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Tempesst-Music for Tempestuous Times

Oct 29, 2020

By Mossy Ross

Credit: Gyorgy Laszlo

Tempesst could be a band that’s one marijuana puff and a mushroom trip away from being a Ken Kesey novel. But they’re too smart for that. Maybe the rockstars of yore could stay up for days on end, free-lovin’ and festival-in,’ tripping balls for days on end. Or if we’re talking the 70s, snorting lines off of supermodels’ asses, and shooting up in the dingy downstairs bathrooms of, what are now, legendary music venues. But escapism is so last century. Now, the music venues have been replaced with condos. Our planet is facing extinction. Political unrest is threatening democracies. Social media is taking over our lives. And for many of us, a future with job security and healthcare is unlikely. But that isn’t stopping Tempesst. They’ve realized there’s nowhere to run, so might as well face the future head on…while still hanging on to what seemed like a much fun-ner past. 

Tempesst’s dreamy new album, appropriately titled “Must Be a Dream,” makes existential crises seem romantic. Their flavor of rock is one of my favorite kinds…pretty. Tempesst shows us that the shitty parts of life don’t always have to lead to screaming anger, but that something beautiful can come out of asking the hard questions. Their retro style gives the modern problems they sing about a feeling of comforting nostalgia. Showing us that we can still slip on a polyester suit, get behind a Hammond organ, and rock out; while being honest about the terrifying future we face. Tempesst reminds us that if all else fails, we always have an analog world to go back to. And that might not be such a bad thing.

Before you read my chat with lead singer, Toma Benjamin, start going down the rabbit hole with Tempesst by watching their video for “Mushroom Cloud.” It not only has addictive visuals, but three of my favorite things: kitschy decor, a man in makeup, and a slammin’ saxophone solo.

Mossy: What’s your band’s history?

TB: The four of us, Blake, Cain, Andy, and I are from the same town in Australia. It’s a collection of towns. But the closest, most famous of the towns, is called Noosa. It’s a little beach town. So Cain, Andy, and I grew up with each other. But Blake’s actually about five years younger, so I met Blake because he lived three houses down the road. But it wasn’t until we were all in London, that we were just part of two groups that happened to come together, and all of these sorts of coincidences. I suppose when you move to a new city, for us coming all the way from Australia, you tend to find other people who have done the same thing. And then you bond, because you’ve got this similar experience of leaving home behind, and coming to this new city.

Mossy: What brought you to London?

TB: We were in New York, and we would’ve loved to stay in America. We were trying to get a visa to come stay in the states. And we got this business visa through my dad’s film distribution company. He distributes all the really bad B-grade films before the internet. People would actually buy the rights for them and distribute them across Australasia, which is pretty hilarious. This was in the 90s and 2000s. So we got a business visa to stay in the U.S., but you had to renew itall the time. So we renewed it once, and we tried to renew it again, but they wouldn’t let us. So we had to pack up all of our shit in thirty days and go back to Australia. And after growing up and spending all this time in this little coastal town in Australia, and then going to the complete opposite end of the spectrum, living in New York and experiencing the city and the energy, it was just too hard to stay home. So we lasted about three months and then we were like, “Well if we can’t go to New York, where else can we go?” So, not so very romantic (Laughs). It was for practical reasons. We could easily get a visa to come to London, and then we fell in love with the place after coming here.

Mossy: I always have to ask people from England or Australia who their influences are. I feel like there’s always such refined musical tastes coming from those two countries. Who were you listening to growing up?

TB: I’m a little bit of a late bloomer, to be honest. We grew up in quite a sheltered environment. Our families are quite religious. Myself and Andy grew up playing music in church. So it wasn’t until I left that world when I was about eighteen, that I started to learn about other artists. And I was really lucky to have a close friend who was actually playing with us in the original Tempesst, when we first started the band. And he’s a music lover and would spend all of his time listening to music from all over the place, and would just introduce us to some really great art. And then when I moved to New York, he also moved with me to New York. And I would say moving to New York introduced me to a lot of DIY bands like Yeasayer and Darwin Deez. When I was there, they were really big, and it was kind of the first time for me listening to that. 

So getting into all the classic albums that I love now, that didn’t happen until well and truly in my twenties. And that was just because of my circumstance. But when I did start listening, it was just all the classics. I was just trying to catch up. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley was one of my initial favorites. I still feel sometimes like I’m catching up. There’s just so much great music to consume, and not enough time to do it. And sometimes when you’re making music all day, the last thing you feel like doing is listening to music. So it’s kind of strange, I find myself listening to Talkback radio. I feel like I’m a 70 year-old man. (Laughs)

Mossy: What religion?

TB: Like Pentacostal, Christian. So yeah, I had some R&B gospel influences. My dad used to listen to George Benson, so I would try and mimic George Benson by playing guitar like George Benson, and singing the melodies with the guitar line. He might have listened to the odd Beatles song. But yeah, it wasn’t like my dad was listening to, like, really cool obscure records and introducing me to his favorite artists. He didn’t give a shit. (Laughs) He was listening to Christian music. 

Mossy: I’m always surprised at how many rock musicians I talk to who grew up religious. I always assumed they would have had the cool dad who listened to obscure records, but a lot of them were sheltered and didn’t get to hear any of that. It’s almost like that upbringing helps you create a really original sound, because you didn’t have those influences around you when you were growing up.

Credit: Gyorgy Laszlo

Your sonic landscape matches your aesthetic. The way you present yourselves. Is that life imitating art, or art imitating life?

TB: I wouldn’t say there was any intention. I think there’s certain music you feel inspired by, and there’s certain fashion that you like, and it tends to be that all of these things come from that same world for us. I would also say that sonically, a lot of the equipment we use is old, vintage equipment. We’ve got vintage synths and our desk is a 1979 Neve console, and it sounds like an old school desk. So I think it just so happens that that’s the kind of music we’re into. We’re influenced by the artists that led us to have a think about what kind of instruments or gear we want, and it just naturally creates this specific sound.

Mossy: Why the extra “s” in Tempesst?

TB: We originally spelled Tempesst with one “s.” But soon after, we found that there was a 20-year old Celtic rock band that had the name already. When we started releasing music, Spotify started listing our music on their band page.

Mossy: Where did you shoot the video for “Mushroom Cloud?”

TB: An old workmens hall here around the corner in Islington. It’s a little hall that you can hire out, and we just thought it was funky and fit the vibe of the song.

Mossy: Tell me about your album cover.

TB: That was done by a guy named Jose Mendez. We basically sent the record out to a bunch of artists, and asked them to send us back what the sound of the album would look like. And Jose sent us back this sketch. The ways he was describing the songs felt like he really understood what we were trying to say. And then when he sent us the sketch, we all felt like it was really cool and trippy, and quite bold. And we wanted the music to feel quite bold and unpredictable. So I guess what we loved about it, was that it felt very bold and sort of random. Some of the ways he personified the characters in the songs were really cool.

Mossy: How would you describe the Age of the Bored (the title of a song off their new album)?

TB: I would describe it as insular. I would describe it as a waste. It was actually Eric that came up with the lyrical concept, and we wrote the lyrics together. I think the frustration came from life caught in the vacuum of this device that sits by our bedside, and in our pocket, in a holder in the car. It’s literally your entire life is linked to this device, and all of the things that distract you, and pull your attention away from the things you should be doing. It’s like a loud voice just demanding your attention. Binging with messages and fucking emails, and everything just taking you off your focus. When I come in to the studio now, I leave my phone in my pocket, hang my jacket up behind the door, and it sits there all day. Because otherwise you find that your whole life is ruled by this device. As opposed to it being something that serves you, it actually takes over. So the idea of that song was just choosing to separate yourself from it at times, and not have this symbiotic relationship with your mobile phone. Everything comes from this idea of not wanting to waste. That life is precious and we only have limited time.

Credit: Gyorgy Laszlo

Mossy: I think it’s great when people who aren’t old, are telling people things that some people don’t realize unless they’re old. It takes a lot of self awareness to admit that this device gives you anxiety, and keeps you from being in the moment, and that you don’t have to have it by you all the time. I think it’s important for people to say that.

TB: One of my favorite lines in the whole record is in that song. It’s, “Offline, the new underground way to unwind.” How strange is it that, like, if you say to someone “I left my phone at home today,” they’re like, “What!? You have to go home!” It’s this bizarre idea that if you wanna unwind, if you wanna feel free, if you don’t wanna feel anxious, you don’t want to be ruled by this device and you leave your phone at home, people just freak out.

Mossy: It’s like a form of rebellion to leave your phone behind.

TB: Yeah, because we have lived in both worlds. So it’s like, you have the contrast. And it’s terrifying to think that at some point, if you have kids or whatever, that they’re gonna live in the world, and they won’t have that contrast. They won’t know what it’s like not to live with a mobile phone. It really will be a very different thing for someone to have that separation from their phone.

Mossy: “Is That All There Is?” also seems to have a message that speaks to a lot of people.

TB: I think again, it’s just another chance to talk about something that feels a little bit silly. That we aren’t always the best stewards of our time. That song’s probably more focused on a time of reflection. What happens is every year, I go back home for Christmas. And it’s a really strange time, because I have this contrast of leaving my busy life in London, and going back to this little beach town, and sitting on the beach. And I’m in this new environment, observing the people in that environment, reflecting on my year. And then the contrast always brings up these questions. For example in that song, “Is this it? Is this all we do? Just work our asses off all year?” And sometimes questioning even the whole creative process, and the creative lifestyle. And even questioning if that’s something that has merit. Does the world need more music? Does the world need another person trying to share their ideas? You’re grappling with this tension as an artist, wondering if the world needs any more fucking artists. (Laughs) There’s so much amazing music, you couldn’t possibly consume it all in one lifetime. And it’s also about just working out and reconciling with just growing up. That we’re not young forever. And we’ll have to, at some point, accept our mortality. And it’s that time when I go back to Australia, and I stop the busy-ness, and I’m sitting on the beach…that I get tormented with all these ideas. (Laughs) 

Listen to “Must Be a Dream” on all streaming platforms or, better yet, buy it on vinyl.

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“Coocoo Banana-” Album of the Coocoo Banana Year

Oct 23, 2020

By Mossy Ross

Photo: Bjorn Magnusson

Lizzy Young. She’s smart. She’s funny. She has a song called “She Farts While She Walks.” Which, I have to say, has become my favorite tune to listen to when I find myself on the Upper East Side. There’s just something so very satisfying about watching posh, refined women bustling around, while someone sings “she farts while she walks” in my ears. Lizzy has an uncanny ability to have a laugh at life’s expense. She delivers truth in a deadpan voice, over hypnotic beats and beautifully textured melodies. She’s the friend you wish you had in high school. Where she’d not only have a snappy comeback for backtalkers, she’d elegantly deliver her sass with a French accent.

Lizzy Young’s debut album “Coocoo Banana” (out today), is truly revolutionary. Young is showing us that women don’t necessarily need to shout to be heard. That maybe the best way to right the injustices of our past, is by quietly taking the reigns instead. To lead by example with new attitudes and ideas. In her album, Young paves a way for empowerment, by showing us how to calmly laugh at life, while still admitting to how fucking depressing it can be.

In her video for “Obvious,” Young wildly and badass-edly destroys a car, while seeming to poke fun at how silly it is that we sometimes need to be told the simplest of facts. Possibly because we’re increasingly becoming unthinking people, who probably use common sense way less than we should.

What Lizzy Young’s album is telling us that’s not always so obvious, is that there actually were some good things to come out of 2020.

Mossy: Where does the name Lizzy Young come from?

LY: I used to have this project called Young Cleaners. And I really love the French musician, Lizzy Mercier Descloux. So I just thought it would be cool to use her name, and then use Young from the Young Cleaners.

Mossy: You have an interesting background. How would you describe your life?

LY: I grew up in a suburb of Paris. I have a small family, just a brother and my parents. I guess I had kind of a bit of a hard childhood. I don’t have a really good relationship with my parents. Now it’s a little bit better, but I think very young, I felt like I had to go. So I lived in Paris for awhile, and then I moved to Barcelona. I’m an actress, so I studied theater for awhile there. I left Paris when I turned 23, and I left home when I was 18, when I could legally leave.

Mossy: So you said you and your family are better now. How did that come to pass?

LY: I guess just being far away helped a lot, at least for me to try to figure out who I was, and what I wanted to do with my life, and how to do it. Growing up, I had absolutely no guidance. So every decision I took, was sometimes just out of my feelings. It was not always very thought out. And I was on my own really, so it took a lot of time. And forgiveness I think, is the key. I’m still working on it, but I feel like I’m getting closer every day to finally forgive. I don’t think there’s any other way, really. Because in the end, (parents are) people, too, and they struggle. It’s hard to look at people and try to take them out of their suffering, I guess.

Mossy: Especially parents. Because you think they’re supposed to fulfill this role, and when they don’t, there can be a lot of trauma that comes from that.

LY: Yeah, and a lot of insecurity. For me the hardest was to feel confident, and this album is like a dream of mine. I never had the courage to say, “Okay, this is my music, this is what I do.” I always played music with other people, hiding a lot. And I don’t know, I always wanted to do it, but never had the courage. So I think that’s a big one for me right now, because it’s something I needed to do. To tell my stories through my songs, and get it out of myself.

Mossy: What gave you that courage?

LY: I would say a fear of dying. I had a health scare that made me think it was now or never.

Photo: Samuel Tressler IV

Mossy: So once you left Paris, you went to Barcelona?

LY: Yeah, I studied theater there for two years. I had my first punk band there actually, in Barcelona, a little more than ten years ago. My bandmate and I were a duo. She was playing drums, and I was playing bass, and we were wearing mini burkas. (Laughs) So we don’t show the face, but we show the ass. And I was just basically yelling in a microphone. And then I felt like I needed to come to New York, because all of my favorite bands at that time were in New York. I wanted to play rock and roll and make noise.

Mossy: What were your favvorite bands then?

LY: I used to listen to a lot of Sonic Youth and Spacemen 3, Spiritualized. Kind of that vibe.

Mossy: I was watching a commercial for St. Vincent’s master class, and she talks about how she walks people through her songwriting process. I was thinking that, if I were to teach people my songwriting process, my method would be: drink a bottle of Jameson, smoke a couple spliffs…and see what happens. What’s yours?

LY: (Laughs) That would be so much funnier! Yeah, I used a little bit of mushrooms, a lot of water. I was very inspired at that time. I was writing songs very fast. As soon as I started it was very fast. I have a very hard time finishing things. I always think everything I do is not good enough, so it was hard to finish. I almost gave up, like, a hundred times.

Mossy: Where did the name “Coocoo Banana” come from?

LY: I used to say “coocoo banana” when I felt like people were going crazy, and then I went crazy. Because basically this allbum is kind of the story of my experience going through all these things in my life, and also the fear of dying. I’ve always been very scared of death, and I feel like the entire album is about death sometimes. (Laughs) But it’s not in a way that it’s always obvious. But a lot of it is that. And so I just felt like “coocoo banana” was a good way to summarize the feeling of this time. I like humor a lot, I like to laugh. And I feel like it’s hard to have a real good tragedy without having a little bit of humor in that. So I’m trying to mix everything together.

Mossy: Can we talk about “Kill All the Men?”

LY: (Laughs) Yeah, it’s, uh, pretty clear, I guess. (Laughs) I’m just so tired of everything. I feel like everything is just a box now. Everything has to be labeled and explained. And sexuality has to be up front, and I feel like people care too much about nothing. It’s all about money.

That’s what’s so disgusting. It’s not a real thing. It’s just a way for people to make money. It’s product. That’s what really bothers me. Because I think it’s good to talk about it. People should live their lives. But it just gets to this point where it becomes a product, and I just find it really strange. And boring. It’s like you know, God, there’s no character anymore in anything. It just feels like, kind of washed out a little bit.

Mossy: Do you think we should kill all the men?

LY: I think sometimes, yes! (Laughs) I mean, I love men, too. I have a lot of friends that are male friends. It’s just, I think in general, they’re disgusting. And it’s hard to be a woman because of that. Just my album for example. So many people, the first thing they ask me is, “Who did you work with? Did you do everything alone?” It’s like, oh I’m a woman, obviously, I can’t do shit because I’m a woman. Yeah, I think I’m upset with the men. (Laughs)

Photo: Samuel Tressler IV

Mossy: Does the car in the video for “Obvious” have a story?

LY: In the quarantine, I went and hid at my friend’s farm. So we spent the time making videos for my album. We made eight music videos, and that one was the last one. He had a BMW, and he sold the car to this guy who was not paying him. I always had this dream of going and breaking a car. So I said, “Okay let’s go. Let’s take a baseball bat to the car you just sold to the guy.” But a couple days later, the guy actually ended up paying for the car. So my friend found this car on Facebook Marketplace for very cheap, and we picked up the car, and it doesn’t look like it, but the car is a piece of shit. And we painted it and made it nice, and then I finally got to try to break it. But apparently German cars are very strong. (Laughs) So I failed.

Mossy: I don’t know French, so what is “Elephants” about?

LY: I was working at this bar in Brooklyn, and I started thinking about how people behave when they’re drunk, and how annoying it is sometimes. Feels like you’re babysitting. I mean, this song is about many different things. Also the beginning of Instagram. Just the feeling of all these images taking over the world, and how we just end up kind of being sad, I guess. I think sometimes it’s depressing. And it’s a lot of waste of time. I have a weird relationship with social media.

Mossy: What is it?

LY: I hate it. It’s not really my personality. I just feel like people really like to see you, and I have a hard time with my image. I just find it weird and disturbing sometimes that everyone is addicted to it. I feel like everybody is living these weird, fake lives. And it’s a lot of people, you know? And sometimes you want to not have to deal with that many people in your life. You just want to have the people you have to deal with already, and I feel like social media is just so much sometimes. It’s like the universe.

Mossy: What is it about your image that you’re not comfortable with? 

LY: I guess I don’t like too much of my face. When I was growing up, I had really bad eczema on my face, and I think that distorted my vision. I’ve been struggling with that. Sometimes I feel like I have a distorted view, even though I’m an actress, which is absolutely insane. I don’t really like watching myself. I might have one of those mental sicknesses, you know, where you see yourself in a weird way? Or maybe I’m just a victim of society. (Laughs) It’s just so hard to be a woman sometimes and I have a hard time with that.

Mossy: It might just be as simple as you’re not fucking vain.

LY: (Laughs)

Mossy: You said you were a party girl. Any juicy stories?

LY: (Laughs) I used to work in this club in Barcelona, and I used to go there really early when they opened, and I used to go there and do cartwheels in the club. That’s a silly story. But…there were many, many parties. That’s why I left, actually. I was thinking if I stayed there, I would just party inside out. (Laughs) I’m not gonna do anything else with my life.

Check out the stunning new video for the album’s title track “Coocoo Banana,” and listen to the entire album out today!

Lizzy Young is on IG @lizzyyoung

Support independent artists by purchasing the album at https://lizzyyoung.bandcamp.com/releases

[mossyrossaliceinterviews]

Thao Nguyen Doesn’t Stay Down

Oct 8, 2020

By Mossy Ross

 Photo Credit: Shane McCauley

When I first listened to the title track off Thao & the Get Down Stay Down’s fifth album, Temple, I immediately hit repeat. After I finished listening to it the second time, I hit repeat again. And then again. And then again. I had a teenage urge to learn all the lyrics, so I could sing along at the top of my voice while cruising down the road. The song describes the pain of losing a home to war, an experience many of us haven’t lived through in America, and yet I still felt a deep personal connection with the song’s powerful message. Perhaps because this country is currently facing such extreme civil unrest, so the thought of experiencing war firsthand is increasingly becoming more real. But the song also touches on the turmoil we can sometimes feel in our own family lives as well. Thao Nguyen seems to be a master at crafting albums that exquisitely make complicated and painful matters a bit easier to bear.

Thao recently won a Sunny Award by CBS Sunday Morning (my most favorite of all morning shows) for the music video to her song “Phenom.” Not only is the video wildly creative and entertaining, it conveys an intergenerational rage that’s finally being collectively realized. It’s the rage of someone who has discovered it’s okay to feel sick of constantly being at the bottom of the ladder, and the message should strike fear in the hearts of corrupt politicians everywhere.

As if a timeless and timely new album and an award winning music video weren’t enough, I was triply astounded after watching the documentary Nobody Dies (available to stream Sat., Oct. 10), which follows Thao on a journey with her mom to Vietnam. The trip was Thao’s first visit to Vietnam, and her mom’s first time back since fleeing the country in 1973. It was a chance for Thao to see her mother in an environment where she wasn’t defined by being a refugee, as she often is in America. In both the documentary and the album, Thao paints a picture we don’t often see in American popular culture: the perspective of a child whose parents have lived through and escaped war.

Mossy: I watched your documentary, and it was such a beautiful tribute to your mom. Is there anything about your mother’s life and experiences that really stand out for you, that you think Americans could learn from?

TN: When I wrote Temple, it was because I wanted to offer a different narrative and rendering of someone who experienced war, and the idea of what a refugee is. And obviously in recent years, maybe throughout American history, how refugees have been reduced and the narrative that has been relayed. I think it’s really important to remember that there’s a distinction between an immigrant and a refugee. And also that someone is not just defined by this war that happened to them and their country. I think that’s why Temple was so important for me. I really wanted to capture my mom’s life before, after, and during; and just help enrich that community. I was raised in Virginia, and growing up, it was so stark the way people treated (refugees). I think that parents that are refugees or immigrants witness a lot of incredibly unfortunate encounters, where their dignity is dismissed. You watch your parents be dehumanized in either casual ways, or really serious ways. So this was one of my efforts to address and make peace with that.

Mossy: When I was watching your documentary I found myself smiling. And then I got to the story about your dad and I just started bawling. What parallels do you see between your father and the patriarchy at large?

TN: That’s an interesting question. My record before this one was about my dad. It’s called A Man Alive, and it’s just about our nonexistent relationship and all the bullshit. But what I started to understand when I was making that record, was just a facet of what it is to be emasculated in American society. And what that means for the families of the men who are emasculated. And I think that you see that a lot, especially in immigrant and refugee homes. And others, I mean, I’m only speaking from my experience. But what does a man do to assert power when he feels as though he’s denied power in society? I think it becomes a really personal and intimate, familial problem. And you know, it helps me understand his experience and what unresolved trauma that basically debilitates him, and renders him an irresponsible, reckless person. Patriarchy in general…I do think so much of it is people not knowing how to grapple with the expectations of masculinity. I could go on. (Laughs) I’ll just say it’s so detrimental in every direction, because if you’re not masculine enough, you will pay and then someone else will pay. And if you feel as though you’re  not respected enough, then the ways that men feel pressured to illicit that respect in our society is so deadly.

Mossy: You said in the documentary that when you went back to Vietnam, it helped you understand your dad’s temperament. That you understood it…but you didn’t. It’s like saying, “I do understand where you’re coming from and I empathize, but I don’t accept how you’re treating me because of it.” Which I feel is kind of where true healing from trauma can begin. How else do you deal with trauma?

TN: Well there have been different waves of awareness and lack of awareness of what I needed to be doing. I mean, I’ve done the typical things like drinking. (Laughs) I think touring helped. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life on tour, and it’s a refuge. But it also allows you to not deal with anything for a really long time. You could go your whole life without dealing with things. Of course, songwriting and making music. And really wanting to go there lyrically by being more specific with lyrics. Okay, and then therapy. But as far as music is concerned, I think it’s been really helpful to have these songs and talk about them, even under the auspice of promotion. But it’s also just connecting with people and talking about the songs. These levels of vulnerability make for a lot more humane experience. When we play live shows , if people get a chance, they’ll come up and tell me what a song has meant. And it really is so heartening and gratifying, and part of the healing.

Mossy: So you’re saying drinking didn’t work?!

TN: (Laughs) I still do it, so I’m not saying it doesn’t. Just don’t go crazy!

Photo Credit: Shane McCauley

Mossy: You have such a wonderful vocabulary, so I’m guessing you like to read. Who are you favorite authors?

TN: Thanks for saying that. Writing and reading favorite authors are how I prepare the albums and the songs. And when I’m writing songs, I never listen to music, and I only read. But I love, oh man, I grew up reading Toni Morrison and her way with language and the vivid pictures she paints and the way she renders people. Grace Paley is another writer who’s style I love. Marilynne Robinson. George Saunders. I typically am drawn to contemporary literature. And now there’s a lot of reading to be done to learn about how America has become what it is. And to that end, Octavia Butler and James Baldwin really influenced the writing of this record.

Mossy: So you’re like Kurt Cobain over here, writing songs inspired by literature.

TN: (Laughs) I wish I had a cool sweater.

Mossy: Ah, he had the best sweaters.

TN: He had the best sweaters.

Mossy: I saw on your Instagram that you support women prisoners and Critical Resistance. Why are you specifically interested in these causes?

TN: With the California Coalition of Women Prisoners, I’ve been involved with them since 2013. Originally it was because a housemate of mine was an amazing organizer, and has been with them for years. And I was home from tour for awhile and he asked me to join this advocacy group, where we went in to prisons and visited, and we were part of a legal advocacy team. So the album, We the Common is entirely about and in tribute to these people who live inside, and this organization.

Mossy: Do you need to have a law degree to do that? I wanna do that!

TN: (Laughs) You totally can! No you don’t have to have a law degree. So the people like my friend…they don’t officially have a law degree. They just know so much about the system, because they’re constantly trying to help people figure out their parole, and how to get their face back in front of a judge. So we went in conjunction with a lawyer. We were just a team that was basically working with a pro-bono lawyer.

Mossy: You mentioned connection and live performance in your documentary. How do you think the musical performance landscape is going to change since the pandemic?

TN: I don’t know what’s going to happen to the venues as they exist now. I don’t know what kind of modifications or concessions they’ll have to make. So I do think that there will be more unconventional and nontraditional venues that come up by the time we’re ready for crowds to gather. And I think there will be more multi-use spaces and art institutions and contemporary art museums. More of those kind of hybrid events. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the rock clubs. It’s so sad. But I do think that we were barreling towards a reckoning. And I liken the music industry to the restaurant industry in a lot of ways…how thin the margin is for survival. And I think people will play smaller shows, because they can happen more quickly. And I think there’s going to be a lot more direct to fan engagement. And those who have a preexisting fan base will lean more into those fans, and be less concerned with expanding.

Mossy: It’s almost like what’s happening in the music industry is symbolic of what needs to happen everywhere. More localizing and community building.

TN: Totally. And I think Bandcamp is going to take an even stronger role as leaders of a more ethical model. I think what’s happening right now with streaming services is, ah, (laughs) unbearable.

Keep up with Thao’s music and the organizations she supports on Instagram at @thaogetstaydown Stream the documentary Nobody Dies this Saturday at https://www.youtube.com/user/thaomusic

[mossyrossaliceinterviews]

Gettin’ Schooled by Gracie and Rachel

Sep 17, 2020

By Mossy Ross

Photo Credit: Tonje Thilesen

Gracie and Rachel are a finish-each-other’s-sentences, knows-what- the-other-is-thinking, musical soulmate, power duo. They are wise beyond their years, which is reflected in their music and in their conversation. They build each other up and seem to constantly strive to understand each other, so they can better understand themselves. Throughout our interview, they offered tidbits of honesty and advice and honestly, I could have talked to them for hours. And not just because it would have been cheaper than seeing a therapist (and probably with better results). They’re a team of soul-searching, wisdom-spewers who have a lot to say, and they’re saying it on their second album, “Hello Weakness, You Make Me Strong.”

Their new album out this Friday, reflects how life imitates art. And in their case, art imitates life. Their personal growth parallels their development as musicians. They show that beauty can be made, if we can come to terms with our own weaknesses. The two speak freely about addressing their shortcomings fearlessly and head on, and the result is an empowering and ageless album. Their recent video for “Underneath” shows how determined Gracie and Rachel are to be honest with themselves, even if it means making themselves vulnerable.

Mossy: Have you known each other a long time?

Gracie: We met in high school (in Berkeley, California). We were in a dance class together and were assigned to play music for the class. It was kind of an arranged marriage in that way. And then we went off to separate music schools for university, and then came back together to New York City and moved to Bushwick.

Mossy: So what were you like when you were younger, before you knew each other? What was your path like?

Rachel: My path was very serious, and exclusively tied to me, myself, and the violin. I hopped around between public schools, and then I went to a boarding school for two years before meeting Gracie. So I would say, for me, it was just being in this machine of classical music breeding. (Laughs)

Mossy: Was that something that you wanted to do, or you got pushed into doing, or both?

Rachel: I think it was a little bit of both. I feel like there were a lot of blinders up, because there wasn’t a lot of encouragement to explore other genres of music, or how you can use your skills as a classical violinist in alternative ways. I knew that I loved music, and I loved playing the violin and it was working for me, and I liked all that. But I wouldn’t say I always felt socially that comfortable, or like I integrated well or that we had similar interests. I had a lot of different interests in music, like contemporary classical music, and avant pop music. So meeting Gracie gave me this opportunity to explore those interests in a nonjudgmental environment.

Mossy: Yeah, sometimes you need that one musical soulmate for your whole world to change. What did you listen to growing up?

Rachel: Around the house I would listen to a lot of Cyndi Lauper, Elton John, Selena. I would do a dance hour with boom boxes and stuff. But in high school, I got into Regina Spektor, Emily Wells going into college. Artists that had a classical approach, but were flipping it and doing something a little different with it.

Gracie: I didn’t come from as strict of training as Rachel did, so I was really grateful to meet somebody who had that theoretical knowledge, and was just going to ground me a little bit. I was just sort of free form writing songs, and it was just really such a good challenge to meet somebody who needed to know what we’re gonna play and how. And it made me have to be a little bit more regimented and focused in that way. My father was a theater director, and he did avant garde opera music and New Age music. So I was around a lot of composers and people doing some experimental stuff that I think really excited me at a very young age. My dad got me into Erik Satie as a pianist when I was younger. And then I got into my own little singer songwriter world and found people like Fiona Apple that I really loved. And then thought, “Maybe I could do that, too.”

Mossy: I think your music is a really good amalgamation of all those influences. It’s really unique. I love the new album. It sounds to me like a coming of age sort of album. And I don’t mean that it sounds young. I mean, I’m forty and I think I just finished my coming of age album! But just in that it feels like there’s been a development in your lives. Is that true?

Gracie: Yeah. I think that the first record was really just us as a piano and violin duo. And we only integrated drums because the producer we were working with had a drum kit in his car that he needed to bring into our loft.

Rachel: Not even a kit, just one drum! (Laughs)

Gracie: Yeah! Just one drum. Which was a happy accident because it got us to play with the kick drum. Like it became an intentional thing, where it was a kick drum on it’s side, so it was like a timpani, like a classical drum. But they’d rock out on it, and we’d have our drummer there to complete the three piece. But the bones were just piano, violin, and drum. And there wasn’t a lot of other experimentations and using synthesizers and our vocals in different ways. Rachel has experimented so much more as a producer on this record. And I think a lot of it has been about our process of living together and working together, and how we communicate very differently personally and musically. We’re really quite opposite in a lot of ways, and I think that’s where this album started to make a lot of sense to us. In finding strength in those oppositions. Finding strength in our weaknesses, and in what the other person has that we don’t individually possess. So it feels coming of age in that regard.

Mossy: Can you think of a specific example when you realized your weakness makes you stronger?

Gracie: I think in a really basic way, maybe Rachel will find something more interesting to talk about (laughs), but I’m a lot chattier and confronting. And transparency is my favorite thing to, you know, flush out a problem when it happens. And Rachel is a little more guarded and patient and more like, “Let’s work through it maybe in this way first, or work through it on your own first.” And I need that immediate action. So I think really me learning that about her, and where that was useful, and vice versa.

Rachel: Yeah, I was gonna say it’s seeing that other person’s perceived weakness, and how it makes you stronger.

Gracie: Right. Like for Rachel it can be hard not to confront certain things, and for me it can be hard when I confront them too often. I can create problems in my mind by confronting issues that aren’t maybe there. So taking maybe what is Rachel’s weakness and using it as my strength, and my weakness as her strength.

Rachel: Like a reflection.

Gracie: And us just finding and really capitalizing on those oppositional forces between us, and finding gratitude for them. We can’t all be like one complete perfect person, and I think when we accept that and we dance with our weaknesses as a strength, it’s a really beautiful thing.

Photo Credit: Aysia Marotta

Mossy: Where do you think all of your wisdom and self-awareness comes from?

Gracie and Rachel: (Laughs)

Gracie: Socrates. I don’t know. I’m a really anxious person and sometimes a lot of these songs are written to myself, to just get out of my head and get into the big picture of calming down. I really can’t apply that wisdom very well a lot of the time. (Laughs) So writing these songs to my subconscious is kind of like a way of processing and helping me not judge myself. “When you don’t know, you know” is really powerful Socratic thinking. That we can’t have it all figured out and when we think that we do, that’s when we’re really not learning anything at all.

Rachel: Also, I would say sometimes I feel my weakness has been not being able to find my language tools effectively, articulate something, and translate myself in a productive way. So really where I find the way to translate myself the best is sonically. So this record was a great opportunity that I kind of lifted that up. And it’s okay that I don’t always have all the words. It’s okay that I still have a feeling, and I can put it down, and hopefully communicate through sound rather than through lyrics.

Gracie: I think just finding a perceived weakness of yours and not judging it, but exploring it and opening yourself to it can be just such a revolutionary act. When we have all of this self judgment, we are gonna have that out in the world, too. So I think owning some deficits that we each individually have, has been really helpful to our growth.

Mossy: What are some of the things that trigger anxiety for you?

Gracie: Pfffhhh…what doesn’t trigger anxiety? (Laughs) I think I’m an over-thinker, so I can create fear and worry around a scenario that I might have actually perpetuated just by thinking about it so much.

Rachel: I think we’re both people pleasers. We really like to make everybody feel really heard, and like we’re being respectful. And sometimes we forget to check in with how we’re feeling, and what we’re thinking.

Mossy: It seems like some of your songs touch on mental health. Is that something that’s big for you?

Rachel: We’re both in therapy. (Laughs)

Gracie: Yeah, I think we’re curious about talking about how to be gentle with ourselves. And hopefully that’s something that speaks to a broader issue around mental health. And just that when we aren’t gentle with ourselves, we can really create some huge roadblocks and pain for ourselves. So I think and hope the songs are speaking to a sort of forgiveness of the self.

Mossy: I read somewhere that you said the album made you have to ask each other some difficult questions when you were creating it. Can you talk about any of those?

Gracie: I think it comes back to communication in a lot of ways. Asking Rachel to call me out and come to me with stuff that was maybe not something she wanted to do. And her asking me to have patience with that.

Rachel: Yeah, not scrutinizing every little thing and seeing where it leads us, because maybe it doesn’t lead anywhere.

Gracie: Yeah, letting things roll of the shoulders. Something we were realizing is Rachel tends to judge her emotions and put them into boxes. And therefore if she can’t judge them…

Rachel: I’m just not gonna acknowledge them at all.

Gracie: And I judge my emotions with too much weight, I give them too much weight, where I need to actually compartmentalize them and put them in a box, and put them away. So I think it was asking each other how the other does that, because we do things so differently, and it gets us both into trouble.

Photo Credit: Tonje Thilesen

Mossy: Were there any specific defining experiences that inspired this album?

Rachel: Trusting ourselves, trusting each other.

Gracie: Yeah, trust. We had just come off a big, long tour. And our management told us, “Okay, when you get off this tour, you’re gonna go and you’re gonna write a record.” And I remember just feeling like it’s so bizarre to create art on demand, or on command. And there was a really big fear around that, because we’d been touring for the past couple of years and we were like, “Do we know how to write still?” Do we know how to do that when it’s not coming from an emotional reaction, or a response to a real life event? Like when we’re told to do something, are we gonna be able to do that? And there was a big concept of trust with each other and with ourselves, and we just had to lean into that and say, “Okay, ultimately we have to trust ourselves, and no one else.” And we just went for it. And we had to build that muscle, and it definitely took some time of just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what landed. But we hadn’t really pushed ourselves to trust ourselves, and I think a lot of the songs are speaking to that and to process, and showing up to process, and not being afraid of it. We used to write so individually and then we would bring it to each other. And now it’s like we’re so much more comfortable, just from pushing ourselves to create on the spot. “Write ugly, edit pretty” has become a saying in our household. Just don’t worry about obsessing on it, and I think we apply that to a lot of things in our lives now. We need to just write ugly and edit pretty. Figure it out later, but trust your instincts.

Rachel: Like Patti Smith said, “Freedom is the right to say it wrong.”

Gracie: And then the Kavanaugh hearings. Christine Blasey Ford was giving her testimony when we were in the middle of writing this record. And we saw a lot of really empowering women and people coming forward with their stories, and so there was a big feeling of empowerment. We were finishing the song “Trust” during that time.

And we were like, this isn’t just about trusting our narcissistic fears about writing, it was about trusting ourselves to do something when it’s not always comfortable or easy. So we wrote a number of songs during that time. And we put one of them out that was about the hearings, just because it felt like we couldn’t wait another six months to make the record. We just wanted to have a conversation with people about it then. It’s really cool when you can talk about what’s happening right now, because so much of music culture is, you know, people were working on something for a year, and now the album’s coming out and they’re in a different place. Like, Rachel had more hair when we were making the first record. (Laughs)

Rachel: And also to use our art in that way is a great privilege. Follow Gracie and Rachel on IG @gracieandrachel

New album out Friday, September 18!

[mossyrossaliceinterviews]

Talking Toxic Masculinity with CRICKETS

Sep 8, 2020

By Mossy Ross

From left to right: Roddy Bottum, JD Samson, and Michael O’Neal 

Photo: AF Cortes

Each member of CRICKETS comes with a rich history of musical experience. One might think that with so many strong sonic personalities from such different backgrounds (Faith No More, Le Tigre, MEN), it would be nearly impossible to hone in on a sound that’s anything other than chaos and noise (with a bit of ego sprinkled throughout). But CRICKETS has managed to do the opposite. Instead of going the way of so many supergroups and pulling out all the stops, they’ve uh…pulled in all the stops. Continuously stripping down to a sound that is a pure expression of not only the sonic landscape they’re seeking, but their ethos as well. The result is music washed of all toxic masculinity, and what remains is only what’s necessary to express their intentions.

Mossy: How did you all start playing together?

JDS: I put out an Instagram story saying, “Anybody want to start a band?” Because I was kind of sick of making work on the computer, and then covering it for live. That’s what I had done with previous bands, so I was like, “Who wants to get into a room and play music together?” And Michael and Roddy and a few other people responded, and we just started meeting up once a week and jamming. And then other people had different priorities come up for them, and it ended up that Michael and Roddy and I were the people that kept coming back for more. I can’t remember when that started.

MO: 2018.

Mossy: How long were you writing and jamming before you actually started recording?

RB: The process was probably over a year. We started in a different formation, like JD said. We had a couple other people playing with us, too. And what we’ve done since we started, has just been this slow process of stripping things away. I don’t want to say in terms of the other people. But the process of the music evolved in a way where stuff kept leaving. And so we wrote songs and stuff, and it was kind of unconventional in the way we went about it. We just started taking things away from what we were doing. Stripping things down and become simpler and more sparse. And it took a year to kind of get our sound.

JDS: We went to Roddy’s friend’s house upstate in a place called Peekamoose, and I think that was kind of a really important moment for us. Because I remember this feeling of like, “Yeah, just let the guitar ring out over nothing for a second. That’s what this is!” And it was just this beautiful moment where we realized we wanted to, I don’t know, appreciate the space in between.

Mossy: I feel like the hardest thing for me about making music, is coming up with the sound you want. Do you all find that to be the same?

JDS: I think that…sorry if I keep talking, but…talking is fun. (Chuckles). But I think sometimes the computer and the opportunity to use many sounds is an obstacle. Because then you get confused about what you want to do. And I think that the beauty of this project was Roddy had his keyboard, and Michael had his guitar, and I had this one drum machine, and this mic with this one effect. And we just kind of jammed, and there was no way to do anything different than what we made. So we didn’t really have another option to question. I think our questioning was more around the idea of how other people would hear it. For me, at least. I was just, at times, confused or concerned that people wouldn’t get our intentions. But these guys are really good at helping me get through that.

Mossy: One thing that struck me is that you actually use the words “toxic masculinity” in a song. I would love to hear a defining moment for each of you, where you experienced that toxicity; and then, like you say in the song, realized it was something that was in you, that you could grow from?

Roddy: The toxicity that sort of creeps into the craft of songwriting is so many things, but for me…the abundance of options. There’s just so many things you can bring into the craft of what you do. And I’ve just learned over the course of time, to ignore all of the options, or just limit the options. And it’s the excess of the options and excess of bringing different elements in and in and in; like overdubs and overdubs, and adding and adding and adding, that’s just this pig-ish sort of behavior for me. And a good example of what I consider sort of a toxic masculine force that comes into the craft of songwriting or creating. I mean, it’s been the course of my whole life, it’s been a creating step.

I’ve always known in the back of my mind that less is more. But making a real decision to act on that, felt like a pivotal place for me. It’s like, I know that less is more, but even so…I do more. And I like things dense and more and more and more. And to sort of go away from that grain of thought was profound for me. And in CRICKETS, making that decision, talking about it, and stripping down in the way that we have, was really empowering in a political way.

JDS: Yeah, I think in the case of commenting on toxic masculinity, I think abstractly and conceptually without the lyrics, we still would have been doing that. And I think that particular song just also happened to reflect that content lyrically. So maybe it’s the song that tunes people into that conceptual experience. But yeah, I think a lot of the lyrics were written for a different purpose. I was working on a book. Actually the interesting part about it, is I’ve never been in a band where I jammed vocally with people in a room. It was always computer based. It was like, “Here’s this track. Sing something on it, bring it in, let’s workshop it, what are the lyrics, what’s this song about?” So this was the first time I was actually vulnerable vocally in that way. I think sometimes, you could call it a crutch, you could call it a beautiful collaboration of mediums, but I think I went to this writing I was doing to comfort me, so that I had something to say that felt already grounded, and it made me less fearful or vulnerable or scared to present something to the group.

Mossy: So you went to the book you had been writing?

JDS: Yeah, and to be honest, now I’m not writing that book. Because it felt like it was this therapy that brought me to the lyrics for this record.

Mossy: Michael, what about you? Any defining experiences with toxic masculinity?

MO: Yeah, it’s interesting, I think in the context of bands, it’s making me think of MEN, and that time of my life. I feel like I was a lot more insecure. And I feel like MEN was awesome, and there were so many great moments with it. But it had its toxicity, too, and frankly didn’t end on the best of notes. And that was sort of a mix of a lot of different things. I know for myself, I was wanting success, like, so bad, that I would be an asshole about things that I thought would equal success, or that I thought were right. I feel like, in bands, we can fight so hard for our opinions and our positions. So that often led to shit between JD and I and our other bandmates. So bringing it to CRICKETS, one of the best parts about this band, is JD and I have repaired that damage. We’ve learned how to be in a band together in a way where we always challenge ourselves when it comes to that toxicity, and with Roddy, too. I feel like we’re always trying so hard to be agreeable bandmates.

Mossy: Because you have the power “to heal and change and grow” (I’m quoting the lyrics to Elastic here)!

MO: Exactly! It’s exactly that within our band. I mean, I haven’t heard all the stories with Roddy and his previous bands. I mean, I’m sure you’ve got plenty! Faith No More, I mean…(laughs) Like times when you’re just an asshole to your bandmates, you know. So I feel like we all try to be really good to each other in this band, and come to democratic decisions.

Mossy: That’s one thing I love about getting older and being able to change, and then have people in your life that are willing to change as well. It makes things so much more cooperative.

RB: Yeah, and it’s such a good point. The communication part of it all. If we didn’t communicate well, it would be such a different organization, such a different band. But it’s so key just to be able to listen. I grew up with three sisters. In my life, with my family, it’s just been listening. And then you get into certain situations and it’s like, people don’t listen. But it’s so key to our equation and what we do together.

JDS: Yeah, our methodology is simplicity, in order to erase toxic masculinity. Both in our communication and in our instrumentation. So it all fits in together.

Mossy: Would you say being a good communicator is more of a female quality?

RB: I think for sure. And listening. It’s such a masculine thing to do, to overstep, and to talk over other people. I was watching that on the news yesterday. Kamala was talking to…I can’t remember who it was. But it was so cool to see Kamala Harris go, “I’m talking,” to the guy.

It’s such a guy thing. He wouldn’t stop. He just kept talking over her, because he’s accustomed to letting people allow that. People let him speak over them as a man. But to stop and listen is, for me, I don’t know, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a feminine thing, but it’s definitely not a masculine quality.

Photo: AF Cortes

Mossy: Have you heard of “toxic femininity?”

RB: (Chuckles) That’s a good question.

Mossy: I was just reading an article in Psychology Today about it. I’m paraphrasing, but it said that male toxicity is when a man behaves in a way that is damaging to himself, when he exhibits these overtly male qualities. And toxic femininity is when a woman acts in a way that is damaging to herself, in order to embrace femininity. One of the examples (of toxic femininity) in the article was how a woman will order a salad on a date even if she’s starving.

RB: Honestly, it’s hard for me to stretch and see examples of feminine toxicity. I couldn’t use toxic in that definition. That’s a really poignant and funny example, eating salad. (Laughs) Like just as a poetic example, that is far from toxic.

Mossy: I guess the “toxic” part of it is how a woman will allow herself to suffer in order to appear more feminine, and appeal to a male ideal. Like not saying “I’m talking” when someone is talking over her.

JD: I think that (calling it “toxic femininity) is like saying it’s reverse racism. I think it’s impossible. I hear where you’re coming from, and I’ve heard of feminine toxicity before, but it’s kind of impossible to, quote/unquote, “blame” a marginalized community for the toxicity of the patriarchy.

Mossy: Because would female toxicity exist without male toxicity?

JDS: Exactly. And that’s just my opinion. And to that point, I think it’s interesting because my persona has been this butch woman, and publicly, that is how people see me. And I think addressing that toxicity within a female masculine body is really important. And I think maybe that hasn’t been done that overtly, so I felt like it was really a responsibility of mine to say that out loud. So I think maybe this is a little bit more complex.

Mossy: What do you feel are some of your responsibilities?

JDS: Everything for me, gender wise, is very fluid. And I think we all inhabit these qualities that are masculine and feminine. And I think we all fall into this space of masculinity being equated with power, and those dynamics become entrenched in some of our relationships. Just because of our inherent understanding of confidence, and what it means to be in relation to other people, and how to maintain power in service of our desires. And I think sometimes that is toxic. And I think nobody is free from that experience. But I do think that, specifically in my case, both growing up with the media around me of toxic masculinity everywhere, and me seeing that in order for me to feel power or to feel confidence, I need to do x, y, and z; I did kind of create a roll for myself that was not only dangerous, at some points, but also oversexualized in some way. And I think this band was a way for me to get out of that experience of my, quote/unquote, “persona.”

Mossy: How did the name CRICKETS happen?

MO: I wanna tell this story! (Laughs) We were trying to come up with a band name, as most bands find is very, very difficult. So we had this text thread between the three of us, and we’re communicating about this or that. And every once in awhile someone would throw out a band name, and we’d see if it lands. And Roddy said something in the thread, and JD and I didn’t respond for a really long time. And his response to us was, “Crickets.” And we’re like, “That’s the band name! CRICKETS!” (Laughs)

Mossy: One of my favorite games to play is coming up with band names.

RB: Yeah, we had a running list. I have it somewhere written down. Dozens and dozens of names.

JDS: I really wanted Seltzer. 

RB: I really liked The Inhalers.

Mossy: But don’t you think CRICKETS is a pretty good name, when you think about how your sound is just stripped down?

MO: Oh yeah, we even played one of our shows with a Youtube video of cricket sounds, that JD would pull up on her phone and play in the background the whole time. So in between songs, or in quiet moments of a song, all of a sudden you would hear the sound of crickets.

RB: I think the name works well. I think it’s one of our proudest achievements, is naming our band. It’s not, like, super on the nose. But it suggests really right where we are, I feel like.

Mossy: What is “Drilled Two Holes” about?

JDS: I did this project that was about drilling holes into stones. It was kind of questioning the identity of being stone. I wrote an essay and it was a sexual reference about the different holes in the body.

Mossy: What was the project with drilling holes into stone?

JDS: It’s kind of a long story, but my dad was a sanding gravel miner. So stones and rocks are a big part of my life. But also having this identity of stone, which is a historical lesbian identity of somebody that doesn’t allow other people to touch them sexually. And so I was kind of, no pun intended, digging into this idea of why that has been my identity. And it came about in relationship to writing this book, and thinking about my responsibility of healing toxic masculinity, basically. So this project was me drilling holes into hundreds of stones, and creating a suit out of them. And during the process, it was so monotonous and physical, that I experienced a lot of feelings around the memory of having sex with people throughout my life.

Photo: AF Cortes

Mossy: How do you see the “American Dream” being revised, now that we’re discovering our values have been influenced so much by the patriarchy?

JD: Well, I think more specifically, within the music industry, there are some issues of pretending you have more money than you do. And also just this farce that people who are famous have money. Myyki Blanco just posted something relevant to this conversation a few weeks ago. And I felt like this was an interesting next step of the idea, that more popular/famous/renowned artists are still using wealth as a part of their image, and maybe this is something to discuss when thinking about how much money musicians are getting for streaming. It is just so clear right now with Spotify, if you have 250 streams, you get like, less than a dollar or something. And I think it’s relevant in the sense that, as musicians, we can’t support ourselves from just making music. So that’s something I’ve been thinking about recently, is new ways of thinking about the streaming industry and digital distribution.

Mossy: Any brilliant ideas yet?

JDS: I’m on a steering committee for a project right now called Ampled. It’s kind of similar to Patreon. But there’s a lot of organizations, companies, and co-ops starting where people are just rethinking. And I think Bandcamp has done such a great job this year of centering the artist and their needs, and particularly centering movements like Black Lives Matter, so they can be aligned politically with what the artists all want. We put something out on Bandcamp, and I know Roddy has a project on Bandcamp he’s been doing, too. Mossy: What’s the other project you’re working on, Roddy?

RB: I just started something a few weeks ago that’s like a daily music share, just to sort of keep me busy and to work on my craft. I go back and forth with it because it seems like a little bit indulgent of an expression. But I think the craft of what we do, writing, music, whatever you do…I think the craft often gets overlooked. So I just got this notion a few weeks ago, that to work on that craft on a daily basis is really, really important. Especially in times like this. Not that everybody has a lot of time, but people have a lot more time right now. It just seems pertinent to address the craft of what we do, and to become better at what we do. So I just started this process of doing a daily music share. So it’s sharing a piece of music every day, and every day I have to finish it. It’s helping me get to where I’d like to be as an artist in a quicker way. The music is free, but any donations people make goes to The Okra Project, which is an awesome organization that feeds black trans people who need food.

Mossy: You’ve made it a point to make sure your music is political, which I think is a vital component of making any sort of art.

JDS: Yeah, I think there’s been some really interesting conversations throughout COVID about the purpose of making music right now. And I think (the conversations are happening) for a lot of reasons, but mostly because you can’t tour and make money that way. It’s like, people are forced to kind of consider what the model of the future of the music industry is. Holly Herndon posted something really interesting the other day about just experimentation music. And like Roddy said, for CRICKETS in general, the ethos is, we’re trying something out, and we’re just making work. Why does it have to be completely 100% perfect, and factory made for it to succeed? Why can’t the experience and the process of making it be enough? And why can’t this music be just for our community, and just ourselves, and just for the people who want to listen to it, and not try to fucking get the world to be obsessed with it? Because it’s really just about our process.

MO: Yeah, you mentioned the American Dream earlier, and I think what’s interesting is the American Dream is what instills in us, that we have to be famous in order to be successful. And that’s what leads to this toxic place. And that’s what’s so fucked about the capitalist way, is we push everybody aside and just start tearing shit down just to be, quote/unquote, “successful.” So I really hope the American Dream shifts so that we can all understand a different kind of success or dream.

JDS: Celebrity culture got us to where we are right now with the president that we have. What’s the most punk thing we could do right now? Fucking kill celebrity culture.

RB: Yeah, the way we grew up, we looked at these images of opulence. That’s what we’ve seen for so long, like “Oh, shiny, flashy expensive.” It’s such a lazy approach to make things attractive in an expensive looking way. I just think it’s lazy and boring. There are so many more eccentricities to accentuate in a presentational way, rather than gold and glitz and glamour. That trend needs to end.

Watch the video for “Elastic:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y17lNE_gQM 

Follow on IG @thesoundofcrickets

Web: www.thesoundofcrickets.org

[mossyrossaliceinterviews]

Going Down the Rabbit Hole with Wes Watkins

Aug 25, 2020

By Mossy Ross

Photo: Bohemian Foundation

Wes Watkins has seen it all. From living on the streets and sleeping on trains, to touring the world with bands like Air Dubai or Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats; Wes has earned his stripes as an authority on life experience. So I thought it would be more insightful to use his own words to introduce our interview, by sharing what he wrote on Bandcamp to release his latest EP:

“I share this rushed album in hope that it reaches you in a place of good health, curiosity, and motivation.

I do not think that I, by any means, have all the answers.

I do believe that if we were more diligent in our pursuit of the actuality of our country’s history we would find our generation more prepared to underpin the greater good in the days to come.

I believe that we have been subject to the bigoted representation of an individual’s worth by our racist country and most are unaware that they are even effected by the indoctrination.

I believe that we all have our own bias and true change starts with an individual.

I believe that when that individual can truly hold themselves accountable for their daily actions, words, or thoughts; then they can begin to truly hold their community accountable as well.

I believe when that community can truly hold themselves accountable for their daily actions, words, or thoughts; then they can begin to truly hold their communities accountable.

And the fight grows and goes on.

So I share this album to make, at least, the beginning of the painful process of unveiling the true chronicles of our country a little more sufferable.

I have included some very basic, Wikipedia, links to get everyone started on their voyage.

Stay healthy, Stay empowered, Stay informed, Stay curious.”

In keeping with Wes’s advice to stay curious and research, you can click on the bold faced words to learn more about the people, places, and political and historical events he references. You can click on each one, and go down a rabbit hole of enlightenment. According to Wes, information is our biggest ally in the fight towards a more equitable society. Here’s a chance to arm ourselves with knowledge. Mossy: Are you originally from Denver?

WW: Yeah, believe it or not.

Mossy: Why is that unbelievable?

WW: Well, because Denver is super segregated. Aurora’s a pretty integrated city. But I think being black and from Denver, not just, like, living in Denver, is kind of like being black and from Seattle.

Mossy: Gotcha. So what was growing up in Denver like? I’m guessing, based on the sound of your new album, that you grew up going to church.

WW: Yeah, I grew up in the church. My parents were like, “You are not listening to mainstream music.” So I could listen to oldies, and I was in the church, and I started playing trumpet when I was twelve. I was playing keys and singing before then. And then when I was seventeen, my parents got a messy divorce, and I ended up homeless. And I like to say I’d been playing trumpet, at that point, for six years. But when I really started playing trumpet, was when I was homeless. I used to meet all these old cats who were like, “Ah, you don’t know what you’re doin.’ Do this, do this.” And then when a buddy got back from college, all of a sudden I was in one band, and then I was in, like, a bajillion bands. And that brings us to here. And now I’m not in any bands. I quit all of that and started my own.

Photo: George Blosser

Mossy: How did you end up homeless from your parents’ divorce?

WW: My mother went to a shelter, and since I was turning eighteen the next week, I couldn’t go with her. And since a restraining order was filed against my father, I couldn’t go with him. I was a minor when the restraining order was filed.

Mossy: How long were you homeless?

WW: Few years. Three years-ish. I think by 2009, I was finally on a lease.

Mossy: Did you ever live in a shelter?

WW: I went to a shelter, but I bailed out of the shelter pretty quickly. Cus shelters are messed up, man. There’s cats who are workin’ the shelter dealing drugs. It’s just another system that is really poorly designed. So it’s not helping these cats who are stuck in these situations at all, really. I would buy a cup of coffee and sit in the coffee shop all night, and then I would buy a round trip ticket on our light rail, and just sleep on the light rail in the morning, and then go and play trumpets on the streets all day.

Mossy: So something I liked about your album besides just the music alone, was what you wrote about it on Bandcamp. History seems to be such a strong focal point for you. It seems like when history is taught in schools, it’s more for reading comprehension. You just read the chapter and answer the questions at the end. There’s rarely any context, or explanation for why things that happened in the past, are still affecting what’s happening now today. You have speech excerpts by James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Nina Simone…these important historical figures. Clearly it’s important to you for people to hear those voices. How do you think knowing history can help end the systemic racism in this country?

WW: Well first off, I’m actually a high school teacher now.

Mossy: Oh shit! What do you teach?

WW: I teach audio production at alternative high schools. But you know, I don’t believe in history. I say that a lot, I talk about history a lot. History’s just weird because whoever wrote the history, that’s what we’re hearing. The winning side gets to write history. What I really believe in is chronicles. Because a chronicle is a factual account of history. There’s no, “We won, so it was like this!” Look, the last civil rights movement was fourteen years long, and it never stopped. I think that now what I find, is what we’re teaching our kids is kind of this weird experience of, “Martin Luther King was like this, glorious god.” And it’s like, no, Martin Luther King was a chauvinist. He was a sex addict and he really struggled. But in the same regard, he did amazing things. If we were doing a better job of just saying, “This is what happened,” and letting people assess for themselves, I think that we could teach empathy. And I think if people were empathetic to how our world is working, then all of a sudden we don’t have racism. Racism exists because people don’t have the empathy. They don’t understand how to put themselves in somebody else’s shoes. And I don’t think we can actually put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes, but you can try. And that’s empathy. I don’t wanna have sympathy for anybody, I just want everybody to have a little bit of empathy. And I think there’s a reason that you have cats like King and Simone and Fred Hampton, Huey P. (Newton), Muhammad Ali, all these cats…they’ve been sayin’ the same thing. I wrote songs ten years ago that I can go and play at a show, that will still have valid content today. And that’s because nobody got the empathy tip.

Mossy: Yeah, history definitely helps teach empathy. But also critical thinking and curiosity. What you said about Martin Luther King, I mean, in some religious and/or racist communities, every great thing Martin Luther King did, is discredited because he cheated on his wife. And so, you have these pious, religious people saying that anything this man said about treating people like human beings, is completely null and void. Because he had his own issues. I mean, sex addiction is a real psychological problem. It doesn’t discredit everything you do. It just means you need help. It doesn’t mean you’re not a sensitive, intelligent person. If that was the case, we wouldn’t be able to like a lot of artists. Jackson Pollack or Michael Jackson.

WW: Yeah! I mean, people are still buying Kanye records! (Laughs) Why!? Have you ever heard the name Glenn E. Smiley? 

Mossy: No.

WW: Glenn E. Smiley is an interesting character that’s been erased from American history. When they started COINTELPRO, number one on that list was King. Number two on that list was a white man by the name of Glenn E. Smiley. Glenn E. Smiley studied Gandhian ideals. He’s who’s credited for teaching King peaceful protest. And so it’s like a weird thing where it’s like, why don’t we know who Glenn E. Smiley is? Why don’t white people know who Glenn E. Smiley is? Well, our government didn’t want them to know that there was a big, white ally character doing all of that. But Gandhi also… Gandhi was a racist! He hated black people. But still, there’s great things. You have to be able to see through that. Like you said, critical thinking. They don’t want us to critically think. That’s why we don’t get history.

Mossy: How did you hear about Glenn E. Smiley?

WW: Well, because I realized that before the last civil rights movement, a few interesting things happened. The Depression happened, then the New Deal happened, and even if there still was just a giant wage disparity, you could still get a job. People had jobs. You had educated black people who went to school for things like Civics. And we don’t have that now because they worked real hard to make sure we didn’t have that again, because they didn’t want a Black Messiah. And so, I realized, that we’re not prepared. I don’t think our generation is prepared for the civil rights movement, so I just think we should all be researching. I think we should be figuring out what the fight has been thus far. If we know what the fight has been, then we don’t have to keep fighting the same fight. We can say, “No! You said this fight was over for this, this, and this. And now we’re picking up the fight here.” We don’t need to try and redo everything that already happened. It already happened. And there’s been legislation that passed. We gotta put that legislation back in place. So yeah, I just started researching and I just found Glenn E. Smiley on Wikipedia.

Mossy: Yeah, Wikipedia and Snopes are your friends. You mentioned Fred Hampton before. He was shot in his sleep, and now we’re seeing that again just this year with Breanna Taylor. It’s like you said, we keep fighting over the same things. What do you think is the first thing people could do to take a step towards not being racist?

WW: I think it’s not just a first step, I think it’s every step. You have to ask “why?” We have all the options to learn the information. Black people didn’t create race. White people created race. Which is the weirdest thing. When I go down the rabbit hole, what I always get stuck on is, I don’t know why people are afraid. I think that there’s implicit bias towards a situation. I think true change is going to start with the individual dealing with that bias. I deal with my bias. I just retook all the Harvard bias exams. And I got that I had a strong bias towards trans people. And it’s something I talk about pretty publicly.

Because I don’t wanna hear stories about racists. I wanna hear stories about reformed racists. So I talk about how I took the Harvard bias exams recently, and I got a strong bias towards trans. And immediately my question was why? Why do I have that? I started to go down the rabbit hole, and I found out why. It’s because I’m a racist. Because I’m pissed off with white people all the time, and when I think about somebody being stuck in a body they don’t feel is theirs, who can afford to change that…it’s not people who look like me, for the most part. And that’s where that bias comes from. So now I have to go back and challenge the other bias it comes from. And I make the steps to become better every day, because I can ask why. I can critically assess that. I think the hardest thing to do is to challenge yourself. It’s easy to say, “Fuck the world, the world is racist.” It is hard to say, “Man, I just crossed the street to get away from that black person. Why did I do that?” So the question, I think, if you wanna fix racism is, “Why are you afraid?” And a lot of people don’t even know they’re afraid, so they are not even there, you know? For a lot of people, it’s like, “Why did I act that way?” first. And then they can say, “Because I was afraid.” And then you can start to dive into why. Just gotta ask why. Actually, I don’t think fixing racism is very hard. (Laughs)

Mossy: I know!

WW: Just be nice! I don’ t know. (Laughs)

Mossy: Or just have a conversation with someone who’s not like you, and find that they’re just a person like anyone else. So do you have any trans friends?

WW: Oh yeah. I’m pretty deep in the activist community here. And that’s the thing. I have friends who took the Harvard bias exams, and found they have a strong bias towards black men. And they’re some of my best friends. And they’re goin’ through asking “why?” Because they didn’t know that. I don’t think that having a bias is necessarily a bad thing. It’s just a step. It’s knowledge, it’s history. And as soon as you can understand that that exists, then you can start to address it. I’m pretty immersed in the scene, which is nice. And it’s funny, because I’ve talked to my trans friends about it, and I’m like, “Yeah, I realize where I get frustrated. It’s the race aspect of this.” And they understand where I’m coming from. They’re not stoked, obviously, about what I’m saying. They’re like, “Well this is still bigoted.” And I’m like, “Yes I know.” (Laughs) “I’m trying to deal with it.”

Mossy: That’s an amazing thing to be able to openly talk to people about a bias, but not have it end in some screaming fight. It’s realizing that this is a reality, and I’m not gonna deny what it is, and let’s talk about it and do something about it. It’s like any emotion you have. If you ignore it, it gets worse. When you address it, and give it the attention it needs, it subsides.

WW: Right. And as a teacher, I’m never gonna go up to a student and say, “You did that wrong.” What I’m going to say to the student is, “Maybe we could do this a different way.” And I think it’s easier for me to say, “We are bigoted. And this is where my bigotry lies.” Because then it doesn’t feel like I’m just gettin’ down on people. Even though, a lot of times I say, “We are bigoted,” and what people hear is, “I am bigoted.” And then they get mad. They get defensive, because they feel attacked. But I know I need to deal with all of these biases. Biases towards women, biases toward blacks. When I first took the Harvard bias exam, I got a strong bias towards black men. And so, yeah, we have to know that we have these things that have been indoctrinated into our cultures and, let’s fix it.

Mossy: I know that, as a woman, I’ve been indoctrinated to believe women are weaker and lesser than. So I’ve experienced a weird form of misogyny towards myself or other women, which sort of manifests as shame over what I am. One of my black friends told me one time that he finds black people to be more racist than white people. Which…I mean, I don’t know about that! But when you’re told your whole life that you’re less than, you start to believe it.

WW: Yeah, I have a lot of white friends here. I mean, I’m in Denver. I got a lot of white friends. And it’s something that comes up. I think for a lot of America, that’s part of the divisiveness that has been the control of our country. I did kind of grow up in rough conditions. I mean, I saw my first body when I was twelve years old. If you didn’t grow up immersed in that culture, and you never took the option to seek it out, because you don’t know to do that, then you don’t know. I took my first trip to New Orleans, and I remember getting there and being like, “What the hell is happening?” It was a different experience. It felt like I fit in. I’m, like, not a standard human being anywhere in the world. I go everywhere and I am fetishized and people are like, ”Why do you look so weird?” “Is that a man in a skirt?” I am a straight, cis man. I just don’t think clothes have gender. But in New Orleans, I fit in. And I realized that I had never taken the opportunity to seek out a community like New Orleans. I never thought that seeking out communities like that was an option for me, until I was touring. And so then, after I got some world experience and some perspective, I came back to Denver, and I started doing a better job of cultivating, and seeking that out.

Photo: jameson_us via Drew Botcherby

Mossy: One thing I think that’s been lost, is the art of debate. People will get on social media, and make their snarky comments, or they’ll just post a meme. But there’s no debate. I think being able to debate is something that’s really important. You seem really good at that. What do you think are some of the keys to healthy debate? So that conversations can be an intellectual exercise, rather than some sort of ego maniacal, verbal sparring that gets nowhere and upsets everybody.

WW: I ask “Why?” You know, I think black people are tired. I’ve been holding forums here in Denver. I’ll hit up a bunch of cats, we’ll go to the park, or some of the bars that are open here again. So we’ll go and get the big patio, and we have our own table. And all the beatniks used to hang out at this bar in Denver. “On the Road” was written at this bar. It has a good vibe there, where I know this shit was happening here before. And we sit and we just talk. And I think the big thing is, as your talkin’ to somebody, you know, nobody can tell me what my experience has been like as a black man, except for myself. I think the big thing is you just have to be able to trust that people have had an experience that you can understand. The name of the game is intersection. You have to be able to kind of try and figure out how to understand the emotion that came when this person had this experience. 

And as far as online, I don’t think anything’s going to get solved online. I think that the online presence is dopamine addiction. It’s click bait. My black problems are not your click bait. I have seen people who I know from Denver posting beach selfies, and the hashtag is “Black Lives Matter.” What is that about? I don’t think that me engaging that situation online is going to fix anything. I think me trying to invite people like that to a forum of free thinking people, who are trying to just get to the root, might help fix that. We’re gonna talk about the history. We’re gonna try and spread information. When they’re there in that situation, they get held accountable. Because you’re looking somebody in the face. If you’re on the phone, and you don’t like what somebody says, you say “Fuck you,” and you shut off your phone. It’s easy to get away from. If you can’t get away from it, it’s different. It’s the same thing as those people saying, “Black people need to do this, black people need to do that,” but they have never in their lives met a black person. Cus they’re all the way out in, who knows where. Even this hood. You got all these people living out in Cherry Creek, and they don’t know that, before it was a part of Denver, this was the black hood. And then the KKK came in. Maybe it’s changed now, but for a long time, we had the most Klan members per capita in the United States. The grand master used to live in Colorado. Our streets are named after these cats.

Mossy: Is that changing?

WW: Well one of the neighborhoods, it looks like, is going to change. (Laughs)

Mossy: Just one?

WW: Because people don’t have the information. And Denver’s become such a hub too, so there’s so many new people here. And they just don’t know. They don’t know that the street they drive down every day across town, is named after a Klan member. They don’t know that the statue that just got toppled in front of our capital, was the dude who committed the Sand Creek massacre. People just don’t know. So, I think that’s our job. That’s why I encourage people to research. People need to be informed, so that they can understand the “why” of who they are.

Mossy: I think it’s the values of those in power that is most concerning, because they’re so separate from what the values of the majority are. We value health, community, and sustainability over acquiring and hoarding. We all have to want what they have in order to give it value. If we all just said that it was kind of gross and lame to have fifty billion dollars while people are starving in the street, their whole system would fall to the ground. Do you think some of our political leaders are getting scared because the people are getting wise to their dangerous and exploitative value systems?

WW: Yeah, this came up at one of the forums recently. Minority or oppressed communities thrive because of culture. They thrive because they’re a community. But on the other side, when you think about the white male leader, he thrives in comfort. I’ve never in my life had my black buddy pull up to my house and be like, “Look, I got the nicest car on the block.” He might come up and be like, “Yo, you wanna see my car? Let’s go for a ride.” But he’s not gonna be like, “I have the nicest car, I have the nicest house.” But that is what we have taught white men that they have to be. And I think that’s what we taught white culture in a big way. And unfortunately then, we’ve taught black people that their worth lies in being recognized in white culture. So now they’re trying to do it on top of it. I think that the most dangerous thing for our world is to have an individual. They don’t want us to have individuals, so they got us all into the idea of this American Dream. It’s not the American Dream, it’s a rich white man’s dream.

Mossy: It’s true. And now, like you say, that has become the new measure for equality. Equality shouldn’t mean that a woman or a black person or an immigrant has as much stuff as their white rich neighbor. To me, it means that they have the freedom to live their lives within the value systems that are important to them. If that means that they work four hours a day, so they can spend the rest of the day with their families or serving their communities or creating, then that’s their business. But now, you see black people or women who claim to have equal rights, because they have the same job or lifestyle as a white man. But they’re just basically dressing and acting like a white man.

Equality is not to be measured by how evenly your life compares to a white man’s, and his acquisitions. It’s about living the life you want to live, whatever that looks like. And not having to struggle to do that.

WW: I was watching that dude Michael Che from Saturday Night Live. And he’s like, “You know what’s weird. Black people didn’t ask for anything extra. Like, the gay community went out and said, ‘We want equal rights.’ Our rights movement was the civil rights movement. We just want ya’ll to be civil!”

Mossy: What do these forums you hold look like? How many people are there? What’s the age, gender, race demographic? How often do you all meet? I would love to know the logistics so I could try to do the same.

WW: Yeah, that’s really my goal, is to encourage other people to start doing the same. I mean, I don’t have the time to fix racism. (Laughs) I think James Baldwin nailed it. All those cats said the exact same thing, “Look, we already tried to fix racism. You guys fix it.” We don’t know how to fix it. We’re not thinking about you any differently because the color of your skin, we’re thinking about you differently because of how you’re treating us. I mean, I teach at alternative high schools, so I have had one white student in four years of teaching now. So it’s easier for me to teach kids like that because I look kind of like them. They can hear me a little easier. If you went to that same school, they’d be like, “What’re you doing?” They wouldn’t be able to release themselves enough. So I was like, we gotta start forums so people can let their flags fly, so we can kind of start to address it.

Otherwise, we’re in a dangerous situation. We need to get to a place where people can start to call out their peers. For example, when all the protests started down here, one of the biggest struggles I’ve had is with white women. And liberal white women! I’m lucky I got some good white friends. Cus those cats…we all share our location. If I go downtown for the protests right now, they will be there within fifteen minutes. They will get out of work, they will show up, cus they know I’m down there. So we’re downtown with one of my black friends, and by this point, legislation had been passed in Denver so the cops weren’t being violent in the same way. Now Aurora’s about get to lit on fire. But, Denver had chilled out. And this lady is on the Black Lives Matter side, and she’s screaming at these cops, “You have a tiny dick!” “Your job doesn’t matter!” “Your wife’s gonna leave you!” And all this stuff! I mean, I have a big mouth, but I’m kind. (Laughs)

Mossy: And this was a white woman who was saying this?

WW: Yeah. Holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign. And I walk over to her and say, “Ma’am, could I talk to you?” And she says, “Oh sure!” Immediately so nice with me, ya know? And I said, “Hey, I just wanted to ask you if, maybe while I’m walking my buddy home, if you wouldn’t scream at the cops? But either way, maybe we shouldn’t be screaming at the cops. Because we’re just speaking their language. We’re just feeding into the same system, you know?” She called me an Uncle Tom. So I gave her a joint and went, “Here ya go. Have a good night.” If you are holding a Black Lives Matter sign, and then you’re calling me an Uncle Tom, because I’m asking you to stop doing something that’s making me feel unsafe, what are you really doing down here? And I’ve had a lot of experiences like that. So my reaction was, I need the hip white women I know, to be callin’ out white women. Get your people. I’m gettin’ mine. I’m callin’ men out left and right. Unabashedly. 

The one thing I’m really starting to work on, and I don’t know how to address yet, is black men. Because, look, me and you, we are in an interesting place. We represent the side of the oppressors, and the side of the oppressed. And if that’s the case, that means we have to be really careful about what we’re saying to people, why we’re saying it to them, and when we’re saying it to them. I’ve seen some kind of whack things in these protests, where it’s just black men shutting women down left and right. And I don’t like that. I think unfortunately we kind of have to address it all at the same time. And I don’t think all of us can address everything, but that’s why we’re doing the forums. And they do always change. There’s a crew of about three or four of us who are always around.

Mossy: You’ve mentioned de-escalation. I think de-escalation is a good word. I do think things are being escalated, partly by the pandemic because people have been stuck in their houses and losing their jobs. There are so many factors at play here, and it’s creating a potentially dangerous situation if we don’t work harder at de-escalation. I think that can be accomplished with exactly what you’re doing. Meeting in small groups, not meeting en masse where cops are gonna come and do god knows what. This is how we can get one over on them. This is how we can intellectualize this revolution, instead of turning it into a civil war. Weapons are used when people aren’t thinking enough. This is a way of saying we’re gonna do something different. We’re gonna meet in small groups and talk about how we can get along, even though we’re all different and come from different places.

WW: I agree. I mean, there’s gonna be people who fight with the cops. But this isn’t even about the cops! That’s the weirdest thing to me.

Everybody’s like, stuck on the cops. This is so much bigger. But I think it all just starts with uniting our general public, the citizens. Because we’re all in the same place. Unfortunately, the only way that systemic oppression can work is, anybody who shares a quality with me, if you’re an artist, if you’re a teacher, if you’re black, if you’re a woman, if you’re poor…if you share any quality with black culture, you’re going to be oppressed. But maintain hope. And research. We got some time. This isn’t going away overnight.

Listen to Wes’s entire EP and other works at: https://cosmicslim.bandcamp.com/

Follow on IG @theweswatkins

[mossyrossaliceinterviews]

Marcus Love: A Need For a Serious Conversation

Aug 2, 2020

By Mossy Ross

I met Marcus outside of Legion bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn about six years ago. It was shortly after some of the momentum over Occupy Wall Street had faded, but we were both still fired up. I was a few whiskeys deep, so our first meeting is a bit hazy. But what still stands out all these years later, is how many ideas Marcus had. Talking about the problems of the world can get wearying and discouraging. Talking about ideas on how to solve those problems, revives, and instills hope. Marcus had a myriad of methods for how we could join forces to abolish the outdated, racist, misogynist system we all live in, but in peaceful and intellectual ways. He’d composed a series of prolific, melodic hip hop tunes about it, that managed to address infuriating or painful issues while keeping an upbeat, positive vibe. He’d also written a manifesto. He has yet to complete it because, according to him, it wasn’t only up to him to finish writing it, it was up to all of us.

I was curious to find out if Marcus’s passion was still alive and well, now that the protests for the Black Lives Matter movement have begun to decrease. Most likely because so many people are back to working for the system again. And then there’s the unconstitutional use of force that’s being imposed on protesters. I was relieved to find that Marcus is still just as passionate and full of ideas as ever. He’s also written a couple of new songs that we’re excited to be premiering on Alice.

Marcus and I talked in the courtyard of one of the housing projects in Bushwick, while his eleven-year old daughter, Maliah, played with her neighborhood friends nearby.

Mossy: Let’s start with how “I can’t breathe” seems to be the mantra for this summer, but it has two completely different meanings. It’s the cry of George Floyd while he was being murdered by police, and it’s one of the main excuses given for not wanting to wear a mask in public.

ML: People say “It’s our constitutional right” not to wear a mask, and it don’t even have anything to do with that. You wear a mask to protect yourself and other people, because you don’t know if you’ve got (coronavirus) or not. People are dying from it…it might not be nobody you know. But it just shows…everything that’s happening is just exposing everything for what it is. It shows the lack of empathy Americans really have. In the public eye or on TV, it’s like “We’re America. God bless America,” but as soon as you challenge an American, there it is. You can see exactly what we are, what we’ve become, what we have been. Selfish, self-centered…we are the sun, basically. That’s how we feel, and that’s not true. That’s why we bein’ laughed at.

Mossy: It seems like the fury some people feel about wearing a mask, is a sign that Americans truly have no idea what freedom is.

ML: Everything that’s happening is exposing the country. You can’t hide behind the flag, the troops, none of that. When you talk about black lives matter…all lives matter, yeah, we know that. Who don’t know that shit? Of course they matter. But if a certain people is on fire, then you gotta put that fire out first. You gotta bring those people up to where they matter. When you say “All lives matter,” well some people are not feelin’ it. There’s always gonna be mistrust. I understand that. But we ain’t havin’ real conversations, we haven’t had real conversations, we still not havin’ real conversations.

Mossy: What do you think we’re doing instead of having real conversations?

ML: Lookin’ for attention. I think everybody tryin’ to be the man. I think everybody wanna be the person who brought forth a revolution. I think people lookin’ at it in glory form, instead of actual change, and what is needed for actual change. Everybody got their own rallies, everybody got their own protests, and then people inside of the protests is doin’ different things, and it’s just all over the place. And the person who organized (a rally) is at the front with the bullhorn, and it just feels like they want the glory, and not the blood that comes with this shit.

Mossy: How do you feel about the protests dying down now that everyone is going back to work? I mean, I think that’s the way the system wants it. They want us to work so that we’re too busy to continue protesting, or sacrificing for a cause.

ML: And I think some of that was boredom, too. People had a chance to get out the house, and release steam and pressure and anger. Of course don’t get me wrong, there were passionate people, and still are passionate people inside these protests, for sure.

Mossy: What do you think needs to happen? What do you think should be the first thing people should do?

ML: I think there should be some type of common mind meeting ground. Some of these ole’ school leaders, it’s cool. I wouldn’t say they out of touch with what’s goin’ on around here. But when you sittin’ where I’m sittin,’ it feel like they out of touch. I think the new voices, like Sean King for example…it take people like him or other people with influence who really care about this shit, to use their influence to have a gatherin’ spot. It’s the same way you use social media as a tool…I think we should gather first, and talk about some of the things we need to do. And it needs to be from every region. The brightest and the best from the west, from the midwest, the south, the northeast.

Mossy: What would qualify someone as being “the brightest and the best?”

ML: To me, it’s if you can have a conversation with people without bringing religion, or any of the other things that divide us, into it. For black people, some of the things that divide us is money, who’s in charge, religion, social status, values. Basically all the shit that we see on TV… people who sittin’ where I’m sittin’ at the bottom, and all we see is the flashy and fancy on TV…that shit got a tendency to separate us. Even though we all poor, it’s still like, “Who got the best shoes on? Who got the best clothes on?” And we both gettin’ into the same fuckin’ elevator, and live in the same piss poor fuckin’ building.

Mossy: It seems like some of that comes from the white, patriarchal system of values being imposed on all of us. People think showing off is the only way to show they’re equal. So when you say “the brightest and the best,” it seems to me like you’re saying it’s people that don’t see those as meaningful measures of equality, but see intellectual conversations, solutions, and ideas as being more important.

ML: There you go.

Mossy: How would this common meeting ground look, so that everyone could have a voice?

ML: I think it should be just as plain and real as us sitting here talking right now. I think the cameras and media and all that type of shit will cloud it. But I think it should be in places like this. Where we sittin’ right now, is just as fine of a meeting ground as any other place. But I don’t think it should be the big rally yet. It should be a meeting where we find exactly what we want. Like, after this meeting, we know where we’re going, we know what we want. It ain’t gonna be half sayin’ defund the police, and others sayin’ blue lives, black lives, white lives, green lives matter, all this shit (laughs). If you sayin’ that this is America, and every man is endowed by his creator, everybody equal, the law is the law for me or you, black white don’t matter…then what in the fuck is all of this shit? You know what I’m sayin’? It’s just like a back and forth battle…it don’t even have to be a battle. We know what black people go through in this country. Everybody does.

Mossy: It’s just some people are denying it, for some reason. But it’s become undeniable at this point. And that’s where I’m so thankful for social media.

ML: That’s right, it’s not a secret because of all the videos and all that shit. But if you can get past that, I don’t want to have a meeting to sit and talk about what’s wrong. Like “Aw man, black people are gettin’ hit and killed, and black people are livin’ poor, and we need reparations, or we need economic this or that, blah fuckin’ blah.” We know that. We know these are things we need. How are we gonna go about gettin’ ‘em? I’m not King Black Person. So I can’t tell you how we can get to it. But I got ideas that I want to share, so we can come to a point where we can get to a list.

Mossy: What’s one of your ideas?

ML: I don’t think school frees you. Let’s say “poor people.” Let’s take the “black” out of it. To tell a poor person, “Hey man, you can just start at the bottom and work your way up.” Or, “Go to school and get your major, and then start at the bottom and work your way up.” To tell a poor person that, when you was handed your shit, you didn’t even have to start at the fuckin’ bottom…I think that’s ridiculous. I think that schools and funding, especially in communities like these, should have options for children for what they really wanna do.

Mossy: What you’re talking about is the dream school I’ve wanted to open. I think school is the last place for learning. It’s basically daycare. Most of the things I’ve learned came from reading a book. But aside from self-teaching, people could be connected to experts in mechanics, or horticulture, or whatever the fuck else they want to do. And that’s where the funding should go…to paying experts to take on apprentices basically.

ML: You take poor people and you teach them how to do what they want to do, instead of putting so much red tape in front of them to make money. The whole system is broken, and it don’t do nothin’ but keep poor people, black people, cus I’m gonna say it now, it don’t do nothin’ but keep us down. It keeps people lookin’ at you like that bootstrap sayin.’ Like, of course we don’t have bootstraps. The system always gonna look at you like a nigga, because it knows you ain’t got no bootstraps. It knows you didn’t have the education, it knows all of this already. So why we playin’ the game? It’s a game. You bunch people up in housing projects like these, and tell them to start at the bottom, where there’s never no room for growth or improvement or nothin.’ And they really wanna learn to do…but they in the house stuck. They’ve read as much as they could, and now they need hands on experience. They need centers where they can go and learn how to put that carburetor in a car. All that shit without having to pay, or their parents who live in one of these complexes, havin’ to pay money that they don’t fuckin’ got. The system is fucked.

Mossy: Yeah, you learn by experience, you don’t learn in a classroom. It’s a complete scam. If you could do anything, what would it be? Like, if this school you want to create existed, what would you study?

ML: Aw man, that is a great question. Well, as a kid, I would probably start one thing and then move on to another.

Mossy: Which is totally cool. I don’t understand why we’re expected to only study one thing for our entire lives. I think I read somewhere once, that the idea of specializing in one subject was originated by kings. Kings were the ones who could have a variety of skills and interests, but they wanted their minions to be good at one thing and one thing only, so they would be less well rounded. I may be pulling that out of my ass, but…

ML: I would study how to do the audio inside of a car. That’s what I was into when I was a kid. I liked the music inside of a car. And that was big business. People takin’ their cars and gettin’ all their sounds hooked up inside the car. People paid big money to have their shit sound good. All the wires are hidden, you know if something’s gonna blow the speaker, or what’s the best speaker. That is somethin’ that could free you to start a business. And right now, I’m a self taught chef. I taught myself. And I gained experience in the real world by doin’ that.

Mossy: Not by going to culinary school.

ML: Exactly. I did not go to culinary school, but experience and research will put you in a place where you can skip all that bullshit. That’s not for the kids right now. Like, I want to save the kids right now. I want to save them from that bullshit, so they can free themselves. So they really can stand out on the street and be excited about startin’ a business, and startin’ from the beginning. They came out of school with a skill, something they wanted to do, a skill that they learned. And now they’re excited about startin’ it, because they know everything about it and it didn’t break their bank, and it didn’t break their parents’ bank.

Mossy: Taxes would pay for it, because that’s what taxes are supposed to be for.

ML: Yes. So that would be the first thing I would concentrate on. And yes, I would concentrate on in the black community. The black community deserves a chance. We’ve been here forever. The civil rights movement paved the way for a lot of different races that’s comin’ into America. That have come here for opportunities. There’s nothin’ wrong with that. They’re gettin’ jobs, they’re gettin’ ahead. They don’t have the anchors. But we still have the same anchors after fighting to get those anchors off. You see other people comin’ here for the same chances that we fought for, and the opportunity is missed on us. And that’s not sayin’ everybody should go back to where they came from, cus that’s bullshit. This is America. It’s so big. We all can have this opportunity, but you still gotta take the cuffs off of us, though. When people is hollerin’ “civil rights,” think about civil rights, and what that actually means, and why it means that. Think of all the leaders that died. Some from our own hands, some from stupidities, a lot from the country and the way the country is. Infiltration. Pitting each other against each other. It’s easy to do that in the black communities, it’s easy to do that amongst the leaders. But still, with all of that, you just think about civil rights. What happened? Why are people still to this day hollerin’ about civil rights? It’s because black people been through the mud for this shit. And I think it’s only fair that that’s where we start. In the black communities. These are our lowest brothers and sisters. We’re no good unless black people are good. We can’t hold our head up in front of the world, we can’t go to the United Nations, and sit there comfortably, and act like our black brothers and sisters are not in shit conditions.

Mossy: When you look at the black people that are in the United Nations or other political positions, you don’t usually see people from the projects as representatives. They’re usually black people who have assimilated to white culture in one way or another. Whether it’s that they went to college, or dress a certain way, speak a certain way, or have certain values. They’ve got the seal of approval from white people. It’s never white people trying to assimilate to black culture in politics…it’s always got to be the other way around.

ML: Let’s say you grow up in the projects, and you manage to get an office in Washington D.C. First, we already hear how they say Washington works: “If you don’t know this town, it’ll swallow you up.” But let’s say you manage to get there. Automatically you’re gonna feel free. You’re gonna feel free from your situation, you’re gonna feel like you made it. And just like you were sayin,’ the more you’re in that environment, the more your constituents start to change. They’ll start to look different. You’re feeding into the system, and what the system is saying. You’re only one person. So you go to Washington and you wanna talk about the projects where you came from? You’re gonna get nowhere. You might get another black person that’ll come up to you and say, “Hey man, this is how the game is played around here. So if you wanna get some bread and make sure your family is straight, then you gotta do it like this.” So you just keep conforming and conforming. Because there’s no actual grassroots candidate. Like when they talk about grassroots, and people lifting you up to the place where you are the voice of the people…it’s not comin’ from the projects.

And look how the country treats black people. Why would anyone want to work for it, or do anything to make it better? Everybody always talkin’ about how black people act toward the country like, “Look at them, they’re so ungrateful.” Oh my God, that’s like the most horseshit I ever heard. Man, if somebody whooped your ass every fuckin’ day, you gonna wanna go home and fix it, and build it up and be a part of it? Fuck no. You gonna wanna burn that shit down. Like fuck this shit, I can’t wait to get away from this shit. You don’t get no opportunity or chance. Look how grateful black people be, just to get a dishwashing job. Cus you’re so fuckin’ poor, and again, it’s not just black people, I’m just speaking from my black experience. How I was brought up is a big reason why I feel the way I feel. It’s got a lot to do with why I don’t trust my countrymen.

Mossy: What was your experience growing up?

ML: I was born in Cleveland. My father and mother grew up in pretty much broken homes. Their mother and father was together because of the times, but still pretty much broken. Arguin,’ fussin,’ drinkin,’ fighting and shit. So that shit didn’t last. My mom moved to Alabama where my family on my mother’s side is from.

Mossy: Do you know what your great grandparents’ lives were like?

ML: Nope. I was even recently trying to find how far my last name went back, but nobody knows. After a certain time, you can’t trace your history. And we all know why that is. You’re talking to a person who’s alive in 2020, who can tell you without a doubt, that because of slavery and the way it was, you can’t trace my lineage back. Which is another reason to have nothin’ to be proud of. If you white and you can trace back and find your great great grandfather was a king, wouldn’t that inspire you? What if I knew my great great great grandfather was a king? How would I feel? Or one of these kids around here? How would they feel? Or even if it wasn’t a king. Maybe it was someone who was just a great person who worked hard. That inspires you.

Mossy: White people go to therapy all the time to talk about how their parents fucked them up, and how their grandparents fucked up their parents, and so on. This is the same sort of thing that, as a country, I think we have to recognize. Why black people are still in the situation they’re in here, is directly related to things that happened to their parents which happened to their parents which happened to their parents. From slavery, to sharecropping, to Jim Crow, to separate but equal, to mass incarceration…it’s all led to what is happening now.

ML: That is one thing that you can’t tell a boomer or even some of the white people that’s not from that time period. That shit gets completely lost on them because it’s like, “You’re a negro! What the hell do you need a heritage for?” They don’t even think that we deserve lineage or heritage or anything like that. We should just be happy that we were brought over here, not to live waddling in the mud or whatever the fuck they think.

Mossy: And yet clearly heritage matters, that’s why they’re getting all bent out of shape over fucking statues.

ML: Exactly.

Mossy: Okay, so go back to your parents.

ML: My father was a hustler. They was young, they split. My oldest brother came first when my mom was real young, like 16 or 17. Then I came eighteen months later, and by the time I was six or seven, we were living in Alabama. And that’s where I realized I can’t stay in Alabama. I hate everything about the south. I don’t like the weather, I don’t like the people, I don’t like how black people live down there, and I experienced it firsthand. My mom was on drugs, my pops was on drugs. We was livin’ in the projects then, too, and it was always a struggle. My mom would try to sell drugs, she would use drugs. We always moved…I went to every school in Huntsville, Alabama. I only went to one middle school, though. And I think you’ll find this interesting.

I went to one middle school because my parents went to jail at the same time when I was eleven. And there was a white guy in the neighborhood, his name was Walter Matheny. And when I say “the neighborhood,” we was in the hood. And he had a house across a main street, but it was back on a hill. It had a long driveway, it had an arch, it had an orchard, it had land and shit on it. And he had a swimming pool in the back. So if you got a permission slip from your mom, you could go to his house, and he would teach you how to swim. And all the kids used to go over there. I met Mr. Matheny when I was eleven years old, and both of my parents was in jail. And he would teach me and my brother how to swim. He and his wife, Linda Matheny took a liking to us. They would pay us money to do chores around the yard. Like, they knew we were poor little kids. And that would turn into him showing us things in his woodshop.

One day after Christmas, we went up to his house on the usual Sunday. That was how we would get extra money to go fuck around and shit. And he asked us what we got for Christmas. And I remember not wantin’ to say shit, cus my mother was always like, “Don’t be tellin’ my business!” But my brother just says, “Nothin!” (Laughs) Ms. Matheny was in the kitchen, and she came out of the kitchen and pulled Mr. Matheny aside, and then he came back and he just asked us, “What is goin’ on in your lives?” And I told him. Both my parents is locked up right now. My grandma can’t do it. She’s old and she’s gettin’ older and older…there’s just nobody. And that’s when my life changed, for a little while at least. A week later when we came over there to do our cleaning, he asked us if we wanted to live there. Maaaan, fuck yeah we wanted to live there! There was a pool, and he used to have this thing called the Magic List. Whatever you wanted from the grocery store or whatever, you just write it down on the list.

Mr. Matheny, the whitest man I know, was the person who told me about the mistrust, about the way that people might view me. It wasn’t about the way that I looked, but the things I knew. Mr. Matheny would say “Don’t listen to what people around you sayin,’ or what they’re sayin’ on TV. The world is not a scary place,” is what he told me. And I believe the big reason I kept going is Mr. Matheny. That was like my pop right there. Straight up.

Mossy: How long did you live there?

My mom did ten years in prison. So I spent from the time I was eleven there, until I was sixteen. Cus they gave me a car, and they gave me a credit card so I could put gas on it. And my dumbass took the credit card and bought rims for my car, music for my car. Dumbass little kid. They was so pissed. They was like, “No man, we need a break from this. You broke our trust.” So I left there for awhile, and that’s when I went to my first group home, The Harris Home. And then I went to the boys ranch. And then I came back and I stayed with them for another year.

Mossy: What were the group homes like?

ML: They was whack. The Harris Home was, picture a country neighborhood with a whole bunch of houses on it, and each house got a group of kids and a person (to watch them). So they were like, just basic houses, and the food was shit, and everybody knew that you stayed there and you got made fun of at school.

Mossy: That’s another thing that’s fucked up about school., You put all these kids from all these different backgrounds in one room, and the only thing they have in common is their age. That again, creates a situation where kids, at an early age, learn to seek those white patriarchal values. Because the kids that do the best, or get in the least amount of trouble in school; are usually the ones who come from certain types of families, and conform the most, and raise their hands, and do what they’re told, and dress well.

ML: Exactly.

Mossy: Are The Matheny’s still around?

ML: They both are deceased now.

Mossy: What about your parents?

ML: My mom and my father are still alive. My father has kicked the habit. He lives in Decatur now, (he’s a) pretty responsible adult. He got his own house, and he into racin’ and stuff like that.

Mossy: Do you guys talk?

ML: Yeah, we talk. He gave me a Cadillac. He workin’ on it for me right now. It’s a ‘72. I can’t wait to go down and get it.

Mossy: That could be your first project for your car audio business! You could use it as free advertising and just roll around with the bass going. Maybe you could teach yourself. I mean, you taught yourself how to be a chef, right?

ML: Yeah, that’s currently my mission right now, with the Love’s Shack Chicken and Ribs. It’s gonna be a pop-up first. But I won’t open up the Love’s Shack until next spring. I gotta get some more licenses and permits and stuff. Plus I’ve been workin’ on recipes. I cooked my ribs, I think I got a good start for a rub, my chicken and my white sauce…cus this is north Alabama-style barbecue. So I got a pretty good start. I’m just lockin’ the menu down.

Mossy: So you got your barbecue business, and you also told me you have some new songs now. You hadn’t written anything for awhile. Did Black Lives Matter get you reacquainted with music?

ML: Yeah, all of that. It’s been within the last year. You’ll see when you hear the songs. I’m talkin’ to black people, my people, about certain shit that nobody else will tell them or talk to them about. That’s how I feel, that’s what came out of me when I was writin.’ And it’s not what’s wrong, it’s just about us. I’m talking about what I think we should do, or what we can do. And that’s basically to come together, and understand that it don’t matter what hood you in. We live the color of our skin. That’s what I would like people to understand. Especially if you listen to my music and you’re black. We live the color of our skin, we shouldn’t let where we’re from separate us. We got so many things in common. We should take the things that we got in common, and come up with serious goals. I think we’ll be surprised by the shit we can do. Black people themselves will be surprised how many people, around the world, is waiting for us to rise up. Like, come on. This is our country, too. We just have to do certain things to really solidify. We still movin.’ We been movin’ since slavery, since Reconstruction, since civil rights, Jim Crow. Here we are, still moving right along.

We need a political party. You know, to a lot of people, politics is a joke. And to me, right now politics is a joke. Cus it’s always that political filter, it’s never real. It don’t ever feel real to a person who sees real shit all the time. And goes through real shit all the time. It’s just a bunch of mumbo jumbo bullshit. That’s what this political party can be…it can be not that. It can be a real voice for America. America is waiting. That’s why this clown Donald Trump appealed to a lot of people at first. Because he didn’t have a filter to what he was saying. That shit never fooled me. You know it didn’t fool nobody around here. That slick talk con man…we hear that shit all the time. So that’s all he was. But he got people’s attention because that political filter was not there. And that should be the base of our party. It should only put real people out there.

Mossy: I feel like we should no longer have one person as president. Especially in America, if not only in America. We’re the most diverse country in the world. It’s ridiculous that we are constantly only given the choice of old, rich, white men to choose from. We need a panel of people in office, not just one person. We need a white woman, a white man, a black woman, a black man, a trans woman, a trans man, a gay woman, a gay man, indigenous, Asian, Latino…people who represent the mass majority of citizens in America, so everyone is represented. And whatever the most common needs are among the people, that’s the legislation that passes. If that means the old, rich, white man’s vote is lost, then…that’s democracy.

ML: I like that idea.

At this point, an argument broke out among two men in the courtyard.

ML: Let’s see if we need to make a move.

Marcus was afraid one of them might have gone to get a gun, so he wanted to go and take his daughter home.

ML: Like, I didn’t want the interview to be bland or fake. I wanted you to see.

Mossy: It’s like you said (in a previous conversation), everyone’s coming to Williamsburg because there’s nothing open in their neighborhood.

ML: Yeah, they don’t block off the streets here for sidewalk cafes.

Mossy: Did the marches come through here?

ML: Nah.

Marcus’s girlfriend, Liana, shed some light on one of many reasons why tensions are so high in the neighborhood. It’s 99 degrees outside, the air is thick with suffocating humidity, and no one wants to take the train to the crowded beaches, and risk infecting their families. There are no sidewalk cafes, no streets blocked off for recreation like in other white, affluent neighborhoods. People are out of work, with nowhere to go, and no money. To quote Liana, “It’s a recipe for disaster.”

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEhgaSEscFg

Song Premiere: “Same Nigga” https://soundcloud.com/mlove23/same-nigga 

Marcus Love Music: https://soundcloud.com/mlove23 

Marcus Love IG: @starving_artis

Be on the look out for Love’s Shack pop-ups and grand opening: @loves_shack

[mossyrossaliceinterviews]

American Primitive JOE CARDAMONE

May 20, 2020

By Richard Ray Ruiz

Words by Mossy Ross

Joe Cardamone: the man, the myth, the legend. Once the frontman of L.A.-based band, The Icarus Line, he’s continued to persevere in an art world that no longer embraces originality and rebellion. Dubbed by Vice Magazine as “reviled” due to some of his bad-boy antics, he and fellow rebel pal Travis Keller have carved out an art scene in L.A. that is reminiscent of the 70s and 80s NYC music scene. In 1998, Keller started Buddyhead, a label that gave no fucks and kept its integrity and vision intact as a result. Now, Cardamone and Keller have started an art collective, American Primitive. Made up of the likes of Keller, Cardamone, Annie Hardy, and Ollie Problemas, it’s a gang of non- conformists who, instead of selling out to corporate art interests, have joined forces. They use their strength in numbers to promote each other’s music, art, and film.

Despite the dry, wry humor, and dark intensity Cardamone displays throughout his work, he gives off the feeling that you’re immediate friends straight out of the gate, to the point where I actually kind of forgot I was interviewing him. Once we got to talking, it wasn’t long before we were interrupting each other and finishing each other’s sentences. Well okay, I was interrupting him and finishing his sentences. He knows how to be critical while keeping a glint in his eye. Fervid and fucking hilarious. The kind of guy I wished I knew in high school because I’d probably be a total badass now…either that or I’d be incarcerated.

Along with forming American Primitive since The Icarus Line disbanded, Cardamone has written and starred in the semi- biographical indie film The Icarus Line Must Die, and began a solo music project under his own name. He and Keller also released Holy War II, an indie flick that, unbeknownst to me, was available for public streaming for a limited time only.

Photography by Olivia Jaffe

Mossy: So I didn’t know there was a time limit on watching Holy War II.

JC: (laughs) Yeah. (sighs) There’s something that gets me down about the indefinite nature of posting things on the fucking internet. It takes the event away from it and it makes it less special and I think it’s just better if it’s a limited engagement. Because if you don’t set controls on things, it’s just gonna be floating around forever. It opens things to different kinds of scrutiny as well. Not that it’s like, “Oh, you don’t believe in your product if it doesn’t stand up to viewings for eternity.” But yeah, no one gets to stand in front of their favorite painting for the rest of their life and pick it apart.

Mossy: I mean, at this point in the game, having any sort of legitimate, well thought out reason behind doing something (that’s not related to making money) is noteworthy.

JC: Yeah, it’s a weird time, because most of it is like just fucking throw as much shit at the wall as possible. But it’s just like pollution, though.

Mossy: What I did end up watching was The Icarus Line Must Die, and there was so much about that film I definitely related to as a musician. Music got completely fucked after The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was signed. There was no more of using music as a way to spread a message or send ideas. It was just about what the masses want…or what corporate interests want the masses to want.

JC: Yeah, so how old are you?

Mossy: I’m 40.

JC: Okay, so yeah, you’re my age. So you can remember growing up and it was like, the antithesis of cool was to sell your music for any sort of branding. And I don’t really know how it happened besides the fact that the music industry was gutted at a certain point, and basically just left everyone to claw like animals at each other’s eyes, and it turned into what it is today.

Mossy: Well this is why I typically enjoy interviewing people in our age range the most…

JC: The Lost Generation.

Mossy: Honestly, I’m not saying this to sound self-important, but I do think it’s a really important generation because…

JC: We’re on both sides.

Mossy: Yeah, we’re not totally dependent on technology.

JC: We watched it happen. We came of age while the change happened. And I’m guessing we’re the last generation that will know what it was like before.

Mossy: Yeah, and I think it’s a little bit of a call to action to sort of take the reigns, and be the elders and be the ones that say, “Listen, it’s still not cool to brand yourself and sell your music as a consumable commodity, rather than something you experience, and sit down and listen to.”

JC: Totally.

Mossy: So “The Icarus Line Must Die,” was that pretty much biographical?

JC: Yeeeeah. I would say for the most part, probably more than I care to admit in there is on point. The only thing I kind of struggled with in general was, I didn’t control the focus of the narrative. I wrote the story, but the director really had kind of a story he wanted to tell about struggling as a musician. While that was true, at the same time, while we were making it, it felt like “Aw man, I feel like I’m focused on money the whole time,” and that’s not really my life. I mean, yeah, there’s points of everybody’s life where you’re like “Oh, I’m fucked” and that becomes the focus. I don’t have an objective point of view on that (film) at all, but I don’t know if it comes through that art is the leader in my life.

Mossy: I do think that came through because that’s the very reason why you’re struggling for money. If it wasn’t about the art, who knows, you could have sold out and…

JC: Yeah, made different choices.

Mossy: Have you ever had that option (to be more commercially successful)?

JC: Oh yeah, I’ve blown that option a few times.

Mossy: In what way?

JC: The earliest one I remember was, there was a meeting at EMI right after “Penance” came out, and Travis and I were both high as fuck, and we both thought our passports had lapsed. We couldn’t read the numbers on our passports. It was that bad. So the day of the EMI meeting, we were like, “We’re goin’ to the West Side (of L.A.), and we’ve been up all night, so why don’t we go to the passport office and get new passports?” So we show up at the passport office as soon as it opens, cus we’re still awake, and I get to the counter and she looks at my passport, and the lady was like, “Sir, this doesn’t expire for another three years.” It was like that. Like stone-cold idiot stuff.

So we have three hours to kill before the meeting and, at that time, all the A&R offices in Los Angeles were open doors to us, not because people were like, genuinely interested in the stuff we were doing, I don’t think. For the most part, they weren’t. But they were terrified of Buddyhead, or envious of Buddyhead, and were interested in what we thought. They would play us records and be like, “Is this cool?” So we ended up in some A&R guy’s office over at Interscope, who started pouring shots of Jack Daniels. And I never really drank, still don’t. I always liked hardcore street drugs. And I had, like, three shots, we went down to the meeting. I don’t remember the meeting, but I do remember that when we showed up, there was a contract for $100,000 on the table, and by the time we left, we were being escorted out the building and the contract was completely dissolved.

Mossy: What year was that?

JC: That was probably 2005. But that choice ended up in me owning my own publishing forever, and my music not getting used in ways that maybe would have made my skin crawl. Who knows, we could be doing this call from my yacht. (Laughs) But probably not.

Photography by Olivia Jaffe

Mossy: That, to me, was probably the worst time ever for rock music. I remember being so confused about music at that time. I was bartending and cocktail waitressing, and I was hearing all this music that the DJs were playing, and it was all this electro- pop with whispery vocals.

JC: Everything was already on its way down at that point.

Mossy: Yeah, I feel like everything since then has just been pop, pitched as rock.

JC: Yeah, it really has. Well, it’s turned into— at least at a mainstream level, more into a lifestyle supplement sort of thing.

Mossy: Yeah, people don’t even care about the music, they care about the lifestyle of the artist. What they’re wearing, where they’re going, who they’re dating.

JC: Totally. And that shit obviously mattered before, too, but in a different way. Because the first thing that got you there was the music. It’s like, Little Richard died today, and you heard a song by Little Richard…and then you saw him, and then you wanted to know everything you could. I don’t know if that’s still the same sort of thread these days. I highly doubt it.

Mossy: So is American Primitive something that you and Travis are doing together?

JC: Yeah, when The Icarus Line was doing the last album that we did, I bounced around from a new label every release. Always. It was like, “Cool I found someone who will give us money, let’s do a record.” Finally, I got a deal that was more of like a distribution deal through Sony and was like, “Okay, we’re gonna do our own imprint for once.” And that’s when American Primitive was born. And since then, really because I have a studio here and end up working with a lot of local artists and musicians, it just became an umbrella for people to exist under so that, you know, there was some kind of continuity in everyone’s lives. It hasn’t really been much of a business move. More of an artistic shelter or umbrella for everyone to coalesce. And it’s slowly evolving into other things, but yeah, it’s not an LLC. Let’s put it that way.

Mossy: So how would you explain what it is?

JC: It’s an art collective, is really what it is. Because Travis is doing photos and scenes and all kinds of work on his own. He’s designing clothes, I’m designing clothes for films.

Mossy: How do you curate it?

JC: Almost everyone that’s been involved with it is either something I worked on, or something Travis worked on. And we have a genuine friendship with the person and admiration for their work. That’s the only way someone’s really included is, like, if they’re invested in a way that makes us feel like they’re invested in themselves and what they’re doing at the same kind of level that we are. And that’s the gatekeeper I guess.

Mossy: Is there a common thread between who you find coming through? A common ethos or message?

JC: I mean, I don’t have a tagline, but as far as the people, I think it’s just like minds are attracted, you know? In general, we don’t have to seek. Things find us that are coming from like-minded individuals. Like we did a video for Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, Masters of Reality) last year and that’s because I had just got off an eight-week tour with Mark, and Mark’s been a fan of mine for decades and likewise me of him. So that’s how American Primitive ends up creative directing Mark’s video. And that goes for most of the projects. People will see something we’re doing and either think that they’re artistically in line, or that we could help them be more artistically in line. Like they’ll see Holy War II and be like, “I want some of that for what I’m doing. Can you figure out a way to visually express the record we’re trying to do?” or whatever. So I think it’s an organic process. We’ve been doing this for so long that our tastes are symbiotic. (Laughs) You know, we share a brain in a lot of ways, so we don’t have to talk about it too much, let’s put it that way.

Mossy: When I look at American Primitive’s profile on Instagram, it looks like it could also be described as a kind of a movement in a way. I feel like what you were saying before about people clawing over each other when music went to shit a couple of decades ago, it’s like you’re sort of doing the opposite and saying, “We can actually share the success because there’s enough to go around. We may not all have yachts and private jets, but was that ever what it should have really been about?”

JC: Exactly. I mean, the thing is, the basic rules of the collective is that we never take a cut of anybody’s projects. It’s literally a place to share resources. I mean, I grew up on “Maximum Rocknroll” (zine) and that era of DIY punk, booking shows from my parents’ landline. So no matter what, that’s still what kind of formed me. Same thing with Travis. So I saw it work back then, and it worked in a way that I was totally comfortable with. So kind of carrying that forward into now without having to have an “Exploited” patch on my back…to me, that’s a cool way to do things. We all have our own reach, but together, we have a greater reach that doesn’t take away from anybody else’s. And the other thing is, when you’re all pulled together like that, it just makes it feel a little less lonely. Because most of the people that are involved with American Primitive are doing it more in a fine art sense. Not in a stuffy fine art gallery sense, but they’re putting things into the world that they really worked hard on, believe in, and probably did not consider commercial prospects so much.

Mossy: As much as we all need money to survive, It seems like if you did have a tagline, it would be “Not driven by money.” What else drives you to keep doing this?

JC: Yeah, money cannot inform any of the art. That’s always been an impossibility and something I’ve struggled with. There have always been opportunities where someone says, “Hey, I know a friend who works in advertising and he’ll pay you $500 a song if you can kind of knock off this, this, this, this, and this.” And it’s the kind of thing that I’m just terrible at. I tried it once. I was terrible at it. Not only because I’m just not that great of a mimic, especially if I don’t like something. But also undercutting other art, whether I like it or not, to me just doesn’t seem to be the answer.

When you see enough of your friends die and lose their lives and get taken out of the game early, you really feel it in your bones when you’re wasting your time. You know that what you’re doing right now is not right and that it’s diminishing whatever your point is on the planet. And that’s not to take away from anyone who has a job, you know?

Because we all need to survive and everyone has to do what they have to do. But as an artist, I don’t have a responsibility to anybody in the fucking world to do anything except to distill my point of view as best I can.

Mossy: And also by doing that, there’s the hope that you’re going to reach other people that share your point of view.

JC: Totally. And inspire other people to do that with their own work. For me, that’s been more of my life than anything. I don’t have big commercial success or any of that shit, but I do know, and this might sound a little bit lofty but my existence is positive in the sense that if I’m uncompromising, that, in some small way, ripples through the artistic community, musical community, and helps other people to feel like they can do that, too. Like it doesn’t matter what external pressures exist, go with what you are.

Mossy: Dude…this conversation is so validating for me!

JC: (Laughs) Good!

Mossy: I was watching The Icarus Line Must Die and the relationship you have with your fiance. I’m always telling my girlfriend that I pity her for dating a musician because we suck!

JC: Terrible! (Laughs) Any sort of artist…just terrible.

Mossy: But as I watched the film, I was realizing it’s not just about your need to be a musician for your ego and to just put something out there…it’s something bigger than that. Because right now especially, we’re being told what to listen to. The power of choice has been taken away from us.

JC: Yeah, it’s gone.

Mossy: Labels put out what they already know is going to sell, and it’s sort of an assault on our intelligence and our tastes as listeners, as well as an assault on artists who are creating things that aren’t necessarily marketable. I really felt your pain when everybody was saying they didn’t know what to do with your album (from a marketing perspective). So it’s not just about the artist and their personal struggle, it’s also about this mass form of censorship that’s been placed on us, and I think that’s why it’s so important to keep doing it.

JC: Totally. Well at a certain point there’s no turning back. I’m 41 and have not been employed since I was 18. (Laughs). I don’t have a 401K. If you look at my life on paper, it’s a very scary life.

Mossy: But I also think it depends on who’s looking at it. Somebody might see it and think, “Goddamn, I wish I did what he did instead of staying in investment banking all my life.”

JC: Totally. Music’s definitely afforded me experiences that money cannot buy. That’s the thing. I’ve traveled like a billionaire travels or something. I literally traveled in ways that my parents are baffled by. My dad hasn’t gone to five percent of the places I’ve gone to. It’s the only way someone like me, with the background I come from, was gonna go anywhere unless I got a crazy job somewhere and made shit tons of money. But that doesn’t really happen. More so these days than ever, you’re either born into it or you marry into it. It’s not set up for the American Dream. You can almost guarantee that anyone in art or music at this point, I would say, a high percentage of them is from nepotistic connections.

Photography by Olivia Jaffe

Mossy: Do you think American Primitive is the solution to that…or a solution to that?

JC: I think that it’s an island. I don’t know if we’re a solution because when I look at the world, I exist in parallel to it. I don’t really feel like I’m part of the mainstream culture at large. Even though I appreciate a lot of shit from mainstream culture, you know, I want a pair of new Nikes or whatever. But yeah, it’s the answer for us. Let’s put it that way.

Mossy: Are you working on anything right now musically?

JC: Yeah, ever since Holy War came out, I spent that last year and a half working on music and I finished I think, like, forty songs. So I have two records that are done. I was very fortunate that I was funded to be able to do something like that. So I have two records that are done, and then I’m also near the fourth quarter on a collaboration with Mark Lanegan, where I’m doing all the music, and he’s doing all the vocals. So there’s a lot of stuff that’s unreleased that is on deck to come out. And then working on a feature film idea and making paintings in the garage.

Mossy: God, you have a garage. You lucky bastard.

JC: I mean, that’s one of the reasons it’s been hard to leave here (L.A.). It’s a city with a yard and a garage. I can open the door and let the dog run out in the morning while I’m still, like, asleep.

Mossy: That’s my dream you’re talking about right there.

JC: I know, I’m just bragging now. (Laughs)

Mossy: But do you want to leave?

JC: My dream is that I can do what I do from anywhere and still be able to eke out some kind of living and not have to be…

Mossy: Confined.

JC: Yeah, especially with the way things are today, it really kind of puts a microscope, I’m sure way more in New York than here, that it’s like, “I don’t know if this is the best kind of life.” I’ve been wanting to live in nature for years, but when something like this (pandemic) happens, it really microscopes it.

Mossy: Well that’s another unique facet of our generation…that we don’t have the guarantees that our parents had, where if you stay in the same job for forty years, you’ll be set for the rest of your life. So we can be more mobile. What are your thoughts on how these facts affect the mental health of our generation? Like the mental health of people who follow the rules and have financial security, versus the people who don’t and struggle.

JC: I feel, for the most part, our generation follows the rules. (Laughs) I mean, we were raised by people who grew up in the sixties, who were raised by people who were in World War II. So, I don’t know about you, but the threat of the lights going out and not being able to take care of yourself has always been a real thing to me. So even within what I do, that sort of real shit knocks at the back of the head, where it keeps me in line in a lot of ways. Where it keeps me on schedule and I have to be goal-oriented to be happy. Which might not sound very artistic, but if something doesn’t really have a point, then I’m not interested in it whatsoever. But most of the people I grew up with, they all got jobs and have kids and live regular lives.

Mossy: Do you think you suffer in a way that they wouldn’t know about?

JC: Well yeah. There’s the give and take. They get to have a family, and that’s something that’s been out of reach for me. Especially as I get older and, it doesn’t seem any more possible today than it did ten years ago, which is kind of fucked up, you know? Because I’ve dedicated my life to this one thing and it’s really cut me off from a lot of the life experiences that people maybe take for granted. It’s like, they complain about their wife and kids and I would love to be a father to someone. But also, it’s kind of a hat trick.

Mossy: In The Icarus Line Must Die, I understood the frustration of having bandmates drop out and the frustration of having to depend on other people to pursue your creative endeavors. Has that been kind of a relief since you started your new solo project?

JC: Yeah, I mean, definitely. I spent a decade and a half dragging people around the world. Half the time, it felt like it was against their will. Showing up to airports on the day before or the day of a Europe tour, and the drummer just straight up doesn’t call or anything. I mean, so many stories like that over the course of my career. All I wanted to do was tour. We would buy a $900 van off of the recycler, and I would sit there and book tours over the phone, cold calling people. I didn’t even care if we played to anyone. Wanting it is what really manifested it. And I kind of think that’s how it works in general. The more you want something, the more you kind of manifest it. But working alone these days is the only way I would really like to work. Just because it’s a complete translation of whatever I’m trying to get across, which is really cool. It’s one of the best backing bands I’ve ever worked with. (Laughs) No one ever fucks up! And the other thing is, I got so burned out by touring and getting set up on these tours that didn’t make sense with bands I didn’t like and just putting myself in positions where I was like, “I hate what I’m doing.” So with Holy War and the new stuff, the decision was that I can tour out of a suitcase, and that frees it up so that I can bring anyone I want with me. It’s just me and a screen and this visual arts performance thing. So the last tour of Europe I did, I brought my little brother who’s never seen Europe. And it was the best touring experience I’ve ever had. That was one of the main motivations for why I did this. Because I feel like quitting music all the time. So I have to do things like I said, where I have a goal. It’s like, I want to be able to go on tour with my brother. How the fuck would that ever work in my circumstances? So I let that guide me and then made the best of that creatively.

Mossy: You’re also described as a composer, not just a musician. Were you trained musically?

JC: No, I never had any art training whatsoever. My education was going to Catholic school til about ninth grade when I was kicked out for slingin’ dope, and after that, I went to public school for a little while and never an art program in any of those schools. So not only no music, but just no art in general. And this is before the internet. But for some reason, I was so fascinated with the stuff that I had discovered that I had, and still do to some extent, a voracious appetite for really digging into the things that caught me.

Mossy: So how did you do that back in the days before the internet?

JC: Movies were a big one. Some of my favorite songs I learned in films. Like, let’s say “Drugstore Cowboy” I watched when I was a kid and William Burroughs is in that and then all of a sudden I’m like, “Wait I kind of know who that guy is” and then I got one of his books. And it was all these moments of discoveries by hook or crook. And I think it reinforces the worst parts of my opinionated points of view too. Because it’s like, you have this pride of discovery so then everything that doesn’t meet the criteria for something that I love is usually bullshit. I’m still kind of juvenile that way.

Mossy: I always think about how kids need to be taught how to be curious and how to refine their tastes.

JC: Yeah, from what I can tell now, it’s a different thing, and maybe in some good ways. Because they kind of are open to whatever. I don’t see the same sort of lines in the sand with the younger generation. Whatever comes across, they tend to kind of embrace a lot of different things. Which is kind of a cool thing for art because there’s like a cross-pollination that takes place. But at the same point, I think there’s something kind of cool about our generation where you get super concentrated, like, specialized in certain ways.

Mossy: Well that idea of being more specialized is starting to come more and more in handy now that, for example, you look at your record collection and you see what you have versus your Spotify and you have, like 80,000 songs and there.

JC: My Spotify is a disaster. The stuff that I’ve liked so I can go back to it, I never go back to any of it. It’s this like, non-linear chasm. Which is why I took Holy War II down off the internet. It’s this non-linear shit, with no ending and no beginning. To me, that is like an endless chaos that is just terrible for an ADD mind. I can’t handle that. I still look at the record collection and think of music in that way. The record collection begins and ends somewhere. It’s a finite situation that the brain has to deal with. When I look at Spotify, I can’t think of anything to listen to. It’s like you have to think about your records to figure out what you want to listen to on Spotify.

Mossy: I feel like whenever these kinds of conversations come up with people about records versus digital, someone will without fail say something like, “Oh I sound like an old person,” but I don’t think it’s so much about age at this point, as it is about the way art has been so diluted in a way.

JC: It’s really just the internet. What it all boils down to, is the internet changed the way everyone perceives everything. When people talk about the apocalypse, it’s like, the apocalypse is happening while you’re asleep. The fucking apocalypse started a few years ago. We’re in a new world now.

Mossy: It really is the craziest social experiment. It’s created this weird false form of individuality, where people think they’re unique, but…

JC: Everyone’s the star of their own movie. And you really don’t have to do much to show up and become the star. I mean, you have to buy a phone, and you have to point it at yourself.

Mossy: And if you really wanna make it, there’s always the sex tape!

JC: There’s always the sex tape. There’s a lot of easy ways out these days, and that does make me sound like an old man. Because when we were growing up, there basically was no easy way out. It was like, you had to fucking hustle, and you had to be good. Or at least think you were good. And someone else had to think you were good, too. You had to get cosigned. Now, that’s done. Nobody has to cosign you. If you do something ridiculous on Tik Tok or whatever that shit is, all of a sudden you’re feelin’ yourself and that’s it. But we’re never going back, so it’s kind of a moot issue.

Photographer: Olivia Jaffe @wicked_lady 

Interview by: Mossy Ross @moss.e.ross 

Insta G @joe_cardamone

Primo Gang http://americanprimitive.org/

[mossyrossaliceinterviews]

Dead End Career Club

Apr 27, 2020

By Melissa Rodwell

Interview by Mossy Ross

Photos by Ryan Kennedy

It was a quiet, spring Saturday morning in 2018, and I had just unlocked the front door of the local Williamsburg dive bar where I worked at the time. It was looking like it might be a slow, boring day when suddenly, “Black in Black” started blasting from the speakers. A smoke machine appeared from nowhere and began spraying its vapors towards the door. A fire-breathing aerialist, wearing a jeweled thong and pasties swung down from the ceiling, performing air splits. The door opened and invisible fans started blowing Ryan Kennedy’s wild, bleached blonde hair. His shirt flew open in the wind as he walked through the door (in slow motion), and tore off his sunglasses.

Okay, so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. But when I look back on that day, that’s how I see it in my mind. It’s not often that I meet someone with so much rock n’ roll panache in Brooklyn these days. It was even more surprising to find that Ryan is so refreshingly humble and genuine.

Kennedy was one half of the now-defunct clothing line No Name Saint and is currently the brains behind Dead End Career Club, a hybrid of music and clothing. I was awed by Kennedy’s ability to expertly dye and distress the hell out of clothing for No Name Saint, and continue to be inspired, amused, and even comforted by the cheeky, quiet rants he creates for the music and clothing for Dead End Career Club.

Quarantined in the small town he lives in an hour and a half from Toronto, Ryan talked to me on Zoom about social media, ministers, music, and middle-age.

Mossy: How far back in your history do we need to go, in order to explain how you came to be who you are now. What was growing up like for you?

RK: My father was a Pentecostal minister, so I grew up in a strict Christian home. I wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music and I didn’t have cable, we didn’t have a computer, we didn’t have a VCR…I read books. My dad had a guitar and I picked that up when I was thirteen or fourteen, and that was sort of game over for me. I wanted to learn how to write songs and, like so many kids, I was in a series of teenage bands that were fun, but weren’t that good. (laughs)

Mossy: How did your dad feel about that?

RK: He was fine and supportive of me making the music. He was still “iffy” about the kind of music I made and where I played. I started out playing in church, and then there were some bridges to cross when I wanted to start playing in bars…that didn’t go over that great. But at this point in my life, my parents are very supportive. And they’re very different people than they were twenty years ago. My dad’s not a minister anymore. Not to say that faith isn’t there, it still is, but his attitudes towards certain things have changed, and so have mine.

Mossy: Do you think you had anything to do with them coming around, in terms of having to accept your differences?

RK: Well I can’t take credit for it solely. But, I have a brother and two sisters as well. And I think it’s safe to say that none of his kids turned out the way he thought they would. And I understand. I mean, my dad was a minister and his parents were Christians, my grandfather was a minister. And you have kids and expect them to grow up in the church, and you have a picture of how their life may turn out, and none of our lives have turned out like they thought. So then you have a choice. You can either consistently compare your kids to the expectations you had for them, or you can accept who they’ve become, and love them for who they’ve become. And my parents have done a great job of doing that.

Mossy: Did you stop going to church eventually?

RK: Yeah, I haven’t attended church regularly in probably twenty years. It’s a very complex subject to talk about. I mean, just because I haven’t gone and sat down in a church doesn’t mean that I don’t have faith, or that I don’t have a relationship with God, or that I don’t believe in certain things. I do. But when you grow up in church, and I went like four or five times a week…you sometimes see the worst of it, and it can sort of scar you in ways that you wouldn’t think it would. And there was just something about going to church that I didn’t enjoy anymore.

Mossy: So when you stopped going to church, then what? Were you playing in bands?

RK: Yeah, so when I was about twenty, I started to take it (music) more seriously, and I didn’t go to church or play in churches anymore, I played in bars. And my first serious band, when I was in my early twenties, got a record deal in Canada, and that was it for me. For the next fifteen years, over the series of three different bands, music was my full-time thing. In that fifteen-year period, I also opened a vintage clothing store since, you know, rock n’ roll doesn’t pay that well. So yeah, starting in my early twenties, I was in a series of bands that were supposed to be big, and (laughs)…weren’t.

Mossy: If you weren’t listening to secular music growing up, how did you come to rock?

RK: I mean, that’s the interesting thing. When I started this first serious band, my brother was in it, so he’s a pastor’s son. The other two guys in the band were also pastors’ sons, and then the guitar player was an ordained minister. So we were all a bunch of Christian kids, playing trashy, garage-y, rock n’ roll in bars. We got signed and hooked up with a producer in Montreal, and we went to Montreal for two months to make a record. We went into the studio with this producer, and we’d play the song and he’d say, “Oh man, that sounds like ‘Wire,’” or “That sounds like ‘Television,’” or that sounds like ‘The Hellacopters.’” And we were like, “I don’t even know those bands.” (Laughs) So I’ve gone back over the last twenty years and learned a whole bunch of stuff that I should’ve learned when I was fourteen. And this was 2004, so this was the tail end of record labels handing out big record deals, so there were advances and that sort of stuff…and we just blew our advances on records.

Mossy: I was listening to your new EP, and I really like how you modernize rock music by talking about things like Soundcloud and social media, but you keep that raw rock sound as well. I feel like your music is something that I can relate to as a 40-year old, but also something that a 20-year old could relate to as well.

RK: At this point in my life, the only thing I have to offer is myself. And that means that I can’t hide that I’m forty. I’ve had label people tell me when I was in my early 30s, not to put my face on the (album) cover, because they didn’t want people to prejudge the music by seeing that I wasn’t nineteen. And that’s from well-meaning people that care about me and my success. But that’s the advice I’m getting, “You need to hide who you are.” And I don’t see any point in that now, and I also don’t see any point in being some sort of, like, stuck-in-twenty-years- ago guy, that’s not willing to acknowledge that Soundcloud exists. I mean, I am trying to navigate my way through 2020’s music industry, and 2020’s digital world. And I struggle with that, and it filters into my writing. So I am sort of an “old” guy talking about new stuff. But that’s all I can be, and I have no interest in being anything else. I don’t know where that leaves me in terms of a target audience, but I don’t really care.

Mossy: I wonder all the time, why the decision makers who determine what music gets heard by the masses, seem to feel that musicians can’t become more marketable as they get older. I mean, the thirty and above market is huge, and they have money. Older artists still have issues that so many people can relate to, probably in our current times more than ever. Do you ever think there could be a movement of thirty and up “rockstars” making more of a mark than they have in past decades?

RK: Well in my optimistic moments, I do believe that. Because I see it in television and film. I see it in books. Why is it the music industry is like “No, no…we only make stuff for kids?” Or “We only make stuff for a 35-plus audience with already established artists?” There’s a lot of wonderful music being made for my age demographic, it’s just the stuff that rises to the surface is made by artists that have been famous for ten or fifteen years. It’s not very often that you come across a brand new artist that’s forty. But there are television shows and movies that are absolutely targeted to my demographic, and not targeted to nineteen-year-olds. It’s kind of fucked that the music industry is so behind on that.

Mossy: That’s a really great observation. I watch new TV shows all the time that make references to things that only someone in our generation would know about. How is that not happening with music? 

RK: Yeah, they’re based on relatable experiences to people of my age group. Not to say that nineteen-year-olds can’t enjoy it or take something from it. But the people that made it are my age, the actors, the storyline is based on people my age, going through experiences that I go through. I know it’s made for me. But music is far behind on that.

Mossy: We seem to be in an abusive relationship with social media…we come back to it even though it hurts us in a variety of ways. Has your art and music changed since social media came into existence?

RK: Yeah, I think social media is so overwhelming and so pervasive in our lives that it filters into my work, in a way that the same sort of metrics didn’t twenty years ago. So the same sort of feelings I have about posting something on Instagram and not many people liking it, or not having a lot of followers…are the same feelings that I had fifteen years ago when I made a record. I was checking sales charts and I was checking radio charts. And I was wondering why my music video got added to MTV in light rotation, and not heavy rotation. Why did this band get this tour, and I didn’t get this tour? Same feelings…why does this person have so many social media followers and I don’t? But there was, like, four or five metrics to use before, and you could hide them pretty well. It’s like, if you don’t send me the radio charts, I can’t check ‘em. Now I cannot hide from those metrics. So I have to choose to see the metrics and to absorb them in a different way. And I think that because I’m human, and I’m willing to be honest about it, I openly talk about how those metrics make me feel. Some days I hide them better than others, and some days they hit me and I think, “What the fuck?”

Mossy: So you toured for fifteen years and had a clothing shop…was that No Name Saint?

RK: No I had a vintage clothing shop called Sympathy for the Rebel. It was just a traditional vintage clothing shop. I had to close that because I was touring a lot, and I started No Name Saint after that. When I started with NNS, it was basically an extension of my vintage shop…picking vintage band shirts, bleaching them, and distressing them or painting on them. And then I realized that was not terribly original, and there were other people doing that, and doing it better. And a friend of mine gave me a heat press, and I started to figure out how to use that and how to do something different with that. I figured out how to make my own prints, and I started putting words on t-shirts. And the whole idea is that they were one offs. What I don’t like about fashion is you pick this crazy cool shirt that’s supposed to make you stand out, and you go to a bar and someone else is wearing it. (laughs) So, that’s never been me. If I’m gonna wear something, I’m gonna alter it, or paint it, or rip it up so that I’m the only one that has it. That’s just a personal thing, but I wanted the brand to be an extension of that. So I made hundreds and hundreds of shirts and jackets because they were all one offs.

Mossy: So after No Name Saint, just based on what I saw on your social media, it seemed like you were a bit broken up about that ending. Was it hard starting over on something new?

RK: Yeah, No Name Saint was just me and my partner Kurt. Kurt was also the drummer in two of my bands, so we’re great friends and tight, and he just wanted to move on with his life in a more financially solid way. I’m one of the last guys standing saying, “Hey I still wanna do this.” So I’m pretty used to people saying, “I’ve aged out of this” or “I love this, but I can’t do it for a career.” So I would never begrudge somebody their choice to move on. But I also felt like No Name Saint had run its course and that was something I had started with him, and if I was gonna do something else I needed it to be a fresh start. And that also coincided with the end of my last band, so it was kind of this period of endings, and I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do. So yeah, it was a little bit of a down period. But not with anger, just with you know…okay, endings.

Mossy: What do you think it is that makes you not age out of things?

RK: I’ve asked myself that question a lot, and I’ve wished that I could age out of it, or phase out of it many times. But pretty much since the moment that I picked up the guitar and wrote my first song, I’ve lived every day just wanting to do that. Every time I’ve tried to convince myself I should want something else, it feels like a betrayal. So I don’t know why I’m wired this way. And I think what I’ve come to accept is that I am wired this way, and I need to find a way to keep doing this, whatever that looks like. I mean, it’s called Dead End Career Club for a reason. I know the prospects aren’t great. (laughs)

Mossy: Yeah, I assumed the name had something to do with that. How did you arrive at that name?

RK: Well, there are a lot of well-meaning people who love me, that have, over the years gently told me, “You might want to find something else to do.” (laughs) You try something and it doesn’t work, and by the end of the third time you’re like, “Okay, if I willingly choose to go down this road again, I have to know exactly what road I’m going down, and that is a dead-end path commercially.” But artistically and emotionally I don’t believe in dead ends, so…

Mossy: I saw a shirt or a jacket on your IG that says 1-800-NOT- PUNK. How do you describe what is “not punk?”

RK: (Laughs) I put that on a lot of stuff, actually, but sometimes it’s hidden. I was on this 1-800 number kick. (laughs) I was making up these fake 1-800 numbers and 1-800-NOT-PUNK was one of them. I don’t know what punk is (laughs). I think punk is something that gets co-opted a lot, and I think that there would be people out there that say I’m co-opting it…that this style of jackets that I make and the ripped t-shirts and stuff speaks to a punk world that I don’t actually like. I mean, “The Clash” is one of my favorite bands ever. Are they punk? I don’t know. According to Johnny Lydon they’re not punk! But I don’t like the Sex Pistols either! (laughs) It’s just one of those things that you could ask ten different people and get ten different answers as to what is punk or what is not punk.

When I put 1-800-NOT-PUNK on a jacket if you tell me “That’s not punk,” or “That’s fake punk,” I can say, “Yeah, I fuckin’ told you! It says right there it’s not punk!” (Laughing) I didn’t call it punk, I’m not telling you that it’s punk, I’m not telling you that I’m punk…I’m just telling you that this is what I like.

Mossy: I think it comes down to authenticity. You don’t have to be squatting on the Lower East Side or something to be punk. It’s more about intention.

RK: I agree. I think people that make really hard decisions in life, both creatively and just like, lifestyle decisions, relationship decisions that are counter to the decisions that most people would make, that have the guts to do that…I think that’s punk. I think standing up for things is punk. Having opinions and sticking by them, no matter what they are, I think that’s punk. So yeah, I don’t think you have to have a mohawk and spikes on your jacket and like Rancid, but I’m not saying you can’t! So yeah, it’s just a play on the lack of an overall definition of punk.

Mossy: So your clothing line is Dead End Career Club and your band is Dead End Career Club…

RK: Well, it’s not really a clothing line. I mean, you can’t go online and buy it. There’s only one store in Nashville that sells my stuff. So that’s the only place you can go in and buy Dead End Career Club clothing. I’ve spent too much of my life thinking, “How am I gonna make money from this?” and then that impacts what I do. I think it’s just natural. You ask yourself, “How am I gonna make money from this?” Well, find the audience and cater to them. But what if what you actually wanna do isn’t built to cater to anybody? It’s built to be an expression of who you are, and your good days and your bad days and all that stuff. That’s not gonna cater very well to a target audience. So, it’s not much of a business, it’s an art project. It’s an extension of me and all the things that I do, all the things that I find interesting. And the canvases happen to be songs and clothing.

Mossy: Your EP is five songs. How do they all relate to each other so that you decided to release them as an album, rather than singles?

And where did the title “Skim Milk” come from?

RK: The title refers to the trimming of the fat. I’ve gone from being in a five-piece rock band…then a three-piece band, then a two-piece band, and then playing to a track, and now it’s just me playing with one string and singing. It’s as bare as I can get. If you take the one string away then I’m just acapella, which you’re not gonna hear that (laughs).

As to how the songs relate to each other…it’s not a concept album. They relate to each other the same way all my work does in that they’re these little snapshots of how I feel about myself on any given day. And I think that I do look for this overall arc between the clothing work and the music to be speaking the same language. And I feel there’s enough consistency there that I wanted to batch them together. I also feel like my music is not one that easily fits onto a playlist. Like, it’s a good mood ruin-er if you put it on the wrong playlist (laughs). And so the idea of just piecing out these singles one at a time…that’s not enough to get you actually into what I’m doing. I think for me, I wanted to put a bunch of songs together so you could sit down and at least spend twenty minutes listening to my vibe, instead of just one song at a time. I think it’s a bit more vibe music than playlist or single stuff.

Mossy: You said on your Spotify bio that you were “featured in Elle and Vogue, and other publications that mattered to you when.”

RK: (Laughs…hard) Who reads bios, right?

Mossy: When did they matter to you and when did they stop?

RK: I mean, I’ll be honest with you, if Vogue wanted to write about me now, that would matter to me. But, it mattered to me a lot when we started No Name Saint. We hired a publicist, and they actually posted some of our pieces, and I have those framed in my house. That did matter to me…in the same way that having a record label mattered to me. As these sort of barometers of success. They matter to me less now. Whether “Vogue” writes about me or not, it’s not gonna impact how I work. But you know, when you do get in “Elle” and they like something, it’s like, “Oh, well I’ll just do more of that.” In the same way that if you have a song that gets on the radio, you say, “Well, why don’t I just write another version of that?” And so it gets in your head. It’s not in my head now. But I would be lying to you if I said, “Yeah if Vogue called and said they wanted to talk to me, I would say no.” I wouldn’t fuckin’ say no! But it doesn’t matter to me like it used to.

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