RJD2 is probably best known for, well, a lot of random great songs. From the theme song for Mad Men to the unforgettable crutch dance from his “Work It Out” video, his music has made it into almost everyone’s subconscious playlist at one time or another. He’s one of a diminishing amount of DJs who actually takes the time to work four turntables live, juggling corners of countless vinyl LP covers with his fingertips. When performing, he never seems to come up for air, and the momentum doesn’t stop when he says goodnight at the end of his set. He then proceeds to become an equally skilled merchandise dispenser. “I don’t have roadies,” he tells me with a smile, packing up his merchandise and equipment by himself. He really is a one man army, but that also makes him extremely humble. People were giving him compliments and handshakes all the way to his car. “I have to be in Athens, GA tomorrow for a show, and then Tallahassee, FL after that,” he tellls me as he leaves. “Is it cool if we skype this interview later so I can give you more of my attention?” We caught up later to talk about his new album, the project known as The Insane Warrior, and the lost art of live DJing.
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RJD2 is probably best known for, well, a lot of random great songs. From the theme song for Mad Men to the unforgettable crutch dance from his “Work It Out” video, his music has made it into almost everyone’s subconscious playlist at one time or another. He’s one of a diminishing amount of DJs who actually takes the time to work four turntables live, juggling corners of countless vinyl LP covers with his fingertips. When performing, he never seems to come up for air, and the momentum doesn’t stop when he says goodnight at the end of his set. He then proceeds to become an equally skilled merchandise dispenser. “I don’t have roadies,” he tells me with a smile, packing up his merchandise and equipment by himself. He really is a one man army, but that also makes him extremely humble. People were giving him compliments and handshakes all the way to his car. “I have to be in Athens, GA tomorrow for a show, and then Tallahassee, FL after that,” he tellls me as he leaves. “Is it cool if we skype this interview later so I can give you more of my attention?” We caught up later to talk about his new album, the project known as The Insane Warrior, and the lost art of live DJing.
CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE FULL ISSUE
Describe the album The Colossus.
The record before that The Third Hand, the agenda behind it was to restrict myself to whatever I could do on my own. Whatever parts I could write by myself and perform by myself–it was supposed to be a one man band type of endeavor. So when it came time to do a followup record, I thought it would be fun to do the exact opposite, and collaborate as much as possible. Draw on the talented people around me, or that I knew that I wanted to work with. So that was the general ethos behind the making of The Colossus. That also changed the writing of it, to a certain degree. When I was making The Third Hand, I would actually rewrite portions of the song to fit my ability as either a player or singer. With this record being a collaborative thing, I was freed from that. I was more focusing on trying to follow the vision of the songs and let them unfold in their most natural state, whether or not I would be playing the primary role as vocalist. I would demo up every song, and then if I wasn’t happy with the execution–I felt like the song was in [the] form it wanted to be, I just didn’t sound good singing it or playing a specific part on it–I would look for people to perform those parts.
What was the reasoning behind you opening up your own label?
I had three things on my agenda. Starting my own label would be a silver bullet that would provide solutions for all three of those issues. One of those was I had gotten the masters back from my Definitive Jux catalog, and I needed a way to reissue those and keep them in print. The second was I had finished The Colossus and I needed a way to put that record out. The third ties in with the Insane Warrior record that just came out. With my deal with XL, doing side project records was not impossible, but I would have to run through them and get it verified. The Insane Warrior record was done before The Colossus. At the time, when I was trying to find out what to do, I had brought the Insane Warrior up to them. They were noncommittal in terms of whether or not they wanted to put it out or [whether] they were fine with me doing it as a side project on my own.
With Insane Warrior, I know its a freeform version of you, but what came about that inspired you to come out with a different “version” of you?
It was a combination of two things. One was that I went through this phase… Netflix brought up my ability to dig up all these pretty obscure sci-fi, horror, thriller films. I was kind of hip to Blade Runner and Tron and some of the more famous John Carpenter stuff. Basically, (laughs) Netflix allowed me to completely go balls deep on this stuff. I watched every Carpenter movie up to the mid-eighties. There were a lot of movies that were happening in that period; the lines were kind of blurred in terms of genre. You look at The Shining, and I feel like its a hard movie to classify–is it a horror movie? Fantasy? Thriller? It encompasses all those things, and there were a lot of movies like that around that time. I was obsessed with that stuff, and also the scores became very interesting to me. The reason I gravitated towards them was because they were the opposite of how I go about RJD2 records. With these scores, a big thing that was drawing me to them was that sometimes they are very atonal. Sometimes they are very long and almost monotonous. The arrangements are the opposite of pop songs. My shtick from day one was to make instrumental music that was formatted and arranged like a pop song. Even if it wasn’t vocal oriented, it was supposed to be short, concise and oriented like pop music, and be appealing to you in that sense. So this other type of stuff… I mean, you listen to Tangerine Dream soundtracks from that era, and a song will be fifteen minutes. And it’s a super-monotonous synth line for the first four minutes. All these things were very appealing and refreshing to me, partly because I had been knee deep in trying to make good pop music for so long. That was one side of it, going along with that from a musical standpoint.
When I was making RJD2 records, I’ve always tried to put as much content into the songs as possible. So whenever possible, I’m cramming horns, basslines, guitar, and then an organ breakdown, and then a bridge (laughter). So making an album where I was actually restricting myself instrumentally was very appealing. Conceptually, almost all of the songs are supposed to be a restriction to one tonal instrument plus drums. I don’t want to say that I kept that as a steadfast rule, because there are a couple of songs where I deviated. But for the most part, I think about seven or eight of the songs, it’s really just one tonal instrument. Restricting myself and seeing how far I can get with one instrument was refreshing, fun and interesting. So as you can see, this record in a lot of ways is about me getting away from the habits and expectations from when I make an RJD2 record.
Have you started mixing Insane Warrior into your shows?
Not yet. In the sense [that] the record was primarily live, I feel like I need to put a band together and properly tour it, and be dedicated to that project. I want to do it justice. With the stuff that originated as live instrumentation, it’s really hard for me, with what I want to do with the shows, to dumb it down to a turntable/sampler format. Stuff that started as sample-based music, I can pull it apart and utilize some of the sound sources that went into making the song, but then recontextualize them. It’s very easy, organic and natural to do, in that turntable/sampler environment. It’s harder to do when something started out from a live perspective, so by and large I just let them be, and touch on them when I am touring with a band.
Can you describe your latest videos for Insane Warrior? Because I know for one of them, the fans get to contribute.
None of my videos in the history of my career have ever had anything to do with me conceptually. They have always been visions of the directors, and this one was no different. There was a proper video [that] I participated [in], commissioned, and all that kind of stuff. It was for a song called “The Water Wheel,” which was made by a local kid that goes to Drexel University. I had reached out to one of the teachers at Drexel, asked him for some references to some people, and that’s how it came about. I told [the director], “It’s your concept,” and to run with it. The other thing we are doing with the record is, because the record is so largely inspired by film scores, I got this idea at a point–how cool it would be if people did their own videos to songs? Hopefully what will happen is we will have multiple submissions for each song, and people can see each one, then go in and make their own video playlist. We will see how many people submit stuff.
Over the years people have gotten a chance to really see your work in the commercial realm, like the Mad Men intro, HBO, commercial spots, etc. Have you had people question you about selling out?
Not one person has ever come up to me and mentioned, “You’re a sellout for doing the Mad Men theme,” and I am happy about that. Trust me, people are not shy. They will say some cold shit to your face if they are not happy with your music. I have always been friendly with licensing my music to commercials and stuff. I have never made a song or recording with the intention of saying, “Oh let me make something that’s going to be perfect for Victoria’s Secret,” or some bullshit like that. I just do whatever I want, and if it comes out to be super super weird, and people hate it, that’s fine with me. I don’t really give a shit. Once the record is done, I have already maintained the element of artistic integrity that I care to maintain. As long as it’s not being used to sell little kids cigarettes, then I don’t care, because this is how I am going to pay the bills. I went through that sellout thing during 2002 through 2005. I think the fans that were going to call me a sellout called me that then. Now, they either bailed on me, and I have firmly established myself as a sellout in their minds, or they are OK with it. By and large, I feel like that dialogue is old hat.
What inspired the horns in “Ghostwriter”?
I can’t say anything inspired anything (laughs). The ugly truth about sample-based music is it’s an exploratory process. Tonally, sometimes you are looking for something that will fill a role or be complimentary. If anyone tells you otherwise, I personally just think they are lying. You can’t go out and look for an emotion. You can look for textural and harmonic qualities in a record. You are at the whim of what you find, basically.
Where do you think the art of live performance and DJing stands these days?
I don’t know what to think, to be honest with you. I don’t know what fans are thinking. Most of what I see in the live performance world is a dude with a laptop. They are hidden behind it and pressing play, and it’s inherently divorced from a performance element in my opinion. You don’t know what they’re doing. They could just be checking their email, or doing something amazingly complex that took them years to develop.
I think that’s what is amazing about going to your show. Four turntables, a crate of records in the back, constantly changing records–you are never in the same space for more than three seconds.
Thank you so much. Not only do I appreciate that, but I am glad that it comes across. I have worked very hard to develop the show to make it more and more live and kinetic. I understand that it’s on the border of what you would consider performance and DJing. I try to push it to make it look like a performance as much as I can. When I go back ten years ago, and I was just starting to make solo records, go out on tour, and get booked as a solo artist, I was thrown into this gauntlet that I had to run, of trying to figure out how to come up with a show. How to present what I do in a studio in a live manner that is not boring as shit. By then, I had already been DJing for 5 years or so, and going to see DJs for longer than that. I thought it was a boring thing. There were the super-fast battle scratch DJ guys, but they got boring after five minutes when you went to see them. In the late nineties we were already at this bar where the scratch DJ had developed so far–those guys were super-talented. So when it came time for me to figure out what I was going to do live, I felt this very high level of expectation. I thought back then that people’s expectations were only going to go up from there. The reason that I am kind of perplexed in how I fit in the landscape of electronic performers is [that] the exact opposite happened. I feel like crowds nowadays will go see a guy with a laptop and consider that a performance. I am not trying to hate on anyone. Maybe my perspective of a performance is antiquated. Maybe young kids don’t see it on the same paradigm that I am assessing things. I don’t know, and this is why I just gotta do it. I put the show together as close as [possible] to what I feel good about doing, and that’s that (laughs).
Can you think back on one of your most memorable shows?
The first one that comes to my mind took place last year actually. Last year I toured with a band, and we were doing a show for Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. It was this student union type of room, and it had a really weird vibe. It was a college show so they weren’t allowed to drink on premises, so these kids would rush outside, pound vodka and rush back in and rage. It made for a really bizarre dynamic, and the show went great. There was this little person in the front row and right when we started the show, he jumped up on one of the monitors. After he did that, he was like two feet taller than everyone else, and he pulled his pants all the way down. He started going crazy, and everyone who was in his four-foot circumference was getting their face jammed by this guy’s ass, because it was face level (laughter). The weird thing, though, was no one was freaking out. They were just like, “Oh that’s just Freddy up to his old antics,” or something like that. I was like, “This is fucking weird, what the hell is going on?” (laughs)
