There and Back Again

While we're not exactly having sleepovers and braiding each other's hair—Though god knows I keep suggesting it!—Adam WarRock and I talk fairly regularly. Our communiqués generally concern what he's writing and how an individual recording (or broader project) is coming together. Or, y'know, clothes. But the primary topic of discussion often turns to where Adam is and where he's going.

And I mean that literally.

Eugene Ahn is, like Ricky Nelson before him, a travelin' man. Like Lisa Stansfield he has been around the world. (Though I reckon the very important distinction is that finding his baby was not the primary motivation.)

Adam WarRock has spent nearly two years on the road touring, recording, writing, creating, growing. But now he's back home in Memphis, and in true WarRock fashion he has turned that homecoming itself into a creative endeavor!

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Alright, Euge, let's go back in time a few of months. We're standing in the parking lot of the Milestone, and you're telling me about a new project you're working on.

Ahhh, the Milestone. I can smell the bathrooms now. That was the NOFRIENDS tour, right?

Exactly. And you were telling me how this new project is your Mid-South EP. It's your tribute to Memphis, not to mention your exploration of the artist it's helped shape. Hip-hop is very geographic. Always has been, and it only got more so during your formative years of the 1990s. Why wait so long to rep your city?

Mostly, because I wasn't THERE. I grew up in Memphis, and moved back around early 2010 and then proceeded to tour fairly consistently for the next two years. I was just never home. My friends basically stopped knowing when I'd be home and when I'd be gone, so I'd just show up at the bar on Friday and it would be a surprise. I was pretty burnt out after a tour I did in May, and I ended up taking three-plus months off, just hanging out around the city, seeing friends, drinking, having fun. I got a chance to really fall back in love with the city, and know how much of its character became a part of the man I grew up to be. I started working on an EP after August or so, and it was pretty obvious I wanted to show this city some love.

City Beautiful was produced by Rob Viktum, and he brought a lot of bright, beautiful funk and soul to the beats. How did you two hook up?

He's friends with some of The Variants web series guys, and ended up DJing a live art event that I performed at. He kept spinning all this amazing old school and early 90s hip hop, all this indie stuff, and other than the live artists I was the only other music person there. I basically stood next to him and asked him to play random hip hop songs, and he obliged. He's had a pretty rich history with some of the bigger indie houses in the 2000s, but had been done with producing beats for a while. I basically egged him on to make me some beats, and he eventually obliged. The rest is history.

"THX" is your kick-off, and it makes for a really strong start. You name check everyone from Zulu Nation and the Cold Crush Brothers to MC Frontalot, and it almost sounds… cathartic in a way. Are you at peace with your position in contemporary hip-hop? Are you happy being a guy that sort of drifts between indie and nerdcore?

I don't know if it's cathartic, I think I tend to write chronologically when I talk about hip hop. So it just made sense to start the first song off this very "HIP HOP" album with a line about Bambaata, Cold Crush, and all those guys from pre-90's. Talk about Big Daddy Kane getting his slang and hooks stolen. And then kinda compare to how small and insular scenes nowadays have the same problems, though now it's not the Black Spades and Juice Crew, it's Internet message boards and social media and dumb things like that.

The Frontalot line was definitely an intentional shout-out to the fact that everyone seems to think I DON'T want to be nerdcore, or nerdy. I don't know why that is, and I have a healthy amount of respect for people who want to intentionally make nerdcore. I honestly just make music about whatever, without thinking about it. And if it's nerdy, so be it; if it's not, then that's fine with me too. But I love nerdcore. I love Frontalot and the nerdcore genre. People get way too bogged down in that distinction. I'm just happy to be making music, period. I just always want people to know that I know that nerdcore definitely gave me a name in the beginning. Hence the Front line, who most definitely still holds the crown in it. I mean, won't he always? He invented it.

"Rodin" almost hits a G-funk note there, musically...

Huh. I guess you're right, if there was a synth in there. I never thought of it like that.

Yeah, but lyrically you're still very much looking inward and trying to speak this universal truth about living your dreams. The lyric "for everyone who ever swallowed a dream" comes through as uniquely confessional; do you ever wonder what would have happened if you hadn't gotten stuck in a job you hated? To what extent does that experience still power your career?

I'm pretty sure if I was at all content with my job, I would've never gotten here, maybe never started making music again. So it's weird to think that the act of stifling the things you love makes you love them more; and then doing what you love for so long makes you love them less. That's probably a good way to put it. I'm probably over-thinking it. Which is a good way to describe "Rodin."

Each Adam WarRock release has a sort of musical mission statement, and the title track "City Beautiful" is definitely it this time around.

Well you know where that title's from? It's from the fact that Memphis's city beautification commission was the first one formed in the country, back in 1930. It was called, obviously, Memphis City Beautiful. It's a municipal history nerd in-joke.

It seems like a proper love letter to the city that made you. Did you find yourself re-exploring Memphis while you were recording this EP?

Maybe not while recording this EP, other than what happened organically just by having enough time home to have a proper social life. When we made the music video, however, we definitely did explore the holy hell out of the city.

You leaked "Get Smart" as an early single, and I can't say enough about how well you, Beefy, Jesse and Rob gel on that cut, but where did that core allusion come from? The extended reference to Maxwell Smart alongside a critique of lazy, dumbed-down culture was surprising effective.

Ha. It all kinda comes from the original idea me and Rob were going to do for an EP. I was going to name it "Noir," as a sort of shout out to Marvel Noir comics, but mostly because everything Rob was making sounded so…noir-y. When I heard the "Get Smart" beat, it reminded me of some kind of spy movie, and I just started goofing on the hook and that "rappers wanna get buck, I wanna get smart" line came out. Jesse was on it from the get-go, way back when we first were doing the Noir EP, and added that verse. We grabbed Beefy (who ironically got bumped from my Vampire Weekend EP, so I promised him a spot on the next EP) and he added that last verse months later. Those guys really murdered it. I pretty much put my verse down, and then got the hell out of the way.

You've got some solid guest spots on this one, but "CAPS LOCK" seems more like a full-on collaboration with YTCracker. Had you ever worked with Bryce before?

Me and Bryce have talked about doing some stuff, we have a song floating around out there that never materialized into something (hopefully will someday). Bryce is one of those core nerdcore guys that was nice to me from the start, and I always appreciated that about YT. I wanted him on the album for sure, and he sent that verse back in record time.

Okay, I'm still kinda scratching my head about "Oppenheimer."

Hahaha. Okay. Me too, to be completely honest.

How does a post-apocalyptic narrative fit in with the concept of Memphis and the evolution of Adam WarRock? Was it just a good excuse to drop in that sweet Ozymandias line? (Because I am totally alright with that.)

It's weird. I mostly knew I was going to do a track with Schaffer, and every time I start pitching ideas to Schaffer, they always seem to be about Armageddon or dying or something dark and ominous. He has that effect on me, I guess. I fell in love with the name "Oppenheimer," I mean it just LOOKS cool. And I pitched Schaffer and Tribe the idea of doing a song about being scientists that invented the atom bomb. Schaffer came back and asked if he could do it as a scientist who had no remorse, and directed Tribe to be the scientist who felt great regret. I view it as Schaffer being the devil on my shoulder and Tribe being the angel on my shoulder. Which in real life, is kind of accurate.

The EP starts to wind down with "Less Than 3."

Oh god. Here we go.

If "City Beautiful" is a love song to a place, this one is a love song in the traditional parlance. But at the same time it's... more self-aware, I think, than your average romantic fare. You acknowledge the transience of verse—strong feelings might change or fade, but the track itself will always stay the same, frozen in time in your catalog. How hard is it to pen a realistic love song? Isn't the very nature of art form sort of intentionally self-deceptive?

Not so much self-deceptive, but there's definitely an awareness of knowing that you're talking a big game for something that, at least by modern definitions, will most likely not last forever. I mean, isn't it over 50% of marriages end in divorce now? The idea of a one true love is something that we like to talk about, culturally, but none of us really believe it's real, even when you feel something that sort of approximates it, right? You could be totally in love with a girl (or guy) and in the moment think "I want to be with this person forever," but still in the back of your mind thinking "But that most likely won't happen." When you pen a love song, you're basically kinda throwing this thing out there that you know in a week, a month, or however long, it might be all completely untrue and kinda… painful to listen to. But you still gotta sell it as much as you can, or else there's no point in doing it.

Okay, what about that Alex Chilton bit? Are you a serious Big Star fan, or was that a meta-reference to The Replacements song of the same name, or was it simply a skillful namedrop of another of Memphis's native sons?

It's funny, I wasn't a huge Big Star fan until I LEFT Memphis sometime late in college or after it. I was willfully ignorant of anything that wasn't punk, hardcore, and hip hop, so Big Star was not really a concern of mine as a young kid full of piss and vinegar. And I think I found my way to Big Star BECAUSE of The Replacements song, "Alex Chilton," which is basically all about being in love with a song, which I guess has a nice cyclicality to the whole thing.

But really what that line is about: it's a reference to some other b-sides songs that I recorded before, lines written about a particular girl who loves Alex Chilton. Those songs never came out. So I scooped some lines out and put together a nice pastiche to end the track. Really only ONE person in the world will know where all of those are from. I told you it was a self-indulgent track.

Seeing as the work is so personal, it seems rather fitting that you close City Beautiful on a throw-back track to your seminal release. Did you give Rob any direction re: that "Silver Age" remix, or was that all him?

Nope. I basically sent him the a cappellas and said "Do whatever." He sent back the remix, and I asked him to scoop out the third verse spots so me and Tribe could try to do a new verse for fun. It was so boom bappy (I think we said it sounded like Jedi Mind Tricks, but in a good way), we wanted to add something really hip hoppy to it.

So where are we going from here, man? We've only got about three more weeks left in 2012. I reckon that gives you time for 8 or 9 more EPs and a full-length.

God, I don't know Z. I have a handful of ideas for mixtapes and EPs, and I've been working on my next album (tentatively titled Middle of Nowhere) for next spring or fall. But really, I wanted to take a long break from live shows, and mainly just kinda focus on making music for myself again. If that means making music about movies or TV shows, so be it, y'know? But whatever comes next, it'll be what I want to do. Hopefully everyone wants it too.

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.

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.

-

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.

Radio Free Hipster Ep. 125: Heavy Mental Parking Lot (Illbotz Special Edition)

In addition to covering those ever important new developments – I got that breaking nerd news, son! – these first couple of months of the New Year are very much about old business. Therefore my debut podcast of 2012 is centered on an interview I did with my good buddy Stevie D back in December of last year.

It's not your average Q&A piece, and to say that it was the most I've ever laughed during an interview would be a most egregious understatement.

I've "known" Stevie over the internets for a long time, but it wasn't until I was in the same room with him at Nerdapalooza that I realized the lovable goofball that gave us such lyrical gems as "On my grind like my teeth when I had TMJ / And if you like it put a ring on it, Beyonce" isn't just some stage-face; that's honestly Stevie D. All the time.

The skits that you hear on an Illbotz record are really just him and Perm and Samson and the crew doing what they do – tellin' jokes and havin' fun. They are, like J.Lo before them, real.

This was a revelation that I found… well, refreshing. And I feel fortunate to have been able to participate in such a similarly enjoyable (if unpredictable) exchange.

I hope you dig it too.

Download Radio Free Hipster Ep. 125: Heavy Mental Parking Lot (Illbotz Special Edition) [hosting provided by Antisoc] Size: 64.9 MB Running Time: 49:07 Subscribe to RFH

Show Notes:

Intro: Baddd Spellah - "Radio Free Hipster Theme (feat. Beefy)"
Other titles I considered for this episode included "Cracker's Delight," "Maxi Pad Confessions" and simply "Deliverance."

Track 1: Illbotz - "Illbotz Rock the Spot and Go Crazy"
This epic track from their latest, Pudding Is Delicious, is also the 'Botz's go-to set opener.

Track 2: Tribe One – "Single Player (Original)"
I'm not sure if it exactly qualifies as "slept on," but this was one of the best – if generally unremarked upon – songs of 2011.

Track 3: Illbotz – "Doo Doo Def"
From 2007's phenomenal Ringtones for Rotary Phones, my first proper Illbotz album experience.

Track 4: Illbotz – "My Crown (Feat. Poe Mack)"
This one actually closes out Pudding is Delicious, and I've been waiting for just the right time to unleash it upon the RFH audience.

Track 5: Illbotz – "A Thousand Shades of Awesome"
Yet another fun, silly sex jam from Illbotz, circa 2006.

Track 6: Beefy – "Outlaw"
Beef is both an outlaw and a Vampire Hunter! #multiclass

Track 7: Illbotz – "It's Illbotic (feat. Dred)"
Wait; did I play this one before on a podcast? Maybe in its remixed form? I think so, but Google seems to disagree.

Track 8: Illbotz – "I Miss You Money (Witcha Dead Ass) (feat. Sarah G Of The Wading Girl)"
Is it weird that I followed up Stevie naming Perm his "favorite living Fat Boy" with a song about his untimely death? Yeah, probably.

Track 9: Adam WarRock – "Gundam Wings & Fries (feat. P. Longest)"
Yes, I would gladly do a Diet Coke shot in a giant robot. You'd be surprised how often that question comes up.

Track 10: Illbotz – "Intro: The Finaler Countdown"
Stevie D and Big Perm are my boys and all, but DJ Samson really commands the stage at an Illbotz's show.

Track 11: Illbotz – "There's No Stoppin' Us (Or is There?)"
How do you end an episode peppered with ridiculous dialog from me and Stevie? With a joint that samples that song from Breakin' of course!

In a world where hip-hop has lost its sense of humor, I think Illbotz are the solution, the antidote. I mean, these guys are my friends and all, but, before we ever got to that point of hanging around drinking PBRs and talking shit, I approached them as a true fan impressed by their willingness to be funny even if they knew it might turn off some hardcore heads.

It just so happens that they liked what I was doing as well. Which is nice.

Like Stevie says in this show, it's great to be able to associate with talented performers, but when they are also pleasant, genuine, down-to-earth people it helps so much. It makes you thankful to be a part of a proper artistic community.

Lots of bands sweat things like being labeled a "comedy act" or being attached to a term like nerdcore, as if the words that others pin to their work somehow have more weight than the art itself, but not Illbotz. They do what they do in whatever manner they deem fit, and their sole focus – both in the booth and on the stage – seems to be firmly focused on fun. Theirs and the audience's.

I can't think of any nobler endeavor to undertake.

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.

The Decider

Counting this post (and our recent pow-wow on the GeekDad HipTrax podcast), I have interviewed geeky rap mainstay mc chris four times – more than any other single artist. This is interesting considering that mc is still often thought of as having a somewhat negative view of nerdcore, a term that is very regularly associated with my writing in general and this blog in particular. But that little aside is, alas, rather unimportant in the grander scheme of things.

For me, at least, what has typified each of my exchanges with mc chris over the past four or so years is his willingness to share. I fire off a lot of questions to potential interview subjects, and I always make it abundantly clear that he or she can ignore any that seem especially thorny. mc never seems to pick and choose.

He shoots back his gloriously uncensored responses generally within the span of a couple hours. And, while such candor can lead to some sticky situations, it does afford a proper look into the mind of the artist. It lets me as a writer and, hopefully, you as a reader truly grasp where mc is coming from at any given time.

He might not always give the responses you'd expect hear, but he always does it with a brand of wry honesty that has come to define him across his decade-long career.

--

When last we spoke you were preparing for the release of Marshmellow Playground. What was the fan reaction to a kid-friendly album from the generally foul-mouthed mc chris?

Awesome! A lot of my fans have been listening to me for ten years and in that time they've gotten married, had kids and now they want mc chris music they can listen to with them. I did it just as vague reference to the fact that George Miller gave us both Mad Max AND Happy Feet, two very different films.

I found that the reaction was awesome, except for the people that stole it and didn't know what it was. They were like, "What happened to you man? Rhyming about mommies and daddies and shit?!? You fell off!" Thankfully, families loved it and I got more than a bunch of reports about it helping kids learn to brush better and go to sleep. Lots of parents used it for car rides to school. It came in handy, so I'm excited to deliver the much longer sequel Marshmellow Campground in 2012.

You wrapped up last year's mc chris Goes to Hell with a "teaser trailer" for your soon-to-be released full-length Race Wars. Was the Mad Max-style musical concept already fully fleshed out by then, or were you just shooting from the hip with that closer?

Well, I had the album title for a long time. Since the Williams Street days. It gets referenced on all the old shows, but they're talking about all the races breaking up into groups and fighting for supremacy. I thought it would be more fun if it was about cars that are all racing each other. A Star Wars on the road.

I started to really develop the idea after seeing my nephew go nuts for cars. It reminded me of my own fascination with cars as a kid in the 80's. Every show had a car: Magnum, A-Team, Dukes of Hazard. And we loved the Cannonball Run series. It allowed us, in our own minds, to let anyone race with each other. Indiana Jones could race against James Bond. We picked the cars first, and then we picked who was driving in them. I think before computer generated effects, the most bad ass thing a movie or a TV show could do was show a car screeching around a corner. After touching upon things like Star Wars and GI Joe, I was excited to go back and investigate another facet of my toy-rich childhood.

As for it being a Mad Max thing, I think it just came to me as I wrote. The Ninjas vs. the Projects thing was thrown in there to emphasize Marshmellow Playground's innocence. We then just hit all the beats of a trailer. I recorded like 30 random things and then we went back and cut it up and threw in John Gemberling and Todd Hanson as well, who is the Senior Editor of the Onion and Dan Halen on Squibillies, by the way.

Your choice in instrumentals has changed a lot over the years, from the decidedly punk slant of Life's a Bitch and I'm Her Pimp to the classic DJ John era to the crazed pop of mc chris is dead and Goes to Hell. Musically, what can fans expect from Race Wars?

More instruments than ever before. New drum sounds. New instruments I can't pronounce from other countries I can't pronounce. Some fan made tracks. I can't really reveal what I did without spoiling it, but I can say that the album starts out very different and then goes into familiar territory.

I worked with some amazing musicians. They're on so much cool stuff it's crazy. Like they did the music for Red Dead Redemption, and you can hear a little bit of that sound in the track they did for me, "Tarantino." They were sending me all kinds of stuff. And my requests were varied, to say the least. The people that worked on this record definitely did this on the side. I'd be like can you we work on this tomorrow and they'd be like I have to tour with TV on the Radio or go be on Jimmy Fallon. The whole time I felt like it was so cool that they thought my little record was worth focusing on. And not only did they make music but they knocked it out the park. And Andrew Futral returned to corral all the music and turn everything into mc chris songs. We kinda eat music and then spit it out all fucked up.

He also supplied lots of original songs this year that I like a lot. Listen to music he normally does (The Age of Rockets and Field Mouse) and tell me he doesn't do a 180 when working with me. It's like he's living a double life. Half the time producing female vocalists or he's touring the country backing up famous chicks and the rest of the time he's making some of the most catchy inventive underground hip-hop out today.

What about lyrically? Any recurring motifs or fresh vocal ground covered in this new material?

We definitely touch upon the nerd motif. I already leaked "nerd cave" which is kind of a bare bones description of a modern day nerd's life, living in a small apartment, not going out. It's not that cheery. But the song surprisingly is. Caves is a motif on the album. And bears. That's all I'll say about that.

An mc chris album has beats too, and we try to hit those beats. Some fun stuff in the beginning, some serious stuff at the end, a love song and skits. Way too many skits. Which people will at first hate, then love, then quote. Or at least, that's how it's gone every record so far.

Are you finally through with bounty hunter on vehicle songs, or do you reserve the right to sneak those into future releases?

You have to wait to hear. There's a new subject that I've taken up, it's NOT Star Wars but I think it's going to make my fans really happy.

Recently "hoodie ninja" made its way into a Honda Civic ad campaign. Was there any "sellout" backlash associated with such a high profile project, or has the taboo surrounding the licensing of music for commercial use finally been laid to rest?

Of course, but I think the people that make those comments just kinda look not-as-smart-as everyone else commenting. Most folks were like, "Congrats! Ten Years of hard work and now you have something cool to show for it!" It's very validating to exist in your own right without corporate help, but it's also nice to be acknowledged. You feel less invisible. And that commercial played everywhere, before just about every movie that came out this summer, prime time every night.

Blink 182 is on a Honda Tour right now and my song plays right before they come out. That's just cool to me. And I think it was a fun moment for a lot of long time mc chris fans to say that's my boy! I got a lot of flack for saving the money and not doing anything with it. But I have no idea how this all plays out and I want to be smart.

The recently announced Race Wars tour boasts a really impressive lineup; you're sharing the stage with MC Lars, Random and Adam WarRock. Did you decide early on to make this a more rap-centered tour, or did it just come together on its own?

I like to go with what works and then give those last two slots to some folks that deserve a chance to show everyone what they can do. I think this tour will be an eye-opener.

Former tour mates I Fight Dragons were signed by Photo Finish/Atlantic Records in 2010, just months after the conclusion of your tour. Is a traditional record deal still something to which you aspire, or are you content to continue to do your own thing in your own way?

Congratulations to I Fight, honestly. I would like to think getting that opening slot does indeed get you attention.

It's just not my way to leave things up to other folks, like labels and management, that don't care as much as I do. I have a firm base that I can launch anything from a book to a cartoon, I can make records whenever I want and I answer to no one but the fans. I prefer the freedom and the anonymity that allows me to create with abandon. Bands get dropped because they're numbers don't match up with projections and then they split up, or maybe they split up because they didn't get signed. After a flash in the pan is long gone I'm still gonna be on Facebook announcing new records and new shows. I decide when it ends and that means everything to me.

You're now a solid decade into your musical career. How has the landscape changed for the indie artist since those early days?

Well everything I did in the beginning that was so fresh and cool and innovative is now common practice with just about every artist. I see quantity has started to matter more than quality with mixtapes becoming the standard.

I feel older and older, like I'm doing a form of hip-hop that no one even recognizes anymore. I grew up on Native Tongues and Public Enemy, the Pharcyde. Now I find myself trying to imitate the sounds of the rappers of the turn of the century. The dirty south beats before Dungeon Family came into play.

I definitely hate the new rap. Or at least I can't get into it cuz all the hooks suck or are nonexistent. Smaller rappers are trying to rhyme faster but no one knows what they're saying and older, bigger rappers are trying to act like they invented rap when they definitely didn't, they're just rapping in a bow tie.

When I was in Junior High I dressed like all these hipsters do now, pretending it's the 50's, wearing plaid shirts and sweater vests. Of course I got made of fun of. But now it's hip as fuck and everyone is trying to copy the hipsters that were copying the Japanese and the tattooed rednecks in Atlanta that dressed like that before them. I take pride in the fact that I stick to what I know and every once in a while it becomes extremely popular.

I've had quite the summer on Twitter where I get told at least once a day that Kreayshawn and Nicki Minaj sound like me, "but not funny." Well... at least I'm funnier than Nicki Minaj.

Earlier this year you handily used Kickstarter to generate some capital for a very special project. What's the status of the mc chris cartoon?

It's very secret and very safe. My artist Nate Bellegarde worked his butt off all summer drawing some awesome stuff. We're bringing to life a bunch of things that I think my fans will appreciate. I meet with Titmouse before I leave for tour and we discuss the storyboards. I'm hoping to show everyone a trailer at Christmas. The backers have been getting the inside scoop all the while which is super fun, kinda like a secret club with decoder rings. So far everyone has been keeping mum pretty well. The trick is to keep it under wraps.

You also expend an awful lot of time and energy collecting donations in the name of your nephew Murray to fight CF. How much money have mc chris fans generated for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation over the years?

I'm proud to report that we passed the $100,000 mark this summer. I'm trying to raise money every week selling anything of mine that isn't nailed down. This week I announced that this huge Captain America box from Hasbro that is up for bid on my eBay sale for CF has the first copy of Race Wars in it. I think it's at like $300 bucks now. When I send stuff out I try to include lots of what I call, "loot," candy, Legos, Magic cards. I want to make a bad day awesome with some surprise goodies and I also want people to see that doing something good can result in cooler crap happening.

You covered "I Lost on Jeopardy" for the Twenty-Six and a Half Weird Al tribute, and you previously covered his DEVO style parody "Dare to Be Stupid." How big of an influence was Al on your particular brand of humorous music?

I never got an Al album to honest. But I grew up on MTV so his videos definitely taught me parody. I remember singing, "Smell my feet!" to the GoGo's "We Got the Beat" at Summer Camp when I was little. So his influence goes back to my very early days of being an asshole.

For comparison, mc, you and I are the same age, but while you're touring the country I am decidedly stationary with a wife and two kids. Will mc chris ever settle down to a life of quiet domesticity?

Yes. As soon as possible.

Lastly, you've got an album ready to drop and a new fall tour all lined up. What else is coming down the pike from mc chris?

A song where if you memorize it you will know all the US Presidents.

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Is it weird that I hope that last answer means mc is covering Animaniacs' classic "The Presidents?" Probably, but I digress.

There was a time, in the far-flung days of yore during the height of their "feud," when fellow nerd rap pioneer YTCracker stated that, while he and mc chris failed to see eye-to-eye, he still "respected his hustle."

There was something oddly prophetic about that statement. Because now, years later, mc has managed to endure by doing just that – by making his own way through the generally fickle and surprisingly hostile landscape of modern music. By approaching recording, touring, marketing and fan interaction in his own indubitable fashion. By staying on that proverbial grind. And it has served him well.

With more than 10 years under his belt he has managed to make an indelible mark on not only the geek culture that is so often evoked in his lyrics, but also on the broader pop culture. His is the unique voice that crops up on television commercials and movie soundtracks, instantly recognizable even if not always expected.

Love him or hate him, Christopher Ward is now and forever your favorite rapper's favorite overblown cartoon avatar.

He is "the high-toned honky." He is MC PeePants. He is a zombie and a wizard and a bounty hunter and a basket case. He is mc chris, and he is in control of his own destiny.

And he is most certainly funnier than Nicki Minaj.