EL-P

EL-P

By Daniel Robert Epstein
May 9, 2007

Besides creating some of the most innovative rap music since the genre began, EL-P has revolutionized the industry when he established Definitive Jux Records. Def Jux has been helping establish some of the most eclectic and talented artists we have such as Aesop Rock and RJD2. EL-P has just released, I'll Sleep When You're Dead, his first album in five years with guests musicians as varied as Trent Reznor, The Mars Volta and Cat Power. EL-P recently courted controversy when he bumped into Diddy during a recording session, took a picture of them together and posted it on his MySpace blog. Rawkus Records took this chance to try to discredit EL-P by sending out a mass press release about it.

I got a chance to talk with the multi-talented musician and producer from his home in Brooklyn.

Check out the official website for EL-P

Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
EL-P:
I’m rehearsing today in Brooklyn.
DRE:
So no Puff Daddy swinging by today? No, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.
EL-P:
No, he’s out, man.
DRE:
What was the inspiration for I'll Sleep When You're Dead?
EL-P:
The creeping, crawling, decrepit state of my psychological state over the past five years. The inevitable shift in world psychosis and my basic desire to stand on a soapbox and scream at people. I involve myself in a lot of different music and every once in a while I have something to say. I put my energy into what I really am about, which is my records. I just wanted to take a snapshot of the way I saw shit right now. I wanted to tell a story from the perspective of one dude that’s walked through the piss and the murk and still has some sort of hope despite the fact that everything seems mildly hopeless.
DRE:
Are we talking about politics-wise or people-wise?
EL-P:
Dude, what’s the difference?
DRE:
[laughs] So is this is all the music you’ve been working on for five years?
EL-P:
This is all new material. I’ve been working on it on and off for the past three years. I got a few false starts here and there but I narrowed it down. I didn’t just throw everything I had on the record. I guess I am just obsessive about my music.
DRE:
Do you come up with the lyrics first or do you come up with the music first?
EL-P:
If I did that, shit, it probably would have taken less than three years. I have no fucking idea anymore. I really wish I had some formula. If I had to guess I think I came up with some bit of music first to trigger an idea, thought or emotion and just went with that. But then again I’ve got scraps of paper with words written on them in my pockets. I’ve got fucking things posted up on my refrigerator. Fucking mess, man.
DRE:
[laughs] I figured a guy who owns a label might be a little more organized than that. When it comes to other people’s music are you more organized?
EL-P:
With me I’m just lost. It’s me basically throwing myself down a flight of stairs and hoping I don’t die at the bottom.
DRE:
[laughs] Since the label has gotten so big over the past few years is that one of the reasons you haven’t gotten to work on your music as much?
EL-P:
To a degree. Obviously it’s an undertaking so I split my time up. I’m not the average artist. Every moment of my life is not about myself, which is the description of most artists. But it takes up a chunk of time and it’s something that I believe in. Also I’m out there getting my hands into other projects so it’s split up between my side projects and endeavors that I’ve been involved with over the past few years and that I’ve been working closely with my artists that are on my label.
DRE:
How do you decide what guest musicians to have on the album?
EL-P:
It varies. With Trent [Reznor] I sent him basically a finished song and told him where I wanted him to come in and gave him an idea of what I was trying to say. He was on tour so he did his parts while he was on the road. [Mars] Volta was in New York mixing their record and I dropped by the studio and hung out with them. These are all people I really respect and I’ve worked with before in different capacities. I wasn’t like “I want to make a record and have them on it.” It was more like the opportunity sprung up and I thought it would be cool to add them. I heard certain things in certain songs where I thought it would be cooler to add some singing, some voices or some guitar to tap into some of the people that I’ve been cool with over the past couple years. I didn’t want to make some heavy handed bullshit in terms of some rap/rock thing. I really look at it as more like just an extension of sampling. I’m just sampling live musicians.
DRE:
So are you the one that creates the music or do you work with other producers?
EL-P:
I produce the whole thing.
DRE:
You don’t sound happy about it [laughs].
EL-P:
No, I’m okay man. It’s what I do man. I am happy about it because I love it. I love music. These records are my excuse to go off on a tangent in a way that I’m not allowed to necessarily go off on when I’m producing for other people. I can’t be as fucking fucked up for other people as I can be for me. I use myself as a guinea pig for all the ideas that I have, frankly because I wouldn’t want to to ask anyone to get with it.
DRE:
[laughs] How do you channel all this demented-ness into the music and not let it go over into all your other worlds?
EL-P:
I’m not sure it doesn’t. I think the demented-ness and the distortion of reality and the struggle emanates from my life to a degree. I’m constantly working with it. I’m just fucking lucky that I even have a medium to put it into.
DRE:
I read that you’re doing another video for Smithereens.
EL-P:
Yeah, we’re editing it right now.
DRE:
Is it another animated video?
EL-P:
No, it’s live action. It should be relatively disturbing. I don’t want to spoil the fun but we’re touching on a pretty timely topic. Basically the video is me getting the living shit kicked out of me.
DRE:
Did you find some people who were happy to do that?
EL-P:
Oh people were lining up, man. Lining up. I had to turn people away for that job.
DRE:
What made you want to do an animated video for Flyentology?
EL-P:
I am a big fan of the Adult Swim guys [Daniel Garcia and Nathan Love]. I think that they’re incredibly talented and funny and twisted. I got to know them a little bit and through talking I asked them if they were into it and they were. Doing an animated video is iffy, sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s not. But I knew that they would make it amazing and they did.
DRE:
Were they able to do it on the cheap or was it expensive?
EL-P:
It was expensive, but they paid for it. That was awesome. It was part of a whole deal that we worked out because we did this whole free album for Adult Swim, the Definitive Swim.
DRE:
What’s the update on what happened with Rawkus?
EL-P:
There is no update. They rubbed me wrong and I eviscerated them. All because of a fucking MySpace blog. I guess they felt that it was worthy of doing a mass press release about. I personally could care less. I’m really happy doing what I do and I don’t have the time for stuff like that.
DRE:
You’ve done a lot of remixes for people over the past few years. What did that teach you or inform you about how to create your own music?
EL-P:
You take subtle things from those experiences. When you deal with different kinds of musicians it makes you approach structure in different ways. It makes you take up problem solving to a degree and I took some of the things I learned and some of the elements of what I did with them and expanded my arsenal or bag of tricks. I take up projects because I think they’re just great experiences to be involved in. The more experience you have as a musician, the better for your overall perspective.
DRE:
What are you going to do over the next five years to refill that bag of tricks?
EL-P:
I don’t know if it’s going to be that long. I’m pretty damn energized. But we’ll see what the future holds. Right now I’m amped about getting out there and touring and connecting with the fans again. From there I don’t have any plans.
DRE:
I read that your father was a jazz musician. Is that what got you into this alternative hip-hop?
EL-P:
No, what got me on alternative hip-hop was critics calling what I do alternative hip-hop.
DRE:
Yeah, you got me.
EL-P:
My father was the guy who got me into music, I’m sure. He wasn’t around my whole life. He and my mother got divorced when I was seven. But when I was growing up there was always vinyl around and there was a piano in the house and he was always playing music. So I’d say from an early age I knew that music was something that you involved yourself in besides just listening. I took different instrument lessons but the problem with that was that you can’t make a RUN-DMC record with a piano. As far as where I fit in the pantheon of subcultures out there. I’m born and bred in New York City. My heroes in rap are the same as anyone my age but I guess I’m just fucked up. I really wanted to be EPMD but every time I tried to make an EPMD record it came out sounding much weirder.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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