would get done. On going relationships with communication.
Dan— We ‘re just real tense and shy.
Ryan— We feel alienated from the scene sometimes
Dan— We’re just freaks who can’t communicate properly with people, so we get dissed by the scene [sarcasm in his voice].
Ryan— We ‘re confused about ourselves.

When I look at the scene, I see a whole bunch of people who are the same way. Me coming in, I wasn’t accepted any where else, so I came here to be my self.
Eman— Ya, it’s cool making cool ass friends through music. That’s how we all came together.
Dan— That’s half the reason I figured I wanted to be in a band, the other is so I can travel.
Ryan— It’s a responsibility to communicate with people, not to say the wrong thing, and do it correctly every step of the way.
Dan— It’s difficult interacting with humans.
It is man…
Eman— It really is. You say it with a smile and sarcastic, but it really is.
People are just people, and especially in this scene. It’s all a bunch of uptight dorks who’ve been kicked around a lot.
[laughter]
Ryan— But then again, it’s our paranoia, also. That ties into it, totally.

What bands do you get into these days? Who influences your sound?
Ryan— The Swans.
Eman— I listen to a lot of reggae. It’s good to mix up music. Too much of one thing is horrible. I listen to a lot of reggae, but for hard core… heavy, EYEHATEGOD kind of shit.
Ryan— Dirge, self hating hard-core. I listen to a lot of jazz on the radio.
Dan— The influences change.
Ryan— These days, we ‘re burnt out from life, so we listen to all slow bands now.
Dan— Influences change, but I think the Cleanplate 7″ is somewhere kinda between Rorschach and Suppression.
Ryan— The fast parts are still based on that, but the break downs are totally different.

What’s the last record that you bought, that you loved?
Dan— Co-Flow: FunCrusherPlus. But that’s a hip-hop record and I stole it. The other record I listen to this summer is Corrupted side of the Noothgrush split
Ryan— Swans: Greed/Holy Money.
Eman, last record… Around The World For A Song. It’s got all kinds of dope shit from Egypt and Africa, and all around the world. It opens up your brain.

Word.Where did you come up with the name Guernica? What does it mean?
Ryan— Well, it’s based on this Picasso painting, but there’s more into it than that. Guernica is a place in Spain where the Spanish civil war took place. The Germans bombed there, starting off World War Two. There are double meanings to it. The painting is black and white. It’s a painting, I think, that describes our sound.
Dan— I also think that it’s a name that describes our sound. People should just take it how they want. If they want to go out and research the painting, look at it, that’s fine.

You used to be called Lesion, why did you change it?
Eman— I was beat two to one.
Ryan— I just thought it was too simplistic and unthoughtful…
Dan— It’s just shock value.
Ryan— There’s no real method behind it. It’s just physical suffering. There are so many bands who incorporate that concept. Ulcer…
Dismembered Fetus…
Ryan— It’s over used.
Eman— I guess Guernica does sound more like we sound now. We have changed, as the name changed. In the beginning I was out voted two to one, but now I don’t mind. It does fit more now, and I ‘ve warmed up to that.
Ryan— When we first started. Lesion fit real well, but now we’ve escalated to something different.

I like the art work on the Lesion demo a lot, who does the art work for the band?
Ryan— I do the art work. For the demo, it just shows three people laying under a blanket for shelter. There ‘s three members of this band, so I thought it matched us. My art work in general, it’s just how I feel. I can’t describe it. I don’t like telling people what it means, verbally. It’s something they have to see.

Tell me about the Guernica movie. This is something that you’ve been contemplating lately, right?
Eman— Right now, it’s a DIYporno death metal plot.
Dan— It changes all the time. It’s still in the works.
Ryan— We don’t want to talk about it just yet. Wait ’till it comes out.
You dig porno’s?
Eman— Pornography rules. I like it.
Ryan— I used to enjoy porno’s, but since I moved out…
Eman— I live it…
Ryan— Since moving out, I haven’t watched a porno in weeks.

You still have my porno, scrub.
Ryan— I still enjoy them when I can watch them.

Professional wrestling, that’s my next question.
Eman— Oh, fuck that shit.

Do you think the band will ever brake up to peruse pro-wrestling careers?
Dan— I don’t think I’ll ever be a professional wrestler, but I think up the illest moves. I think I’ll end up being a manager. Guernica is going to manage a wrestler some day.

What foundation does Guernica represent?
Dan— We only represent ECW. It’s the most violent form of sports entertainment.
Ryan— I like the ultimate warrior. [hysterics]

What are your plans for Guernica in the future? Major labels- Toothpaste commercials?
Dan— We ‘re doing a 7″ on Clean Plate, and a split 7″ with Prophetic Disclosure. It’s a split-label between Heartplug and Sekt.

Tell me about Sekt.
Dan— Sekt will hopefully become my label. The Guernica 7″ is also going to be split label between Sekt and Clean Plate. And hopefully, eventually, I’ll be able to put out other records. All the money used to fund this label is untaxed and was generated through unconventional means. We’re just trying to keep it real, my job didn’t pay for this label, the kids did. ha ha ha.

I know that each of you have very different personalities. Give me the rundown on who each of you are.
Ryan— We’re all head cases.
Dan— I’m the anal retentive responsible bitch of the band.
Ryan— I’m the one who’s not in touch with reality. I exist by my own reality. I ‘m the most head case of us all.
Dan— Eman’s the party animal.
Eman— I’m the careless fuck up. I’m the energy of the band.

Any last words, or comments?
Ryan— Don’t compromise to any ones standards, creation through destruction.

Thanks!

2011/02/15 | Categories: Interviews | 2 Comments

VIODRE

: What’s up, this is Bryan/Viodre.

You said you were doing this for three years, what got you interested in noise initially?
: The unpredictability of it. Noise tracks are much more than music; you can’t listen to a track once and remember it. The sound seems to play off your mental or emotional state; no one person can hear the same thing. Because it is so nonlinear in nature, there is a higher capacity for beauty in noise. More often, it can be extremely ferocious, but still captivating.

When I saw you live, it looked like you were shocking yourself with exposed wires, can you tell me about that?
: The wires didn’t have a strong enough electrical current to shock me. They were being shaken and thrown about violently to create a denser sound. I’ve run the gamut of injuries during live performance, but I never recall electrocuting myself.

How about on record?
: The recordings have the listener in mind on an obsessional level. As I will be one of the listeners, I make something that Id like to hear, yet cannot before I create the record. The records are made to be listened to a hundred times. There is always something that can be missed, always multiple layers of sound that the listener can focus on.

How long does it take to put together a recording, can you describe the process?
: A recording can take anywhere from 10 hours to 100 hours to produce, depending on what it is exactly that I want the material to sound like, and what resources I have available to me at the time. I try not to record by the same means as much as possible. I often go to friends houses, rented studios, and private studios when I need to record new material. Whenever I can record somewhere, I do. Most of the mixing on the records is done at my own place. The material that is being mixed, however, is recorded in all different locations, through different amps.

Do you enjoy the process of recording and putting out records more than live performance? Is it equal?
: I enjoy both, though they are such separate experiences it is hard to compare. Making a record can get repetitive at times, sometimes spending an hour on 10 seconds of sound. The pleasure is not always immediate, though it is strong once I get something I’m pleased with. Live is as instantly pleasurable like rough sex. I can let go, release all tensions, and push myself as far as possible.

As I said, I got a chance to see you perform live. You play with energy. Do you get a good response in your area? Is there a large fanbase out there for this kind of thing?
: The response is quite mixed. Many of my friends clear out as soon as it gets too loud, or shit starts to fly across the room. I get an excellent response from metal fans, who often scream and jump around as we’re performing. There isn’t a proper noise scene on Long Island, though there are a few people who go to all the shows; a fanbase perhaps, but a small one. The city has more of a scene for noise, though it could more properly be called an experimental music scene; there are few true noiseheads at shows compared to just experimental music fans.

How about when you play in other states? Have you ever played out of the country?
: Other states in the US, from the Northeast to the southwest, are a similar story. I would say Houston probably has a more noise-based scene than experimental music; they’re quite a rowdy bunch. I hear Providence has the strongest noise scene; Ill see if that is true soon enough. Last year I did some shows in Tokyo, and was very happy to see a strong audience of noise fans who knew their shit, and were pretty enthusiastic about the shows. There were a lot of people in the audience who attended every noise show they could. By far that is the strongest noise scene I know of.

I want to go back to the subject of recording. Do you ever have themes when you record, for different recordings?
: Half the time I start a record I don’t have any set goals. I just want to push my ability, refine my method, make something better than the last record. Some times I do start a record with a preconceived notion of what it will be. Some records do have a concept to them, though I try to keep it to myself; I don’t want people hearing what I want them to hear rather than what they get out of the work themselves. Many times I’ll pick a certain place to record to suit a mood I’m looking for; other times it may be a certain drug. Overall, I try to achieve a flow from the sound itself rather than an intellectual underlining.

So its interpretive
: Yes, definitely interpretive. You may be right about what this or that means in my record, but you’re probably wrong. I try to keep ideologies out of my recordings. That may change in the future.

What is the difference between noise and power electronics?
: I think the separation of sound and theme, sound and concept. Regardless of what the popular subject matter in power electronics may be, it usually takes the sound and works off its violence; uses noise to enhance the vocals. Noise seems to be made for noises sake. Power electronics takes the chaos and malevolence of noise and gives it a human voice.

Do you prefer listening to one over the other?
: I generally prefer noise over power electronics because I don’t like to get used to elements in recordings; a guys voice for example. Noise is usually more dynamic than power electronics; it keeps my interest. Sometimes I get in a mood to listen to power electronics, though. There are certainly enough good acts.

Is a lot of negativity/violence associated with noise and power electronics? I know that some people are very misogynistic and there are white supremacists, etc What is your stance on this kind of thing?
: Yes, there is a lot of negativity and violence associated with noise and power electronics. But why not? It’s not exactly a peachy, Brady Bunch world that we live in. People are raped, killed, and robbed every day. It is possible to bring positive emotions to the genres, and people will try, doubtless. If I want something happy or uplifting I throw on jazz music. I usually approach noise and P.E. from a methodical or analytical stance. Rather than make me angry or sad or happy or whatever. I can be extremely impressed by the sound, let down by it, complexed by it, or think it is lame. I try not to associate feelings with it. There is a misogynistic streak in power electronics, of course. I think men naturally have such inclinations large or small as they may be but think better than to act on them. If people want to get such feelings out on record, great. As long as you’re not raping my mother. Also, [In terms of racism], extreme opinions are naturally very easy to combine with extreme sound. I think it is proper that people with such extreme political or racial stances choose noise/power electronics to carry their vision across. Most people I’ve encountered, however, dont mingle noise and politics.

Are you ever worried about violence when you play out?
: I’m not worried about violence when I play out. Violent actions are more effective in venting the stress and tension of daily life than calm actions or performance. I’ve had many violent experiences during live performance; two people were sent to the hospital one night in Texas, one by me. The audience knows that they are risking their safety if they get involved in a violent, high-energy noise performance. If someone goes to a noise show just to watch and listen, chances are they wont get hurt. Very rarely have I seen this happen at shows where it wasnt a mistake. The audience members who are truly at risk are the ones who try to join in the performance.

Music wise, who has influenced you to create and who are you listening to now?
: I enjoy a lot of music but rarely think of elements of it that I could use in noise. Perhaps the only music Ive listened to and had a desire to experiment with as Viodre would be jazz. Other than noise the only music I religiously listen to would be jazz, from the 30s til now, the straight ahead shit, the swing shit, and the excellent early free jazz recordings.

So your heavily interested in the elements of improv?
: Yes. I may take Viodres live sets in a less improvisational direction in the future, but I’m always thrilled to see any type of improvised live performance. It is why I go to noise shows so often.

Do you get into hip hop, that is based on improv.
: I don’t listen to much hip hop, but I find it very interesting that someone can apply their vocabulary to rhythm and form so effectively in such a short amount of time. I’ve always loved the versatility of the English language, and I can see how people can appreciate it.

Where did the name VIODRE come from?
: Viol, violate, violence, dream, dreary, dredge, drench, dress . . . that’s about as much as I can remember. May be more words to it.

Where do you collect your field recordings?
: All over, anywhere I travel. Most are from around New York state, but I try to record a good deal of sounds from where ever I am.

Do you have any other projects in the works, what are your plans for the future of Viodre?
: I’ve got a lot of Viodre things I’m working on a 3 inch CDr on Chondritic Sound, a limited disk on Deserted Factory japan, a seven-inch with Pop Culture Rape Victim, a collaboration with Eugenics Council, another with MSBR, and a CD with GUILTY CONNECTOR and Sewage, that I can remember. I try to keep everything I do under Viodre. As much as I want to change what I’m doing, or experiment in different sounds, it most likely will retain the Viodre name.

Thank you for taking the time to sit down and talk. Holy shit, its been like two hours.
What is your discography?
: An incomplete discography;
All Your Bobby Pins Here From Fucking On The Floor (dance beautifully)”, CDR/Kalifornialoveaddiction USA
Spaniard Pow-Pow Moss CDR/Kalif, USA
DISGUST (Heat ov the Day) CDR/23 Productions, USA
UU.EE. Serve Me High CDR/Cathartic Process
Recycled Music Cassette/RRRecords
Thanks for taking the time to do the interview.

contact voidre: website

youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S54ebdL_dms

2011/02/05 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

Assuck

First off who is Assuck made up of, and when did you form?
At this point, Assuck is me [Steve Heritage – vocals, guitar] and Rob Proctor [drums]. We’ve been in the band the entire time. Our new bass player is Jason Crandon, who plays guitar for Reversal of Man. We’ve been together for a long time. Since 1987.

Give me some history about the band. Where are you from and what was the original line up?
We’re from Florida. Tampa bay, basically. There’s a lot of cities in Tampa bay. Originally we all lived in St. Petersburg. Now me and Jason both live in Tampa and Rob still lives in St. Petersburg. The original line up was me and Rob, and we had a singer named Paul Pavlovich.

What happened with Paul?
Paul was going to school for art, and he lived about an hour south of where we were. We didn’t see him that often. He spent the whole week at school and came home on weekends. He kind of floated and ended up being into different kinds of stuff than us. When he decided that he wasn’t into it anymore, and was kind of still doing it, we decided that he shouldn’t be in the band anymore. It was kind of mutual. There’s been a lot of line up changes since then, though.

At first, you had no bass player?
Yes. About a month before Anticapital came out, our friend Pete who played guitar for the band No Fraud, which is an old band from Florida, he really wanted to play bass for us. We thought that was awesome, because personally, I drew a lot of influence from the way he played guitar at the time. I was just a kid, and he was my age now.  He wanted to be in Assuck, so I was like ‘wow’. That was ten years ago. It was really cool. I’m going to see Pete again on this trip. He called us out of nowhere. He lives in San Francisco now and he called when we were in Europe. He said “I’m going to come out to your show and see you guys when you play San Fran.”

Where did the name Assuck come from?
It’s just a silly name we were fucking with in high school. We can’t change our name now, it’s too late.

What would you change it to?
I don’t know. I wish we didn’t have the name that we did, and we had something that was more serious, because we’re a more serious band now. At the time, that’s what was funny and what we were into. It’s stupid to try and start over just for a name change. I don’t really care about it that much.

You used to be pornocore.
When we first started it was a joke.  That’s why we didn’t need a bass player, it was just a joke. We were like, ‘OK, we can just jam out and sing about this and that, and it doesn’t matter’. Then when we decided that we had the capability of being a real band, we set our minds as to what we wanted to do and what we wanted it to be about.

How did you first get involved with the death metal/grind scene?
I never really was into the death metal scene at all. I never really liked very many of those bands. I liked a lot of the thrash bands that were before death metal. I never liked the growly vocal bands or anything like that.
No?
I never liked them, no. I was out of metal by the time that stuff happened. We liked Slayer and Celtic Frost, Kreator and stuff like that. By the time that Cannibal Corpse or Deicide was big- the way that I actually found out about bands like that is because I work at Morrisound, and they would come in. I was like, ‘wow, this is what it’s like now, I guess’. I was into hard-core and I didn’t know anything that was going on with metal at the time.

So you came from a punk/Hard-Core background?
Absolutely. The reason that our vocals are all growly is because of bands like Fear of God and stuff. Not because of Suffocation or any thing like that, even though those bands have their place. It’s weird. At the time when everything was becoming fast and like ‘grindcore’ and stuff, there were screamy bands— we called them dogs and cats. You had dog bands and cat bands. Some how we just ended up being a dog band because that’s the way Paul sang. Musically, we wanted to be Fear of God.

And you keep it DIY. That’s more of a punk rock thing.
Absolutely. There’s nothing metal about driving around in that van right there [point’s to his tour van]. The only thing that’s metal about us is the traces of slayer riffs that in our songs. We’re a hard-core band that plays fast, with growly vocals.

What kind of old bands are you into?
When we first started doing Assuck, we were into Cryptic Slaughter, Septic Death, stuff that was fast- but before there was a ‘grindcore’. Paul liked Napalm Death at the time. I never had liked them. It’s more of an attitude, like the Pussmore records stuff, and Christ on Parade. All that old stuff. The fast hard-core bands. That’s why we were doing it. Right now, we listen to so much music. There’s so much music within the genera of punk and hard-core and metal, and anything that falls even close to that now. It’s hard to touch it all. At the time, it was the fast hard-core bands, which aren’t fast now in comparison. Spazztic Blurr, or Wehrmacht, or one of those bands. They aren’t fast compared to like, Discordance Axis, or one of those bands that are hauling ass all the time.

Do you dig DA?
Discordance Axis? Rob played drums for them.

Really?
They lost their drummer some how. I’ve known John since they were Sadition, and Rob’s known them for a real long time. They had a trip planned for Japan, and I guess they were going to get fucked out of it if they didn’t have a drummer. So Rob flew up and learned all their songs in a couple of days. And they went.

Rob’s the man.
Ya, Rob’s killer.

He’s a great drummer.
Ya, It’s because the kid’s that are starting bands now, or are learning how to play drums now, are learning from bands that maybe aren’t as fluent at playing drums. Rob was ripping off stuff from like Dark Angel, and guy’s now that are just too good to be in metal. Shawn Reiner… those bands can play.

Lombardo?
Lombardo’s awesome. But for Slayer, it’s not the drums that are good, it’s the fucking guitar playing and the riffs. Lomardo never did anything nuts, but that’s what Rob was learning how to play. That and Charlie Binante and all the thrash bands that had hauling double bass. That’s how he learned. Now the kids are learning from bands like A/C. Skipping the kick drums, just hitting the crash symbol and the snare. Have you heard the drummer Dave Witte?

Of course.
He’s in a lot of bands. He’s in Black Army Jacket now. He played for Discordance Axis, he played on an Exit 13 record. He played for Human Remains. He’s fucking an excellent drummer, hauling ass all the time. Real good. Kids like that are pretty inspirational, because they’re still within the hard-core scene, but at the same time, they took the time to learn how to do stuff right and not just fuck around.

What are you trying to illustrate with your sound, what are you trying to make people feel?
I don’t think about it like that at all. I write songs that I think sound good and I don’t try to portray anything.

What about lyrically… What are some of the things you write about?
I don’t think about it like that ether. I write lyrics because it’s kind of a necessary part to writing a song. If I felt that we were a legitimate band with out lyrics, or without vocals, I would do that. Most of the music that I think is pretty good is always screwed up by bad vocals. I like Assuck, I like the way we are, and I think that’s tainted a lot by me being in the band. I wouldn’t listen to us, I don’t think.

Oh ya?
Ya, I think the vocals would put me off in a big way.

Wow, that’s real weird man.
Not the lyrics, but the vocals.

I think the writing has a unique style which hasn’t really been presented before. I refer to it as textbook style
There’s a lot of bands that do that now I’ve noticed.

Because of you, perhaps.
Ya, I think so, maybe.

But that’s cool, because everybody need their influences...
That’s cool, I’m all right with it. There’s a couple bands that are pretty obviously, blatantly rip-off Assuck bands- It’s flattering and whatever but… I think it’s cool that kids are more serious about their lyrics now, and it’s not like “‘Hey, this is the sing along chorus” and stuff- because I don’t think music has to be about that. Even though that’s OK, too.

Lets get into the last record you did. You took a four year break between the Anticapital/State to State CD.
I think the last thing we recorded on that was the Blind Spot seven inch, and between that and Misery Index was five years. But we did a lot in that five years. We went to Europe, we toured the US two or three times, we switched vocalists twice, we switched bass players twice, and we wrote all the songs. We started a lot, also. We started a record store, it was a volunteer thing. We were busy. Rob went back too school. A lot of things happened within that time period. It’s just that Assuck isn’t going to go away for us, so we don’t necessarily feel that we have to hurry up and write another record. It’s always going to be there for us. We don’t feel rushed, like ‘hey, when’s our next album coming out?’. It’s always going to be there, so it’s not a problem. We didn’t disintegrate as a band, we probably did more in that five years than most bands will do at all.

What did you do differently on the Misery Index release, as opposed to the previous stuff? It’s actually a bit faster with very few breakdowns.
We call it all go and no slow. Between Anticapital, which was recorded in ’91, and Misery Index, which was recorded in ’96, we changed a lot musically. Basically,we wrote what we wrote. It wasn’t a conscious decision at all. We wrote what we thought we could do.

Do you plan to have anything else out before 2003?
We are working on a project right now. It’s the same thing, we have so much going on. By the time this summer’s over, we will have played around seventy shows this year. That’s a lot. We started a band called Anthem 88, which is a youth crew type of band. It’s Assuck with a another vocal guy. We recorded an album already. It’s twelve songs. We’ve played shows with that band. We picked out a whole bunch of cover songs that we’re going to record when we get home from this trip. Rob’s going to be moving, so it’s going to be kind of difficult to get that together, for rehearsals and stuff. He’s going for his masters degree and he has to move to the University of Florida, so… Ya, we’ll be recording. There’s five Assuck songs right now that aren’t recorded. I bought this box that allows me to play guitar to my self in the van, through headphones. There’s a lot of time to kill in the van, so I kind of made a conscious decision to write more songs.

How is the scene down in Florida, do you get a lot of support?
The scene in Florida is awesome. There’s three or four different cities that have cool individual scenes, where there’s not a cross. Where, if you played in one city and played in the next, none of the kid’s would be the same. It would be a totally different scene. Florida’s pretty big. Population wise, It’s the fourth biggest state in the US, so there’s a lot of kids. Tampa, where we live, has a real good scene. A lot of kids come out to shows, and we started that record store- which is basically a space to do shows. Gainsville has a really good scene, it’s totally different from ours, but there’s always kids hanging out. As far as Assuck in Florida goes, we do pretty well. Last year we played six or seven times just at that one space. You can only play so many times before people stop making a big deal out of it. We’re here like twice a year [Boston], and we’ve only played Boston like twice before. We never played in Worcester before, so…

And I know you had a bad experience one year at the Rat…
Ya, the Rat was rotten to the core.

So how has this tour been going for you so far?
This tour is a long tour. This is the last summer that Rob’s going to be able to go for the summer. He’s going to start taking summer sessions at school to get his masters degree done. Actually, this trip was supposed to be with Spazz and Man Is The Bastard. Spazz, who shares members with Capitalist Casualties, Max, couldn’t go. And, MITB recently broke up.

I heard that.
Ya, exactly. This trip is big. This trip is probably too much for one person to be able to handle. We’re one month into it, we have another month to go. Were not like an Avail, or anything, that writes music and tours for a living. We have real lives at home, and we value that in a lot of ways. So being away for two months has a huge impact on our regular lives. We’ve been to Europe already this summer, and this is our eleventh show in the United States- we played a couple shows before we left. Over all, we’ve played about twenty-nine shows so far, and we have another thirty to go.

Who have you played with- anyone that stands out?
So many bands. In Europe the bands were, Gomorrah , Stack, Acheborn and Sistral Being, who are ex-members of Acme. In the United States, it’s Frotus, Genny Picalo and, Locust. Also, Reversal Of Man who we’re on tour with. they’re amazing. God there’s so many bands, I don’t know. We play with a different set of bands every night.

I take it that you read a lot. do you have any literature you would suggest?
Rob reads non-stop. He’ll go to the bookstore and buy a book that’s like the thickest book he can find- because he reads real fast. He’ll read a whole book on one trip. Jason brought a suitcase full of books. I can’t believe it. First of all, I don’t read that much. I sure as hell can’t read in a van. I’m always wanting to look at the map, or see where we are. Look around, stuff like that. I listen to music in the van, but Rob reads like crazy. His birthday is on this trip, and I just bought him The Grapes of Wrath. He wanted to read it, it’s like a four inch thick book. That’s pretty cool.

What’s up with you and Seth from A/C?
There’s nothing really for me to talk about. There’s no tension, it’s just shit that he starts. You know how he is, man. He’s not just like that towards us. He’s like that towards everyone. That’s part of their shtick. Specifically the Rat show? Were you at that show?

I was there, and I was watching him give you a hard time. Also, I was curious about your side of the story, because I got his side.
What was his side of the story?

I asked him if he really hated you that much. he said you ripped off his band and don’t give him the props. Like, you saw his show in ’88, and that’s why you formed.
We started in ’87. I haven’t talked to him since we did sound for them at a show in Tampa once, but we were already a band. It was the same kind of idea. Fucking around and being nutso, which is why our first seven inch is the way it is. But, Paul quit the band, and we don’t do stuff like that any more. It’s not even anything similar to what they do. A/C was one of the first fast bands, so… Right now, I think even more so than us, they’re a lot truer to what they were when they first started, than we are. Fuck around, write stupid songs- 100 songs on a record type of a thing… It has it’s place, and kids like that. That’s grate, but it’s not what I’m into at all. There’s very few fast bands that I think are good- unless their like old thrash bands.

Have you heard Crudos?
Yes.

Ebro, their drummer, used to play for Charles Bronson and still plays for MK Ultra- he’s pretty fast.
Ya, I saw him the other day. MK Ultra played at the Columbus Festival. They were rock solid, they were totally grate. It was awesome. They were the best band of the day. They were also the only band that had anything intelligent to say. Everyone else was like, ‘oh, this is our next song, it’s really weird to be up here on the big stage’. MK Ultra totally, hand over fist, just had cool stuff to say.

You guy’s never talk when you play?
No, not really. I’m not a public speaker. I’m not that kind of person. I write stuff, and I edit it a lot. It’s very systematic, and rehearsed, the kid of stuff I write. And it gets trashed, and started over, and I’m not a very good on the spot talker. In addition to that, we’re not here to make speeches, we’re here to play music. If some kid wants to get into the whole political thing, or whatever, I’d be happy to talk to kids about it. We get bummed about some things we talk about, like fights at shows and people falling all over our stuff. We talk about stuff like that. It was cool to see MK Ultra do that, and their that kind of band, but we’re not that kind of band at all. Shut up and play, is more what we’re into.

What’s your discography
There was a seven inch called Necro Salvation, that we hate. It got bootlegged again recently. I smashed a hundred and fifty of them on the fucking sidewalk in front of a club in Berlin. The kid tried to give me bootleg records as compensation for bootlegging our record. I just went off on him. We put out a record, it was a split with Old lady Drivers, a million years ago. There’s Anticapital, and State to State, Blindspot, and Misery Index.

Thanks for taking the time out to talk to me I’ll send you a copy when it comes out!

2011/02/03 | Categories: Interviews | 1 Comment

Desiderii Marginis

An interview that I did with Desiderii Marginis in 2006. Enjoy.

Tell me about the project, how did it come about and when?

It began in early 1993. I was in another band back then, a more avant-garde, electronic outfit influenced by acts like Teargarden and Legendary Pink Dots. I did about half of the songwriting then, although a lot of music ended up in the drawer because it was too I don’t know, monotonous or slow, or drone-based. Anyway, I decided to start a solo-project where I could find an outlet for material that didn’t fit elsewhere. I had no great ambitions for Desiderii in the beginning (either!). I felt perfectly content with a few lo-fi tapes that I could sell to those interested.

What does the name mean, and how do you pronounce it???

I came up with the name when I read about a couple of places on the moon. There are two crater-areas called Mare Desiderii and Mare Marginis, roughly translated meaning the sea of dreams and the border sea. I just combined the two without any grammatical consideration to Desiderii Marginis, in the best of worlds meaning something like on the edge of dreams. But frankly, since my Latin is not what it once was, it’s quite possible that the name makes no sense at all. I have no good suggestion on how to pronounce it, I usually gather when people are referring to me anyway.

What do you mean by gather?

I mean that I understand that people are referring to me and my project even though I’m introduced as dresiedrsi mriniargs. I’m the guy with the band you can’t pronounce. It’s not the end of the world.

Where do you live?

I live in an apartment in Mjölby, Sweden, with my girlfriend and three dogs. I’ve lived in this town since 1988, and before that I lived nearby. The town situated is in a flat, agricultural region called Östergötland and people in this part of the country speak with an accent that can only be described as rustic.

Whats it like living there?

Mjölby is a sleepy little town of the kind where most people know each other. I think I recall that around 25,000 people live in the area, so it’s by no means a big place, but I kind of like it. The city of Linköping is just a 20 minutes drive away, so what you cant get here in town you can usually pick up there (Your favorite odd brand of single-malt whisky and stuff like that). A good thing is that Roger Karmanik moved here from Linköping with his family about five years ago, so I have about a five minutes walk from home to the CMI office. It’s not exactly metropolis, but I like it here.

Does it excite you that kids from Boston (USA) are listening to your Music?

Well yes, I guess it does. It’s always intriguing to see where the people come from who takes an interest in my music. Not that it matters a great deal to me. The other day I read some news about my latest album posted on a South-African gothic forum, I’ve sold CDs to guys in Israel and the Ukraine and I have received interviews from places like China and Russia. The better part of my music is sold in Europe though, both east and west, places like Germany, Italy, UK, The Netherlands, France and Poland. I guess it all comes down to the internet making underground music more available to people all over the globe.

How did you hook up with Cold Meat Industries?

Like I said earlier I recorded some tapes in 1993. Well, Peter Andersson went to the same school as I, and there he used to sneak up on just about anyone wearing black clothes, offering his early raison d’être tapes. I bought a few of these and ended up giving him copies of my tapes. A couple of months later Peter helped Roger out with the CMI store, where he played my tapes. Roger apparently liked the music and called me up, asking if I wanted to be featured on a compilation CD he was planning to release in collaboration with Darkwave. That compilation was of course And even wolves and it was released in the US in1995, and in Europe later the same year. After that little taster he wanted me to release an album, and Songs over ruins came out in 1997.

Do you enjoy being with Cold Meat; I know that around here, Roger [Brighter Death Now CEO of CMI] is somewhat of a legend.

In my opinion the people related to CMI are some of the most hilarious guys around, so yes I enjoy their company a lot. The members of the bands are spread out all over Sweden so some of them you don’t get to see too often, never the less its always great fun when it happens. I do see Peter Andersson (Raison detre) on a regular basis because he lives close by, as do the guys from IRM, and they just kill me.

2011/02/03 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

EYEHATEGOD

2011/02/03 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

KARLHEINZ

KARLHEINZ

>Whats up Karl, how you been?

I’m at my menial job, so it could be better. But in general, I’m fine and dandy.

>Lets start with some bio information. Describe your music (do you consider it music)?

Right now, my music is noise – possibly harsh noise, possibly power electronics, depending upon your definition and which piece you’re talking about. I used to do slightly different things – tape manipulations, junk instruments, classical samples, etc. Now it’s mostly just synth noise and effects with incomprehensible vocals.

I hope its music. I consider it music when it’s worked out and intentional. Certainly the recorded stuff is music (or at least musical”), but live it usually ends up that I just turn shit to 10 and let it wail. Id like to have a lot more control live, its something I’m constantly beating myself up about, but at a show you want the sturm und drang anyway so it mostly works out OK.

>What got you interested in playing this type of shit?

It’s just sort of been a natural progression towards the musical fringes I started out listening to rock, like just about everyone else, but it was always the oddball stuff that I liked. And as time went on, my tastes just got more and more anti-musical. I’m sure plenty of other people have made this progression as well – started out with punk (or techno or classical or free jazz or whatever), then listened to weirder stuff, which leads to other weird stuff, and so on.

I also went to school for music composition (or more accurately for alcohol consumption). And the stuff I liked back then was all the academic avant-garde music, since it was a very small scene with very esoteric tastes. I cut my teeth on reel-to-reel tape loops and modular analogue synthesizers at that time, and got tastes of 12-tone composition and microtonal tuning and all sorts of other weird shit. It was a very interesting and productive waste of time. (I find most of that stuff very dry and boring nowadays, incidentally.)

As far as noise/PE specifically: the extremist ideology and lyrical content. My taste in ideas has roughly paralleled my taste in music, though Ive always been obsessed with violence and sexual deviance.

>How long have you been doing this for?

The college years I refer to above, happened between 1990-1992. (It was Ball State in Muncie, Indiana, if you’re curious.) But I left without graduating, and moved to Boston on a whim, and those interests sat idle for a long time while I did some other bad music. They resurfaced around 1996, and I started doing my compositions in the basement of a house in Central Square. It was great, the entire basement was basically a studio, and they had all this metal junk that I could mic up and bang on, in addition to some rather primitive synths and an old 4-track. It was totally different from what I’m doing now, but I really miss those days.

One of the guys I lived with back then was Max Lord. He was playing a stand-up drum kit and metal percussion for this noise-rock band called Bitchhiker. That ended after the other members moved away, so I asked him to perform with me, and Lord & Karlheinz was born. Much of what I am now was born out of that – the Karlheinz name, the triskellion hand symbol, etc. We were only around for two years, played maybe a dozen shows, but the people who saw it don’t forget it. I was doing stuff like lighting my equipment on fire, throwing fireworks at the audience, running around jumping on people – totally over-the-top stuff.

But Max eventually grew out of these histrionics (and of having to always drive the van when I was drunk), and in 2000 we called it quits as a band. I didn’t want to stop, and have mostly been flying solo ever since. Were still friends though – I’m recording an album at his studio, Wire Sounds, right now.

>What is the significance of the name?

Karl is my real first name, but heinz is not a last name, which causes some confusion. My friend Keith Whitman started calling me that one day, as a goof on Karlheinz Stockhausen, the avant-garde composer from Germany. I decided to sort of make it official, because it sounded very German (I’m of German descent) and because it could be abbreviated KHz (as in Kilohertz). I also thought people would recognize Stockhausen, and back then I had some artistic pretensions, which I’ve thankfully dropped.

But apparently nobody knows that Stockhausen exists. You would not believe how many people call me Mr. Heinz.

>Tell me about your studio equipment set up, what are you using?

Usually, I use my live setup, record it onto the computer, and do cut-ups/multitracking/DSP from there. When I did the classical scores, I also did that entirely in the computer.

If you’d like product placement: a Tascam TDM-1000 digital mixer going into a Windows machine; N-Track (at the moment) for digital multitracking, WaveLab for mastering, SynthEdit to create custom VST instruments and effects; and a couple of cheap-but-good large-diaphragm condenser mics (MXLs and Octavas). The classical stuff (which I don’t really do anymore) involved scoring everything in Overture, rendering each track using Audio Compositor, and mixing it all down in whichever multitrack I was using at the time.

However, I’m doing something completely different for the record I’m working on right now. Which I’ll explain a few questions down.

>What is your live set up (what are you using to make the sound)?

I’ve used a lot of stuff live, but I eventually realized that portability is the main concern. My setup right now is pretty settled: a Yamaha SU200 loop sampler and a Yamaha DX200 FM synth for noisemaking, Electrix vocoder for vocal processing, an envelope follower, an old delay pedal, and a couple of distortion boxes. A lot of the live stuff involves feedback. I just bought a Boss SP-505, which looks to be really nice, but I havent integrated it yet.

Oh, and a cop hat with a light attached to it. Cant forget the cop hat. (Its real, incidentally – a friend of mine picked it up after a cop dropped it while chasing a tranny prostitute down.)

>Describe a KarlHienz performance.

A fat guy jumping around a lot, screaming obscenities at his soon-to-be-broken equipment in the middle of an ear-shattering din. What more could one ask for?

Thats a typical performance. I’ve also done a couple of one-off performances with Donna Parker that turned out pretty well. The one in the basement of Jacques Cabaret where she wore a skimpy nurses outfit and fake blood, and rolled around in chicken wire and a nurses outfit while I screamed a lot and roughed around with her. Also, the Christmas show she and I did with this guy Sebastian – we made him the god Moloch (i.e. painted him in gold with a gold cow mask on), then sacrificed children to him (i.e. filled baby dolls with raw meat, pulled it out with knives, and threw it at people). Fun fun fun.

I’ve also done a couple of highly unpleasant spoken word appearances, and I think everyone is glad that I gave that up.

>Who else have you played out with?

As far as collaborations: I already mentioned Max Lord and Donna Parker. Just recently, I teamed up with Jon Ruhe for a short-lived project called Karlsruhe (get it?). Jon was the original drummer in Ho-Ag, and played with a bunch of other local out-rock acts (Coke Dealer, Justine, etc). We played

three shows, one of which my friend Ariel recorded, and spent a day in the studio recording a track for the next Mister Records comp. I’m pretty happy with the whole experience; Jon and I clicked really well.

We split up because he left town. He’s currently traveling cross-country in a van, trying to find entertaining punk clubs in the South with his friend Luna. I plan to visit him someday, after he decides which city to live in.

As far as being on the same bill: too many to name. I’ve played with pretty much every good noise act in New England – Emil Beaulieau, Sickness, Prurient, Immaculate:Grotesque, etc. I’m on at least half of the noise bills in Boston, so Ive played with a lot of great out-of-town acts like Taint, Bloodyminded, Grunt, Slogun, Klangstabil. I know Deb from EXiMiOUS Productions really well, and whenever she books me, it’s always a really eclectic bill – usually weird rock acts or unusual performance artists.

I also opened for Jarboe and Larsen in Pittsburgh – don’t know how, I just really lucked out. Jarboe is kind of odd (big surprise) but really really nice, and Larsen is just great. I’m immensely proud I was on that bill, even though it wasnt my best show.

>No shit. Jarboe. Do you get a good response usually?

People seem to like me for some reason. Im as confused as anyone else about it.

>You run a website called bostonnoise.com. Tell me about it. (how did it start, and how long have you been doing it for)

It’s actually bostonnoise.ORG, but I’ve gotten it wrong myself sometimes.

It was started around Y2K or so, and was originally supposed to be the web presence of a sort of local noise collective. I started it with Mary Donna Parker Staubitz and Jessica Cant Rylan, and it later involved Jeremy from Box Patrol (whos in California now).

The idea behind it was that there were some local scenes that were somewhat known – Providence and Lowell, for instance – but nothing in Boston. And the other scenes didn’t communicate between themselves, either. That was – we thought – part of the reason noise wasnt known here at all. We didn’t know very many people ourselves, so it would be a good opportunity to find out whats out there. A union of antisocial bedroom noise freaks.

We spent a year booking shows, getting the word out, and even putting out a comp. Then Mary and Jessica either lost interest or got too swamped with their own projects (which happens pretty often in the DIY scene, as I’m sure you know). Now it’s just me.

I should point out that its kind of in a state of suspended animation at the moment due to lack of free time – the most useful thing on it is the live calendar. I’m really hoping that in the future, itll be a lot more inclusive and up-to-date. Id also like to go national someday – there isn’t a cohesive net space for the noise scene nationally, either. Yet.

>Ok, I want to get into the ideology behind KH. What are some of the themes behind the records that you’ve put out?

All of the stuff I do is about things people find mostly unpleasant: sexual violence, mass murder, frustration, etc. Which is sort of unusual, since I’m generally a pretty cheerful person.

Limiting myself to stuff I’ve put on record

The first one I did (which hasn’t yet seen the light of day) was for a label that leaned towards dark ambient or death industrial, and is a bit different from my usual stuff. Its called Every Wound A Victory, and was composed as a two-sided tape release. The theme there was the cycle of violence; one side was about how people who were victimized eventually become predators, sex criminals or murderers. The second side was about the protector classes and secondary victims (e.g. victims families), who in their zeal for retribution become just as bad as the predators themselves.

The album for RRR, called Fucking, is about just that. Specifically, how a persons sexual desires damage them and people around them, how people let themselves be destroyed for sex.

I’m in the process of recording an album called Desperate right now for Truculent. I want it to be as close to a traditional power electronics album as possible, so I’m trying to limit myself to equipment that was available no later than 1980. Max has a huge pile of analog synths (Arp 2600, Yamaha CS-80, Korg MS-20), and Nick Blakey was kind enough to lend me his MS-10.

With Desperate, I wanted to take on the same subject matter as other PE artists (stalking, mass murder, prostitute death, etc) but flip the coin around and show the other side. So, the albums theme is about people who want to become big and important, but end up failures. In one song, a stalkers life is ruined when the object of his affections is killed by someone else. Another one is about a potential mass murderer, who packs his bag with ammo and goes to the killing site, only to chicken out – day after day, year after year. One is about a crack whore who turns her life around, only to be killed years later on a date. And so on.

My point is that most noise or PE groups never seem to grapple with the all-too-human reality of these subjects. Which leads to the next question

>I know that many noise/power electronics artists are ambiguous with their beliefs, but use very harsh, violent or nationalistic imagery on their records and in their lyrics. When asked about it, they remain silent. One never really knows. How do you feel about that, and where does KarlHeinz fit in to it (I know you use some pretty harsh imagery yourself).

First of all, I should make this disclaimer: I have no objection to noise/PE groups (or anyone else for that matter) using violent, sexist, or fascist imagery. I don’t want them to shut up, or stop doing what they’re doing. You say you want to kill prostitutes? More power to you. I feel I have to say this up front, because a lot of these artists take a lot of slack from stupid people, and I don’t want to give ammunition to the idiots.

Now on to the criticisms

It does seem like a lot of noise/PE acts are just using these subjects by rote, ripping off NON or Whitehouse or Laibach or whatever, adopting it as a stance without really thinking about it. Or just saying stuff to be deliberately extreme, without really having much to say. Or – most pathetically – so that they’ll be viewed as some sort of tough guy or something. The problem with all of this is that you end up totally debasing the power, the reality, of these subjects. Theyre not being extreme, they’re just making the extreme seem boring.

A sure sign of this is if they try to separate (and, to their minds, elevate) their art by calling it dark, or extreme, or provocative. This really just shows their own mindset – that they’re throwing out these images because they can’t really come to grips with them. All of this stuff, every bit and parcel of it, exists in everyone – it’s NOT dark or scary, it’s a fundamental part of what all humans are. The fact that people hide behind those labels is a sign that they havent accepted that fact. I can understand those sorts of games from people who want to slander the artists – and somewhat from people who like those same artists but will never admit to themselves why they do – but its kind of mind-boggling to me when the artists themselves do it.

In their defense, this seems to be a sign of inexperience. As time goes on, even the most obnoxious PE shock-jock will get it through his head that this stuff is real, and develop more of a thoughtful relationship to the subject matter. I don’t mean a more moral approach, just one that has more meaning and depth.

As to my own motives:

I suffered from bone-crushing depression for the majority of my early life, and pretty early on I developed an obsession with death (my own and others). I am also excited by the thought of women being sexually tortured and murdered, have been for as long as I can remember. This is something I never wanted to admit for a long time, not even to myself. I did believe for a long time that this made me evil, a pathetic monster. Thankfully I’m over that now, but on the other hand I don’t believe these interests make me better either.

In any form of art, you have to do a balancing act – if it’s just about you, it’s just wanking off; but if you take your own motives out of the equation, its fundamentally dishonest. So I usually use my experiences as a template and then fictionalize them. Nowadays, it’s simply about exploring my own motives, then externalizing them to the world around me. Seeing what others make of their own will to violence, their own murderous lusts. How they try to deny them or justify them. What that does to them and how it reflects on everyone else. But fundamentally it is based on things that have happened in my life.

I do also occasionally use some nationalist (ie Nazi) imagery, so I should probably explain that. Thats coming from a combination of my death obsession, and the fact that Im proud of my German heritage (odd since I hate my family). I do also have some sympathies for the white working class and the general hypocrisy surrounding their treatment (Im from Indiana after all). I am an avid fan of Nietsche, and to a lesser degree of Oswald Spengler (the hands logo was partially inspired by Man and Technics). I do think that people like Thom Metzger sometimes (SOMETIMES) have some good points to make. But there’s no way I would condone attacking someone for the color of their skin. I don’t think non-whites should be treated differently. I don’t object to interracial marriage. I may or may not have some racism in me, I can’t deny that, but there’s no way Id advocate it.

Sorry to be so long-winded about this, obviously I think about this stuff way too much. I also had a gig fall through last tour because the venue thought I was a Nazi or something, and it still stings a bit.

>You have a KH website. Tell me about that.

I put it up in 1999, when I was still in Lord & Karlheinz; the idea was to have a main band site for the two of us, and also my own part of the site where I could just write whatever the fuck I wanted to. Five years later, and my site is the main one.

I sometimes need an outlet to write stuff, and thats where it all goes. Thats why it’s as much of a personal webpage as it is a band page, why it has all the rants and ramblings. Hopefully its interesting. I still have a lot of things to finish for that site, like my book-length manifesto on snuff film myths.

I do believe what I write, and I labor over every word. I’m not just doing it for provocation or whatever. I do sometimes exaggerate for effect, otherwise it wouldn’t be entertaining, but its all fundamentally honest. (Probably a bit too honest in parts.)

All of the music-related stuff is there too, of course. Go download some MP3s:
http://www.khznoise.com/

>Why to you have to be 18 or older to get access?

There are a couple of naughty pictures floating around on it, and Im basically just covering my ass in case the feds come knocking. When I put that up, people all over the place were having their pages yanked by their ISPs without warning for inappropriate content, and I figured my site was about as inappropriate as it gets.

>What interests do you have besides noise music?

Other than the ones I blabbed about above?

90% of my free time (not counting my music or the websites) is taken up seeing local bands, or getting drunk at the Cellar.

I am trying to improve my German, and failing.

I watch more TV than I should, though lately I’ve been playing video games instead.

I like reading pop-science books about AI, evolution, the history of diseases, particle physics, or zoological sociology (e.g. Desmond Morris). Sometimes books on gender studies. I’m reading a good book called The Devil In White City right now.

I am trying to quit smoking, eat right, and exercise.

I am actually very boring.

>Personal question: I know that you’re trying to build up the noise scene here in Boston (and you know that I’m trying to do something about the lack of a dark ambient scene here). Do you think noise/PE and dark ambient will ever get along/be able to work together – or are they too different? (For the record, you’ve always been cool with me and given me my respect, so thats why I support you and what you’re trying to do).

Well, you do have to keep in mind that most noise/PE folks are a bit antisocial (to say the least), and are generally antagonistic towards everyone. That sort of in-fighting is typical in just about every group of people. But I do know quite a few noise fans who like dark ambient, so Im not sure its as big of a divide as you think – not as much as between noise folks and power noise folks, for instance.

Having said that, in my opinion it’s very hard to be a dark ambient band without being boring. This is especially true when playing live – its a totally different environment than when you’re at home listening to a recording. The deck is stacked against you, so to speak.

But I’ve seen several noise shows with dark ambient artists, so I’m sure it can work.

Your music is not boring, by the way.

>What do you have going on for the near future?

Right now I’m focusing on finishing up the Desperate record. It’s still a ways to go, and I’ve taken far longer to record it than I wanted to.

The recording session with Jon Ruhe also yielded some good tracks, so I may try to put out a Karlsruhe record with those tracks plus the live recording. Thats obviously in the what if category at the moment.

There are a couple of compilations that I’m on that I’m waiting for. One is the Omikron compilation from Megahertz (Klangstabils label) – they still have to finish it up, so I’m not sure when itll be available. Also, Im on an Antihumanism comp called What This Is All About that looks to be really good, its just waiting on the artwork.

>How about long-term?

Unfortunately, I work so slowly that any project I’m currently working on IS long-term for me. I havent really thought far beyond finishing up my current projects.

There are several things on the back burner that Id like to get back to. There is a still-unmixed Lord & Karlheinz record that I want to get done. I also still need to finish the artwork for the Every Wound album so that it can finally see a proper release. When I save up enough money to release it.

I would eventually like to do something other than noise. Something completely different, like an industrial klezmer band or something. I like too much music for it all to be run through a distortion pedal.

>What is your discography?

The Fucking CD-R is pretty much sold out (I have the one remaining copy for sale), but Ron Lessard at RRR is talking about releasing it as a picture disc.

I have one side of the RRR New England 5-LP box set, which I highly recommend – everyone on it does a fantastic job.

I have a track called Starvation Disease on the My Malady compilation from Mental Monkey.

I still have a bunch of copies of my Shit CD-R, a self-released record of live recordings and miscellaneous tracks, that I made for the Grunt show a while back.

Everything else I’ve recorded is either sold out or too old to be of any interest to anybody.

>Ok, thanks for your time.

Talk soon.

website

2011/02/03 | Categories: Interviews | Leave a comment

Grief

An interview I did with Eric Harrison of Grief from 1998. Enjoy.

Who are you and what do you do?
Well I’m Eric. I play bass and do some vocals. I do the art work also. Jeff is the singer and the guitar player. He’s the shorter guy. Terry is the lead guitar player. Right now, the drummer, his name is Pete. He plays with a band called the McVeighs. They’re a punk band. He’s actually going to school in a couple of months, so we just got a new drummer, Tim. He used to play for a band named Anal Cunt. He’s going to work out really well. He practiced with us twice and got like six songs, not perfect, but you could tell he was going to pick it up right away.

When, and from what circumstances did Grief originate?
Well, Terry, Jeff, Jay, and our old drummer Randy, who left in December to get married, were all in DISRUPT. They just decided to go in a different direction because everybody was starting to play the same kind of music, and they were just getting a little bit frustrated with it. There was only so far that they could go. DISRUPT did a whole lot, so it was time to do something else. They toured Europe and all, so…

How would you describe what that you play? What mood are you trying to set, or how do you want people to feel when they listen to your materiel?
A lot of the newer songs that we have are a little bit more upbeat. There have been some upbeat songs all along the way, but we’re going a little bit different now. It’s still real slow and heavy, but it’s going a little more upbeat. The mood is basically depression, melancholy, mental problems, drugs – a lot of people ask me if it’s heavy metal. I consider it heavy psychedelic. Not all the guy’s in the band will agree with me, but it’s psychedelic – like you know, head music. It’s just good to chill out to. Not even just drugs. When you’re depressed, you don’t really feel all fast and energetic like hard-core. You feel more spaced out and kind of empty, droney. We have some angry songs too, there’s some anger in grief, to go by the dictionary. But mostly it’s down, and downess. We tune down. We tune to C. That’s like so much lower than other bands.

Where did the name Grief come from?
Terry came up with the name Grief. He’s basically the brain child. He started the whole Grief thing. He realized that he wanted to play slow music, and the other people just sort of followed him. Well they didn’t follow him, but they were into it so… All the members that were in DISRUPT, that are in Grief now, just decided to do the Grief thing. I don’t know exactly where he came up with the name, but he came up with it.

Do you see yourselves as pioneers in the sludge scene?
We don’t really think of it like that, because, what it boils down to is Sabbath. That was like, twenty-eight years ago, you know, come on. That’s just ridiculous. It’s like the whole ‘you sound like EYEHATEGOD, you sound like Noothgrush’ type deal. That’s just somebody noticing something. We do have a lot of albums out, that’s why. Well, I’ve only been on one. I’ve been doing the artwork since “come to Grief”, and I’ve known these guys for years and years. I’ve always been to the practices, so I picked up on it right away as a base player. But, all along the way they were just recording, which is what may make people view it as ‘pioneering’, if you want to call it that. But, It’s just because there’s so much stuff available. The discography that we have is huge.

What year did Grief start?
1992.

What got you into h/c and metal?
It’s hard to say. When we were younger, that’s just what we all listened to. When we were younger, we all used to be into Slayer and Venom… Saint Vitus, Black Sabbath, Alice cooper. I’ve been listening to Alice Cooper since I was five. That’s just the way that we all went. I have known Jeff, more than the other guys, for a long time. I’ve known Jeff since I was 16 years old. I’m 28 now, so it’s like twelve or thirteen years.

Where are you from?
I live in Melrose, Pete lives in Brighton, Jeff lives in Auburn and Terry lives in Lawrence.

Boston area.
Ya, it’s all Boston area.

How do the kids take to you there?
Today was an average crowd [15 people]. A lot of the people around here don’t get into the metal scene. We do really well out of state. We jam a lot out of state. We’re going to have an east coast tour lined up from September through October, from here down to Gainesville, Florida. I guess like twelve shows, and we’ll do really well on every one of those shows except in Boston, I guarantee it.

I heard you were big in Cali, over Neurosis, even…
That’s what we heard, but I’ll believe it when I make it out there. Our tour got screwed up, so I didn’t get to taste that. We got dicked out of Fiesta Grande and a whole lot of really good shows. Our drummer quit at the last minute.

So Grief came out of the infamous DISRUPT, who were fast and political. What made you take such a drastic turn?
Jeff, Terri and I write most of the stuff. Jeff writes most of the lyrics, but Jay, he wrote most of the lyrics for DISRUPT. He’s pretty politically active. I mean, I try not to do anything wrong if I see it as wrong. I don’t believe in torturing animals or animal testing unless it’s for the benefit of the whole. I’d sacrifice a human for it, so why not an animal, you know? People are being tested medically in Boston right now. You can go get paid to get tested with drugs over the weekend, so why not with animals? I respect animal rights, and PC issues, but it’s not my thing so I don’t write about it. Jeff is the same way. The reason that we might seem anti-PC and anti-vegetarian at times is just because you get a lot of flak from vegetarians and politically correct people. I understand, because they’re reassuring themselves of what their beliefs are. Verbalizing it. It’s just, a lot of times I get aggravated when people direct it towards me. It’s like; why the fuck do you care what I ‘m eating for breakfast? I don’t come to your house and criticize what’s in your fridge.

You have a new album out, right?
Our most recent album was recorded in October, but we’ve written eight new songs since then. We’re ready to record a new album, the label’s just not ready for us. They’re a great label, but because of the whole tour thing falling through, it kind of put us behind.

You’re on Pessimiser?
Yep. They’re an awesome label. Chris Elder is the greatest, he’s awesome. He always does my CD’s and shit. He makes sure that my artwork is picture perfect. I mail my oil paintings out there and he sends them to a pro-photographer and pays for a lot of quality shit. He’s the kind of guy that will call you up just to tell you a good joke that he heard, all the way from California.

Are you guys really as miserable as you claim on your records?
I am some times. I don’t want to know what’s wrong with me, but a lot of people think I’m Bi-polar. I’ll be happy one minute and the next minute I’m just miserable. The whole depression with music is just the same as painting for me. Sometimes it’s just better to get the idea out of your head, confront it, so you can look at it. The more you dwell on something the easier it might actually be to come to some conclusion. To be ready for it the next time it comes around.

What stuff do you have available to torture us with?
http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=3950

Thanks a lot for the interview, I really appreciate it.

Credits:

Grief album cover artwork by ERIC HARRISON
Grief van photo by GINA SIMONE
Grief concert photo by BILL T MILLER

billtmiller.com/grief

myspace.com/officialgrief

2011/02/02 | Categories: Interviews | 1 Comment

Encomiast

2011/01/16 | Categories: Interviews | 1 Comment