We did an interview with Rock Thiz Magazine (http://www.myspace.com/rockthizmagazine)... here it is:

AMUNGUS INTERVIEW
BY DEBRA CHILTON

I was pretty jazzed to be able to interview Amungus.
I’ve been a big fan of their music for a couple of years now and it’s awesome to be able to share their music with everyone.
Amungus is Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls and Brian Shulmeister, co-founder of Slender Fungus, a multimedia design company.
Back in 2003, these two guys came to the conclusion that they had a mutual appreciation for laptop based music production methods and began to send audio files and snippets back and forth through email.
Over time, songs began to emerge and Amungus came into being.
To date, they have released a CD and just a few months ago, and self-titled EP.
So, without further ado, here’s Amungus!
Q: Tell us about yourselves and how you came together to make music? Where are you from?

Brian: Robby Takac has been in the Goo Goo Dolls for 20 odd years now, and he is originally from Buffalo , NY.
I'm originally from Los Angeles.
I started a design company called Slender Fungus Multimedia about 10 years ago, focusing primarily on the entertainment field.
The Goo Goo Dolls became clients of mine shortly thereafter, and Rob and I started writing music together basically since we hit it off, became friends, and incessantly called me for tech advice as he was coming up to speed on what a computer actually was.
Through the process of learning about things like Pro Tools, we started writing some bits together about 6 years ago, and away we went... very, very slowly.

Q: What’s the story behind the name Amungus?

Brian: We were set to play the first one of Rob's Music is Art festivals... as we were sitting backstage, about ready to go on; we realized we didn't really have a name at all.
The Rob and Brian Project really didn't have much of a ring to it, so Rob suggested Amungus as a play off my company's name, Slender Fungus.
It stuck... and ended up being oddly prescient, since we ended up having so many people in our extended orbit, whom we all feel are among us.

Q: For readers who haven’t had a chance yet to hear your music, how would you describe it?

Brian: Hmm... I've never really understood the genre concept, but I'll go ahead and take a shot... indie electronica? Poppy dance? Hard to tell, I think our songs all retain a common thread - ie, they sound very Amungus - while hop scotching around and touching on any number of different musical genres.
Certainly we have a strong dance element, but I think the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

Q: Amungus doesn’t really fit into any one category, you’ve done some songs that are rap, some techno, you have various musicians and singers who come in and work with you on your songs, how do you get your music out to the public since it seems many radio stations playlists are based on a particular genre?

Brian: That's the trick these days, isn't it? Even from the beginning, we realized that a) we were a little too eclectic to fit into any particular marketing niche, and b) we didn't WANT to go the record label route.
It's dead at the moment anyway, and they would have NO idea what to do with us.
A lot of the reason for the delay in releasing anything or going out and doing a traditional tour or any of that has just been... well, the old model isn't working, the new "model" - ala Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails - really only applies to established bands with big fan bases.
So what would work for us? Traditional radio is all corporate playlist based - we lost Indie 103.1 here in LA recently, which tried to buck that trend - and even satellite radio is quickly going that direction.
So we've been just trying to get out there through word of mouth, putting ourselves on the social networks, looking at different ideas and evaluating them.
What's the point in spending $5,000 a month on a publicist when no music magazine will write about you or review you anyway, since you're not tied to a big record label spending a ton on advertising in their magazine? So it's all pretty underground and guerilla at the moment...

Q: How do your individual playing styles affect the overall sounds of each album/EP?

Brian: It's really funny, because we kind of took on the opposite roles than we expected.
Rob comes from a world of writing very tight, structured pop songs, while I was always writing these convoluted, avante garde soundscapes.
But when we get together and write, more often than not I'm pushing and writing for a more pop structure and Rob is introducing the left field elements.
Probably why Amungus is so fun for both of us - we're getting out of our comfort zones and literally playing.

Q: Who are your major influences?

Brian: Rob was pretty heavily influenced by bands like the Clash, the Replacements...
I came more from a Cure and Depeche Mode background.
Those influences still seem to find their way into Amungus tracks... more direct influences, I got very heavily into electronica, bands like Underworld, the Chemical Brothers, LCD soundsystem... Rob get very into some hip hop and dance stuff as well, Mimms, Royskopp... we go from Prince to Soulwax, Basement Jaxx to Amy Winehouse, Gorillaz to Simiam Mobile Disco.
Our friend, Karl Wallinger from World Party and the Waterboys, collaborated with us on handful of tracks and I think he said it best: "put it all in a bucket and mix it with a big stick."

Q: Who writes the music, or do you both write?

Brian: We both write.
Each song will generally start with one of us, just a few measures or a chorus or about a minute or two sketch, then we pass it off, then pass it back, then pass it back until we've tweaked it generally about 180 degrees from where it originally started, and hammered it into a basic, real song structure.
At which point we'll go into the studio with a vocalist or two, and then everything will change again as we re-write based on what we're coming up with at the moment.
It's an intensely collaborative process, which is nice.
It doesn't allow any of us to get too precious about our contributions, as anything and everything is likely to be thrown out at any moment.

Q: What are some of your more popular songs?

Brian: Since we're still kinda running the indie route, don't really have any radio play to speak of, and just kinda throw things out there now and then on the inter webs, that's a hard one to answer.
But based on reception to live performances, messages and emails we've gotten, etc, I’d say Bad Kitty, Search Your Soul, Serious Chemistry and Here We Go seem to be favorites... incidentally, we saw a blog entry online that mentioned that "Here We Go" sounded like a blatant Nine Inch Nails rip-off.
Actually, it's a blatant Nine Inch Nails and Beatles rip-off.
We did a version of mash-up between Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" and the Beatles "Come Together" and then Alex came up with some great original vocals over our mashed up track, which we liberally sprinkled some new beats and bleeps over. Obviously, it can never be released, but it's fun to do live... if you aren't familiar with the whole mash-up culture that's out there, give it a Google.
lots of creative, interesting stuff...

Q: What’s the main topic of your songs? Do you see this changing over time?

Brian: I don't think there's any particular thread.
The EP has seven songs on it, and we probably have a handful more out there on various sites in video or streaming format... looking quickly at the list of 20+ odd other tracks we have at various levels of completion, still no overall thread.
We do tend to have a fairly positive outlook, and as we have a lot of female vocalists, I think I can see a fairly strong feminist vibe to our tracks... but when you're bringing in so many different personalities and viewpoints for our vocalists, I can't say we have any main theme.
Perhaps we'll do an epic 4-disc concept album in the future!

Q: Where does the inspiration for your music/songs come from?

Brian: I can only speak for myself... but inspiration comes in every moment of every day.
You never know what's going to key you off... a conversation with a friend, a fight, a bass line on the radio, a great night out... there's always something, some emotion or sound or feeling that you experience throughout the day, that you can bring out when you sit down and just start playing.
The songs really do just seem to come - most of the time.
Sometimes you have to bang your head against the wall and make it come.

Q: Is there a message you want to send through your music?

Brian: When you're doing electronica and using these crazy keyboards that can just make such epic noise and crazy, abrasive beats to go angry or downbeat or just plain aggro.
We've consciously tried to stay away from that, regardless of how tempting it is sometimes.
I touched on it a bit above, but we definitely want to give off a positive, let's have a good time vibe - because that's why we're doing it, to have a good time.
We want you to feel like we feel.

Q: Has your music evolved since you first started playing together? If it has, how do you feel it’s evolved?

Brian: Most definitely.
When we first started trading things back and forth and writing bits together, we were VERY electronic and instrumental and just totally out there, experimentative.
Things either sounded very ambient and mellow, or just complete walls of random sounds.
A few kind of poppy things came out of that early period, and then once we started getting some of our singers involved, we actually started writing real songs, using our influences to kind of guide us.
I just feel like we found our sound.

Q: Where do you see yourselves in five years?

Brian: Who knows? We both really like our day jobs, so we don't feel a lot of pressure to try and force ourselves as a band into the world.
And with the industry in the state it is... all we can really say is we hope we find a way to make this Amungus thing pay for itself, allow us to keep working in the studio and on the stage, and keep bringing out new music.
We'd be happy with that.
Certainly our vocalists would really appreciate being able to get by and pay the rent singing with us!

Q: What has been your biggest challenge as a band?

Brian: Given the amount of people and wildly different personalities involved, I would have thought it would have been holding this crazy group together.
But that has actually been fantastically easy.
We all get along and have a bit of a family vibe going on.
The biggest challenge is just trying to figure out how to get ourselves out there, build the interest level, and get people's eyes and ears.

Q: Have you overcome these challenges? If so, how?

Brian: We haven't, but we haven't really tried very hard until now.
Putting out the EP was the first step in that process.
At the beginning, Rob and I were really just doing it for fun and for ourselves, and never thought anyone else would ever hear any of this.
As soon as our songwriting grew, and we realized what exactly "Amungus" sounded like, and we had our vocalists in the mix, things changed, and we realized - hey, people might really like this and want to hear it! So now we're trying to figure out in earnest how to make that happen in this post-apocalyptic wreck of an industry.

Q: What’s the ultimate direction for Amungus?

Brian: Continuing to have great time writing, recording and playing songs we really enjoy ourselves.
In whatever genre, format or venue that might take us... there is no spoon.

Q: You have recently released an EP and are working on a CD, can you tell us about it.
Any information on when the CD will be released?

Brian: We've got a lot of songs done,and could put out a CD tomorrow if we wanted to.
However, we keep feeling that every latest track we do is our best, and we've been on a bit of a roll recently, so we want to put a little more time in and knock out a few more ideas that are banging around.
Then we'll have a bigger pool to choose from, and we can really settle in on the absolute best songs we've done.
And of course, secondly, the recurring theme in this interview - the state of the industry.
When will it make sense for us to release it? We have a few ideas, and there are some plans in the works.
We just want to tie a full release in with a bigger splash.

Q: What is your favorite venue to perform in? Your least favorite?

Brian: We haven't really played in enough to judge.
Basically, anytime we get a crowd that's into it and shaking their booties a bit, we're super happy.
So far the best was doing the Rockin' At The Knox show at the Albright Knox, opening up for the B-52s, just because we had such a HUGE crowd that was a hometown crowd for everyone (but me).
It was great looking out, seeing so many friends and so many people just getting into it, even though they had never heard of us before.
The Music is Art festivals are always fun to play; it's like hanging out with friends and family.
With strobe lights.

Q: What is one thing that fans would be surprised about you if they knew?

Brian: Rob's been out there in the public eye for 20 years, so I'd be surprised if there's anything his fans don't already know about him... and I'm really not all that interesting.
But I can try anyway - up until about 5 years ago, Rob had no idea how to send an email.
And I spent all of last month listening to nothing but Stax records.

Q: Any advice you’d give to aspiring musicians?

Brian: Just do what you love, and play what you love.
There aren't any hard and fast rules anymore, so don't try to sound like this or that band, just sound like you.
Don't buy the politics of fear that's everywhere at the moment.
We're going to all find a way.
How can we not? What's a world without music?

Q: Any upcoming tour dates you can tell us about?

Brian: Looks like we'll be doing a few things in March in the Buffalo area...
we're working on finalizing some other dates, festival things, etc, but too early to say anything about those.
As always, check our sites...

Q: How can new fans learn more about Amungus and listen to your music?

Brian: Grab the EP, available digitally and pain-free on iTunes, Amazon and a ton of other digital outlets online, or the CD version from goodcharamel.com...
or listen on any of our sites, amungus. com, our myspace, myspace. com/amungus, our facebook page (just search for amungus), or search for us on youtube.
If you like what you hear, feel free to buy a song or two... we'd certainly appreciate your appreciation.

Q: Any last words you’d like to share with us?

Brian: please check out musicisart.org and amungus.com!