JAVA Feb issue

Why did you stay?
I don’t like failure.
That’s awesome. Pure stubbornness.
Actually, I knew something could be done. It’s a good place to build and it’s a pretty
good location – close enough to LA, but not in the rat race. Everything is a quick
plane flight away.
The town is growing so rapidly right now, and I think, musically, Phoenix
is the best it has ever been.
Yes, but I think in ’05, ’06, there weren’t all the opportunities there are right now,
and you had to actually band together [as a scene] to make things happen. You
didn’t have the islands we have now, so all the different cliques had to work
together. Now, every sub-genre, it’s got its own thing. I miss the commingling when
you had to tolerate and accept each other. It was easier to create a scene then –
now you have specialty aisles.
In the ’80s, I remember the tribes gathering, for example, when you had a
band like Jane’s Addiction playing, where everybody liked it.
Right, if you liked funk, you liked Jane’s Addiction. If you liked rock and punk, you
liked Jane’s Addiction.
So how did you get acclimated?
I started going downtown and hanging out in record stores. At first I was in
Avondale and there was nothing there. It was like a twilight zone with
freeways leading to nowhere. So I started out hanging out at Stinkweeds
and Eastside Records, talking about music and trying to find people who
liked Fugazi. Eventually I got invited to a house party, started playing in bands
and met people like Michael Red, HotRock [SupaJoint] now. We formed Sound
of Birds.
Oh yes! I remember you guys, and I know Michael. He used to blow fire
with us sometimes when I was in Hillbilly Devilspeak.
I remember you guys. We played Black and Tan together. We played Emerald
Lounge…
Oh yes. That was one of those places that you could go in there and feel
like you were in any city, anywhere.
The Emerald was like my second house. It was just insult to injury when Starbucks
took over. You didn’t go there because the place was cool. You went there
because it was warm. It was human. There were good bands and it was
cheap. It was like that old beat-up car that you love. It was dirty, and sweaty,
but you felt an actual connection.
I love the Crescent but I don’t go there to feel like I’m going to connect with
people. I don’t expect a stranger to start a conversation with me when I’m
at Crescent. You knew, though, that if you walked into the Emerald, you will
interact with some fuckers, but everyone was cool. To step into that shithole,
you had to be cool.
Are you doing a band now?
I like playing in bands for the camaraderie and the process, but not so much the
gear hauling (laughs). I like being behind the scenes and creating sounds for
people, like a tailor making a suit. I will play during recording sessions, but I like
being a musician’s musician. I like co-writing, or if someone needs a musician for a
recording session. I was in the house band for the Tempe Center for the Arts when
they did their songwriting showcases.
I love being part of making music. It’s a good high. I love making things happen.
It seems like a lot of people I know who have studios, like Electric Lotus,
are struggling a bit right now.
The studio has really been paying for everything, but it is tough. That’s why it is
a calling. It makes it that much easier to not compromise on sacrifices. Because
there is that irrational vision that is your compass that makes you say, “I will not
buy new shoes for five years, but I need that fucking compressor.”
It drives everyone insane, but in this vision is absolutely clarity. It’s almost
the same fervor that you might find with religious nut bags, but you benefit
others by actually providing a project that is tangible rather than exploiting
psychological insecurity.
How did Chromodyne come about?
Chromodyne was created by coming full circle. Independent media is essentially
being destroyed, so by trying to think of what was [already] here, we decided to
start new. In the old days, if a recording studio believed in an artist, without having
a big company to seduce, they would do it themselves because they had the talent
and all they needed was a product [to release].
When did it start?
About a year and a half ago. It is fairly recent, but I’ve been working long enough
[in the industry] to assemble a team beyond the army of one, so we’re able to
move forward. It’s really done on a shoestring, but you have to have faith in
something.
You mentioned wanting to conquer Asia like Alexander the Great. How
does that work into your plan with Chromodyne?
I’m seeing India as becoming the second world economy soon. They have a
growing middle class that we no longer have here and they have interest. If they
have expendable income, they’re going to have a thirst. That’s why the civil rights
movement happened in the United States, because you had a strong middle class
and people had job security and time to think about other things other than their
own immediate survival. Isn’t that interesting?
Everything has backtracked. The consumption of “culture” has gone so far down
that people are now semi-illiterate, even with all the technology that is better than
we ever dreamed. I understand that convenience is not necessarily a means to
justify theory, but you can see who profits from these cultural crimes.
36 JAVA
MAGAZINE
JAVA 37
MAGAZINE