DJ Shadow: The Road To Reinvention
Issue #1343 : Thursday, Sep 7, 2006 - The Daily Californian
With his classic album Endtroducing, DJ Shadow became the face of instrumental hip-hop and the darling of critics and fans alike. With The Outsider, out Sept. 19 (and reviewed on page 13), the Bay Area native sets out to challenge his listeners, himself, and rethink his approach to music.
Daily Californian: I read an interview you did with Breakin' Point in 2002 where you said, "You've got to grow, but you don't want to grow to the point where you alienate people." It seems like with The Outsider, you're working in a different framework. Could you explain how your philosophy has changed since The Private Press came out?
DJ Shadow: That's a good a question, and a good quote. I think that my philosophy changed me rather than the other way around. I mean, circumstances in my life that took place, among them a car wreck that I was in, the birth of my two daughters, both brought mortality right to my doorstep, and what that did is it changed me in more ways than I can really contemplate right now. I feel like I was 23 for about 7, 8 years, and then all of a sudden I had to really grow up, and just look at everything differently now. I don't think I really changed much between '95 and 2002, but I've changed a lot since then. To answer your question directly, I just think it made me think of everything in more immediate terms, and not just assuming that everything is going to be available to me years from now. It made me just want to get out what I had on my mind and in my heart-just make it now. I don't want to keep repeating myself, I never wanted to do a record that sounds anything like anything I've ever done. I just felt like after The Private Press, I was never going to do a sample-based instrumental record; it was going to be better than that. I can chop samples into more pieces, I can use more samples on the song, but is the song going to be better for it? Probably not. I feel like those were the best songs I was capable of making in that genre and to do another album all sample-based was going to be a cop out more-so than taking a stand and saying, "OK, I'm going to completely scrap my whole way of music that I've been making for the last 13 years and start fresh."
DC: Some of the songs on The Outsider feel like their getting into the vein of the more serene side of The Private Press, but a lot of it is also straight up hip-hop. How is this all going to come together?
DS: That was the concern. Six months ago, when I started to realize that the album was going to be this diverse, there were those moments of doubt like, "OK, this is either going to come together or it's not." And I know that this is like my fifth, sixth album of sitting down and sequencing. And that's always a really stressful, do or die time. With Endtroducing... it flowed as free and easy as I could ever expect, and I think to some extent that speaks to the quality of the music and the type of record it's going to end up being. In that case, it ended up being a record that touched a lot of people. But UNKLE, I remember having problems with because I knew that we were a track too short. We didn't know that when we were making the album, but when you put all the songs together, certain things come out all of a sudden. I didn't always know that it was going to work. I had faith that it would and I feel like it did. It didn't really come together for me until I eased out the E-40 track first, because I wanted to have a statement right out of the box that immediately made people go, "whoa, I don't know." But I felt like it was much better to start the record off within a little more familiar territory and then work into that, and then go into other stuff and then go back. All I can say is that I make mixes when I'm not making music and that's part of my dicipline-trying to make songs work together. I think in this case it worked.
DC: "3 Freaks" is an interesting choice for a first single. It's a big departure for you and it got people stirred up. What did you think when you put it out and you got to sit back and watch the way people were reacting?
DS: Well, I put it out not to really do anything other than try to get airplay on KMEL. The only plan that I had was "I think this track will go on the radio. I'm gonna try it." When it happened, and it happened to the degree that it did, to me it was a huge validation of all the struggle behind the scenes that I had had with my old label, and also to me just an important yardstick in my career. I've always wanted urban radio to accept something that I've done. And it's a big uphill battle and it's really unlikely that it's gonna happen. So when it did happen, I felt like it was a big validation.
DC: How do you feel about the possibility that for this new crop of listeners that this is their first exposure to you-that you might have the hyphy label put on you, just as Endtroducing... was slapped with "headphone listening." or even electronica?
DS: It's just unavoidable. But I honestly don't have any illusions that my album is going to be some kind of massive urban seller. It's just extremely unlikely. Despite what I think may come across with some things that I say recently or some of the music that I've made, I don't really intend to alienate anybody. I want my old fans to embrace the record, I'm just also realistic about the fact that some of the won't. Every artist that I respect that has a long-term career, whether it be someone like Lou Reed or Neil Young, whoever, James Brown, they've all made massive shifts in their sound frequently. Either I can continue to make my "sound" for an ever-diminishing, aging listenership or I can go, "OK, well I better just do what I'm into now." Time will only tell if this was an ill-fated left turn or the beginning of something completely new, but I have to take that risk.
DC: You're playing Berkeley's Greek Theater with Massive Attack this September. How did you get together with those guys and what can a live audience expect from this new material?
DS: Actually I was a little bit mixed about it. At first I kind of had to think about it because I was like "OK, Greek Theatre, that's pretty cool," but I wasn't sure how I felt about playing my own hometown opening up for somebody else. Something about it just felt kind of funny, but it will be good. As far as what to expect, I had to kind of top the last tour, which I thought was hard. There's something to look at, I'll say that much. It's pretty impressive. There's also a live element as well, which was something that was missing from my last tour. I was doing what I was doing live, but there's a performance aspect that factors in this time as well.
DC: I'm excited to see how it turns out. DS: Yeah, me too, cause I'm not there yet!
SOURCE
Issue #1343 : Thursday, Sep 7, 2006 - The Daily Californian
With his classic album Endtroducing, DJ Shadow became the face of instrumental hip-hop and the darling of critics and fans alike. With The Outsider, out Sept. 19 (and reviewed on page 13), the Bay Area native sets out to challenge his listeners, himself, and rethink his approach to music.
Daily Californian: I read an interview you did with Breakin' Point in 2002 where you said, "You've got to grow, but you don't want to grow to the point where you alienate people." It seems like with The Outsider, you're working in a different framework. Could you explain how your philosophy has changed since The Private Press came out?
DJ Shadow: That's a good a question, and a good quote. I think that my philosophy changed me rather than the other way around. I mean, circumstances in my life that took place, among them a car wreck that I was in, the birth of my two daughters, both brought mortality right to my doorstep, and what that did is it changed me in more ways than I can really contemplate right now. I feel like I was 23 for about 7, 8 years, and then all of a sudden I had to really grow up, and just look at everything differently now. I don't think I really changed much between '95 and 2002, but I've changed a lot since then. To answer your question directly, I just think it made me think of everything in more immediate terms, and not just assuming that everything is going to be available to me years from now. It made me just want to get out what I had on my mind and in my heart-just make it now. I don't want to keep repeating myself, I never wanted to do a record that sounds anything like anything I've ever done. I just felt like after The Private Press, I was never going to do a sample-based instrumental record; it was going to be better than that. I can chop samples into more pieces, I can use more samples on the song, but is the song going to be better for it? Probably not. I feel like those were the best songs I was capable of making in that genre and to do another album all sample-based was going to be a cop out more-so than taking a stand and saying, "OK, I'm going to completely scrap my whole way of music that I've been making for the last 13 years and start fresh."
DC: Some of the songs on The Outsider feel like their getting into the vein of the more serene side of The Private Press, but a lot of it is also straight up hip-hop. How is this all going to come together?
DS: That was the concern. Six months ago, when I started to realize that the album was going to be this diverse, there were those moments of doubt like, "OK, this is either going to come together or it's not." And I know that this is like my fifth, sixth album of sitting down and sequencing. And that's always a really stressful, do or die time. With Endtroducing... it flowed as free and easy as I could ever expect, and I think to some extent that speaks to the quality of the music and the type of record it's going to end up being. In that case, it ended up being a record that touched a lot of people. But UNKLE, I remember having problems with because I knew that we were a track too short. We didn't know that when we were making the album, but when you put all the songs together, certain things come out all of a sudden. I didn't always know that it was going to work. I had faith that it would and I feel like it did. It didn't really come together for me until I eased out the E-40 track first, because I wanted to have a statement right out of the box that immediately made people go, "whoa, I don't know." But I felt like it was much better to start the record off within a little more familiar territory and then work into that, and then go into other stuff and then go back. All I can say is that I make mixes when I'm not making music and that's part of my dicipline-trying to make songs work together. I think in this case it worked.
DC: "3 Freaks" is an interesting choice for a first single. It's a big departure for you and it got people stirred up. What did you think when you put it out and you got to sit back and watch the way people were reacting?
DS: Well, I put it out not to really do anything other than try to get airplay on KMEL. The only plan that I had was "I think this track will go on the radio. I'm gonna try it." When it happened, and it happened to the degree that it did, to me it was a huge validation of all the struggle behind the scenes that I had had with my old label, and also to me just an important yardstick in my career. I've always wanted urban radio to accept something that I've done. And it's a big uphill battle and it's really unlikely that it's gonna happen. So when it did happen, I felt like it was a big validation.
DC: How do you feel about the possibility that for this new crop of listeners that this is their first exposure to you-that you might have the hyphy label put on you, just as Endtroducing... was slapped with "headphone listening." or even electronica?
DS: It's just unavoidable. But I honestly don't have any illusions that my album is going to be some kind of massive urban seller. It's just extremely unlikely. Despite what I think may come across with some things that I say recently or some of the music that I've made, I don't really intend to alienate anybody. I want my old fans to embrace the record, I'm just also realistic about the fact that some of the won't. Every artist that I respect that has a long-term career, whether it be someone like Lou Reed or Neil Young, whoever, James Brown, they've all made massive shifts in their sound frequently. Either I can continue to make my "sound" for an ever-diminishing, aging listenership or I can go, "OK, well I better just do what I'm into now." Time will only tell if this was an ill-fated left turn or the beginning of something completely new, but I have to take that risk.
DC: You're playing Berkeley's Greek Theater with Massive Attack this September. How did you get together with those guys and what can a live audience expect from this new material?
DS: Actually I was a little bit mixed about it. At first I kind of had to think about it because I was like "OK, Greek Theatre, that's pretty cool," but I wasn't sure how I felt about playing my own hometown opening up for somebody else. Something about it just felt kind of funny, but it will be good. As far as what to expect, I had to kind of top the last tour, which I thought was hard. There's something to look at, I'll say that much. It's pretty impressive. There's also a live element as well, which was something that was missing from my last tour. I was doing what I was doing live, but there's a performance aspect that factors in this time as well.
DC: I'm excited to see how it turns out. DS: Yeah, me too, cause I'm not there yet!
SOURCE