1/10/2014
1/09/2014
1/07/2014
Interview: Melodious Mike from Devils Kazoo
So here comes the first Interview. I got really lucky and Melodious Mike found some time to answer a bunch of questions. Hope you enjoy it and check him as well as his Crew out!
Hi
Mike thx for taking the time for this interview.
Could
you explain in some words what
background you got and what brought you into Hip Hop
I actually started off writing and
doing spoken word poetry growing up. As far as applying it to Hip Hop, that
didn’t happen until much later. I played around in college a bit but it was
after college I started hooking up with some other like minded people and we
actually started making stuff worth listening too. That is when Big Rooz and
I really started with Devils Kazoo. The music I made before that I wouldn’t
even play for you.
What
type of music have you been into before exploring Hip Hop and did that have a
lot of influence of your recent / past work?
I grew up listening to everything
because of my parents. I feel very lucky because of that and I try to do the
same with my daughter now because I think it’s so important. My Dad was a big
classic rock and jazz guy (a lot of Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis) and played classical every Sunday morning. My
mom was into T-Rex, Paul Simon and fun stuff like that. They both listened to
the Talking Heads and David Byrne a lot so that was a huge influence. I grew up
in a remote area so the only hip-hop I was really exposed to growing up were
the Beastie Boys… or should I say that was the only hip hop I could get away with
listening too. I distinctly remember having Dr. Dre and Snoop tapes taken away
if my mom found them. It wasn’t until I was in college I became aware of the
underground scene etc.
You
also formed the label Devils Kazzoo. Have you been one of he founding members?
And who are the other members?
Devils Kazoo was formed as a vehicle
for multiple artists to support each other. Power in numbers type of thing. I
wouldn’t call it a label specifically (although I’m sure I’ve referred to it
that in the past) because that would imply that we sign artist and have a plan
for making money ha ha. The founding members of DK are myself and Big Rooz but
the core four members are the two of us, Korben Welles
(formerly MOEdavey) and Matt Butters. It’s a combo you can’t really beat,
two emcees and two outstanding producers. There are other supporting members we
consider family as well like Just Muz and some of the crew at Strange
Gibberish like Waatu, Fat
Ross and Weez One.
Did
you know them before in „real life“ and whats the usual way yall communicate?
Great question because I don’t think
there are too many other times in the history of music that this would be
appropriate to ask. Devils Kazoo and everything that we’ve been trying to do
really only progressed the way it did because of online outlets like Twitter.
Rooz and I were good friends going into this, but Korben is in the U.K. and we
have never met in person. In fact we’ve only Skyped once at this point, but
we’ve put out entire albums together. I would say that 85% of the people I’ve
done tracks with I’ve never met or talked to. All communication is over email,
twitter etc. Being older now and having a daughter I don’t have the luxury of
doing a lot of live performances or even going to live performances to meet up
with people. With online outlets I have met some of the most talented artists
ever… some that people are aware of and some that don’t even publicize their
stuff and we just vibe not just because we have similar styles, but mostly
because we have a respect for quality. As an artist I want to be able to try
out new things but the quality of the music always has to remain on a constant.
So pretty much these days you can record your vocals and send them off to the
producer or vice versa and you can put out a digital track no problem.
Whats
the criteria for new artists to participate in Devils Kazoo
That same desire to put out quality and
some original ideas on how to get the music out there.
You
got a job at Second Melody.
I guess you also consider your music as a job, so which work you prefer to do
and where do you put more effort in?
I actually own Second Melody, we are a
small design firm. There are actually a lot of obvious comparisons between
owning a business and putting out music. Promotion, sales, marketing and
putting out a quality product are all applicable. Second Melody pays the bills
but when we make money through DK its a great bonus. I know a lot of music
artists that are awesome photographers, illustrators, designers etc. that make
their money from music. For me it is reversed. I don’t have as much time to
dedicate to music as I would like, but I’m also not under the illusion that I
am going to become rich and famous from it. Those out there doing music full
time are ridiculously dedicated and I respect the shit out of them. The real
shame of it is the artists that put out a few singles, don’t do shows, use
unoriginal beats and think that some record label is just going to come along
and offer them a contract. It’s sad. If you want something as much as you say
you do then you have to be wiling to sacrifice for it.
If
you could life with your musical income would you stop your other job?
Probably not. Being a designer and
running the business is just as important to me as making music. The other
factor in that is how much work it takes to make money just off of music. The
touring and playing live aspect of it is necessary. With a young daughter now
that is not as appealing as it might have once been. But because of that I also
know that my reach as Melodious Mike might be limited and I am okay with that.
Which
of your songs do you enjoy most? And what type of background does it have.
That would be tough, Beauty Joints as a
whole was a huge accomplishment for me because it was the first time I put out
something that was a full project end to end. What was crazy about it is when
Korben (MOE) was sending those beats through (and keep in mind we had only just
started to talk over twitter, it seemed like there was a natural order to them
as I started listening and putting them together. Not saying they came over in
the order we arranged them in, but it was easy to see what was going to start
the album and what was going to end the album and where everything fell in the
middle. I think that’s why Korben and I work so well together is because we
have a mutual respect for what the other brings to the table. We will always be
honest if we aren’t feeling things one way or the other but I don’t try to pick
apart his beats and he doesn’t pick apart my vocals. Even though those tracks
were generally about music and making music, we used the concept of beauty to
string them together and I think that’s what made the project work as a whole.
I
guess its not that easy for underground artsits to come by with releasing music
only. What do you consider the hardest part to get known or at least some
attention.
The time and effort it takes to get
known or get attention. Making music is half the battle. If for one minute you
question your ability as an artist, give up now. I don’t mean that to
disrespectful, but that is true with any craft. There is this poem by Charles
Bukowski called ‘So you want to be a writer?’ that I think everyone should read,
especially if you are an artist of any type.
He says, way better than I could ever state, that if you have to try to
write or if you have to force yourself to do it, then just stop. On top of that
though you have to market yourself. You have to make the music accessible to
people… not in content but I mean you have to make sure they can buy it or
listen to it or see you live or whatever. That shit is hard, takes a lot of
time, effort and money and often times you can be the best musician in the
world but if you hate the marketing and promotion side of it unfortunately you
aren’t going to get far. Fortunately for new artists there are a ton of free
tools to do that these days but you have to be willing to dedicate yourself to
it.
Or
maybe you are happy that your not that popular and see it more like a hobby?
Nobody is happy that their stuff
doesn’t get heard or seen, anybody who tells you that is lying ha ha… but I
think as long as you are comfortable with getting back as much as you put in,
that is what is key.
Is
there anything our of your perspective which would make it easier to get more
attention
It would be easier to get attention if
people were a little more used to paying for music than they are. I’m a bit of
a hypocrite when it comes to this because we of course give most of our stuff
away, but I think that if free music wasn’t a thing or wasn’t expected it would
weed out a lot of the mediocre artists and it would also get the talented
artists paid a little more often so they could make more music and go on tour
etc. That’s what is so messed up about it, people don’t realize that if you pay
for an artists work it allows them to make more work for you to enjoy. So by
paying for it you are benefiting yourself and the music community. But we live
in a culture of immediate satisfaction. Nobody looks towards long term support
or anything like that… we just want what we want now.
What
about blogs. Do you see em as usefull and have regular contact to some
bloggers?
Blogs are fantastic when they are true
to their brand promise. What I mean by that is if you say you are about music
then be about music and support music. When blogs don’t realize that the
material that they post are also helping them get traffic and bringing in
advertising dollars, that’s when I think there is a problem. If you can help
get artists seen and even more so if you can help get artists paid then I think
that it’s a successful relationship because if you are doing your job right
then you should be making money too.
It
seems like you never did a video. Is it that you just dont enjoy doing it / ist
too expensive / dont expect something from it?
We’ve done a couple (http://vimeo.com/devilskazoo) but since you didn’t see them then we obviously aren’t doing our job
ha ha… but to answer your question, we definitely enjoy doing them but again
the time and effort and money are always a factor. We shot the two we did with
no budget at all but we should have promoted them a lot more than we did.
Videos are key though for any artist. We live in a visual society… with so many
people finding out about music while sitting at a computer you are much more
likely to sit there and watch something than listen to it.
You
and Devils Kazoo often offered songs / albums for free for example on bandcamp.
How was the feedback like the free download / donation ratio?
That’s an easy one ha ha… if we offer
it up for free we get tons of downloads… if we put it up for a cost we still
get the listens but a small small portion of that actually buy. Again, that
doesn’t surprise or frustrate me, it makes me want to work harder to get the
stuff out there. Here’s the thing, these days there isn’t an emphasis on owning
things anymore. You basically rent most media… movies, books, music… all
streaming, no physical objects so when you pay for music on bandcamp, since you
can already listen to the whole album if you wanted to, it has to be because
you are willingly supporting the artist, not just because you want to own the
mp3 files. That’s partially why I think vinyl is making a huge comeback because
when you buy a record it reminds someone of what they paid for… the art, the
packaging, the physical object… its beautiful look at as well as listen to. I
don’t think it’s 100% right because we don’t place an emphasis on the music
itself but that’s just the way it is.
You
/ yall planing a tour maybe abroad? Or have you ever done that?
Not right now. We are focusing on
making more music. We have had a lull as of late because of schedules etc. but
we are back on top of it all. We have some great things going on right now.
Do
have contacts to artists in the US / abroad?
Yes but again through social outlets.
It’s a beautiful thing to be able to work with people all over the world. I
just did a track recently with artists in the U.K., France and Canada all on
one song… and none of us had to leave our own studios.
I
think Beauty
Joints was one oft he 1st releases i heard
from you. Return oft the… went straight to my chan. This song got 125 views
after 23 month online, what do you think when you see this.
Two parts to that answer. I think it’s
dope that people like you look for music that we make and post it up and in
your case you are taking an audio medium and posting it as a video while giving
us credit which is great. It’s something a lot of artists, including us should
be doing too because having videos on YouTube, even if they are just audio help
with online searches. As far as the amount of views I think that is more on you
because you are posting the video but I get what you are asking. I’ve probably
said it seventy times so not to sound like a broken record but you can post
your music to every single outlet you want, but nobody just stumbles upon
music. You have to market it and tell people it is there.
There
have been several discussions about copyright. Whats your opionion about that?
Copyrights are important… every artist
has a right to get credit and get paid for the music that they made. We
obviously use samples and don’t get clearance because it’s basically impossible
for an independent artist to do that. So, should we stop using them? If we are
going to sell the tracks that we make with the samples then probably… however,
I also think that it isn’t a black and white issue. It’s probably a whole other
interview.
More
and more artists now make money mainly with some special editions (like the
release comes with T-Shirts and Vinyl, Poster or whatever) and tours. Your
planing on doing something similar especially the special editions since we
talked bout tours before.
Definitely. We want to do some remix
versions of some older stuff and Korben and I are working on getting a vinyl
release together. I think merchandise is key because it’s another touch point
for a fan and also getting back to what I was saying before about owning stuff,
I think that t-shirts and other stuff like that is more affordable than vinyl
or physical releases for artists to make
so it makes sense.
You
thought about releasing on iTunes or a similar platform. If not, mainly because
ist expensive or what other reasons?
Not because it’s expensive to release
on iTunes or other platforms (because it isn’t that expensive) but because you
have to make sure you can spend the time and money promoting it so it sells.
Getting on iTunes should never be a goal for an artist. You can have your album
on BandCamp and make a ton of money or you can have your music on iTunes and
make no money… the medium doesn’t really matter… it just matters that the
listeners know your music is there and they can listen and purchase.
What
music are you primarily listen to?
I listen to everything. Hip Hop wise
some artists I have been listening to a ton lately are Versis, Hawk House,
Zilla Rocca, Blu everything on Mello Music Group and I always resort back to
anything 90’s. Other than that I’m on a mission to get my daughter into
anything and everything I can. Right now she knows most of the words to ‘Yellow
Submarine’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and she’s two. I count that as a win.
You
still party and if yes do you have a resident club and what type of music you
prefer when going out
Not too much partying for me these
days.
Do
you ever travelled overseas or planing to do that? What is your favorite place
you been to or want to go to.
I lived in England for a few months
years ago. I would love to get back… especially to hook up with Korben.
Thanks alot for taking the time. Wish you
and the wole Devils Kazoo Crew the best for the future!
1/05/2014
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