Bill Withers/LCD Soundsystem “Dance Yrself Lovely (Its Overture Bootleg)”
Nubian Crackers “Clap 2 Da (Remix)”
Poolside “Do You Believe?”
The Weeknd “House Of Balloons (Nadastrom Edit)”
Ohio Players “Ecstasy (DJ Melo & Jon Kwest Remix)”
Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson “Miscommunicaton”
Chilly Gonzales “You Can Dance (Edwin Van Cleef Remix)”
Queen & David Bowie/Daft Punk “Voyage Under (Its Overture Bootleg)”
Mylo “Drop The Pressure”
Pleasurekraft “Tarantula”
2 In A Room “Wiggle It”
Treasure Fingers “Your Love”
Switch featuring Andrea Martin “I Still Love You (Original & Heavyfeet Remix)”
Heavy D/Afrojack “Take Over Love (Its Overture Bootleg)”
Jomanda/Sammy Bananas/Fedde Le Grand “Save Me (Its Overture Bootleg)”
The Rapture/Fake Blood “Medieval Love (Its Overture Bootleg)”

MP3: Its Overture “A Night From Concentrate (Exclusive Mix)”

What are some of your earliest musical influences?
RiVerse: My first musical obsession was Hall & Oates around the age of 4. Hip hop kind of ran my life all through my teens and still works as the foundation for everything I do.
Macabee: My first cassette was Alvin and the Chipmunks singing Michael Jackson‘s greatest hits. The Beatles were also a big early influence. After that, I started listening to a lot of hip hop and house.

How did you get into DJing?
RiVerse: Being into hip hop as both a fan and in a creative aspect, it naturally evolved into DJing. So it started with listening to everything I could get my hands on, then that turned into making pause tapes and eventually I ended up buying a cheap pair of turntables from the back of The Source. Around that time the independent hip hop scene was really blowing up as well and a lot of the music was being put out strictly on vinyl. So necessity played a role as well.
Macabee: I played guitar in an incredibly fun band in high school, which was forced to split once we all graduated and moved to the four corners of the earth. I quickly got into production on the MPC, and soon after that I started DJing, as a way to be a one man band and keep churning out music. In a way I was DJing since I was young though; making mixtapes on a dual-deck boombox using my huge collection of cassingles.

What equipment/programs do you use to create music?
RiVerse: We DJ with Serato. For production, we both started out on the MPC-2000XL but almost everything we do now is on Ableton Live.

In a place like NYC where there is an overabundance of DJs, how do you think Its Overture stands out?
RiVerse: It’s definitely a crowded marketplace but whenever we spin, our goal is always to play to the crowd while still essentially doing “us.”
Macabee: I think our meticulous track selection is one of the main ways we set ourselves apart from most other DJs. We definitely pride ourselves on relentlessly dropping jam after timeless jam and never wasting a moment with “filler”.

What are some of your favorite records to spin during DJ sets?
RiVerse: That’s a difficult one to answer because it depends largely on what type of crowd we’re playing to. Every genre/crowd offers us the opportunity to play some things we love, either because we know they’ll kill or because we love sneaking in things people might not know.

You created an exclusive mix for StGA, can you describe a little bit about the concept behind it and some of the song selections?
Macabee: We wanted to try to distill the arc of a night into a 30 minute mix using songs from different genres and eras. We often try to do more than just quietly mix one record into another so the mix also includes a lot of new blends and many of the transitions add extra layers, samples or call backs to the previous track. A number of times on this mix we literally create a dialogue of sorts between the two tracks we’re mixing, which is something we like to do whenever possible.
RiVerse: While not an all out “cut and paste” mix, we’ve always been drawn to a more manipulative style of DJing……when it’s done well, of course. As we both said earlier, hip hop informs much of our aesthetic and a lot of that comes out in our penchant for flipping samples, both in our tracks and mixes. So we always try to incorporate that into whatever we do whether it’s through blends, content-conscious mixes, etc because we feel like we don’t hear a lot of that style anymore. Because while the whole age of the “mash up” did some good things for bringing an all-bets-are-off approach to sampling, it also created a stigma because a lot of it was (and still is) done badly: out of key, off beat, incoherent, crunk-acapella-over-indy-jam-of-the-week kind of things. So we’re trying to bring it back to a place that’s more reputable. More Prince Paul than Girl Talk.

What is next for Its Overture?
We’re going to keep releasing remixes and blends/mash ups every couple of weeks and we’ve got another volume of our Classic Rap mix that we’re working on that we’re really excited about. We also have plans for a real all genre, all style, cut-and-paste mix that will hopefully do justice to what we think DJing and sample-heavy production can be.
Aside from that, we plan to keep putting things out that continue to establish our range. Our love for all types of music enable us to move between genres and styles pretty naturally so we want to continue to build on that. We’ve done reworks of everyone from Phish and Grateful Dead to Company Flow (as a Drum-N-Bass remix, no less) and Sister Nancy. Cut Copy and Modular Records gave us props for our edit of “Sun God”, a lot of old school hip hop blogs showed love for our Classic Rap mix and most of our club-friendly remixes and bootlegs continue to get us attention. So we’re proud of that range and want to keep trying to bring a universal standard of quality to everything we do.

Tracklist:

01) Dada Life “Kick Out The Epic Motherf**ker (A.G. Trio Rework)”
02) Drake featuring Lil Wayne & Tyga “The Motto”
03) Electrixx “Crispy Cake (Original Mix)”
04) TeenWolf & Shelco Garcia “Tommy Matola”
05) Chris Brown featuring Busta Rhymes & Lil Wayne “Look At Me Now (Codes Remix)”
06) M83 “Midnight City (Christian Strobe Remix)”
07) Afrojack “Selektah”
08) Lil Wayne “6 Foot 7 Foot (J-Trick Moombahton Edit)”
09) Tyga featuring Lil Wayne “Faded”
11) Azealia Banks “212″
12) Scissor Sisters “Shady Love”
13) Beyonce “Party (Megaman & Panic City Remix)”
14) Adventure Galley “Marooned”
15) Arcade Fire “No Cars Go (Christian Strobe Remix)”
16) Just Kiddin “All The Way To Love”
17) Whitney Houston “How Will I Know (Van Hooft & Forever Kid Remix)”
18) Dirty Tees “With or Without You”

MP3: The Soundmen “No Cars Go (Exclusive StGA mix)”

How did you get started in producing?
I started producing in my dorm room at University of Washington. After meeting Justin, my production partners, through mutual friends we quickly began producing for local Seattle artists. By our senior year we had expanded to producing for NYC artists (Roxy Cottontail, Jae Millz, Tom Gist, Rover) and quickly made the jump to the city.

What kind of equipment and programs do you use for your production?
Our setup is pretty compact. Sony Acid Pro 7.0, M-Audio Midi controller, VSTs and a Yamaha Motif. We both produce on PCs and our proud to be in the minority of artists repping for PCs!

Your first major release was the Glasvegas remix album, Home Demolition. How did that project come about?
I love that you listened to that project as it was one of our first that was outside of hip hop and one we are very proud of. That was actually a very organic process. Justin was actually the assistant engineer on their first album (you can find his name in the liner notes) and we befriended the band who gave us their blessing to totally destroy and rebuild their demo tapes. This also lead to two official remixes for the album through their label.

Home Demolition seems far from your beginnings as hip hop producers. How did the transition from hip hop to more dance-oriented music happen?
Well it really began with being asked to remix a track for Augustana‘s single “Boston”. When we did that we realized that our hip hop roots transferred very well to different genres. We also started listening to a lot of different types of music and new styles and genres gradually snuck into our production style.
We then saw significant success with our project “VeckaFlyest” which we remixed Lil Wayne with Grizzly Bear samples and original beats. The project was featured on RollingStone.com, Gorilla Vs Bear, Paste Magazine and received thousands of downloads. We knew we were on to something.

If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be and why?
Friendly Fires. Hands down. There hasn’t been another band in the last decade that has been so ahead of the curve with vocals, production and song structure. Ed MacFarlane also has one of the best voices in pop/rock today and sounds amazing over any type of production.

You created an exclusive mix for StGA, can you describe a little bit about the concept behind it and some of the song selections?
The set is a massive blend of the records that are making our hips shake the hardest right now. We have been DJing clubs and shows for a few years now and this set is a condensed example of what you can expect to hear when you come to one of our parties. J and I dig BIG sounds, big bass and a good blend of hip hop and electro when we go out and that’s what we like to drop when we play a set. We are DJing at SouthPaw in Brooklyn this Friday!

Finally, what is next for the Soundmen?
We have a lot planned for 2012. We are currently hard at work on our solo project with the first single aiming to be released in March. The project will be our first official release, taking the sound we have built over the past few years and creating all original music with some really amazing vocalists.
We are also working with multiple artists on remixes, production and future projects including Jasmine Solano, Saadi, 33hz, Jogyo, PSO, Erick Arc Elliott, OnCue and a few more that I can’t name just yet. Its going to be another big year of even bigger sounds!

What are your fondest memories from recording Unrealized Film Script?
Will and I had to get to Denver to record with Robert Schneider and we did so by “drive away” which is when someone needs a car to go from point A to point B and you volunteer to drive the car. I was a big family car, a Ford Granada or something like that. On our way from Athens to Denver, we swung thru Austin, TX and picked up Eric Harris. We turned making an album into a road trip. It was great!

I assume you re-listened to the album before reissuing it. Was there anything new you noticed while re-listening?
I noticed that it wasn’t nearly as dense as I remember. In fact, it’s pretty sparse especially compared to where we went with Black Foliage. My friend Kevin once said to me “I was listening to Dusk today. Man, you guys didn’t bother tuning any of the instruments, did you?” Upon re-listening, another thing I noticed was that he was right!

Do you have a favorite song from Unrealized Film Script?
That’s like having a favorite child. You have one, and they know who they are, but you’ll never say.

You are also reissuing your sophomore album, Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One. Did you feel any added pressure to not hit a sophomore slump when recording it?
We never looked at it that way. It was, and still is, all about the joy of making music with your friends.

How was the recording process different for Black Foliage?
Dusk was a recording project with little thought going into playing the music live. Once we had started on Black Foliage, we had toured extensively, and were able to interject a live band feel into the mix. Plus we had moved from 4-track to 4 and 8 tracks.

You have shows booked through the end of the year. What comes next for OTC? Any chance of new recordings?
We have been working on new recordings for some time now. In fact, we have a new release, in three parts, that’s coming out as the tour begins next week. With any luck, we’ll have a new album, which is well under way, out sometime next year.

What are your fondest memories from recording Icky Mettle?
It was so long ago that the whole process is a little hazy. We recorded Icky Mettle mostly in the middle of the night. We did it at the Cat’s Cradle, a great rock club in Chapel Hill (now in Carrboro), so we wouldn’t start until after everyone left and the floors were mopped, etc. Maybe my fondest memory is how we recorded that record. I was very excited about the process and the songs. (It was my first “professional” recording.) We were very energetic and enthusiastic and we had practiced and played all but 2 of the songs live – “Hate Paste” and “Backwash”. But I remember looking around while we were recording and all of us were moving with the same energy as playing a live show. That part stands out in my mind. For me, it was the most exciting and artistically productive time for the band.

I assume you re-listened to the album before reissuing it. Was there anything new you noticed while re-listening?
Bob Weston is going to kill me for saying this but I haven’t compared the old recording to the remastered recording. I have listened to it remastered and it sounds great. Matt and I listened to it on one of our airport drives.

Do you have a favorite song on Icky Mettle?
Favorite songs fluctuate with me but I keep coming back to “Hate Paste”. I like how unusual it is and I love Eric’s lyrics. The delivery was so different than the other songs on the record. I also liked the way we recorded it. Eric B presented us with a 4 track recording of the acoustic guitar and vocals. We messed around with it at home and recorded it piecemeal at the Cradle, including the drums. I enjoy recording that way even though it’s less organic.

Back in January the band reunited for an unannounced set at The Cat’s Cradle. How did that come about?
It’s funny, to this day I’m not sure who got the ball rolling but I think Matt and Eric B first discussed it. I know Eric B was missing the physicality and exhilaration you get when you really rock out at loud volumes. Crooked Fingers is an intense project but in more of a cerebral way. With Archers, it’s pretty much turn up the amp and start rockin’. Shawn Nolan (Archers’ manager) contacted me about it last summer. We set up a conference call to discuss it and it wasn’t until then that I really thought it might happen. We practiced only 3 or 4 times before we played the Cradle show. Speaking for myself, I practiced the songs a lot at home so I wouldn’t have to concentrate as hard once we did play live. I really enjoyed trying to figure out all my old parts. I got most of them but some I had to improvise.

You recently played “Wrong” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. What was that experience like?
Looking back on it now I’d say I really enjoyed it. At the time I was pretty nervous; in fact, all of us were. I hadn’t been nervous about playing since early on with the Archers. And it was cold as shit in the studio. Like 45 degrees if I had to guess. I’d be curious to know exactly. So the cold and the nerves made it difficult to play comfortably and when it’s cold your fingers don’t slide up and down the fret board/strings because the oil on your fingers is dried up. But I shouldn’t complain. We were happy to be there. We did our first “light” check after we did our sound check. We basically played 2 songs while they adjusted lights. Made you feel sort of self-conscious but for those folks it was probably just another day at the office. It was fascinating to me to see how a TV talk show is put together. All the people there were very nice and very professional. We didn’t get to hang out with Jimmy but he seemed cool in the very brief period of time we talked to him after we finished. Oh, and we played at around 5:30. I was getting text messages at like 11 pm from people “wishing you luck tonight on Jimmy Fallon.” I just responded, “thanks, we’ll do our best.”

Why did you decide to play “Wrong” for your first TV appearance?
Well we didn’t really want to play the obvious, “Web in Front”. And most of our songs have curse words that you cannot repeat on network TV. So we were very limited in our choices. But “Wrong” was our first 7”. And since we were technically promoting the reissue of Icky Mettle it made sense to play a song off that record. In short it was a process of elimination. The second song we played was “Harnessed in Slums” off Vee Vee.

There are shows booked for the band through the end of the year. Does the band have plans past then? Could we see new material written/recorded?
We do not have any solid plans after this tour but I think we’re going to play more. It’s going really well right now and we’re having a lot of fun so it doesn’t make sense to stop. I hope we do more shows and I think we will. There are places we’d like to go that we weren’t able to schedule this time around.

I don’t know if we’ll record new material or not. Eric B made a good point. We would have no desire to write songs that sound consistent with what we’ve already recorded. The way the band naturally evolved would no longer apply due to the 13 year hiatus. On the other hand, we’d have to re-invent ourselves almost entirely and that doesn’t make sense either unless we were all quitting our jobs to dedicate ourselves totally to the band. We haven’t had a sit down about it but we’ve tossed it around some. I would love to record more but right now I’m focused on playing good shows and having a good time.

How do you think Arrows differs from your previous albums?
I think Arrows is less cluttered and more straightforward than our previous records. It has less going on musically.

What was it like recording with Chris Walla and what effect did he have on the album?
Chris is an extremely pleasant person in and out of the studio. You can clearly hear his influence all over Arrows. The entire record has the sonic feel of a Death Cab For Cutie record (which is awesome).

What were the recording sessions like for Arrows?
We spent a lot of time laughing and listening to good music. When we weren’t recording we were barbecuing and playing video games. It was pretty relaxed.

A lot of your songs seem to have to do with life and living life to the fullest. Why do you think this theme is prevalent in your music?
I’m a pretty dramatic guy. I overanalyze everything and I’m pretty hard on myself. I usually write my best lyrics when I’m depressed or mad at myself (which is more often than I’d like to admit). For this reason, a lot of The Lonely Forest’s lyrics serve as self-motivators. For example, “Turn Off This Song and Go Outside” was an attempt to get myself off of the guitar and outside on the hiking trails.

Another theme that is obviously present in your music is nature – you make allusions to Walt Whitman’s poetry. What kind of influence does he and transcendentalism have on your lyrics?
I have always been a supporter of spirituality outside of organized religions. Growing up in a legalistic Christian church taught me a lot about the sincerity of spirituality and the dangers of religious regulations. Being outside and in the woods (in my opinion) can be one of the quickest ways to have a genuine spiritual experience. Writers like Whitman understood this in a way I don’t think I will ever fully grasp.

You guys just finished touring with Death Cab for Cutie. What was that like?
Touring with Death Cab was one of the coolest things we have ever done. They are such good people and a really great band. It was really strange to see them playing our favorite songs from The Photo Album and We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes from side stage.

What is next for The Lonely Forest?
We plan on touring as much as we can in the next two years before starting work on our follow up record to Arrows. We go out with Two Door Cinema Club in September.

Who approached who about reuniting?
Well, we started talking about doing the reissue of Emergency & I and our friend Josh Sorell over at the Onion kept calling me about it. So when we started talking more about the reissue, we started hanging out more. And as we started hanging out more, we started playing a little music. The more we played the more we thought “well, let’s play a couple shows.” Our initial idea was to play three shows around the re-issue which were great. But that turned into a bunch of shows in the states and five shows in Japan and now, two more festivals. So it kind of snowballed quick once the interest blew up.

Earlier this year, you reissued Emergency & I. The album is considered by many to be your masterwork. Do you feel it is your best album?
People seem to like it the best. The CD seemed to be the most popular back when we sold it at shows and I feel like those are the songs that get most requested at shows. It seemed pretty obvious if we were going to reissue anything on vinyl, it would be that.

What is your fondest memory from the recording sessions of Emergency & I?
Oh man, I have got a lot of them. It was a lot of fun to record because we were this small band from DC that recorded our first couple of albums on shoestring budgets; the first record we paid for ourselves and the second, we had a small budget from DeSoto. Suddenly, we had this big chunk of cash from Interscope which wasn’t as big as most major label bands but for us, it was massive. We had three weeks to record. It was a treat to take the time to record. We stayed at the studio; it had apartments at it. It was just fun. We took our time and got the songs right. It was up in Hoboken, NJ so when we weren’t recording, we went out and had really great food. It was during the World Cup, so we watched a lot of soccer. Lots of good memories.

Re-listening to the album, is there anything new you have noticed about the album?
Nothing new but when we made the record initially, we knew it was going to be a CD so it was mastered a very different way. But when we reissued it, we had the luxury of going back to the studio and listening to the original tapes, hoping on the mixmound and listening to it on analog speakers. It was amazing because you can hear so much more on the original tapes than on the CD version. In some ways, the vinyl reissue is a middle ground between the CD and the actual master tapes we have. There is a lot more definition, the bass is a lot warmer and bigger. There is some air behind the guitar and more breadth to the vocals. It just sounds a lot more alive. I mean, I like the CD but its just a lot more squished than the vinyl version.

That’s how CDs always are, right?
I guess. I’ve always heard that and I kind of knew it. I helped out at Dischord briefly a couple years ago and I remember hearing a Fugazi LP next to a Fugazi CD and really hearing the difference but it stands out when it is your own songs. You know the songs intimately and to hear how they sound differently is pretty astonishing.

Do you have a favorite song on the album?
I wouldn’t say there is one. I think I like the whole record. I know it is a cop out but they are a group of songs we liked and wrote together. I feel like “The City” is an on going favorite but…I guess “The City” or maybe “Spider [in the Snow].”

I know young bands go into the studio and record every song they have written. Did you write Emergency & I as an album or was it a collection of songs?
I don’t think we conceptualized it as “hey, this is an album.” I feel like it was a time in our lives where that was how the songs were coming out. I have a pretty good memory for where we wrote the songs. We had a hole-in-the-wall practice space back then. I remember some of the seeds of the songs but I think a lot of it was just what we were living through at the time being influenced by that. Being influenced from being able to tour all the time and finding a new found confidence from that. That influenced how the songs came out but I don’t think we really sat down and determined “we are going to make an album that sounds like x.” It was more like here are some songs from a period in our lives and then when you step back to record it you see what they look like as a group. Does that make sense?
Yeah
Some people write records with a concept in mind. Sea Change by Beck comes to mind. It clearly sounds like he set off to write a morose record about breaking up. It is clearly influenced by the Red House Painters. My guess is most bands don’t do that and in most cases, its just writing songs and a collection of them go well together.

You are releasing your first ever live album. How did the idea for it come about?
It kind of snuck up on us. We were in Japan and our A&R person in Japan hired someone to record a couple of the shows. We did five dates in Japan and one of the nights was just us. We were the only band. Some of the nights we played a half hour or 45 minutes but that one night he was like “you’re the only band and its for your die hard fans and you can play all the songs you want tonight.” So we played a really long set. The live album has got to be an hour 40. We stretched out and just played and played and played. Luckily, we had a really good night; I feel like the performances are good and we’re not spazzing out and playing too fast or too sloppy. I think at the time we weren’t sure we were doing a record but he started sending us tapes and talking about it and it seemed like a good idea.

Had you ever played an hour and 40 minute set before then?
Yeah, on the last tour in ’03. Every night, we just took requests all night. We didn’t keep a clock on stage so we would just play until we got tired. I remember a couple of nights after shows talking to our sound tech or merch person and we did an hour 45. I remember one night–I think it was in Anaheim–we did almost two hours. It was a little self-indulgent but people kept requesting stuff so we kept playing it.
Even the reunion shows, a lot of those nights we at least an hour and a half.

You have two dates left on the reunion tour.
We do. We have the Roots fest out in Philly and the Pitchfork fest out in Chicago.
So I assume those will be shorter sets because they are part of fests?
Yeah, The Roots, all the bands get a half-an-hour. Pitchfork, we’re playing second to last so a lot later in the night. Our set there is around an hour. So in neither case will we be playing an hour and a half to two hours.
So this transitions well, do you think your hour and 40 minute set playing days are behind you or are there further plans?
We talked about it. There are two minds. One thing is: we hadn’t played in a long time and a lot of people who came to saw us either never saw us or hadn’t seen us in a long time so a good chunk of the crowd wanted to hear everything. So you want to make sure everyone feels satisfied because it may be the last show, we don’t know. This might be the last time we do club shows. At the same time, it is a long ass time. There are plenty of bands I love to pieces but I would be hard pressed to sit through two hours of. So I don’t know, we’ll find a middle ground. But if we start playing club shows again, we’ll have to readdress that and at that point, we may have forgotten what we learned this time.
So do you think a new album is in your future or anything like that?
We’re keeping kind of an open mind about everything. Going into this and even now we all have very different lives and different ideas about what we want to do. But as far as shows, but as far as writing is concerned, everyone is pretty open to seeing what happens. We’re not scheduling time to write a record. To be honest, we played that last show in Seattle and everyone got so busy with work that I haven’t seen a lot of those guys for a month and a half. Everyone’s careers are so busy. I would think once things slow down we might mess around in the basement but we’re well aware we don’t want to force anything. We broke up in ’03 because we didn’t want to force a record out and the writing wasn’t coming strongly. We want to make sure we don’t forget that and if we start writing that things feel really good.
I understand, don’t want to tarnish the name?
Yeah, a lot of bands go a lot longer than they need to. I can see why because playing live is a lot of fun but at the same time, you want to feel like you’re putting out stuff that is always your best work and always essential.

What is your take on the current state of punk?
I don’t really have a current take on it. It’s a music that started in the 70s, Its nostalgia really, I don’t see it as current. Its influenced and has had a bearing on current music.

Your solo output has traditional not been punk. Why such a stylistic difference between X Ray Spex and your solo records?
Because if I was going to make a solo album, why would they be the same? What’s the point of making a solo album if it was going to sound like X-ray Spex.

How is working as a solo artist different from being in a band?
As a solo artist you can break new ground, as a band you’ve got to keep the band’s sound, which is like a trademark.

Your new album Generation Indigo is your first solo album since 1980′s Translucence. How different will this album be?
Its nothing like Transluscence, its kind of upbeat dancey, but lyrically there are some similarities to work I’ve done in the past.

I know because of health issues you are not currently planning live dates, but is touring something that still interests?
Yes, of course I want to get up there and do my new album.

You have always been a very social conscious person. Are there any current social issues you are lobbying for or against?
War, the environment, racism, all these subjects I touch on my new album.

MP3: Chad Vicious “Surviving the Golden Age exclusive mix”

Track listing
McDastardly VS. Figure “The Phantom”
F.O.O.L. “Reborn (Tom Deluxx Remix)”
Drivepilot “Fuck Yeah (Boomzers Remix)”
Circe “Here Come The Punks (Haezer Remix)”
Valerna “Wrath Of God”
Chad Vicious “Gonna Raise Hell”
Prodigy “Warrior (Far Too Loud Remix)”
Produkkt “Clampino Airforce (Cyberpunkers Remix)”
Tommie Sunshine / Sharam Jey “The Things You Say (Cyberpunkers Remix)”

You grew up in Alaska. What was the music scene like up there growing up?
Alaska is pretty diverse, but there’s not a lot of people to support a scene of diversity. There are folk & acoustic coffee shops, and a very small scene of hard rock original bands; my friend’s 36 Crazyfists being probably the biggest export from that scene. Then there are a few obligatory top 40 clubs, bands and DJ’s – not a huge electronic music scene during that time.
What were some of your earliest musical influences?
I’ve been listening to music before I could even speak, and my musical influences are pretty diverse. At first, they were more “guitar driven” straight rock… such as KISS, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Helmet, L.A. Guns, etc. But they also drifted into more of the electronic side like NIN, The Crystal Method, The Prodigy, Luke Vibert, Chemical Brothers, Filter, and most artists from the Tidy Traxx label. I would have to say the album that changed it most for me was, The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails. I had been a fan since “Broken”. But the songs off The Downward Spiral, bridged the gap between Rock and Dance music – especially “March of the Pigs” and “Ruiner.”
How did you first get into DJing?
I was mixing audio for bands at this club in AK, and they had supplied mixed CD’s for the audio engineers play for when the bands would go on break. I got sick of hearing the same mixes over and over, so instead of playing them, I just started DJ’ing music that I thought was cool. That eventually led to me DJ’ing in the other main room at that club when they had a opening. So my first main DJ gig, was a residency at the biggest club in Alaska.
Why did you decide to relocate to Las Vegas?
I felt I had done everything I could in Alaska. Plus there wasn’t an electronic scene at that time and I was just ready for a change. Vegas seemed like the logical choice because of the 24hr nightlife. There were places like Seamless After hours, Empire Ballroom and ICE that catered to local electronic DJ’s and Producers. Within a few months of moving here, I ended up having a two night a week residency at Seamless, which was awesome.
You describe your music as “Heavy Metal Disco”. What does this label mean to you?
“Heavy Metal Disco” is a term I came up with when I was trying to describe the music I produce and DJ to someone in layman’s terms. It was something like a,”techno beat with the aggressiveness and distortion of rock music” – so it just stuck. It seems to paint a better picture than telling someone “Fidget” or “Banging”…especially if they have little knowledge about house / electronic music.
In addition to creating your own music, you also spin DJ sets. What are some of your favorite records to spin?
I am geared more towards artists and producers than specific tracks. The ones that come to mind right now are: Cyberpunkers, Mustard Pimp, Skrillex, Haezer, F.O.O.L., and Valerna.
You created an exclusive mix for StGA, can you describe a little bit about the concept behind it and some of the song selections?
The concept behind the song selection is to give StGA an intimate experience of what it would be like if you were to catch me DJ’ing at a venue. To put in as much expression of my sound in the mix, so that readers feel me without actually being there. Hopefully that translates to fans of Surviving the Golden Age.
Finally, what is next for Chad Vicious?
The last few months had me focused on producing and remixing tracks a lot, but now I’m ready to start touring again. I just played in Denver and that reminded me how much I miss playing…

MP3: The Boy Least Likely To “Christmas Isn’t Christmas

Your new album is called Christmas Special, what made you want to do a Christmas album?
We’ve both always loved Christmas songs and we’ve always written them. At first we were going to do a little EP, but when we started putting all the songs together that we’d written about Christmas we realized there were too many so it became a whole album. I guess Christmas appeals to me from a lyrical point of view because it seems to be a really magical time that holds a lot of sadness in it too. There’s a sense of loss that i think a lot of people feel at Christmas and I write about loss a lot, the way things change as you grow up and grow out of things. the more Christmas songs we wrote the more we realized it was such a perfect concept for a Boy Least Likely To album, because it’s a time of joy and happiness at the same time as being a time of reflection and melancholy. There’s always been that balance in our songs between overtly upbeat music and sadder lyrics so it suited the way we always write. Christmas is such an amazing time when you’re young and I think it’s a time when adults are more acutely aware of missing the things they used to enjoy as a child too.

The press release for the album said most of the album was written this summer. What was it like recording a Christmas album months away from the actual season?
It was really weird. I’ve been so confused since July. I’ve been thinking Christmas is a month away since then. Most of it was written over the last two years, but we recorded it all over the summer. It is odd singing songs about snow and opening stockings by the fire on the hottest day of the year. I’d talk about Christmas as if it was an immediate concern for everyone and people would think i was completely mad. My girlfriend made me a Christmas dinner in September with decorations and Christmas songs playing just so I could get in the mood for the last bit of recording the album. That was pretty weird, but it made me want to do that more often throughout the year…perhaps once a month.

The album contains eight original songs. Are there any songs on the album that you think could be modern Christmas classics along the lines of Wham!‘s “Last Christmas”?
There’s actually a song about Wham! on there. It’s written about Andrew and George meeting up together all these years later in a Cornish pub on Christmas eve, and just talking about the past and their friendship. It’s the single off the album in the UK. I really like all the songs on the album, and I think some of the best songs we’ve ever written are on it.

There’s a song called “A Happy Christmas Baby” that we’ve had for a few years and have always thought was quite special, and there’s “Blue Spruce Needles” and “Christmas Isn’t Christmas” which are two more recent songs that I’m really proud of. And a song called “I Can’t Make It Snow” which contains some of my favourite lyrics. I wrote it a few years ago and I always imagined it as a Tammy Wynette song and I’m really happy that’s on there. I guess we just have to wait and see if anyone else likes them for them to become Christmas classics. It might just end up being our great lost Christmas record.

How did you decide what Christmas covers to put on the album?
We wanted to do songs that haven’t been covered too often by other people, and that fitted nicely alongside our own songs. We’d released a version of “Little Donkey” a few years ago and it’s my favourite traditional Christmas song so that was always going to go on there. I like to think it’s the sort of song that we would have written about a donkey at Christmas. Then we both really liked “The Wassail Song” because it’s quite unusual and it’s about the new year and we really wanted a song about the new year on the album. And in the bleak midwinter is such a beautiful song. We had thought about doing it with the Christina Rossetti lyrics, but it just sounded so much more magical as an instrumental that in the end we left them off. It reminds me of hearing it when I was young and makes me feel really warm and sad.

You talk about food on twitter quite a bit. What is your favorite Christmas associated food?
Oh God. I didn’t realize I talked about food so much. I’m such a fat person. How embarrassing. I do have lots of favourite Christmas food though. I love doing a Christmas shop the week before, even though no one ever comes round to my house. One of the most exciting things about Christmas food is that they change the packaging and somehow to my tiny brain that’s enough to make it special. Twiglets come in tubs at Christmas and Maltesers and fruit pastilles come in tubes. Wow. Chocolate oranges are amazing, so are matchmakers and hollow Christmas tree chocolates. Sugar mice are pretty odd but I’ll probably do a couple over the two weeks. And I’ll eat so many roast potatoes it’s sick. Then to drink, I absolutely love a snowball, and I like to add a little shot of vodka to my snowballs just to give them an edge. No one else i know likes them but i think they’re amazing. they taste like Amoxicillin.

What’s the best Christmas gift you have ever received?
I got a book last year. It’s called The World of Midgets and it was written in 1934 by Walter Bodin and Burnet Hershey. It’s got some amazing chapter titles: “The Long and Short of It”, “Sex and the Midget”, “Midgets in Love”. It’s quite a special book. I got a double vinyl set of outlaw songs and gunfighter ballads by Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins from my mum and dad when I was six. I remember that being an amazing present. I think they must have been my first records. I love buying presents for people. One of my favourite things about Christmas is all the presents you buy for yourself when you’re supposed to be shopping for presents for other people.

You’re going on a short December tour, what should fans expect from these shows?
We’re going to bring Christmas. We’ve got all the decorations to go up and a tree and bells and we’ll have some special christmas guests and there’ll be mince pies and Christmas songs. We’ll play some of our rest of the year songs too. I’m so excited about these shows. I want people to have the most amazing time. i just hope Santa turns up.

After your short December tour, what’s next for The Boy Least Likely To?
We’re going to release a new single around March and then another one and hopefully the full album in the autumn. We’ve already got quite a few songs for it and I think it’s going to be really good. I’m not just saying that.

MP3: The Bad Plus “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Your new record is called Never Stop. How do you think it compares to your previous albums?
Hopefully it shows our maturity ten years in.
It is your first all-originals album. Why no covers?
We regard composition as the life force of the band. A populist conception of us as “the band who plays Nirvana covers” might help us fill seats but is fundamentally incorrect — we’ve always had about 75-90% original music in the book. Also, our last record was all covers, so it was time for a change. Our next project, incidentally is a “cover” – the complete Rite of Spring by Stravinsky! We premiere that at Duke University in March.
Your last album For All I Care, was the first to contain vocals. Although none are included on Never Stop, is that something you might experiment with in the future?
Never say never, but there are not new projects planned for the future.
What is the writing process like for The Bad Plus? Are most songs thoroughly pre-rehearsed or is it mostly improv?
Depends on the song. On this album, something like “Never Stop” doesn’t have much improv but “2 PM” does.
What were the recording sessions for Never Stop like?
A relaxed hang out at Pachyderm in the middle of nowhere, Cannon Falls. Very cool scene.
Do you have a favorite song on the album?
Hard to say!
What is next for The Bad Plus?
This fall and spring we are busy touring the record in the states and Europe. Over Christmas and New Year’s we look forward to our annual
residencies at the Dakota and the Village Vanguard. Then the Stravinsky…