Calendar
N.A.S.A - Interview
loudfarm.com featured content for Tuesday 8.18.09
Hailing from southern neighbor, Los Angeles, indie hip hop producers Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon have joined forces under the flag of N.A.S.A. The duo wield a list of collaborators that just about any music producer would relinquish their first born and right arm to get their hands on: David Byrne, Spank Rock, Kanye West, M.I.A., Ghostface Killah, Tom Waits, Karen O, and Chuck D may be featured on their debut album, The Spirit of Apollo, but I am guessing it'll mostly be their voices heard and not seen when N.A.S.A. hits the stage. Thankfully, Mr. Squeak and Mr. Zegon bring their block-rockin', Brazilian funk-sampled beats regardless, and will surely launch the massive 12th Annual etd.POP Electronic Music Festival into that dark and sparkling final frontier. Houston, we have a dance party.
Loud Farm: You guys have both been solo DJs for quite some time. Have you tried other collaborations before? If so, what made this one stick, and if not, what drew you towards working together?
N.A.S.A: You know I think both of have done lots of different collaborations. Zegon was in a seminal Brazilian hip-hop group called Planet Hemp, one of the biggest Brazilian hip-hop groups at one time. I've collaborated with so many different people. Whether it was producing records for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Fatlip, scoring films with various people like Spike Jonze…I think that collaboration is just something that both of us like to do. When we started working together there was a real chemistry. Something about our tastes, our eclecticism that really just worked together. That made our work different and better than what we'd done before.
LF:It seems your music would fit more appropriately on a more dance/electro-centric label than one that releases primarily rock music. When deciding on the label to release your album what made you go with ANTI?
N.A.S.A: Anti- is actually very eclectic. I don't necessarily just think of them as rock. You know, they put out a lot of hip-hop, a lot of dance, and there's really a lot of eclecticism that attracted us to them. Also the fact that they're an artist run label that doesn't try to make decisions for the artist, but let's them run their own program. We're very DIY. We made a whole record on our own without a label. We kinda just do our thing and don’t like people telling us how to run our music or our publicity.
LF: Your debut album, The Spirit of Apollo, features more outside artists than one could really count on their hands and feet combined. Why did you want so many people contributing to your music and how did you manage to rope down such huge names?
N.A.S.A: It just kind of happened. We started collaborating with some friends and just kept going. The second song we did with Karen O, ODB, and Fatlip. Fatlip was just a friend doin' his record at the time, Karen O was just a friend and I was producing her solo record at the time, too. After we did that song we were like, Man, this is such a crazy, crazy collaboration. People from very different worlds coming together. Worlds colliding. We decided to make a record about just that. Music brings people together. We tried to explore that on every song.
LF:Who was your favorite artist to work with? Who was the most difficult artist to work with?
N.A.S.A:You know, there wasn't anyone on the record that was too difficult. Bushwick Bill was around. He was a little hard. We did a song with him that didn't end up on the record, but I like Bill very much. He's a good dude. Everyone was great. Really inspiring. Working with Tom Waits was really amazing. More so than anyone on the record he stepped out of his comfort zone. That made me respect him even more. He almost never collaborates with anyone. He just really stepped outside of himself. That's a really brave thing to do. A lot of people on the record really took risks. That's what art and true creation is. You gotta be risky.
LF:Since the album came out you've been touring all over the world. What have some of your favorite performances been? Any standout experiences while traveling in support of your music?
N.A.S.A:Coachella was amazing. One of our favorite shows, right outside of my hometown. We built a spaceship for it. Fatlip played with us. We had alien dancers choreographed. We really worked hard to make it a special performance. That one really stands out. We recently just played a festival in Denmark. The crowd was really fun. We stage dove! There was a great spirit in the crowd. It's always great when the collaborative artists show up like Kanye and Kid Cudi. We brought Amanda Blank with us to China. It's been just so fun touring in general. It's something I love doing.
LF:: How would describe N.A.S.A's live set to someone that's never even heard your band before?
N.A.S.A:: It's hard to describe our set because we have a bunch of different sets. Musically, it's very eclectic. It combines hip-hop, dance music, rock, funk... We kinda pull from every different genre of music, doing our own remixes and edits. We combine them with visuals that we edit to everything we play. We bring aliens to dance. There's always one or two guest vocalists as well.
LF:Have you guys been working on new tracks? What's in the future for N.A.S.A?
N.A.S.A:We are working on some new stuff. We were just in the studio in Barcelona. The future for NASA is that we're putting this film together about the whole making of the record with live footage and animation. Every song has a music video. We collaborate with artists like Shepard Fairey and Mark Gonzales, and bring their work to life by animating it. We blend that seamlessly with us in the studio and all the crazy adventures we had while making the record. We're doing that and a remix record and a few last NASA tracks that we didn't finish for whatever reason and we're gonna release those as well.
LF:Thanks so much for answering these questions! Any last words?
N.A.S.A:Keep listening to the music! That's what we try and be all about, musical exploration and staying open. Thanks a lot!
Interview by Patric Fallon
