When I first did this interview with Bleubird four and a half months ago, I had the high hopes of publishing it in the first issue where I would turn this stupid, unread, online blog, into a stupid, unread, waste of paper, fanzine. Since then my zine dreams haven't manifested any, and I've realized I have more important things to waste my money on than a poorly distributed underground hip hop zine. I've recently had a streak of bad luck that drained my will to live and keep this blog updated. This streak of self induced misfortune left me, in jail, in court, unemployed, heart broken, at funerals, loosing friends, loosing cars, in a perpetual state of drunken haze, all the way back to swearing myself to staying sober and turning my life around.
So here's to a pending new hobby of mine that will hopefully keep me motivated, sober, and out of trouble. Here I'll be interviewing indie rap artists and posting them on this blog. And to Bleubird, I'm sorry for hassling you so much to do an interview for a blog with such low traffic, maybe that will change once I start posting more of the interviews I've been sitting on...
TheThrowAwayDays: For those who don't know, let 'em know!
Bleubird: Bleubird; Sloppy Doctor, Les Swashbuckling Napoleons, Grimm Image, Fake Four, Endemik Music, Freebird(laughs). I'm a rapper.
T-Tad:You just released Cannonball, but it seemed like you had a bit of a hiatus before that, what was the deal?
BB: Yeah that was my bad, I actually did have a lot of music. I released a record called Primsin Allaey with this produced named Jay Rope from Berlin. That was my bad not calling it Bleubird and Jay Rope because technically it was a solo record just all produced by one producer. But it was a side project I did that was more noise rock influenced. I also did Les Swashbuckling Napoleons which was produced by Edison out of San Francisco and it was with this rapper named Thesis Siheid out of Canada. And I also did a project called Triune Gods produced by Scott Daross of Endemik Music and with a Japanese rapper named Shabit from this group called Oragomy. So I was super involved with making a lot of music I just hadn't put the effort into a "Bleubird" record per-say.
But yeah, I just released Cannonball a couple months ago and have not stopped touring, at the end of this run, on Saturday, I'll have played 69 shows already this year.
T-TAD: Cannonball is sort of a new direction for you, between your process of making your beats on this one, and even your flow seems paced a bit more compared to your standard "rapid fire" delivery. How come, and are you going to keep going on that direction?
BB: umm, I mean there is still some rapid fire to it. But I've been recording for about 10 years, even more. I just wanted to try something different. I was taken out of my comfort zone on purpose on Cannonball. I wanted to see if I could do that, and I'm just getting more into song writing; melodies, harmonies, and tension. You know like I just use to like my writing song was like "badadada" and the whole thing was just tense. But like I love the idea of like kind of getting you excited, and then calming you down, and then chilling you out, and then making you be like "oh", and then dropping it on you again. You know like the whole roller coaster ride aspect of song writing, and pitch, and mood. But I'm probably about to record some trap shit, you know I'm always gonna be doing different shit. And that's what I love, I don't know what the next Bleubird record is going to sound like, but it probably won't sound anything like Cannonball.
T-TAD: How is the first US tour to promote Cannonball going thus far, and how was the reaction for it during your European tour with Astronautalis?
BB: Europe was fucking awesome. I've always been more successful touring in Europe, I don't know why it just always worked for me better out there. But I know that it's also important to grind it out in the US. I had been touring the Freebird project during the last year and a half of during the process of making Cannonball, so I was trying out those songs. As far as the record being out and me playing shows, it hasn't been an overwhelming response, but the people that have been responding to it are awesome. I'm really excited about gaining new fans, people that have never heard of me and are just getting turned onto me on through Cannonball, because it's my first US release. Then I'm like, "look man there's ten record behind it." Yanno like all these different project and it's cool you know cause it blows peoples mind and shows them all these different sides of me. But you know it's been great, just seeing people that know some of the new songs, it's cool, because in Europe the record hadn't really hit, I was touring already while the record hit. So I'm actually going back in June to Eastern Europe and playing a few festivals in Hungary and German with Astronautalis again and I'm excited to see how it's gonna take over there. because I did 34 shows in 36 days in January and February, just hit it real hard, so now I'm psyched to go back and see how it's going to affect it. I don't have any plans to stop touring this year. I don't think just putting out my record was gonna make this huge response, i have to tour on it I have to play the shows. Directly after this tour, I have 8 days off, then going back to Europe for a month, then get back and I have 3 days off, then I'm jumping on the Warp Tour for another month. Then I'm trying to go to Japan and Australia after that.
T-TAD:Got any good stories from the road?
BB: (laughs) One of my favorite stories is a couple years ago I got invited to the middle east, to play in Amman Jordan. I was the first American rapper to play in Amman. I played with a Palestine rap group called Ramallah underground, on July 4th which was fucking hilarious. I was totally frightened, I had never been to the middle East. My mother is Jewish, but I wasn't raised religious, but i didn't know how much that affected peoples opinions, and the dudes I was playing with were pretty radical Palestinians. I didn't know if they would get my sense of humor, I showed up by myself, stayed in this Best Western next to the fucking Egyptian Embassy, there was just troops all over the place. I just Wandered all over the city for days, went to the Dead Sea, the show ended up being amazing, there was 300 kids there. I got along so awesome with Ramallah underground kids.
But the best part is I was through the airport, back into america. but leaving jordan, and I was leaving with one of the Palestine kids who was flying to Dubai. he was trying to help me through customs and shit because I didn't speak and Arab and they didn't speak much english, the custom dudes. and I ran into a snag with some of my gear, because i had a lot noisier of a setup then. and I had theses pedals that were homemade, with just boxes with knobs, with batteries taped to them and shit. and they were just like, "whoa, what the fuck is this?" and I like turned it on and it started being "beepbeepbeep" and they were just like "nonono!" and I got separated from my buddy, and next thing I know I'm surrounded by military in the airport in jordan, asking me all these questions but like it's just not working so they start calling over higher ranks. So finally they call the like general comes over and the dude is so stone faced and hates me as he walking up. And he opens my bag and all these stickers fall out it's this picture a French artists did of me with this ghetto blaster, it's a drawing. and i'm like great, now these mother fuckers are gonna hit me with this graffiti rule, like vandalizing their city. and he picks it up and he's like is this you? I'm like yeah, and my heart stops, and he's just like, "it's beautiful!" And I'm was like "YEAH!" and he was like, "you make rock or rap?" and I'm like, "rap!" And he's like, "I like rap!" and I'm like, "y-y-you want one??" He's like "YEAH!" So i'm handing out stickers to all these military dudes and they don't even look at one more thing on my bag. They shove everything back one, they're like, "thank you, please come back again."
T-TAD: What else do you plan on doing to promote cannonball?
BB: I been doing another serious of videos, like I worked really hard on that kickstarter campaign to shoot the super 8 video for pimp hand. but that didn't really have the affect I hoped cause we worked so fucking hard on doing that. but i just shot another video with Ceschi for time for real, with this crazy directory in San Francisco named Allen Price, he's done some videos for sub pop. I'm really excited, he's like building sets, it's puppets, and stop motion. me and Ceschi are gonna be floating over this digital ocean. We had a lot of fun making that, and I got some plans for some other videos. And I'm putting out 150 vinyl on my own, with a Lazer Beak remix on it, which is being worked on right now. I'm gonna get them pressed and I'm gonna screen print them myself. So throughout this year, I'm gonna keep on touring and try to release the remix, and vinyl, and a couple more videos. Just trying to get it out. I'm really proud of the album, and I love it. We had no budget for publicity. So the best publicity I have to do is just going out and playing it everywhere I fucking can.
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