Interview with the coolest of The Cool Kids
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| Words by Luke McKinnon |
Jul 12, 2009 at 09:03 |
At a time when the American hip hop industry needed a severe kick in the arse, hip hop duo The Cool Kids – Antoine "Mikey Rocks" Reed (originally from Matteson, Illinois) and Evan "Chuck Inglish" Ingersoll (originally from Mount Clemens, Michigan) – came along and bucked all the trends. After releasing just a handful of songs via their MySpace, hip hop heads swooned, record labels jostled and hipster kids bowed in the presence of their new favorite band.
Self-proclaimed amateurs, they rapped over simple beats – the only type they were capable of making – and rejoiced in the banality of everyday life. One year on, Chuck Inglish leaves us in no doubt about where The Cool Kids are headed – they will be the greatest hip hop group of all time…at least his ambition matches the size of his ego.
The Gone Fishing mixtape is all over the internet...when can we expect your debut LP When Fish Ride Bicycles to drop?
We’re trying to get it out this year. We’ve just got some technical difficulties, nothing to do with music; it’s all to do with the business side of things. We really want to make sure that we keep the independent side to our music. But to do that we’ve had to jump and fight through many more hoops than most of our peers and other artists. So, we have been negotiating our arses off – we want to make sure that when we put it out, that it doesn’t fly under the radar. We want to make sure that it comes out the way it is supposed to come out. I don’t want to be the person that names a release date and then goes back on it.
You’ve always been vehemently independent. Has it been a struggle, dealing with the mechanisms of a label?
Yeah, it has. Now that we’re putting out our first full length record, we are certainly learning a lot of lessons. There are a lot of things we didn’t know prior to when we put out The Bake Sale. That’s the reason that we put out Gone Fishing – we wanted people to know where we were at and not think that we were still making Bake Sale type records; that was us a couple of years ago. Gone Fishing was us earlier in the year and that was just some stuff we felt like doing. It has nothing to do with our album, they we just songs that we wanted to give away to fans and people who didn’t know us. We really just wanted to impress some people with our music this summer, with something other than what they’ve been hearing the past couple of years.
Will it be similar to The Bake Sale; sparse production, witty lyrics etc?
No, no, no. I’ll put it like this: I want to start something new with this album and I don’t mean something new with the Cool Kids. I want to break new-ground sonically and show people that we can do whatever we want. This record demonstrates us growing into our skills. We now know what we are good at and basically we are going to showcase with this album, how good we are. We are not trying to be the biggest artist in the world, we’re not trying to be in every single household, but we are definitely trying to make the best rap record ever.
That’s a big claim!
Yeah, but who else is making statements like that? I’m just trying to make the best possible rap record. Basically, by making this statement we are just trying to live up to our own expectations. We feel like we are playing in the big game and that we’re the best player in the game. You don’t want to take that for granted, you don't want to go out and play like you’re not the best player on the court. So, we know that people hold our music in high regard, but we make our music like nobody knows us – we have to speak with our music and not with our mouths.
I read somewhere that you don’t use samples in your production because you couldn’t afford them. Is this still the case?
Honestly, I’ve learnt a lot since the first record. Basically, I’m advancing my music and what I am able to do as a musician. I don’t want to be just drum programmer or a beat maker. I wanted to be able to make the same stuff that I’d listened to my whole life. So, I have just been studying really hard. There are a lot more melodies on this record, in fact there are a lot more songs. We were just rapping we when first came out, they were just songs we felt like doing. I mean we are still rapping, we are just finding cooler ways of doing it. We are trying to make a record that tornadoes through this long, vast world of rap music.
What’s informed your lyricism on the new album?
We’re just going to keep going with the stuff we always do. That is, focusing on the everyday situations that we’re faced with. We have definitely learned to play with words a lot more. That really becomes a game; we’re not just rapping, we’re trying new ways to say things to beats so that everything makes sense. Basically we are having fun, but we are doing so in really intricate ways. No matter what type of sound or lyrics we write, the one thing that remains is that the listener will always know how we felt when we made it.
You seemingly feel pretty good most of the time then?
I don’t hate through my music and I don’t like to deal with problems through my music. I want to make people feel good when they hear our songs. When it’s time to have fun, then I want to write songs about that. I also don’t want to lose the reason people grew to like us, I just want them to like us even more.
There's an underlying irony and satire to your lyrics; at times it’s like you are poking fun at the music, especially the hip hop industry.
We rap about what we talk about. Our art imitates our life. So what you hear from us, that’s what we do. We rap about the same things we discuss with our friends.
Where would you guys be without the internet?
The internet has been really, really important in terms of spreading our music. When we started, the internet spread the work about our first EP at an unprecedented rate. People were adding our songs to their MySpace pages and then radio stations would pick up our tracks from those pages. I really think at that time, MySpace and the internet had become the new form of posters and flyers and we were lucky to come out at such a crazy time, when MySpace was something completely ground-breaking. But I think that all things are of their time and the music industry is starting to move on from the internet craze.
So the internet’s not going to play an important role in the release of When Fish Ride Bicycles?
It is like the way we listen and consume music. I tell people all the time that difference between a tape and a CD is the CD sounds better, the difference between digital music and CD is you can get it faster. We have to try and stay ahead of the game and The Cool Kids are definitely already thinking about that. We’re not about to sit back, doing what everyone else is doing and waiting for something to start; we’re going to start it ourselves.
Finally, are you guys excited to be returning to Australia?
Hell yes. Our first completely sold out concert was in Australia. When you’re in America, you are oblivious to the rest of the world and how they perceive you and your music, so I am excited to be coming back. I love the lifestyle – it’s really chill and everything about your country is just awesome.
PARKLIFE 2009
Saturday 26th September - Botanic Gardens and Riverstage, BRISBANE
Sunday 27th September (Long Weekend) - Wellington Square, PERTH
Saturday 3rd October - Birrarung Marr, MELBOURNE
Sunday 4th October (Long Weekend) - Kippax Lake, Moore Park, SYDNEY
Monday 5th October (Long Weekend) - Botanic Park, ADELAIDE
From thevine.com.au.
Posted By: The Vine
Tags: Music, album, touring
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