DJ Shadow: The Message is
(Cleartechno.de)
FP: You come, completely, from a hip-hop background, is that right?
Shadow: Yeah, I do. Hip-hop was, though I would not say all, ‘cause I try to keep myself open to other things, but nearly all I listened to for the last 14 years of my life.
FP: What got you into it?
Shadow: Initially, it was the rawness. When I heard “The Message.” I was listening to Devo and Blondie, new wave groups like that, which were sort of Cutting Edge. I remember, in 1982, you heard Foreigner on the radio, Blue Oyster Cult. I was ten at the time. When I heard “The Message,” what struck was that the music was almost a nonexistent soundscape, it was very raw, the lyrics were so direct. It wasn’t just poetry. This was exactly how it was. That was so powerful, it was like boom! And the next song I heard, about three weeks later, was “Planet Rock.” It was those two songs that ignited the fire. I was very fanatical. I did not grow up in the city, but about twenty minutes away from one.
FP: Which [city]?
Shadow: Sacramento, and then also, about half an hour away from San Francisco. I had to actually seek it [Hip-hop] out, it wasn’t something that was surrounding me. I had to go out and find it. And take it. And I think, because of that reason, I learned to value it a lot more. When breaking came out, it became a fad to the rest of the world, or the rest of the American media. 1985 when it [Hip-hop] was supposed to be dead, the feel was still there and it picked up again. ’85 was a rough year, a bad year for Hip-hop. This year is bad too, [but] maybe not as bad as last year.
FP: What do you mean by bad?
Shadow: I just think that it’s not very stimulating. [It’s] very inbred and conservative, stale. The last excellent Hip-hop album that came out was the first Pharcyde record, in 1992. There have been good ones since, but that’s pretty much the last record that brought something new.
FP: Do you always criticize Hip-hop that hard, even in the States?
Shadow: It’s healthy to criticize it.
FP: Do you get bad reactions?
Shadow: No, because what I say is true. I’m not coming from an uninformed background. I think that a lot of people agree with what I am saying, but they are not allowed to say it, ‘cause they are worried about how the Hip-hop pressure reacts. Personally, I never care about Hip-hop pressure, I never have. I have always thought that was a bad element in Hip-hop, especially when money came into the picture.
What I mean by Hip-hop pressure is that; you have to be the same as us or else we don’t trust you. My early supporters were Red Alert, Source Magazine, I haven’t changed, but the Source Magazine has definitely changed. They used to be all about Hip-hop culture, now they are all Rap music [and] dollars, which is very different. Hip-hop is not Rap. Rap is an element of Hip-hop, not all. Breakdancers will definitely tell you the same thing, anybody from the rock Steady Crew will tell you the same thing, Prince Paul will tell you the same thing on his liner notes for Psychoanalysis. Automator, who did Octagon, will tell you the same thing. There is a very strong dissatisfaction with rap music from the Hip-hop underground. I am no different.
FP: I can just imagine that the pressure can be very strong.
Shadow: The reason why it is that strong, and why Hip-hop is so inbred, is that there is a very structured wheel, a very definable system on how to get paid [in Hip-hop]. Busta Rhymes is someone who took that road and, sure enough, he got paid. As long as people like him are allowed to continue to do that, it won’t change. There is a very specific sound and a very specific attitude, and it changes every year, but as long as you stay in there and keep doing it, and keep narrowing your scope, dressing the right ways, etc…you get paid. As long as that system is in place, the things I say are gonna seem threatening to those people, not to the people who really care about the culture and the music itself, because nobody can argue that Hip-hop is very conservative, inbred, and stale. If you were there when it wasn’t, it’s very easy to see the difference. I consider the music that I make, to be for Hip-hop veterans. I don’t consider that your average 16 year-old kid in America can understand the influences, ‘cause he wasn’t listening to it back then, and that’s fine, ‘cause that’s not the people I make music for. But I don’t like it in a retrospective. I don’t think it’s healthy to revive Old School, ‘cause Old School is Old School. It would be like trying to revive Funk. That doesn’t go anywhere. But it’s OK to take the message, that Hip-hop was trying to bring forward, and apply it to modern music.
FP: What would you call the message of Hip-hop?
Shadow: To me, what Hip-hop stood for, was unity through music. On a physical basis, it manifests itself in people like Bambaataa. He was called the “Peacemaker,” because he encouraged all the gangs from New York to stop fighting over turf, and start rallying around music instead, and around your crew, and battling on the microphone and battling on the dance floors. May sound corny, but it actually happened, you know? And he did it almost single-handedly. On the other side of that, he was demonstrating that, through what he played. He played James Brown next to a Rolling Stone record, next to a Chosens record, next to Kraftwerk. And that was his vision. No boundaries, no genre barriers; soul kids listening to soul, rock kids only listening to rock, he was telling them that this is nonsense. Music is more powerful than that. Music is a powerful communication. That powers that be, politically and otherwise, would like to see it, us, and all that separated, but I’m not having them, and I will play, and you will understand that music is for everyone. That is, to me, what Hip-hop is about. That, to me, along with vinyl culture and breakbeat culture is all that I represent. I don’t represent Rap music. I make rap music with my crew, SoleSides, back home, when I don’t do stuff for Mo’ Wax, but I don’t do it to imitate Blacks and I don’t do it to imitate the Wu-Tang Clan, Coolio or anyone else. We do our interpretation on what we grew up on. And we don’t do it to sound Old School, we do it to sound new.
FP: Endtroducing, for sure, doesn’t sound Old School.
Shadow: Well, hopefully. It shouldn’t. It would be very absurd if someone made a 10 minute song over a very simple beat. That doesn’t mean anything today, that’s what was fresh 16 years ago. It would be, like, people making a record and trying to sound like the Meters (the original article has it listed as the Meteors – Ed.). The Meters wouldn’t still be doing Meters shit. Just like my favorite line, from someone who was in the Old School: “There shouldn’t be any real B-Boys left, ‘cause real B-Boys would have moved on. Real B-Boys wouldn’t still be doing this shit. That wasn’t what B-Boy culture was about. B-Boy culture was about subverting the context. Videogames, Kung-Fu films were very 1979. They are not very now. We don’t go out and play Space Invaders, we go out and play Nintendo 64. That was just fresh.”
FP: Why did you call it Endtroducing?
Shadow: I called it Endtroducing, because, to me, on one hand it’s an introduction. I put out a dozen and a half records but no albums, by choice. So on that level, I’m a realist, knowing that by putting out an album you are reaching people you would not reach with a 12”. And also the fact that it’s the first album that’s going to be released domestically in the States by Mo’ Wax. I reach a lot of people in my own country with Mo’ Wax, that have never been able to see a Mo’ Wax record, too. On the other hand, this is a sound I have been developing for 4 years, and I don’t intend to be doing this next year or the year after. In a lot of ways it represents not just the nine months chuck of work that it took to make it, but like what we are up to now. So the next album is an end to that sound. It just follows the theory of build and destroy. If you build something you should be the first to destroy it before someone else does. That’s what I believe. I could have named the album Build and Destroy. But I don’t like it that obvious.
FP: What I liked most was the way the beats were done on this album. Something new, again. Though many people are experimenting with it, there is always something that hasn’t been done.
Shadow: Yeah. I mean I am interested in sample culture as well. Sample culture is an extension of vinyl culture. I should say sample music, really. My instrument of choice is a sampler. When I bought it, it was brand new and it’s sort of standard now. I have always used instruments that are simple; I’m not a technological-oriented person. I like to keep the music-making process very simple so it’s more grass-roots. The technical stuff, I save for the mixdown, but the actual creating process should be very simple. And I just want to be progressing with my instrument.
There is no excuse to loop a four-four beat. That’s why I like the album and that’s one of the things I’m proudest about; the experimentation with the time signature. Taking 4/4 beats and putting them in a 3,4,5,7. That takes a little bit more thought than just pressing play. Hip-hop has so much more to offer than it’s offering now. Whatever people call it, I am just going to keep on doing it anyway.
FP: Breaks is one of the most conservative parts in Hip-hop.
Shadow: Totally. Records, like that of the Fugees; they’re cool, but the beats are so simple. Come on.
FP: Do you look up to any other people, or search for what they do?
Shadow: Yeah, certainly. There is tons of people I respect. That’s why I give credits on the album. I never walk around telling you I’m better. I’d be the first to tell you, everything I get, I get from somewhere else, on every level – inspiration-wise. Everything, it’s just point blank. People like Mantronix. People like the Professor, people that were experimenting in samples before I even had a sampler. And also people like Geoff Barrows from Portishead, because I thought what he did with samples on the Portishead album was very good. [It] wasn’t the most mind-blowing or something like that, but it was a way of looking at samples that was very exciting, and really natural. His personality came out through the samples, I like people who can do that, like Prince Paul. Always puts his personality in a bunch of samples. Puts his personality into the instruments and lets it out. I always respect that. There is certain people on the drum & bass scene that are really good at programming beats. I’m not that interested in dance music as such, it just doesn’t interest me as much as Hip-hop, but it is interesting; it’s definitely valid, but I don’t have a formula of what I like and what not. There are a lot of records I shouldn’t like, but I do and vice versa. Or just moments in an otherwise crap song, I like that. Take that idea and extend it. There is a few things I am very proud of. I have not heard anybody doing things with the time-signatures I did, so I cannot credit anyone for that, but you never know, they probably did it 40 years ago.
FP: Do you listen to non-electronic music at all?
Shadow: Yeah, definitely. One of my favorite groups is the Foo Fighters. For whatever reason, I just really like them. I really liked Nirvana when they came out, I’m sorry, I thought when it came out, it was really, really good. For some reason I'’ drawn to self-destructive people.
FP: How come?
Shadow: I don’t know. I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t even smoke, but I feel like it’s a release to listen to angry music. I am very much interested in different types of music. I love funk, but not in a retro sense, the rawness of it. It’s like going to class. There is a few songs that have never been done better. I collect funk records, but I don’t sample them. Hardly ever. It’s almost like I have too much respect for them in a way. I don’t like funk sampler, the collecting of it [I’ve no clue what this sentence means, it was just part of the article – Ed.] But funk definitely is responsible for most modern music. James Brown is responsible for most modern music.
FP: Looking at the inner sleeve of your album, it seems like you’ve got a special method to do your tracks. Almost like a storybook.
Shadow: Yeah, I mean, hopefully, if nothing else, more than the Hip-hop scene, more than me as an artist, I hope that when people listen to it, whether they like it or hate it, they do at least feel like there is some time and some thought in it. Even if you hate it, hopefully the effort comes through. I do try and keep my quality control really high; I don’t remix anybody, I don’t make little appearances everywhere. I’ve only done only 2 and a half hours of music for Mo’ Wax in all those years. I could have done an album a long time ago, but I like, even as a record buyer, when people establish themselves, when they start with singles, before they have the audacity to make you pay $10 for an album. I feel like you have to be really confident and really focused to do an album. Everybody that is really motivated failed first. Everybody had records out that are forgotten. That’s what it takes. It eats you up, but it gives you rocket fuel too.
FP: Do you foresee a future where the music you’re doing now could be formalized?
Shadow: Oh, well, Trip Hop, which is what a lot of people want to associate me with, even though I had no idea what it is, and I never hear it or anything, is very formalized, but not more or less than drum & bass or any genre. The whole Trip Hop thing I could just not care less about. I don’t need it, I don’t love it, it’s just there. Just the way Polka is there. But, hopefully, the stuff I’m doing is a little bit harder to pin down. Like I was saying with build and destroy. I don’t intend to be doing a record like this again. But I’m not going to do a record just to be different from now. If a year from now I decide that all I wanna change is a couple of things, then that’s the way it’s going to be. By nature, I’m pretty confident, that when everybody is doing one thing, I won’t be. I’ve always been that way.
FP: would you say that there is an American element in your music that has not derived from Hip-hop or any other music?
Shadow: Yeah. When you’re growing up in America, music is forced on you, even in the supermarket. But films are too. Basically, my philosophy on art is, that you can take paintings and articulate them in words, forms or music. You can take music and articulate it visually. You can take books and turn them into paintings based on, inspired by, or whatever movies. So, I believe, as well, that movies influenced me as much as music. I think tension in movies is very important for the fact that, and many people say that, my music is very cinematic sounding. It’s just that I really admire manipulations of a motion, whether it is books or in movies. I think movies are a lot more visceral because it is more dimensional. Movies can be very powerful. When I go to a film I want to be visually moved, I want something to really strike me. I am inspired by films, and by soundtracks, by the concept of writing music based on what you see.
FP: Being inspired by films is sort of like saying that there is a real American element, ‘cause nearly all of the films are American. There is not much more.
Shadow: Yeah, I’m pretty much a product of where I’m from. I was born in California and lived all of the time within the same 200 mile radius. Again, it depends on how esoteric you want to get with it, but I consider every experience to be a stimula. The weather is very strong as well.
FP: Do you live in the city now?
Shadow: Now, I’m in the city too much as it is. I have to have my peace and quiet. On the inside of the album there is a picture of where I am from. You can see the big bright sky. A couple of telephone lines. That’s what I like. That’s what I am used to.
FP: What do you think about Mo’ Wax in general?
Shadow: You know, it’s like, people get into it at different stages, and they seem to think it’s a trend because they are into it, but I think James [Lavelle] is very good at just giving his vision. I think he is a very driven person, and really care about music. Nothing more, nothing less. He has put out good records and he has put out bad records, I give the label props, even thought I don’t like everything on the label, for at least trying. I think he is often imitated, but I don’t think anybody does what he does better. It’s like, he imitated as well, trying to be Gilles in the first place, but now Gilles is imitating him. People get caught up in talking about the quality or the changes of Mo’ Wax. He put out 60 records. That’s an achievement.
(Outside, an engine tries something like the aural equivalent of a gunshot. It’s not really good at it. DJ Shadow shrieks back)
Shadow: Hell.
FP: It’s just a car.
Shadow: Yes, I know, but where I come from, it’s not like that.
(Cleartechno.de)
FP: You come, completely, from a hip-hop background, is that right?
Shadow: Yeah, I do. Hip-hop was, though I would not say all, ‘cause I try to keep myself open to other things, but nearly all I listened to for the last 14 years of my life.
FP: What got you into it?
Shadow: Initially, it was the rawness. When I heard “The Message.” I was listening to Devo and Blondie, new wave groups like that, which were sort of Cutting Edge. I remember, in 1982, you heard Foreigner on the radio, Blue Oyster Cult. I was ten at the time. When I heard “The Message,” what struck was that the music was almost a nonexistent soundscape, it was very raw, the lyrics were so direct. It wasn’t just poetry. This was exactly how it was. That was so powerful, it was like boom! And the next song I heard, about three weeks later, was “Planet Rock.” It was those two songs that ignited the fire. I was very fanatical. I did not grow up in the city, but about twenty minutes away from one.
FP: Which [city]?
Shadow: Sacramento, and then also, about half an hour away from San Francisco. I had to actually seek it [Hip-hop] out, it wasn’t something that was surrounding me. I had to go out and find it. And take it. And I think, because of that reason, I learned to value it a lot more. When breaking came out, it became a fad to the rest of the world, or the rest of the American media. 1985 when it [Hip-hop] was supposed to be dead, the feel was still there and it picked up again. ’85 was a rough year, a bad year for Hip-hop. This year is bad too, [but] maybe not as bad as last year.
FP: What do you mean by bad?
Shadow: I just think that it’s not very stimulating. [It’s] very inbred and conservative, stale. The last excellent Hip-hop album that came out was the first Pharcyde record, in 1992. There have been good ones since, but that’s pretty much the last record that brought something new.
FP: Do you always criticize Hip-hop that hard, even in the States?
Shadow: It’s healthy to criticize it.
FP: Do you get bad reactions?
Shadow: No, because what I say is true. I’m not coming from an uninformed background. I think that a lot of people agree with what I am saying, but they are not allowed to say it, ‘cause they are worried about how the Hip-hop pressure reacts. Personally, I never care about Hip-hop pressure, I never have. I have always thought that was a bad element in Hip-hop, especially when money came into the picture.
What I mean by Hip-hop pressure is that; you have to be the same as us or else we don’t trust you. My early supporters were Red Alert, Source Magazine, I haven’t changed, but the Source Magazine has definitely changed. They used to be all about Hip-hop culture, now they are all Rap music [and] dollars, which is very different. Hip-hop is not Rap. Rap is an element of Hip-hop, not all. Breakdancers will definitely tell you the same thing, anybody from the rock Steady Crew will tell you the same thing, Prince Paul will tell you the same thing on his liner notes for Psychoanalysis. Automator, who did Octagon, will tell you the same thing. There is a very strong dissatisfaction with rap music from the Hip-hop underground. I am no different.
FP: I can just imagine that the pressure can be very strong.
Shadow: The reason why it is that strong, and why Hip-hop is so inbred, is that there is a very structured wheel, a very definable system on how to get paid [in Hip-hop]. Busta Rhymes is someone who took that road and, sure enough, he got paid. As long as people like him are allowed to continue to do that, it won’t change. There is a very specific sound and a very specific attitude, and it changes every year, but as long as you stay in there and keep doing it, and keep narrowing your scope, dressing the right ways, etc…you get paid. As long as that system is in place, the things I say are gonna seem threatening to those people, not to the people who really care about the culture and the music itself, because nobody can argue that Hip-hop is very conservative, inbred, and stale. If you were there when it wasn’t, it’s very easy to see the difference. I consider the music that I make, to be for Hip-hop veterans. I don’t consider that your average 16 year-old kid in America can understand the influences, ‘cause he wasn’t listening to it back then, and that’s fine, ‘cause that’s not the people I make music for. But I don’t like it in a retrospective. I don’t think it’s healthy to revive Old School, ‘cause Old School is Old School. It would be like trying to revive Funk. That doesn’t go anywhere. But it’s OK to take the message, that Hip-hop was trying to bring forward, and apply it to modern music.
FP: What would you call the message of Hip-hop?
Shadow: To me, what Hip-hop stood for, was unity through music. On a physical basis, it manifests itself in people like Bambaataa. He was called the “Peacemaker,” because he encouraged all the gangs from New York to stop fighting over turf, and start rallying around music instead, and around your crew, and battling on the microphone and battling on the dance floors. May sound corny, but it actually happened, you know? And he did it almost single-handedly. On the other side of that, he was demonstrating that, through what he played. He played James Brown next to a Rolling Stone record, next to a Chosens record, next to Kraftwerk. And that was his vision. No boundaries, no genre barriers; soul kids listening to soul, rock kids only listening to rock, he was telling them that this is nonsense. Music is more powerful than that. Music is a powerful communication. That powers that be, politically and otherwise, would like to see it, us, and all that separated, but I’m not having them, and I will play, and you will understand that music is for everyone. That is, to me, what Hip-hop is about. That, to me, along with vinyl culture and breakbeat culture is all that I represent. I don’t represent Rap music. I make rap music with my crew, SoleSides, back home, when I don’t do stuff for Mo’ Wax, but I don’t do it to imitate Blacks and I don’t do it to imitate the Wu-Tang Clan, Coolio or anyone else. We do our interpretation on what we grew up on. And we don’t do it to sound Old School, we do it to sound new.
FP: Endtroducing, for sure, doesn’t sound Old School.
Shadow: Well, hopefully. It shouldn’t. It would be very absurd if someone made a 10 minute song over a very simple beat. That doesn’t mean anything today, that’s what was fresh 16 years ago. It would be, like, people making a record and trying to sound like the Meters (the original article has it listed as the Meteors – Ed.). The Meters wouldn’t still be doing Meters shit. Just like my favorite line, from someone who was in the Old School: “There shouldn’t be any real B-Boys left, ‘cause real B-Boys would have moved on. Real B-Boys wouldn’t still be doing this shit. That wasn’t what B-Boy culture was about. B-Boy culture was about subverting the context. Videogames, Kung-Fu films were very 1979. They are not very now. We don’t go out and play Space Invaders, we go out and play Nintendo 64. That was just fresh.”
FP: Why did you call it Endtroducing?
Shadow: I called it Endtroducing, because, to me, on one hand it’s an introduction. I put out a dozen and a half records but no albums, by choice. So on that level, I’m a realist, knowing that by putting out an album you are reaching people you would not reach with a 12”. And also the fact that it’s the first album that’s going to be released domestically in the States by Mo’ Wax. I reach a lot of people in my own country with Mo’ Wax, that have never been able to see a Mo’ Wax record, too. On the other hand, this is a sound I have been developing for 4 years, and I don’t intend to be doing this next year or the year after. In a lot of ways it represents not just the nine months chuck of work that it took to make it, but like what we are up to now. So the next album is an end to that sound. It just follows the theory of build and destroy. If you build something you should be the first to destroy it before someone else does. That’s what I believe. I could have named the album Build and Destroy. But I don’t like it that obvious.
FP: What I liked most was the way the beats were done on this album. Something new, again. Though many people are experimenting with it, there is always something that hasn’t been done.
Shadow: Yeah. I mean I am interested in sample culture as well. Sample culture is an extension of vinyl culture. I should say sample music, really. My instrument of choice is a sampler. When I bought it, it was brand new and it’s sort of standard now. I have always used instruments that are simple; I’m not a technological-oriented person. I like to keep the music-making process very simple so it’s more grass-roots. The technical stuff, I save for the mixdown, but the actual creating process should be very simple. And I just want to be progressing with my instrument.
There is no excuse to loop a four-four beat. That’s why I like the album and that’s one of the things I’m proudest about; the experimentation with the time signature. Taking 4/4 beats and putting them in a 3,4,5,7. That takes a little bit more thought than just pressing play. Hip-hop has so much more to offer than it’s offering now. Whatever people call it, I am just going to keep on doing it anyway.
FP: Breaks is one of the most conservative parts in Hip-hop.
Shadow: Totally. Records, like that of the Fugees; they’re cool, but the beats are so simple. Come on.
FP: Do you look up to any other people, or search for what they do?
Shadow: Yeah, certainly. There is tons of people I respect. That’s why I give credits on the album. I never walk around telling you I’m better. I’d be the first to tell you, everything I get, I get from somewhere else, on every level – inspiration-wise. Everything, it’s just point blank. People like Mantronix. People like the Professor, people that were experimenting in samples before I even had a sampler. And also people like Geoff Barrows from Portishead, because I thought what he did with samples on the Portishead album was very good. [It] wasn’t the most mind-blowing or something like that, but it was a way of looking at samples that was very exciting, and really natural. His personality came out through the samples, I like people who can do that, like Prince Paul. Always puts his personality in a bunch of samples. Puts his personality into the instruments and lets it out. I always respect that. There is certain people on the drum & bass scene that are really good at programming beats. I’m not that interested in dance music as such, it just doesn’t interest me as much as Hip-hop, but it is interesting; it’s definitely valid, but I don’t have a formula of what I like and what not. There are a lot of records I shouldn’t like, but I do and vice versa. Or just moments in an otherwise crap song, I like that. Take that idea and extend it. There is a few things I am very proud of. I have not heard anybody doing things with the time-signatures I did, so I cannot credit anyone for that, but you never know, they probably did it 40 years ago.
FP: Do you listen to non-electronic music at all?
Shadow: Yeah, definitely. One of my favorite groups is the Foo Fighters. For whatever reason, I just really like them. I really liked Nirvana when they came out, I’m sorry, I thought when it came out, it was really, really good. For some reason I'’ drawn to self-destructive people.
FP: How come?
Shadow: I don’t know. I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t even smoke, but I feel like it’s a release to listen to angry music. I am very much interested in different types of music. I love funk, but not in a retro sense, the rawness of it. It’s like going to class. There is a few songs that have never been done better. I collect funk records, but I don’t sample them. Hardly ever. It’s almost like I have too much respect for them in a way. I don’t like funk sampler, the collecting of it [I’ve no clue what this sentence means, it was just part of the article – Ed.] But funk definitely is responsible for most modern music. James Brown is responsible for most modern music.
FP: Looking at the inner sleeve of your album, it seems like you’ve got a special method to do your tracks. Almost like a storybook.
Shadow: Yeah, I mean, hopefully, if nothing else, more than the Hip-hop scene, more than me as an artist, I hope that when people listen to it, whether they like it or hate it, they do at least feel like there is some time and some thought in it. Even if you hate it, hopefully the effort comes through. I do try and keep my quality control really high; I don’t remix anybody, I don’t make little appearances everywhere. I’ve only done only 2 and a half hours of music for Mo’ Wax in all those years. I could have done an album a long time ago, but I like, even as a record buyer, when people establish themselves, when they start with singles, before they have the audacity to make you pay $10 for an album. I feel like you have to be really confident and really focused to do an album. Everybody that is really motivated failed first. Everybody had records out that are forgotten. That’s what it takes. It eats you up, but it gives you rocket fuel too.
FP: Do you foresee a future where the music you’re doing now could be formalized?
Shadow: Oh, well, Trip Hop, which is what a lot of people want to associate me with, even though I had no idea what it is, and I never hear it or anything, is very formalized, but not more or less than drum & bass or any genre. The whole Trip Hop thing I could just not care less about. I don’t need it, I don’t love it, it’s just there. Just the way Polka is there. But, hopefully, the stuff I’m doing is a little bit harder to pin down. Like I was saying with build and destroy. I don’t intend to be doing a record like this again. But I’m not going to do a record just to be different from now. If a year from now I decide that all I wanna change is a couple of things, then that’s the way it’s going to be. By nature, I’m pretty confident, that when everybody is doing one thing, I won’t be. I’ve always been that way.
FP: would you say that there is an American element in your music that has not derived from Hip-hop or any other music?
Shadow: Yeah. When you’re growing up in America, music is forced on you, even in the supermarket. But films are too. Basically, my philosophy on art is, that you can take paintings and articulate them in words, forms or music. You can take music and articulate it visually. You can take books and turn them into paintings based on, inspired by, or whatever movies. So, I believe, as well, that movies influenced me as much as music. I think tension in movies is very important for the fact that, and many people say that, my music is very cinematic sounding. It’s just that I really admire manipulations of a motion, whether it is books or in movies. I think movies are a lot more visceral because it is more dimensional. Movies can be very powerful. When I go to a film I want to be visually moved, I want something to really strike me. I am inspired by films, and by soundtracks, by the concept of writing music based on what you see.
FP: Being inspired by films is sort of like saying that there is a real American element, ‘cause nearly all of the films are American. There is not much more.
Shadow: Yeah, I’m pretty much a product of where I’m from. I was born in California and lived all of the time within the same 200 mile radius. Again, it depends on how esoteric you want to get with it, but I consider every experience to be a stimula. The weather is very strong as well.
FP: Do you live in the city now?
Shadow: Now, I’m in the city too much as it is. I have to have my peace and quiet. On the inside of the album there is a picture of where I am from. You can see the big bright sky. A couple of telephone lines. That’s what I like. That’s what I am used to.
FP: What do you think about Mo’ Wax in general?
Shadow: You know, it’s like, people get into it at different stages, and they seem to think it’s a trend because they are into it, but I think James [Lavelle] is very good at just giving his vision. I think he is a very driven person, and really care about music. Nothing more, nothing less. He has put out good records and he has put out bad records, I give the label props, even thought I don’t like everything on the label, for at least trying. I think he is often imitated, but I don’t think anybody does what he does better. It’s like, he imitated as well, trying to be Gilles in the first place, but now Gilles is imitating him. People get caught up in talking about the quality or the changes of Mo’ Wax. He put out 60 records. That’s an achievement.
(Outside, an engine tries something like the aural equivalent of a gunshot. It’s not really good at it. DJ Shadow shrieks back)
Shadow: Hell.
FP: It’s just a car.
Shadow: Yes, I know, but where I come from, it’s not like that.