All of my favorite records have vocals high in the mix, even if it's music that wasn't necessarily mainstream.
There is a long and interesting tradition of really marginal left-field music that becomes commercially successful. And I will, for a brief minute, fit into that tradition.
I don't think all music that is considered 'avant-garde' is bad, but it's definitely elitist. I hope my music is not that.
I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.
I don't see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear 'pop,' you're like, 'Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,' and I feel like, 'Uh-uh. That's not me.'
Back in the day, I was definitely a child of alternative radio.
I think I gave indications early on that mine wasn't just going to be a commercial, er, career. If that were the case, then the first record would have been 10 versions of 'Loser.' I always thought it would be interesting if there was no such thing as gold and platinum records, or record deals, and people were just making music. What would the music sound like?
We've got a lot of love from Chicago, you know we've been selling out big venues in Chicago that other people don't sell out. Our music is something that's a bit different you know from what's being publicized and that's going against everything else coming out in Chicago.
The style of music that we're playing, this progressive metal style, has always been an upstream battle for us. We don't usually get a lot of commercial exposure.
I think there's good music out there. I just think that radio stations don't play it.
You'll be fooled if you only get your hip-hop from the mainstream, you know. The things that move people are not just found in the mainstream cultures. And when we talk about hip-hop in general, hip-hop's basically preoccupied with life.
I think people are enticed by indie rap and every time you have a group going against the grain, they're gonna be like, 'Wow, you did it yourself in 2012, that's impressive - how did you do it? What're you doing that's different? And how can I be a part of it?'
As a DJ, it's my job to break new music. And instead of it just being the stuff that's coming from the major labels or the big pop records, I've always gravitated to something that's just different, you know?
We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard... Everything was 10th-generation Led Zeppelin... Overproduced, or just junk. We missed music like it used to be.
When I was growing up, I was always looking for the most willfully uncommercial music: Whether it was Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa or King Crimson, that's what attracted me.
It's much easier for me to say that, the kind of music I didn't listen to was pretty much that. I mean everything, from jazz to classical to popular. And Tibetan horns were a great part of it in 1966, '67.
I don't think that I'm a top 40 artist in any way. So I don't think I'm that mainstream.
I'm totally up for experimental music. I'm up for music that they don't play on the radio, and I take in all of it. But my thing, the thing that comes most natural to me, is making the stuff that has a melody; it has a soul to it, yet it's head music.
A lot of people don't remember anything since 'Ice Ice Baby,' but I've got 3 records out since then and they're all successes - but not commercially.
There's not a lot of precedent for weird, bald musicians in the Lower East Side making records in their bedrooms and going on to sell a lot of copies of the record. Especially if you look at the pop climate.
I'm not a pop rapper. That's nothing against pop music - I love pop music. I've jumped on pop records for people and still will, but I'm not a pop artist. I didn't start from there. I started in underground music. I consider myself an underground artist, as well as a producer.
I didn't grow up with indie rock - I mean, I listened to bands that are considered indie rock, but I think that term is dead and uninteresting.
It's not really into the big mass movement in music that I want to do, you know.
I know it sounds weird, but the kind of music I write isn't the kind of music that I listen to, which is quite underground, left-of-centre stuff like PJ Harvey and Tom Waits.
You know, the BBC had not been particularly generous in its deliverance of blues and esoteric kinds of music.
