CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY OF PRINT ISSUE #9, WHICH FEATURES THIS INTERVIEW WITH CUT CHEMIST IN ITS ENTIRETY!
ONCE UPON A TIME, CUT CHEMIST WAS IN A BAND CALLED OZOMATLI. YOU PROBABLY KNOW HIM AS ONE OF THE DJS FROM JURASSIC 5. RECENTLY, HE STEPPED AWAY TO RECORD HIS VERY FIRST SOLO ALBUM, THE AUDIENCE\'S LISTENING. I INTERVIEWED HIM. READ IT!
Vinnie Baggadonuts: So are you excited about doing press for an album that is entirely yours?
Cut Chemist: (ON SPEAKERPHONE) What did you say? Maybe I should do this without the speakerphone. That almost sounded private.
VB: (laughs)
CC: (TURNS OFF SPEAKERPHONE) Hey. What’s the question?
VB: I just wondered if it was different doing interviews for an album that’s strictly yours, as opposed to a collaboration with other people.
CC: Oh yeah. It’s totally more personal. It carries a lot more weight.
VB: Is it a hard thing to get into though?
CC: Hard to talk about? Sometimes. I’m the type of artist that likes to do it, not talk about it. But I have to make a living, so I have to talk about it. I have to figure out a way to communicate it to the people before they figure out if they want to buy it.
VB: I don’t know how long it took to make the album, but what frame of mind were you in when you were recording it?
CC: I was struggling.
VB: Really?
CC: Yeah. I was struggling because I was trying to make something that was so unique. And by the time I turned it in, I almost forgot how much of a struggle it was. But then you just reminded me.
VB: (laughs) Sorry.
CC: (laughs) That’s alright.
VB: Was there a struggle at all with your initial vision and how it wound up being in the end, as far as sample clearances or just things progressing differently?
CC: No, it wasn’t too different. The album I wanted to make was exactly the one I did. I don’t think I expected to use the records I did.
VB: So when you started, it wasn’t a thing where you realized you could use all the records you’d been dying to use throughout the years?
CC: Right. I didn’t use any of those.
VB: Really?
CC: No, because I realized the records I wanted to use over the years were played out. You know, like that break-beaty kind of sound wasn’t where it was at anymore, so those songs didn’t make it.
VB: So what was the whole experience like, being able to sit down and do something you’d always dreamt about, and having it be completely yours?
CC: It felt great. I am so used to sharing the process with somebody else, you know? I didn’t get to do that this round. It was just me, so it was kind of lonely.
VB: But you got to go to Brazil.
CC: I got to go to Brazil, that’s true. But that was an adventure I took with other people. I just wound up straying away on my own and found something to do for my album in the process. Initially though, I went down on that trip for [photographer/filmmaker] Brian Cross’s Keep In Time project.
VB: Oh yeah!
CC: So that’s why I was there. I didn’t go there to record anything. It was just like a side dish.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRINT ISSUE #9 TO READ THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW!
READ OUR FIRST INTERVIEW WITH CUT CHEMIST HERE.