RxHx Answers Questions For Rock Stars
Question 1: CDs, Vinyl or Download?
Always reel to reel. Or if that’s not available I buy albums on vinyl and transfer them to reel to reel so I can cut and splice them into something different. My turntable was damaged in a recent fire and the stylus arm is badly warped so now everything sounds much more interesting. Sometimes I buy cassettes but I loaned my cassette player to the band Jibbernaut over a year ago and I think those guys left town with it.
Question 2: First album you ever bought (regardless of format)
The Birthday Party “Release the Bats” 12”. I’d just discovered the cough syrup in my parents’ medicine cabinet and it was a perfect pairing.
Question 3: Most recent album you bought?
I didn’t buy this album so much as I rescued it and it’s not an album in the standard sense. I liberated the master tapes of the Phuture Memoriez record “Play Cobra” from their studio and I’m going to add my own parts to it. I offered to play on it when they were making it but they never responded so I’ve taken it into my own hands and I plan on releasing my own version called “Don’t Play Cobra”. It’s an amazing album on its own but I think they’ll appreciate what I do with it.
Question 4: How did it come about that you first started playing music?
I spent most of my childhood living with a family in northern Michigan and there wasn’t much music in the household. We had a lot of guns in the house and my first introduction to tonal qualities came from shooting stop signs when I was probably around seven. I noticed if I used varying trajectories the metal would ring in different tones. It sounded beautiful to me and I spent hours and tons of ammo experimenting until I was told to cut it out and lost my gun privileges for a month. Later in life I recreated this in a more controlled environment and sampled the sounds. They’re like percussive bells. I used them on my song Deafhouse.
Question 5: First song you ever played?
Probably Hot Cross Buns on recorder in grade school. I remember the recorder tasted weird and smelled like dried deer blood and onions. After that it was probably I Want to be Sedated by The Ramones when I was around thirteen. One of the older kids at the house I lived at showed me how to play it on piano. I didn’t live there very long.
Question 6: Do you ever perform cover songs and if you do what is your favourite to play?
I’ve been messing around with Interzone by Joy Division and I might be adding it to my set if I can get it right. I love that song and I want to do it justice.
Question 7: Do you play all the instruments on your recordings? If you do not who are you collaborating with and what do they play?
At the moment this is an entirely solo project and I’m playing all the synths and doing all the vocals. That might change in the future but for now I’m enjoying the autonomy. I’ve been working with photographer Joe Koonz on the artistic side of this venture and he’s brought some incredible imagery to the project. He’s an amazing artist and I feel fortunate to be working with him. He’s very much a kindred spirit and we’ve bonded over a shared love of atmospheric horror movies.
Question 8: How did it come about when you first began performing music in public?
My first time playing on stage with short lived band called Young Youth (or, alternatively, Jung Youth). We only played one show. I think there were close to a dozen of us and we had rough outlines of what we were playing but they certainly weren’t songs in a standard sense. I was playing guitar, an instrument I can’t play at all, and I’m not sure if it was even plugged into an amp. But it felt great being on stage and being a part of that cacophony. I knew I wanted to do it again.
Question 9: Tell us a bit about your experience being part of Vancouver’s music scene.
I’ve heard a lot of complaints about Vancouver’s music scene but I think it’s quite a supportive and talented group of people. It’s so interesting and diverse. Recently I connected with the band Too Much Light and we’re doing a show together on August 8th. I really like what they’re doing. I’m also playing with We Found a Lovebird, Chalcedony, and Loan$ at Bully’s in New Westminster on June 28th. Musically I have very little in common with those bands but I like that we can come together and put on a show showcasing each other’s talents. I have a fascination with birds and I wish I could play exclusively with bands that have birds in their names but I don’t think that’s sustainable. I wish Swans would ask me to play with them. I sent Michael Gira a dead swan I found once with an introduction letter. He never responded.
Question 10: What is your favourite era of music and why?
I’m not sure if I have a favorite era. Lately I’ve been obsessed with the time around 2010. Groups like Salem, Oooooo, and White Ring made some killer albums around that time. I had Suffocation by White Ring on repeat during a long nighttime highway drive recentlyand that undercurrent of static drone was harmonizing with the sound of the rubber on the asphalt. It was magical.
Question 11: When you’re writing songs, is it the music or lyrics first?
It can go either way. But often I start with a beat and chord progression and see how it makes me feel. All my songs are about the immediate imminence of death so there’s always a lot to write about. I have a little altar I make offerings to whenever I sit down to write and just see what happens. My god is very generous and enjoys dark chocolate.
Question 12: How did you learn to write songs?
I guess figuring out how other people have approached songwriting and dissecting their techniques. I love interesting phrasing and how discordance builds tension. My knowledge of music theory is limited but generally I know how to make something sound the way I want it to. Stephen Hamm Theremin Man has been instrumental in helping me navigate this synth landscape and my friend Jasmin Parkin has helped me immeasurably with theory and harmonies.
Question 13: Velvet Underground, Beatles or The Clash?
Neu!
Question 14: What are your thoughts regarding music streaming?
It’s nice to have immediate access to whatever song you want to hear but I do miss the act of physical discovery. There’s no excitement and little joy in scrolling through songs on a screen. It feels banal and boring. Still it’s something I do every single day. I hate myself for it.
Question 15: iTunes, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Amazon or Spotify and why?
Usually Bandcamp to directly support an artist and Spotify for general listening. No real reason—it’s just what I started using and it works.
Question 16: Do you feel a presence on Social Media is vital for your music to be heard?
These days it feels like social presence is vital for proof of existence. I check my profiles to make sure no one’s posted an obituary and that I’m still alive. I don’t trust my pulse.
Question 17: Social Media platform of choice and why?
I prefer Instagram. I like the visual aspect and it feels like it lends itself easier to creative experimentation. I went through a period of about six months where I obsessively watched tornados and tsunamis on TikTok. I found it very relaxing.
Question 18: Does YouTube play a key role in getting your music heard?
I have no idea. I just watch hours of synth videos and footage from interrogation rooms. Sometimes I find videos of pigeons that are swarming a sidewalk or around a park bench and I look for patterns in their movements. Connectivity in the chaos. I was watching the rats at the dump the other day. I might start a “rats at the dump” YouTube channel. There were hundreds of them and they were big. I remember when I was living in Boston I’d taken acid one night and I was walking over a bridge in the Commons or Boston Gardens. When II got to the middle I looked down into the water and I saw the long fat fish swimming towards the banks. I thought it was a carp or something. It was beautiful shimmering silver in the moonlight, Then my eyes focused and I saw it was a giant wharf rat. It shook me up. Bad trip.
Question 20: What is your biggest aspiration in music? What is it that you hope to achieve?
The word aspire comes the Latin “aspirare” which means to breathe upon or breathe towards something. I feel like aspiring for something means giving life to something. Or maybe attempting to transform it. Music is like a magical ritual and like most rituals we have outcomes we’d favor but the reality is that any sense of control we have is an illusion. Whatever I may want to happen is largely irrelevant.
Question 21: What are your thoughts on the relevancy of Billboards Top 200 Albums chart?
I think it’s just as relevant as Casey Kasem’s American Top 40
Question 22: Favourite latest music discovery?
I really like N8NoFace. He did a great album with Eyedress that has a song called Stress I listen to when I want to chill out. There’s a guy called Fitness from LA who’s doing some really wild and interesting performance pieces. He played in Vancouver last year but I couldn’t go because I was bound up during that period of time. I regret missing that. I recently came across an album from 2005 bysomeone named Quasimodo Jones and I don’t know how he isn’t a household name. I read somewhere he froze to death in northern Sweden but I don’t know how true that is.
Question 23: Tell us about your latest release
The new RxHx song “Star FKD” is pretty self-explanatory. Death is inevitable and everyone is terrified of it. We’ve created a pantheon of gods and infinite religions to help us cope and when those beliefs come into conflict we inevitably start killing each other. It’s so counter intuitive. We’re such a fragile ego driven species at odds with the natural cycle. My god is a god of light and death that brings me comfort as I hasten into its arms.
Question 24: What is your dream concert to attend? Regardless of whether the band is still together or if the artist is still living, who would you like to see most and in what period of their career?
Suicide at one of their Mercer Arts Center shows. Maybe one of the ones when they played with the New York Dolls.
Question 25: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I want people to know that RxHx believes in them. That it puts its trust in them every day.