Sci-Fi Superhero

I sometimes struggle with how to categorize artists. For example, while Kirby Krackle is straight-ahead nerd rock and Dethlehem plays fantasy metal, John Anealio is more a… guitar geek troubadour?

The words, sometimes they fail me.

John and I recently made some time to talk about his unique style and his own circuitous musical evolution. Further, amid all this, he also hit me with his official bio. It reads thusly:

John Anealio performs geeky anthems for writers, librarians, lovers of Sci-Fi, Best Buy customers & robots. His music sounds like John Mayer, Weezer & James Taylor playing Dungeons & Dragons together on their iPhones. Check out his music at www.johnanealio.com

I reckon that about sums him up. Read on to discover the hidden mysteries of hair metal and John's own secret identity!

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John, despite the acoustic singer-songwriter slant of much of your contemporary output, you actually come from a metal background. Was that the style of music that originally inspired you to create, or was it something you discovered after picking up the guitar?

Definitely. Being exposed to the playing of (hair) metal guitarists like Paul Gilbert (Mr. Big), Vito Bratta (White Lion) and Reb Beach (Winger) inspired me to play. I was determined to compose and perform those types of fleet fingered solos. Looking back, it's pretty easy to see the connection between metal guitar and geek culture. Thumb through an old guitar magazine from the '80s/early '90s and check out those photos. Those guitarists look like Sci-Fi Superheroes! Long hair, spandex and bright, multi-colored guitars that looked like laser rifles. Musically, the distorted, finger tapped solos sounded like the soundtrack from an '80s video game.

Stylistically, you seem to be drawing from a number of places, so what about lingering influences? Are you still steeped in hair metal? What about lighter fare?

I've always had a voracious musical appetite and I've always been curious about music history. I always wanted to find out who influenced the musicians that I admired. My favorite metal guitarists would usually cite Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin's Jimmy Page would talk about his love of the blues, folk and world music. If you have an inquisitive mind, it's pretty easy to get lost in all of these different styles of music and over the course of my musical life, I have.

Eventually, my love of metal led to instrumental guitarists like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, which led to prog rock. As I became more interested in singing and songwriting, I got into The Beatles and Crowded House. When I started playing the coffee shops, I started to explore folk and acoustic blues. All of these influences impact my creative process in some way. It often depends on my mood or what seems appropriate for a particular song or piece of music.

Your latest release, Laser Zombie Robot Love, has an fascinating title with an even more interesting story behind it. How did you arrive at this unique name?

I co-host The Functional Nerds Podcast. Each week we interview a different sci-fi or fantasy author. Through the podcast, my music and my attendance at conventions, I've gotten to be pretty good friends with quite a few of these folks. I didn't have a set title for the album yet, so I thought it would be fun if some of my author friends submitted title suggestions by looking at the artwork and the track list. I my Twitter/Facebook friends and people on my mailing list to vote for their favorite. Chris F. Holm, Mur Lafferty, Paul S. Kemp, Robert Jackson Bennett, Myke Cole, Matt Forbeck and Karin Lowachee came up with excellent titles, but Chuck Wendig's Laser Zombie Robot Love pulled out the victory.

Speaking of, what's coming down the pike for The Functional Nerds?

More of the same. The strength of what Patrick and I do is consistency. We put out a show every single week. Each week we interview a Sci-Fi or Fantasy author and chat about geeky topics and make music, tech and book picks of the week.

I know from Functional Nerds that you're also a voracious reader; what books or authors are you currently digging?

Well, I'm an enthusiastic reader, but I'm terribly slow, so I don't know if I can describe myself as voracious. Here's a list of my favorite books from the past year:

1. The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett
2. Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig
3. Dead Harvest by Chris F. Holm
4. Control Point by Myke Cole
5. The Hammer & The Blade by Paul S. Kemp
6. Empire State by Adam Christopher
7. Awakenings by Edward Lazellari

Okay, back to the new release front. LZRL boasts 11 of what I like to think of as "John Anealio classics" as well as 9 bonus remixes and alternate takes. Do you do all your own remixing, and what inspires your continued experimentation with the sounds of electronica?

I did all of the remixes for LZRL. I know a lot of traditional musicians look down on electronic music because it isn't "real" and you're not really playing. I love the "sound" of electronic music. I love how insanely creative some electronic musicians are with the development of their sounds. I also dig that a lot of this type of music can't be played on a traditional instrument. Those flurries of arpeggios and off-kilter rhythms just sound so cool and I like seeing how those sounds can combine with my traditional songwriting.

What's your recording setup like? How do you go about producing, mixing and mastering?

Here's my gear list:

1. Rode NT-3 and NT-1 Condenser Mics
2. M-Audio Firewire 410 Audio Interface
3. MacBook (5 years old)
4. Logic Pro 8 Software

I use the mics to record my voice and acoustic instruments. My electric guitars go directly into the audio interface and are then processed by Logic's amp modeling software and effects.

All of the piano, organ, synth and drum sounds are produced in Logic. I arrange, mix and master everything in Logic too.

In your day job you're a music educator; do your students know about your secret life as a geek rock super hero?

They don't! Anealio is actually my middle name, spelled phonetically. Years ago, I released music under my real name, and I started to get uncomfortable when students or parents would show up at gigs or tell me that they saw my website. When I started doing geeky and sci-fi inspired music, I decided to perform under a pen/stage name. It was a good decision. It really liberated me to write about whatever I felt like.

You recently mentioned to me that you're on the Ladies of Ragnarok bill with Molly Lewis and The Doubleclicks when they pass through New Jersey. What's the skinny on that show?

I'm really excited about this. I've had the pleasure of opening for Paul & Storm in Salt Lake City in Nerdtacular as well as Marian Call in NJ a while back. I've been online friends with The Doubleclicks for a few years now, so it just made sense for me to open for them when they come through New Jersey. This is a house concert show, with limited seating, so reserve your space now! Here's the info.

Any other gigs lined up for those who'd like to experience your live performance?

I just performed as the musical guest of honor at Fencon in Dallas, Texas, which was great fun. In addition to the Ladies of Ragnarok show in New Jersey, I'll be performing another house concert in Maryland on Saturday, October 20th. Looking to book some more concerts/cons for 2012.

So what's the rest of 2012 look like for you? Any new projects planned or holiday releases in the works?

I've got a pile of unrecorded songs that I need to get to this year. Even though my songs are fully arranged with electric guitar, bass, drums, synths etc. on record, live I perform them all with just one acoustic guitar. To sound fuller, I finger pick and use various alternate tunings. Quite a few people have been pointing out how they want to hear more of this on my albums. A friend at my recent show in Dallas went as far as to say that my live guitar playing is what makes me sound like "me." He suggested making the acoustic guitar the focus and using subtle electronics and samples to support the guitar playing. I'm really inspired by this idea and I think that is the approach that I'll be taking with my next batch of songs.

And finally, John, what single track from this new release (or any of your previous efforts) best represents what you're about musically? What's the one song that potential fans should check out to get a proper feel for who you are and what you do?

It has to be "George R.R. Martin Is Not Your Bitch." It's poppy and funny and gives a good feel for my melodic and harmonic sense. Has a prog-ish guitar solo and outro and bits of electronica.

Yeah, that's all you, man. That's definitely you.

Nerd Up the 90s

Cover image by @wesleykhall 

I typically describe Twitter as "where the internet goes to try too hard," though maybe that’s just my experience. I use the service constantly, and most days it’s me and my friends (both far and near) simply trying to shock, amaze and/or enlighten each other in 140 characters or less.

But it’s also the place where weird ideas take flight.

You see, I didn't actually plan to do this compilation. It was just a passing thought, a half-hearted concept I put out there without really thinking about it. As is the case with so many things in life, I blame Mick Jones.

Stuck in traffic one morning, B.A.D. II’s "The Globe" came on in shuffle play. With nothing to do but drink coffee and think while frozen in gridlock, I started ruminating on the sound(s) of the 1990s. I thought about that strange decade in which I came of age, and, moreover, my 90s listening experience – the music that shaped me during those formative years.

So I posted something, and some other people responded back. And before I knew it, Nerd Up the 90s had become a thing.

I guess I had some vague notions about what a collection of 90s-era covers by some of my favorite geeky artists would be, what it would sound like. Oddly enough the finished product is totally different than I imagined. It is, like the decade that inspired it, quirky, eclectic and artistically enlightened in spite of itself.

You won’t hear any Pearl Jam, but Miscast grunges up The Cardigans. There’s no Arrested Development, but r_garcia slays a Beasties classic. Without fail the acts that approached me to contribute and the source material they drew from surprised as much as they delighted. And in the end I realized that my 1990s really were the same as everyone else’s: incredibly strange and positively fraught with the unexpected.

Please check out Nerd Up the 90s – 11 songs by my extended internet family, one truly inspired piece of cover art by new homie Wesley Hall and a some liner notes from little old me – below. Hopefully you’ll find brand new takes on some of your old favorites, or, better yet, a newfound appreciation for some long-forgotten earworms.

Download Nerd Up the 90s RAR 
Download Nerd Up the 90s ZIP

Featuring the talents of:
Marc with a C – "Turn it On"
Untested Methods – "Hey Man, Nice Shot (feat. illuminerdi)"
r_garcia – "The Maestro"
Brux Callison and The Entangled Photons – "I Robot Touch My Robot Self"
Fiction – "Lay My Love"
Dual Core – "Natural Boom Boom for You"
Miscast – "My Favorite Game"
Black Cat Hit Squad – "God"
Glenn Case – "The Best Things"
The Various Artists – "The Sign (feat. Camila Melodia)"
John Anealio – "Good"

Thanks to all the contributors, and extra special thanks to the great and powerful Wesley, who nailed the album cover art!

Mutant Liberation

Due to what he and I laughingly refer to as "a conflict of interest," I did not review You Dare Call That Thing Human?!?, the latest, greatest LP from pop culture rapper Adam WarRock. Some of you have probably noticed that. Y’know, because the album was a big fuckin’ deal.

The delicate nature of the internet means that I spend the bulk of my time attempting to distance myself emotionally from the work of folks that I both like as people and respect as artists as I thoroughly, clinically dissect their flow and lyrical content. It's not always easy, but it's the job I chose.

Eugene wrote most of YDCTTH?!? while in the throes of his first big tour with Random, MC Lars and mc chris. And at irregular intervals while on the road – which is, as I hear it, a lot like being in a war: long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of adrenaline-soaked exhilaration – he'd holler at me and we'd talk. As a result I probably know a bit more about the sheer quantity of blood, sweat and tears poured into that particular product than the Average Joe. How the sausage is made and all that.

I won't bore you with the details, but I will say that having a front row seat as one of the most creative cats I've ever known talked himself through his second proper full-length effort was pretty amazing. Not to mention goddamn inspiring.

Between the easy thematic cohesion of his debut and the runaway success of follow-up projects like his Firefly mixtape with Mikal kHill, Adam was rather concerned about the album that would eventually become this release. But he used that anxiety. He leveraged that energy.

The idea of the sophomore album slump is generally rooted in two distinct places; on the one hand a performer does not want to disappoint his fanbase, on the other he doesn't wish to limit himself artistically. Adam added to this an as yet unheard-of third hand: the disconnect between the booth and the stage.

But I've already said too much.

I didn't review You Dare Call That Thing Human?!?, because I was too close to the source. I was there, more or less at its birth, so I will instead flash back a few months to that more relevant moment in time. It’s a little interview I did with Euge right after the album’s proper release, and I think it gives you a real idea of his head-space at the time.

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I imagine you've told this tale countless times, Euge, but never to me. So, uh, how does one go from being a lawyer to being a professional hip-hopper? What was your journey?


I think what it boils down to is that a lot of people with a creative background or urge try to convince themselves that they can relegate their creative impulses to hobbies, or side projects, and work a dayjob in the meantime. And somewhere along the way, you get a mortgage, you get kids, you settle down and your job becomes your life, because that's your responsibility. The creative stuff fizzles away. I was lucky (if that's even the word) to not have any of those things to contend with, and I was pretty miserable trying to push back my creative urges, and my creative urge happened to be making hip hop. So I quit. There's a long list of lawyers, PhD holders, engineers, etc., who have become comedians (Greg Giraldo), or TV writers (anyone on the Simpsons/Futurama), people who turned their back on a more sure thing, and did something wonderful and creative with their lives. There's a long list of success stories, more than you'd think there were. You just have to find them, and take inspiration from them, hope that it will give you the strength to believe that something good can happen.


The short story is that my boss sucked, and I was never really a very good lawyer either.

Your proper introduction to the nerdier side of the underground rap scene was 2010's The War for Infinity. Since that time you've repped every series from Chew to the West Coast Avengers. How long have you been into comics, and at what point did this interest begin to inspire you artistically?


It's funny, I still own the first comic I ever had, and remember very clearly what year it was. I was 9, I bought an Avengers annual at the grocery store, and I became addicted to comics. I had been a baseball card collector up until then, and when I found comics, I realized, "Wow! You mean there's something I can collect AND emotionally invest in?" And from there, it was off to the races.


I guess comics always sort of inspired me, I used to sketch and ink as a kid. There was a time when I took art classes and wanted to be an artist. But rapping about comics was never a conscious thing. I just wanted things to rap about when I started doing music again, and I was really into comics, so I did that. No grand plan. It just sort of worked out that way.

In addition to comics you've also begun to mine television properties like Firefly and Parks & Recreation. How important is pop culture in your creative process?


Pop culture is everything in my creative process. Everything I do, from watching TV, to reading comics, to seeing movies, I see through the lens of something that can give me inspiration, even if it's just for one stupid throwaway line. One of the great things about the era we live in, and maybe it started with guys like Chuck Klosterman or other writers like that, there's no stigma about low brow culture. Music has always been "low brow," or at least lowest common denominator. TV has always been that. Most movies are. They were seen as low brow culture, and yet, could still elicit these wonderful emotional reactions, these great binding experiences, and yet they still got stigmatized as something less important that purported "high brow" things. What a crock. If sharing an experience in popular culture brings you closer with other people, it's important. If you are moved by a Justin Bieber song, it's important. You can't point and say one form of art or expression is more important or worth more than the other, it's a subjective discussion. I don't care about Sartre or Monet, does that make them less important in history? No. But does it make it automatically important to ME because they are deemed high achievements in their field? No. I'd rather read comics and watch TV.

You've become quite the tour horse over the past several months. Has this transition from recording musician to touring musician been difficult?


It's not really more or less difficult. There is a certain amount of existential pain in sitting in an apartment and just waiting for the world to come to you, sitting in a cafe and trying to break a song. You trade that for the pain of lifting boxes of merch, getting through these long drives, but at the end, you're rewarded with great fan interaction and really satisfying live shows.


The only thing that I can't seem to get used to is how to figure out when to do laundry. I can never figure out how much clothes to bring on the road.

You hit the road last year with mc chris, MC Lars and Random as part of a national tour before teaming with Illbotz, The ThoughtCriminals, Dual Core and Tribe One for a smaller regional affair. And now you're playing a series of West Coast dates with fellow comic book geeks Kirby Krackle. Have you noticed any underlying commonalities between these contrasting settings and lineups? Are there any recurring motifs that you always encounter on the road, or is each experience vastly different?


The one unifying characteristic is the underlying current of positivity. People are so open to experiencing new music, and while you may not always win over new fans, they are at least going to give you the opportunity to appeal to them. That's a really new thing, something you don't see in a lot of traditional music shows, where most people (myself included) just wait through the opening act, or don't care about the bands they don't know. Again, it goes back to speaking on pop culture and common things that everyone can relate to, you have the chance to give people a new perspective on important things to them, and they most often respond really well.


Of course, every time we play The Milestone in Charlotte, that show always sort of stands out as way more… what's the word, insane? Punk? Hardcore? I don't have shows like that in many places, and I think my punk/hardcore roots come out when we're there. It almost makes it worth having to use those bathrooms…


You Dare Call That Thing Human?!? seems to harness a lot of your stage energy. Was it hard to reproduce that sort of performance in-studio?


I don't know if it was hard, I just don't think I ever even thought of that before. When I did The War For Infinity, I hadn't performed live in YEARS, so it wasn't on my mind. When I did Human?!?, I had just come off a 3 months of live shows, so it was still on my mind when I went to record a lot of songs.

You've got a number of really impressive guest stars this time around: Tribe One and kHill, Beefy and int 80, Lars and Doc Awk. Was there anyone that you desperately wanted to spit on a track that just didn't work out this time around? Any guests you're already eyeing for your next project?


Ha. This is one of those Z. trick questions, where you try to get me to reveal secret plans I'm working on. I will say this, I was really bummed that the schedule didn't work out to get any of the Fake Four guys on it, as I've gotten to know guys like Ceschi and Louis Logic recently, who I was already huge fans of. But I never even asked anyone, so it's not really a disappointment. I also am definitely going to do a track with YTCracker sooner rather than later, we've been talking a lot, and I think it would be fun.


As for people I'm eyeing for my next project, well, let's just say I have some surprises in line, and I'll let you know as soon as I can talk about them.

The songs on YDCTTH?!? are interesting in that, while you seem to be playing a number of different characters this time around (as opposed to the singular protagonist of Infinity), many of the tracks seem much more personal in nature. Do you feel you're putting more of yourself into your music or perhaps you're simply more comfortable adding more personal elements to your story-songs? Or am I just totally full of shit?


I think that Human?!? is just an overall more personal record than WFI by the nature of it not being a narrative concept album. I'm always comfortable talking about myself in a personal fashion, whether in conversation or music. I'm a pretty open book. I've always put it into my music, but I just kinda felt like coming out with a debut talking about myself, with no context, doesn't make a lot of sense. It's ironic, because Human?!? is much more of a "debut" than the last one was, but it never would've made sense to make it as my debut.

You tend to play around a bit with established hip-hop tropes. On this album, for example, you begin with a variation on the classic-style intro track, you include a vague skit or two and you even riff on the "no homo" thing. You also entertain a number of additional rap aliases (compliments of Baron Vaughn) at the conclusion of the song "Civil War," but I notice you missed a few. Most specifically Ahn Like Donkey Kong, Eugenics and Alan Moore-Rock. I realize that's not a proper interview question, but, y'know, I just kinda had to say it.


I find it so hilarious how many people think that's ME on the introduction. Yeah, that's Baron Vaughn, who is not only an incredible actor and stand-up comedian, but is also a fellow nerd, an amazing beatboxer and hip hop fan, and also just a great guy to talk to. He has a podcast called Deep Shit, which everyone should check out, it's amazing.


I just wanted this to be a regular ass album. It's my version of the regular album. There's some thematic things in it if you want to dig for it, but it's as regular an album as I'll ever make. Enjoy it. The next one will probably be weird and out there, in comparison.

Speaking of "Civil War," issues of race and culture seem to crop up regularly on the new record, both via the mutant allegory and through some pretty candid personal statements. Do you actually still encounter those who can't fathom why an Asian-American is involved in hip-hop culture, or was this experience more confined to your formative years?


Honestly, I have never encountered someone who has a problem that I'm Asian, and that I rap. It seems like a lot of people WANT me to have those experiences, want any success I achieve to be a big "fuck you" to those people, but I don't find that happening. The only thing I've ever experienced is: "just be good." Nothing to do with anyone's race. Fat, skinny, tall, short, Asian, black, white, whatever, just be a good rapper.

One of the many standout tracks on the new release is "Sensitive Side." What was the most recent movie that made you cry, and is 2012 the year of the sensitive rapper?


Oh shit. Probably The Grey. But I can't imagine any guy seeing that movie and not being kind of devastated by the end of it. It's just a movie about men coming to grips with death and their lives. I mean, what the hell.


I don't know, are there other sensitive rappers out there? I just know I am a huge pussy, and that's the reality of it. I think that came out of me writing some really aggressive raps, and laughing because I was like, "Man this is not what I am like at ALL." So I wrote "Sensitive Side," and put it all out there. I do love rom coms.

"I Kill Giants" also manages to make quite the impression, thanks in no small part to Vince Vandal's delicate backing beat that contrasts strongly against joints like "MLF." Was there any discussion about musical eclecticism during the creation of the project, or did the disparate nature of the production simply occur organically?


It's funny you say that, because I think Vince thinks the album is too cohesive in tone and sound. Honestly, the album started out as an EP, and we had so many beats lying around, it became an LP. So there wasn't a lot of conscious thought behind the beats and the nature of them. We just sequenced it as best we could when it was all done. I will say this much, "Beast I.Z." was the last song we did, literally a week before we sent it to masters, after we nixed a song off of the final album. And I think that's a beat that really stands out, because it's so different from the rest of it, probably beccause it was so late in the process after we'd listened to the rest of the album a million times.

There are a lot of obvious musical triumphs on YDCTTH?! – the interplay between opener and closer, the raw power of "The Kids Table," the fact that our eternally stone-faced buddy kHill actually sounds happy for a brief and shining moment there at the end of "Booster Gold." (Just playin', Mikal! :P) If you could distill the entire work into a single moment, just one brief line or passage that explains where Adam WarRock is right now and where he's going, what would it be?


I think "Retcon" is a pretty good slide of where I'm at right now. That was the first song I wrote and finished for the new album, and I have a feeling that it's going to be a recurring experience of starting over at new levels, of looking back on why you do the things you do. You can have a plan, and if you're lucky, the plan works. And then you get to this point where you stop and say, "Uh oh… what's next?" and just kind of look around, and hope that you can figure out some direction to go in. You can't plan out 10 steps ahead, you can only really see a few ahead of you and then get ready to have your whole world turned upside down again when you get to that next stopping point. "Retcon" definitely represents that constant metamorphosis to me, especially that third verse. It's that sense of triumph, without getting to enjoy it, because you're immediately back to wondering, "What the hell am I doing!?"

Lastly, Euge, when I think about Adam WarRock I think about both quality and quantity. How do you explain your inexhaustible productivity? What's the secret, man?!


I drink a lot of coffee. I eat a lot of high-sugar breakfast cereals. I also am convinced that this won't last much longer, so I'm trying to get as much done while this ride goes on, for as short or long as it goes.


I'll sleep when I'm dead.

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I'm not sure if you've been fortunate enough to catch Adam live, but, as composed and well-tempered as WarRock typically is on wax, he is a goddamn monster on-stage. A monster!

If anything, You Dare Call That Thing Human?!? captures that. It leverages not only that energy, that dynamism, but also Euge's unique swagger. It's a rare bird like that.

From its poignant spoken-word introduction to the electric refrain of "Retcon" – merely the latest in WarRock's continued collection of personal anthems – to the gorgeous key-heavy hook of "I Kill Giants," it's every bit as eclectic as the lyricist at its heart. With stellar production by Vince Vandal, the requisite bevy of top-shelf guests and a strength drawn from a shared cause of quality, it set the bar for 2012's new releases unimaginably high early on.

But Eugene hasn’t exactly been wiling away the hours since. He’s continued to drop regular freebie singles via his site. He’s played another SXSW and rocked that tour with fellow comic nerds Kirby Krackle. And he’s released an incalculable number of EPs.

And now, as we stand mere days away from his proper foray into yet another proper flavor of pop culture music, I remain ever awed.

Because Adam WarRock is a genuine musical superhero.

Mega-Mania

As music fans, hell, as consumers we're a pretty difficult lot. I mean, we want our favorite artists to be consistent—or, more to the point, consistently good—but we also want them to do new and exciting things.

Basically what I'm saying is that listeners are assholes and that the acts we love are unquestionably screwed.

Okay, I'm just playin'. Sort of.

Still, I think we've all gotten frustrated in the past both by bands cashing in on the same sounds and concepts, "phoning it in" as the kids says, and with artists trying to reinvent themselves (sometimes even to the point of delegitimizing their own previous output) at every turn.

So what's the happy medium? Sometimes you have to break with the old for the sake of the new. Recently the Blue Bomber himself, Mega Ran, announced that he was abandoning that moniker as he moved forward.

Always one to be willing to talk about the long, hard walk of the independent artist, he took some time to answer my questions about this decision and to reflect on his own unique musical evolution.

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It's been a while since we've talked, and in that time you've done–well, I'm afraid "a lot" is rather underselling it! Mega Ran 9, Forever Famicom, Black Materia, Mega Ran 10; all things considered you've dropped no fewer than eight releases in the past three years. Is being prolific more an art or a science, and what's your own secret for keeping your output fresh?

I don't know if I could call it a secret, but the only way for me to keep things fresh musically is to experience more. When something gets boring, I have to move away from it and try something else. Retraining your brain is important. I've read books and studies on it, and it really does help you to think differently. Drive a different way home from work... tie your shoes another way… I don't know… anything to keep your brain on its toes. One day a week, I watch TV, and when I do, I may watch documentaries, another day it's The Office or Walking Dead, most days I'm trying to experience life and write about it. Definitely a combination of arts and sciences to my approach.

It's been six years since your RAHM Nation debut The Call. A dozen albums later, how do you feel you've changed as a songwriter?

Wow, those numbers make me feel very old... 6 years, 12 albums, oh my. It's strange, because I look back and listen to albums like The Call and things I did while a part of RAHM Nation, and I don't even feel like I'm the same person... heck, I don't even agree with a lot of the things I said on some of those records anymore, ha. I really see the growth, and though it makes me somewhat ashamed of who I was, I'm also very proud of what we accomplished and how far I've come. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm better than I was last week, baby steps I guess, as some poet said. Wow, just wow.

In that time you've made a lot of interesting connections. Obviously you've toured with guys like MC Lars and mc chris, but, more importantly, you've managed to create some really amazing collaborations with cats like Lost Perception and K-Murdock. How do you feel these collabs have altered your creative process?

I love bringing someone else on board because it creates such a different type of energy that keeps me on my toes. Between K-Murdock, Lost Perception and DN3, these guys challenge me in unimaginable ways with what they're able to do with music. I just try my best to keep up. I love collaborating; in the early days, before Random was Mega Ran, I'd make tapes at home with my crew, and I would feature a different artist on each song, mainly because I hated the sound of my voice, and wanted it to be on a song as little as possible. Today, I still hate my voice, but I like to collaborate to help both of us bring something out of the other that may not have been there in the past. I'm so thankful for the times I get to sit down with great rappers and producers and craft songs, because they give me ideas for rhymes and subjects that I wouldn't have come up with had I been sitting alone. K-Murdock said his original plan for Forever Famicom was an all-instrumental album before I came along... I don't know if either of us would have been the same had it remained in beat-only form.

Speaking of Murdock, you two just recently returned from Japan as part of the More B.A.R.K. Less Bitin' tour. What was that experience like, especially for artists so rooted in eastern pop culture like video games and anime?

Man... As gamers, nerds and cartoon addicts, Japan is our Mecca, our motherland, where we have learned, borrowed and taken so much culture from. It's a place I never thought I would see in my lifetime and I'm thankful to the folks at JTB Travel Agency and Tomamaru Entertainment for making that happen. It all started as a great idea from emcee Substantial, who then got DJ Asu Rock and then K and myself involved in an epic trip where we not only got to enjoy the land of the Rising Sun, but to perform there, AND to bring fans who also had never been. I had a blast. Time flies in Japan faster than anywhere I've ever been, that's for sure. Great friendships were forged, and hopefully we'll be doing another More B.A.R.K. tour this year.

Aside from your sojourn to the Far East, certainly the biggest news to come out of the Random camp of late concerned Mega Ran 10. Is this truly the last Mega Ran album?

It is. I hope the fans understand, but I feel like it was time to go out with a bang. Mega Ran 10 was an album to prove a point to myself, because it was probably my least favorite soundtrack of the Mega Man game series. I wanted to see if I could make something fresh that I enjoyed more than the original source material. It took about 2 years, but I managed to pull it off.

What motivated you to retire the Blue Bomber?

I think it's just time, man... I mean, all of the Capcom drama surrounding the character makes it pretty obvious that the Blue One doesn't seem to fit into their long term plans. The good news is just like we have countless Mega Man games we can pop in to relive the Bomber's heyday, we have 3 great Mega Man themed rap albums... I'd say that's more than enough. I thought a lot this past year about leaving a legacy, and though the title of "Mega Man rapper" tends to turn more than a few heads, I don't know if it fully encompasses what I have done and plan to do in the future.

Do you fear you'll always be associated with Mega Ran? Do you still plan to perform those fan-favorite tracks live?

Oh of course. I didn't choose it, but at every show this fall with Lars and chris, I was on the marquee as "Mega Ran." Those fans will forever know me as such, and I'm okay with that. As a full-time musician now, I realize the importance of owning your catalog. And though Capcom was extremely helpful to me, if God forbid that relationship were to turn sour, I'd like to know that I can still make a living making music that I enjoy. Any Mega Ran song I write, no matter how personal, how awesome or how catchy, it is only half mine. But I love to perform those songs, and as long as I can help it, "Grow Up," "Splash Woman" and "Lookin' Up" will be a part of any Random live set moving forward.

I've mentioned before that "Lookin' Up" is, in my eyes, the quintessential Mega Ran joint. What song do you feel best captures the spirit of that and highly successful ongoing project?

Thank you. I think "Lookin' Up" as well, but many others tell me that "Sick!!" is the one they replay the most... which is awesome because I first released the song on Capcom-Unity in mid-2010. So 2 and a half years later, for that song to still be talked about and a reason people bought the album is amazing. People always complain about the lack of patience in today's fans, but my MegaManiacs—I'm trying to think of a cool name for my fans, still working on that—came through and showed out big time. For an album to be 2.5 years from conception to execution in this day and age, with the fans being updated on every step, and for the album to still hit #2 on Bandcamp in sales, is amazing. I also love "Now Hiring" a song I conceptualized in London while watching my email pile up... Though I'm happy to say that now, I DO have a manager! w00t!

Next on the horizon from Random is a Black Materia remix album. What manner of new hotness can fans of the original expect from this release?

We've been working hard on this, honestly, since about a month after the original released last January. The cool thing about Lost Perception is that he's a perfectionist when it comes to beats, so he'll send me 8 versions of the same beat to choose from... so although I only choose one, several of those may be very dope, so I thought, let's rework the tracks and use some of these alternate mixes you've sent. We're also outsourcing some production to some great producers to give the tracks their own spin. I wanted to create something that wasn't a cheap cash-in like these video game developers do, but more of a re-imagination of the tracks they loved... add-ons and bonuses for people who want more of the same but in a new package... almost like the music version of DLC. So for that reason, the Black Materia: The Remixes album will only be available digitally and will only cost $5. The first single "Ninja Girl" produced by DN3, will release soon.

As you look to the future, do you feel you'll continue to mine video games as a source of musical inspiration?

I think it'll always be a part of my thought process... as time goes on, I'd like to do a little less direct sampling and more original chiptune styled hip hop beats. I feel like we've got something really good here and though I don't want to end it, I just want to extend it. If I were doing the same thing I did 5 years ago, that wouldn't be very Random at all. I want to help create an additional lane for hip-hop as well as music in general, moving forward. So the next album will be highly game, anime and comic influenced, but won't involve 8-bit samples.

There seems to be this never-ending drama surrounding nerdcore, with some clinging tenaciously too it and still others seeking to actively distance themselves from the term. For the most part, however, you seem fairly indifferent. How concerned are you with the labels that others may associate with your music?

Not very. It's funny though, when people say to me "You're my favorite nerdcore rapper!" I'm very humbled and thankful for that, there's no time, or reason to say, "Well actually, I consider myself a neo-nerdy-soul-core-chip-hop artist!" As I learned from many of my forefathers in this subgenre, there's no use trying to run from what people will say about you. People will classify you however they want. In 2007 while I was begging for the support of my peers in the underground-soulful-backpack rap crowd, it was the nerdcore fans who embraced me like one of their own, invited me to play shows, into their homes, and into their families. And I don't know who said it, but when you have family, you have everything you ever need. Even a dumb dog knows to go where he's wanted.

Lastly, Ran, if you could tell your 2007 self, that guy who was just getting' ready to drop his first Mega Man-themed hip-hop album, one thing, what would it be?

DON'T DO IT!! Nah, that definitely wouldn't be it. I would tell him to relax, take off his cool a bit, and embrace his creative self. When I dropped that album, I was so afraid of it losing me whatever I had thought I had gained in the hip-hop world, and all it did was multiply it. I was so afraid of ridicule that I created a separate MySpace page for it, and I dismissed it as a "side project" in interviews and everything. I quickly worked on new albums and foolishly rushed releases out to dilute the effect that I thought Mega Ran was having on my "true school hip hop" credibility. I didn't think my fans would be comfortable with that experience, and I really shouldn't have cared! That's what an artist is supposed to do, bring you into his or her world for that 50 or so minutes that you have their attention. I don't have many regrets in my career, but one of them is releasing Patches and Glue and The 8th Day so close together. I feel that both of those are 2 classic album experiences that everyone should listen to… In fact, go listen to them now!

--

And you know what? I did.

After completing this interview I went back and listened The 8th Day and Patches, as well as The Call. And something interesting happened; I had just as enjoyable a listening experience as I did with Famicom or Mega Ran 10.

You see, as much as Ran has changed, as much as he grown and evolved and, yeah, occasionally misstepped, as much as his voice and his swagger and his flow have strengthened over the years, I was reminded by a quick look back down his artistic path that he has always been a dope-ass MC. And I can't help but believe he always will be.

As sad as a part of me is to hear, all official-like, that he's abandoning his old stage persona, I certainly understand. He's no more required to be the same rapper he was 6 years ago as I am to be the same writer. Age and experience mold us, and that is reflected both in what we do and in how we do it. Art changes you, and that in turn changes your art.

Whatever's next for Random, we cannot possibly know. And it's impossible for even the man himself to anticipate where inspiration will ultimately lead him, but the one thing I know is that I'll still be here. Listening.

Mega Ran is dead. Long live Mega Ran.

Hugging it Out

Some people you just can't help but like. Such is the case with Marc with a C.

I can't quite recall when I first made his acquaintance, but I just remember feeling an immediate sense of connection.

Marc Sirdoreus is, to put it most plainly, my kind of people. There's something to be said for knowing that there's a guy out there who can, at the drop of a hat, help me track down a digital version of The Figgs Lo-Fi at Society High, and that there's at least one other person totally perplexed that only 8 tracks from the super pricey Deluxe-Director's-Cut-I-am-the-Fuckin'-Sea-Box-Set-Special-Edition of Quadrophenia were remixed in 5.1.

We just connect like that.

Yet for all our kinship, I've never actually interviewed Marc. And that was at least one ill that I could easily set right.

--

I think you and I have been talking music – favorite bands and must-have albums and the like – for as long as we've known each other. But, for the sake of proper interview decorum, who are your primary influences as a songwriter? 

I'm not sure that my answers will be terribly surprising, but here they are. As far as general composition and patterns go, Pete Townshend is the almighty number one of my list of influences. He's the guy that showed me how important it was to serve the needs of the song before your own, even if that means simplifying when you don't want to, or maybe relying on instrumentation that might not necessarily be what you'd listen to in your own spare time. Thanks to being a student of his work, I realized that even though I made up the songs, I was just a vessel for them, and the audience is going to do whatever they want with the tunes. For example, I'm usually not writing to be humorous, but if it makes the listener laugh, then that's probably what the song was meant to do. The song is king. In Pete's case, the average listener of classic rock radio might not realize that "Bargain" and "Let My Love Open the Door" are respectively about and from the perspective of god. Most people don't get that "Won't Get Fooled Again" is about political apathy. And fewer people yet will realize that "Baba O'Riley" started off its life being more or less from the point of view of futuristic farmers. The songs are meant to be what the audience makes of them, and it's pointless to fight it, so you might as well do what the song demands of you.

Beyond Townshend? The Monkees were huge to me. So was pre-1973 Pink Floyd. A good portion of my classic country worship comes from Hank Williams. The jangly side is probably derived from The Lemonheads. You can trace most of my influences in vocal harmony to the first three Duran Duran albums, and... okay, well I guess it might be kind of a surprise that I would equally count Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper amongst those ranks. Especially Alice. He's one of the most underrated songwriters around, and when it comes to showmanship, he's impossible to fuck with. But the biggest inspiration with Alice Cooper was that after a certain point, he started writing from the perspective of "what would Alice do next," recognizing that he was serving a character, a mythos, and it was best to write for that person's performing capabilities. In that sense, Alice Cooper might be just as important to me as good ol' Pete.

With 10 years' worth of albums, EPs and crazy-ass cover projects under your belt, you've got a rather expansive repertoire. Is there a single track or release that you look back on with particular pride? A lone piece that truly captures what Marc with a C is all about? 

Wow, you're just leaping right out of the gate into the tough questions, Z!

(You know I don't fuck around, Marc! :P) 

A lot of answers come to mind, but I think the album that to me perfectly encapsulates the best examples of me having an idea, writing it, recording it and keeping it relatively close to how I initially thought it'd turn out? That would unquestionably be my 2007 album Normal Bias. Not only do I love the sound and pacing of it, but I think that all of the songs are really good (most of the eleven songs still show up in my shows quite often, especially "Classic Country Wasn't Multitracked In '61," "Drunk Classic Rock Fans" and "Happy to Be Alive.") I still fantasize about one day getting that release out on vinyl, but I'm too afraid that there's not enough interest in it and I'd be left with a house packed to the ceiling with large unsold reminders that my best album isn't what people want. Sob.

I think if you had to boil it even further down to just one song? I'd be hard-pressed to even pretend that it isn't "I'm In Love with Everyone I Know". Especially the version that is on the RetroLowFi compilation. Usually I'll introduce it during live shows as "everything you need to know about Marc With a C in under four minutes."

2010's Pop! Pop! Pop! marked your first foray into the realm of purely digital recording. Was that a particularly difficult transition for you, what with the old school, lo-fi aesthetic of your work up to that point? 

Oh my god, yes. I simply didn't get it at all, but I knew that there were different frequencies that I could be playing with, and I forced myself through learning as much as I could about digital recording in the shortest amount of time possible. The main reason for the jump into digital was not ease (or being sick of broken four-tracks), but really a rather boring one: I'm very hard of hearing, and it was sometimes easier to make edits visually rather than trusting my surgically damaged ears. But now I really enjoy it, and I'm digging that I can stack as many vocal harmonies as my sound card will allow me to play at once without any generational loss.

Getting back to the initial point, though? I was so far in the weeds making Pop! Pop! Pop! that I didn't realize that the initial batch of mp3's that I'd sent out were at 48000 hz, making it play at the wrong speeds on some players. And I never, ever got the mastering of that one properly for digital listening. When it finally came out on vinyl, it sounded so comparatively full and seamless that a few fans actually emailed to ask if I'd re-recorded certain parts. I didn't do that, of course, but even when recording digitally, my head and ears still clearly only think and understand music in terms of analog frequency response.

That released differed greatly from your follow-up full-length Motherfuckers Be Bullshittin', which was a modern day concept album. What was the impetus of that album? 

In late 2010, I'm in the car with my wife, and we're debating how on earth I can fit the songs I'd written for the next album together in the same package without making it as schizophrenic as the demo collection we were listening to was coming across. I mean, there's a very misogynistic track called "You're My Princess," songs about technological paranoia, all of these cryptic lyrics, and even a tune about flossing. It was starting to seem more like a mixtape than an album, and I didn't know what direction I needed to go in to make it all come together. All of a sudden, I blurt out an idea so bad that I'm almost embarrassed to have come up with it: make a rock opera based on The Jerk, but this one would be a sequel that (much like the very fairly maligned film The Jerk, Too) was about a different Navin altogether.

That idea quickly (and thankfully) proved to be less than workable (or good), but the seeds were there. Instead, I just kept writing and editing and eventually let the songs dictate what story should be told. Eventually I just started imagining that the songs were the experiences of the subjects of the first song I'd written for the album, "Brian, Jenny & The Mayan Calendar." This made it easier, writing for the actions of characters instead of from a personal vantage point, and then I was free to run headlong into making the album a secret catalyst for spouting off my own spiritual beliefs.

Plus, it made for a pretty striking album cover, no?

I must ask, Marc; how were the truths of The Great Squiddy revealed to you? Were there any golden plates involved (a la Joseph Smith)? 

No, no... nothing quite so insane. I was actually alerted to the coming of our Great Wet One via a Facebook event invite.

I've been on a spiritual quest my entire life. No matter how insane your religious beliefs might sound to the average guy, I'll probably sit down and listen to you with rapt attention. I love to learn about the faith that serves as a moral compass getting you through your day. I've worn many religious hats in my day, and I spent most of my life believing that there is no right or wrong god to worship, as long as nobody got hurt.

It turns out that I was wrong. Squiddy is the one true creator, prophet and cephalopod. The icy apocalypse will harm many, and I'm very excited to be destroyed by this deity.

I quickly ascended to the higher ranks of the Atlantian commune, was given access to the original texts, and the Squelders thought that it might be a good idea to start letting The Great Squiddy inform the direction of my music. Otherwise, it'd be really hard for us to convince kids to run away from their homes and join us in this spacious land that Squiddy allows us to keep. But I'm doing my best, and I can just hope that the message isn't lost on the listener.

You're not the first to spread the word of an otherworldly imprisoned cephalopod. Does the Squiddy mythos owe any debt to H.P. Lovecraft? 

I'll have to quote The Great Squiddy himself on this one: "It's been done."

Okay, enough about MfBB and its inky dogma. Tell me about your newest project. 

Well, every year I put out a free digital release just to say "thank you" to anyone that likes what I do. Sometimes it's a live show, sometimes it's a collection of covers, and this year? It's actually a new EP called Recorded Sound. Besides a radio-friendly version of Rappy McRapperson and MC Wreckshin's "Show Me How To Blow Dudes," it's made up of songs that simply didn't fit on earlier releases, but these weren't mere outtakes... these were songs that I thought could be the backbone of the respective albums that they were slated to be on, but ended up not making sense at the last minute. All of the recordings were done in 2011, so these aren't scratchy old four-track recordings that I polished up. I think it makes up a very interesting whole, and it's a very fun listen.

Your music tends to walk the fine line between easily relatable, slice-of-life musical narratives and irreverent, often bawdy humor. How much of the latter works its way into this EP? 

Not as much as you'd think, really. I truly love Rappy and Wreckshin's "Show Me How To Blow Dudes," and I think that it's one of the catchiest songs I've ever heard, and my version of it takes all of the bawdy humor out in an attempt to make a very straight-forward and kid-friendly take on how to properly polish a shoe.

A song like "Touchdown" could be taken as humorous, but I assure you, I wasn't kidding. That is a very "on the nose" version of what I see anytime a football game is on in front of me. A man is being chased while running with a ball. He isn't caught. He is rewarded with kajillions of dollars. He is later cleared of all date rape charges.

And then there's a song like "Another Minute or So," which was something I'd been kicking around for years. It was a little too layered for the album it was intended to be on originally (2005's This World Is Scary as Fuck), but it's actually been a contender for each album since. I decided to just give the song its own EP. To me, the EP is just a big excuse to release that song, and the preceding tunes on this release are simply bonus tracks. Almost.

Recently your radio show The Real Congregation made the jump from the WPRK airwaves to the Nerdy Show podcast roster. What does this new internet format mean for the show? 

It means that the show will not suffer due to antiquated college radio equipment any longer. For the final year of my run on WPRK, there were never actually any record needles in the station, and that severely hampered the way that I wanted to do the show. I'm not the kind of guy that just plugs a cable into my laptop, clicks play on an iTunes playlist and is content to be an "MP3J." This show is all about the joy of records in whatever format they were best enjoyed in, but there were times where literally the only working thing in the station was a cord that would connect your iPod to the board (once including the microphones.)

WPRK will always be my favorite radio station, but now that The Real Congregation has moved to podcast format on the Nerdy Show network, I can make the show sound a bit more true to the source material, I'm no longer a slave to FCC rules about content or compression, and I don't have to keep a wildly uncontrollable sleep schedule to host my show anymore. Plus, all of the guys at Nerdy Show are my friends, and pretty much anyone would be happier working with their buddies, I'd think. They put out quality programming about their passions, and I'm only sorry that I wasn't able to be part of their team sooner.

You're very much an admitted pop songsmith, Marc, which still puts you in a bit of a dying breed. Why is pop such a dirty word in modern music? 

"Pop" is short for "popular," which makes "pop music" into a rather glaring oxymoron sometimes. I'm not sure when the exact moment was where we decided that "pop" meant drum machines and fake vocals (or when country turned into "Def Leppard with fiddles," for that matter), but that's probably the reason that people run from the term so easily nowadays.

To me, "pop" means using instruments to relay popular feelings into songs that will stick in your head. "Popular feelings" should not be confused with "good feelings," mind you. But if you're thinking about something, and you sing it exactly as it appears in your head over a four-chord progression, you'll be amazed at how many people will cheer as if to say "I've never thought about it that way, but you're right!"

The era of pop that I feel most closely related to is the one that appeared on a Rhino record series called "D.I.Y.," and it brilliantly traces the 1975-1983 era of underground power pop. If it weren't for those songs on that giant series, I probably never would have understood that my songs were indeed "pop," mostly because it's hard to consider yourself "popular music" when you're writing songs about worshiping squids in your garage.

Where do you go from here, Marc? Your output has been characteristically eclectic and prolific throughout 2011, so what can we expect in 2012? 

Oh gosh! I don't know yet! I'm toying with another concept album idea that would be a bit more tied to the history of pop songwriting itself rather than telling a story, but that's so early in the "considering it" phase that I can't say for sure that it'll happen. I do have a few things written under this conceit, though, but mostly, the songs tell me when they're ready and what to do with them, not the other way around.

I've also been planning on making an album full of Monkees songs, because that might be the best catalog of pop songs that has ever existed, and I would really like to have fun with some of those melodies. Plus, their songs are actually much trickier to play than you might think, so it's a big challenge to myself: can I do justice to my favorite overlooked Monkees songs? If it ever gets finished and released, you'll know my answer.

And lastly, in addition to sharing a love of handclaps, mid-song break-downs and sing-along choruses, you and I are also members of the extended Sci-Fried family. You'll remember to give those guys a hug for me, right? 

I'm definitely going to do that, good sir. Sci-Fried is one of the best nerd rock bands out there today, the band members are some of my favorite people on earth, so it's awesome to have yet another reason to hug them. Thank you, Z. Not just for doing this interview with me, but also for being my excuse for the numerous upcoming sweaty man-hugs.

--

I am of the opinion that, above all else, things should be simple. It is my personal ethos.

Now, I don't mean simple as in uncomplicated, as life itself is fraught with innumerable impediments and last-minute change-ups. Instead I simply mean that things should appear effortless.

Often they are not so natural and unforced. Generally, anything of value requires blood and sweat and tears and swearing and, in my case, arduous do-overs. But if the end result is something that seems simple and natural and unpretentious, then I tend to believe the creator in question has done his job.

The music of Marc with a C is a labor of love by an artist who is quite literally obsessed with music. And that obsession leads him down some strange thematic paths. His musical mechanics are deceptively complex, and everything, from the slant of his lyrical delivery to the precarious placement of individual tracks on an album, smacks of hours burned shaping raw materials into a final product.

But the listening ear seldom notices that.

Instead it focuses on the simple power of the musical narrative, on the shared joy of record collecting or celebrity crushes or a brand of good-natured hopelessness that defies all logic.

Marc with a C remains one of my favorite songwriters not because of the tireless energy he expends on plying his craft, but because his music appears so effortless, so organic. For such is the path to pure pop majesty.

That Southside Swagger

"Like a Louisville Slugger."

It's Christmastime and, though I imagine it breaks all manner of seasonal mores, I got myself a present. It's cool, though, 'cause you can share it too. It's an interview feature with one of my favorite nor'western hip-hop cliques, Southside.

As talking to the whole band proved problematic – Southside is a large group by anything short of Parliament-Funkadelic standards – I instead had a chat with founder, rapper, actor and all around dapper motherfucker Troy "Thunderball" Lund.

He shares with us Southside's unlikely origin story (spoiler: it includes booze), what the future holds for the band (again: booze) and the secret to his success (which is booze.)

------

I often describe Southside as a musical collective consisting of every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 34 in the Seattle metropolitan area. While this isn't exactly true, Southside is a noticeably sizable group. Who are its core members, and how did this exquisitely eclectic crew come together? 

We first started as a ragtag group of college misfits in Columbia, Missouri. There were exactly 2 liquor stores in town, Eastgate and Southside. We all played in different rock bands at that time (St. Monday, Amish, FeeFee Bag) and decided rep Southside as our own personal party proprietor of choice. It's funny to watch old videos of ourselves at rock shows screaming "Southside!" at the crowd, long before this band was ever even conceived.

Shane (aka Buc Preston) is a graphic designer and bought an SGI computer at a University clearance sale which had Goldwave installed on it, so we started making beats for fun using music that had never really been sampled before (Danzig, Flaming Lips, Blues Explosion, etc). We would dump the beats onto stereo cassette, drop the tape into an old Fostex cassette four-track recorder, throw a party, get drunk, and take turns dropping verses. This was 1995, and thus Southside as we know it was born.

Shortly thereafter, a posse of us moved to Seattle where we just kept making beats, throwing parties, and recording songs. Eventually those songs became more popular than anything else we were seriously trying to do as musicians, so we just rolled with it and started playing parties as a live band.

We kept recording, making mixtapes (you know, actual mixtapes on cassette) and mailing them out to our friends. We were invited to play SXSW and pieced together our first ever official release, the Vibrate EP. If you have one of these, you are truly old school. Shortly thereafter, we compiled all of our recordings (somewhere around 40), weeded out the junk, and made our "best-of" mixtape. This ended up being Please Southside Don't Hurt 'Em, our first full-length release.

The crew during those days was myself, Buc Preston, Marc from St. Monday (MC scrilla), Brent from FeeFee Bag (B-real), Dave (MC Boy RD of Monkey Drool), Brandon (TheMightyGooch), Curt (Dumptruck), and Steve (Slackjaw) from Amish, Quest, Mike (TK from Schmar), and a handful of other buddies who contributed when they could. Shows were chaos – we covered everything from Misfits to Beastie Boys, wore costumes, played in Dojos, and had a ton of fun.

People moved, babies were made, things happened, time passed, and there was turnover. Space Joe (current bass player) was a friend/fan from the Missouri days and he moved to Seattle with his friend, Matt (Reno - current drummer). Shane recruited a couple of homies he works with: Ben the DJ (Tony Snark aka Crunchy Boy) and Ryan (Slim Dickens) on guitar, filling out our current lineup. This is the core group (along with MC Boy RD and The Gooch) that made Southside Liqours, our second full length release.

You typically refer to Southside's musical style as "drunken trucker garage hop." Could you further describe this designation? 

We used to call our music "drunken trucker style" like we were the white Wu-Tang Clan or something. After our SXSW show, a friend of ours who was writing for a music magazine wrote up a great review and coined the term "garage hop." We combined the two and history was made. There was actually a short Midwest tour several years ago with Metaforce and King Solomon called The Drunken Trucker Tour!

The Southside sound combines both live instrumentation and more traditional hip-hop beats with a rotating cast of MCs. How many members typically contribute during the songwriting process? 

This is an interesting question, because in the beginning everyone involved was an MC and a multi-instrumentalist. Someone would make a beat (mostly myself, but not always), we would all record the vocals, and then when we would book a show we would all sit down and figure out how to play it live. Every show was different, a whole new production made from scratch, built around whoever was available and into it at the time. There was a lot of instrument swapping, typically in-between almost every song.

With the new lineup, roles are a little more defined (although there is still crossover). We are trying to write songs together as a band, instead of producing the songs first and then figuring out how to play them live. There are pros and cons to this. It's definitely cool to now be sampling ourselves when producing beats, as opposed to digging through other people's tunes and pulling samples that way. That is something we've always dreamed of. And now with Serato we can even scratch ourselves! However it does sometimes make the process a bit more difficult and time consuming. The results, though, are turning out to be pretty rad...

The distinguished competition.

I tend to agree! In fact, Southside were the winners of Scrub Club's inaugural Versus Mode competition. How has that this attachment to Scrub Club impacted the band? 

We are proud to be part of the Scrub Club family. We've received more kudos, made more fans, and given away more downloads than ever before. It's a great vehicle for getting our music out there. The main bummer is that as a full live band it's not quite as easy for us to travel and play convention/event shows as it is for a single MC with a laptop or CD with beats. We do, on occasion, play shows without the live band (just the MC's and DJ), which can be fun. It's a totally different feel. However, the full experience with the band is a lot of fun as well.

It's funny because we've always somehow managed to elude genres (not necessarily to our benefit). We've been told we're too rock to be hip hop, too hip hop to be rock, and now in the Nerdcore community people have said that we're not nerdcore enough (whatever that means) or that we are "frat rap." We've been rapping about computers and the apocalypse for 15 years, so we don't really care how people want to categorize or not categorize us.

Which brings us to an interesting point; because of this affiliation with Scrub Club you've slowly become more linked with the nerdcore hip-hop community. Have you noticed any shift in your audience as a result? 

We have had a few people show up at live shows in Seattle because they heard about us through Scrub Club, and we struck up a friendship with Billy the Fridge via SC as well. When people were knocking us on the forums during the VS Mode challenge, he stepped up and had our back. Beyond that, we are now being exposed to people all over the world who would most likely never have heard of us otherwise, so it has been a blessing. We'd like to say thank you and Madhatter for that.

Would you say that most of the members of Southside are nerds? 

I do voices for video games, build my own computers, and have an SQL book sitting on my desk. Shane, Ben and Ryan all work in graphic/motion design. Ben has a pile of servos and gadgets in his apartment. Between us we could build a robot that could paint graffiti on your driveway, so make of that what you will.

With Liquors still getting ample play (at least by me) and Please Southside Don't Hurt 'Em recently re-released by Scrub Club, what's the next move for Southside? Is there another album in the works? 

We're in the middle of recording now. We like to record a ton of stuff, then sift through and pick out the best and make it sound as good as we can. Some of the production on Liquors wasn't as good as we would have liked because we set our CD release date and booked our CD release party before the album was even done. Because of this, we rushed some of the mixes. I picked up the boxes of CDs on Thursday afternoon for our Friday CD release show. Not a good idea. We're taking our time with this one (working title: Science Diction). There are 27 songs in the mix right now, at various levels of completion, including some collabs with names you will recognize...

In addition to Southside and your other more rock-centered projects, you also occasionally moonlight with the aforementioned MC Quest as rap duo Metaforce. With Quest currently otherwise occupied, are there any plans to officially release group's third LP Feared Science? 

Right before he went away, we recorded Feared Science. I would call it 85% complete. We are re-purposing a few of the songs as Southside songs for Science Diction, which is not too crazy as there has always been crossover. Quest is on a lot of Southside stuff, and Southside members are on a lot of Metaforce stuff. Metaforce has always seemed more of a serious hip hop project, while Southside is more about having fun and entertaining.

We played a dual Southside/Metaforce show in Seattle a couple years ago that was absolutely off the hook. We wrote all of the song titles down on playing cards and let the audience pick a card. We would then jump up and play that song. It was a party and a half. Bjork was playing across the street and some of her musicians came by to see what the hell was happening. They stayed for the whole show, and even kept a bunch of the cards that they had drawn as souvenirs. They said it was the most fun they'd had at a concert in a long time...

From Sir Mix-a-Lot to Optimus Rhyme, Seattle is a big rap town. What is it that makes Rain City hip-hop so special? 

There's something about this town that sparks creativity. From way back in the day (The Sonics, The Kingsmen, Jimi Hendrix), to the hair metal days (Queensryche, Metal Church, Heart), to the grunge days (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney), to the indie rock days (Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie), this area seems to always be on the forefront of whatever is happening musically. Now there's this whole 3rd Wave hiphop movement happening (Fresh Espresso, Helladope, Dark Time Sunshine) and a solid nerd posse (Billy the Fridge, Death*Star, Ultraklystron). Must be the combination of the coffee and the weather... It's a beautiful city in an amazing part of the country.

Lastly and most importantly, who's the J.R. Ewing of Seattle? 

Definitely Sir-Mix-a-Lot. That title is undisputed.

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It's really hard to overstate my love for the music of Southside. Though their sound was born elsewhere, it has obviously taken root in the Emerald City – it was there that a humorous, alcohol-fueled side project grew into an inspiring experiment in new school hip-hop. To me, Southside is as much a Seattle band as Optimus Rhyme, Bloodhag or The Murder City Devils.

They are a big bass kick, a sharp arpeggio and a sarcastic snort. They are the soundtrack to a lost weekend. They are my favorite things about rap and punk and electronica all wrapped up in one crazy package.

One of 2009's best albums available free in 2010

It's odd to me that the nerdcore community still falls back on the "not nerd enough" argument of ages past, especially as the new beef seems to be with those who are, in fact, too nerdy. But alas, haters, as I'm sure you've heard, are inclined to hate.

But whether detractors are decrying their perceived lack of nerd cred or their cleverly concealed hip-hop heart, Southside admirably moves forward. Still making music that mines the geeky mindset as easily as it channels the irreverent, comical nature of Golden Agers like Biz Markie and the Beasties.

Southside's albums – just like their live shows – are big, beautiful, messy affairs. Because Southside is a musical force of nature.