»anewnoise interviews e*vax

»e*vax history«

Q Give us a brief history of e*vax, how long you've been making music and where you're form.
I've been doing E*vax for about 2 1/2 years and I'm from lots of places, like cleveland, upstate new york, oakland, portland, and now brooklyn.

Q Why did you choose the name e*vax ­ your brother is called e*rock right?
My brother and I recorded a noise album years ago under the name King Pang and we came up with those names for the insert. It was sort of a joke at the time, but now it's very, very serious.

Q Tell us about your musical background ­ have you been in more traditional bands before or were you one of those kids who was busy re-wiring their casio sk1 when they were young?
I never had an SK-1, but my brother did. I was definitely jealous. I remember getting a birthday gift from my parents one year that came in a sk-1 sized box, I was pretty excited but it turned out to be an electric toothbrush.

I recorded five albums of straight pop music before I started doing E*vax. Eventually I started getting interested in using sampled beats and keyboards and less interested in writing lyrics and singing.

»making music«

Q Who/what inspired you to start making electronic music?
I'm not really sure, I just sort of stumbled across it. It took me a long time to really appreciate electronic music. Probably the first electronic album I owned was an Oval record. I didn't even listen to it that much but it got me thinking. Then when I started to realize how vast the posibilites were I was hooked.

Q Your music seems to have more in common with some UK and German electronic bands than those (we hear) from the US, are you influenced more by bands/artists outside of the States?
Most of my favorite electronic artists are from Europe. I suppose they just have a bigger electronic scene there because dance music caught on in Europe much more than it ever did in the US. It seems like things are starting to pick up here though. I'm hoping we'll see some new electronic artists coming from different sorts of musical backgrounds, people with pop sensibilities or rock or punk or whatever.

Q What effect would you like your music to have on your listeners?
I just hope people enjoy it, I hope the melodies get stuck in their heads. I don't want to make music that is out to impress, like stuff that people listen to because of how complex the beat structures are. I don't want anyone to listen to my record and say "that guy really knows how to use a computer". I just want them to enjoy listening to it.

Q Do you have a method to how you create songs?
Sometimes I begin to notice myself developing certain methods or habits when I start songs and when that happens the process just becomes lifeless - going through the motions. My best songs seem to be the ones that turn into a huge mess of sound at some point during the recording process and then I'm forced to make some sort of musical order out of it.

Q Are the sounds you use in your music sourced from samples, everyday sounds or are they all created on a computer?
Most of the beat sounds come from recording things around the house or around the neighborhood. I like to use sounds that actually bring to mind a physical object. Electronic drum sounds are often too clean and perfect, I like sounds that are less predictable and have some character. The melodies mostly come from my synthesizer. The synthesizer is a good tool because you can get so many different sounds out of one machine, but I prefer to use acoustic instruments whenever it's practical. When I lived in Portland I shared my house with 2 other musicians so there were always loads of instruments around, guitar, accordian, trumpet, harmonica, voice. Now that I'm in Brooklyn I'm limited to what I have on hand, my synthesizer and a trumpet, and I can hardly play the trumpet at all. Lately I've been really into the sound of the French horn. I'm trying to find someone who can play one and will let me record them.

Q Do you find it hard to be disciplined when making music on a computer? I've recently started to use a computer to record music and it's turned out being counter productive because it gives too many options in how to mess with sounds...
At first it was kind of daunting to have so many options at my fingertips, but after a while I sort of developed a taste for the kinds of sounds I wanted to use. I used to mess with the sounds a lot but at this point I hardly do any sound manipulation in the computer, I try to do as much of that acoustically as possible, and then just use the computer as a sequencer. It probably helps too, that the software i use is very old and outdated so I don't have as many fancy effects around to tempt me.

Q Do you think electronic music in the 90s got too obsessed with beats, drum and bass etc, and overlooked melody too much?
I'm always looking for more melodic electronic music. People have done some incredible things with beats lately, but there are so many beat driven records coming out that for me a lot of it just blurs together. I love making beats for my music but there has to be a balance. Without the melodies I would just get bored with it.

Q Do you play live at all? I'm still working on a live set. All of my songs are in my computer, so I'm trying to figure out a way to make it more interesting than just me sitting there with a laptop.

»other projects«

Q Are you still involved with running Audio Dregs label with your brother? Can you tell us about the label for those who don't know?
Eric started Audio Dregs a while back and I just started helping him with it in the past year. Basically we're just putting out music that we like, and we both have similar tastes so it works out well. We've got some really talented artists working with us. There's going to be a new record by Dim Dim called "Kiwi" out in the near future that I'm really excited about and a split label compilation with Tomlab from Germany, and loads of other releases too.

Q You have some cool flash animation on the Audio Dregs site, have you always been into art and design or is it something you picked up while playing around with computers?
I've been into art for as long as I can remember but I didn't start getting into design until a few years ago. These days I really enjoy it. I've been doing some of the layouts for the Audio Dregs releases and some web stuff too.

Q Is being in e*vax full-time project or do you a have day job or other things you are involved in also?
E*vax was full time for the past 9 months, but that was just because I couldn't find a job. I just started working again last week, I'm doing web design for a dot-com company. Last week I got to work on some web pages for Britney Spears and Destiny's Child.

Q You've just moved to New York from Portland ­ what has attracted you to the East Coast?
Portland was kind of a slow town. There's some good things going on there, but it's a very small community so I wanted to move somewhere bigger, more exciting. New York is a pretty crazy place. I used to think if I moved here it would swallow me up, but not that I live here I'm forced to keep up with it. It sort of kicks me in the ass sometimes, but I think it's a good thing.

Q What's coming up for e*vax in the near future?
Well, there's going to be some new stuff coming out. Right now I'm finishing up an EP for Tomlab. It's pretty different from "Parking Lot..." it's really slow and mellow. I'm thinking of it as a record to listen to on a summer night, sitting on a rooftop. It probably won't be out until after summer though. There's some new singles coming too.

»e*vax trivia«

Q Tell us about your record collection - what are you listening to most at the moment?
Jay-Z's "vol.2...hard knock life"

Q First album you bought?
First record I bought was "up on the sun" by the Meat Puppets, but the first cassette I bought was probably DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

Q Favourite film?
I'm not really sure. I love Jim Jarmusch's movies. "Down by Law" is amazing.

Q Favourite food?
This seems to change seasonally. Right now I'd love a milkshake.

Q Favourite chart song of the last year?
Big Pimpin (was that a hit in the UK?)

»answers some questions from the audiodregs survey«

Q If you could have the skills of any mc it would be.....?
This is a tough one, it's sort of a toss up between Jay-Z, Ghostface Killa, & Ol Dirty Bastard.

Q If you could have the skills of any dj it would be.....?
I'm going to extend 'DJ' to include producers and say Timbaland. That guy is doing some of the craziest stuff with beats these days. I've definitely stolen some ideas from him. He's really pushing the boundaries.

Q Can books take you to places you've never imagined?
no, that's ridiculous.

THANKS TO EVAN MAST FOR TAKING THE TIME OUT TO ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS