The Vapor in the Frog Pond: Drifting High Up in Immaculate Ozone -- An Interview with the Sublte6 front man: Doseone
By Lance Saunders
Adam "Doseone" Drucker can now legitimately self-proclaim himself as one of the hardest working rappers/poets. His 10 mile-a-minute wit and one-of-a-kind vocal chords throw him in the barrel of the uncomparable. After graduating from business school and finding himself unfulfilled with battle raps, he turned his attention towards making abstract imagination/lyricism into musical form. He is best known as an eminent spearhead of the highly reputable Oakland/Berekely based Anticon label and the balladist baron of cross-genre projects including his six-piece band Subtle. Doseone recently spoke with SLUG Magazine about his methods, madness, and his new musical monograph For Hero: Fore Fool.
Photo by Terri Loewenthal
Taking the bands [Subtle] geographical separation into consideration, it's astounding how reserved Adam "Doseone" Drucker seems when it comes to keeping everyone together as a community of artists/musicians. "There's no keeping it together. It's just about having relationships with everyone without forcing things or defining anybody's creativity. The only thing that can stunt someone's creativity is to tell them what to do with it. It's like everyone follows their own personal lead." Which is exactly what Subtle has been doing for the past year while creating the sound collage that is the new album, For Hero: For Fool.
After a winter road accident in February of 2005 that left keyboardist Dax Pierson seriously wounded with a severed spinal chord, one would think that they might abandon the project all together. Subtle's music is the pure definition of the word impervious. "The record itself is a continuation of A New White which has been in construction for the past few years. Parts overlap and sometimes they don't fit on a certain record. It's kind of like a lay-mans story of what I think the record looks like. Ideas about colors for songs, songs we want to rip off, songs we have already completed that we wanted to have a requiem for."
The chemistry between this Oakland based sextet is undeniable. Their sound aggregates demos, old recordings, live recordings and the palpable faith they have in each other as musicians as well as artists, no matter where they are; they still practice in small bedrooms while dealing with the ordeal of their apparent obtrusive dissemination. There is a lot of alone time in their process. "Because I do all of my vocals alone and the way they are on finished songs is a product of me doing them, re-doing them, and re-hearing them over a month all alone," Drucker says.
Subtle is a collective of true working class dudes and being on an indi-European label doesn't make them a shit load of money. However, Dose still has his visions of grandeur. "Maybe some day we'll make enough cash to go to Barbados and record an album under water". I hope it's in the Ocean Park Aquarium with sharks. "Oh, that would be so dangerous. We could have our own reality T.V. show," Drucker responds.
I asked Dose to tell me about the remix sessions for Wishingbone (A New White EP side project) in which they recorded tracks featuring Beck and Mike Patton. "Beck and I worked together in the studio, but I put a lot of tender loving care into my vocals based on what he had already written for the choruses. With Mike Patton, we sent him the songs and he did everything separately because he is a madman and that's what I want."
Dose isn't the kind of musician that needs to snap a 1, 2, 3, to sing a two-part harmony. That kind of doubling up is okay for live sake, but collaborating with as many people as he does and working solo is sometimes the nature of the beast. Doseone has been recently collabing with artists such as Boom Bip, Fog, The Notwists, Alias & Tarsier, and the lately noticeable Canadian group Wolf Parade. I asked him how he continues to make connections with so many different artists in miscellaneous locale's and genres. "I have a fiancé whose sister is engaged to Dan Boekner [guitarist for Wolf Parade] and we're all very close, so he's pretty much my only pal up here in Canada. We started working together and had some chemistry. On the song we did, I gave him a bunch of middle-class words off of For Hero: for Fool and he grabbed a few of them without listening to the original songs and I backed him up with a church choir sound," Drucker says.
His work ethic and element are cross-genre; not only in music, but his sense of visual art which is somewhere in between half obsessive, and half relaxed. "I have to calm down a lot because I'm self-employed so it's all on me. That's what I chose and its one of the up sides and down sides to my line of chosen work. When I play Grand Theft Auto I don't necessarily get docked any pay, but I don't really [play games] any more. Everything that I draw is out of what I write. I see it before I write it. I'm a shitty drawer, but I do my best."
Dose consecutively holds a relation to sound poetry and Dadaism in every project he takes on. The theoretical images in his songs seem to consist of juxtaposing sounds next to each other, leaving undercurrents of interpretation – which leaves a sour taste in the mouths of some, but for others, it is an electrifying experience. "Everything sort of comes to me as slides. A guy on a raft, no, a rapper on a raft that is so solo that he builds himself a raft and searches for himself. Then I ask myself how reality would regard that. As far as sound goes, it's just a product of how I put it to the music and meter. It doesn't rhyme, I just know how the words are going to fit; not only in a mouthful, but in the size of stanzas I overlap. I like to do things that rant and build for change ups."
Considering that reading habits fall into the language-game Dose tells me that he doesn't read at all. "I have a huge poetry collection," he confesses. "The only things I read are graphic novels. The stuff I'm writing now is sort-of inspired between the two; I'm building a sci-fi world to kick our reality and use highs and lows as models for whatever I'm compelled to get across. It's something I just osmossed."
One of Dose's influences is the immortal poet Galway Kinnel who wrote the perfect codex bewitchingly titled Book of Nightmares. "Two of the first few poems really make me tear up – he killed it, he got this out of himself perfectly. I like it when a poem answers the questions you're about to ask and leaves itself open while writing in reverse so you can walk backwards through it."
Dose is not stranger to poetic procedure. Apparently what Subtle is working on is a trilogy album consisting of A New White as the first installment and For Hero: For Fool as the second. He is writing a small play, if you will, of a hero and his environment. "I want to get in a space where I can write poems that accounts for itself and scores itself. If I can write in this other world and take artifacts from past albums I can carry on. I'm just trying to design something that makes Subtle records unique and non-restrictive."
Subtle is not some artsy fartsy boy band that lives on a mountaintop. They are romantic about what they do and it shows in their music, even when it is just a remix record. It all comes through the music, especially when they recorded The Peel Sessions with the late great John Peel. "Sometimes we would bring trophies all the way across our tour to give to him. He was inspiring and it was very heavy when he passed. He was generous enough to put our music out to people. I remember the first time he played cLOUDDEAD, he put it on the wrong speed."
Doseone's abundant worldly travels have taken him on magic carpet rides to new ideas and musical developments. Dose is familiar with the concept that being on the road can take years off of your life while touring. "There's no alone time, no diffusion besides time. It can be rugged, but you get to be kids, you get to eat three fucking hot dogs and drink a bunch of beers. We're pretty clear headed about why we came all this way when it's show time. There's nothing better to be accountable for all of these poems and songs, especially when we do perform them live and make them real."
As an artist or musician, getting true satisfaction out of traveling around routinely re-living your album's finer moments would have to be tops in regards to getting high on music. "The performance is the ultimate outlet for me because you're doing all of these other processes: writing, recording, experimenting, and inventing…then you get to do it all [on stage]. It brings out everything you forgot you put in to it begin with. The only down side is after acting like it's your birthday for 30 nights in a row, you do the best you can but sometimes it's hard be there for those moments, but that's just the texture of it."
Dose has spent a considerable amount of time in Salt Lake City. He is familiar with the happenings and the good-hearted people of this fair city and those who subsist here. "I would go to Funksion all the time. Brisk did the cover art for Hemispheres and misspelled the album title, but it was timely and it was the only help I ever got. If I ever see him again I'll give him a free copy of Hemispheres. In regards to Pelt, I was trying to make an educated decision about publishing and the book industry is very bulk oriented and I am indie-indie. I had a tough time. So I went through a company in Utah that really helped me out." He continues to make bonds and maintain lasting relationships with countless people all over the globe. Maybe you can catch him September 19th at The Urban Lounge forging his raw nostril phonics emanating from his cavernous lungs into your ear…and afterwards, sit down and have a beer with him.
Theres a lot of mash-up DJs out there nowadays, but not one of them can be compared to the Z-Trip recipe.
[Z-Trip]
In the past year, Z has been very goal-oriented. He has a mix on the new Motown Remixed album, a cameo on the new Scratch: All The Way Live DVD, and, now signed with Hollywood Records, hes ready to spread his musical wings even farther with his debut release, Shifting Gears. All of these projects hit the streets April 19.
SLUG: Are you excited/nervous about the release of Shifting Gears? Z-Trip: Yes, Im excited and nervous. Not in an Oh my god, hows it going to do? sort of way, but when you work on something for a long period of time, you get the butterflies before it comes out.
SLUG: Would you say that youre self-conscious about it?
Z-T: You wouldnt be human if you werent. No matter what people say I feel good about it.
SLUG: When you did Breakfast Club with Murs, was there more play than work, or vice versa?
Z-T: No man, it was definitely more play. When him and I get in the studio, we never get shit done. Hes a super-cool guy and I think we are always going to be working on music together because we click musically.
SLUG: Did you grow up in Phoenix or Queens? Also, what was the reason for your relocation to L.A.?
Z-T: I was born in Queens, moved to Phoenix when I was seven and my parents got a divorce when I was 12. My dad moved to N.Y. and my mom stayed in Arizona. I was constantly going back and forth. New York is where I got turned onto hip-hop. Listening to the radio, taping the songs and bringing them back to Arizona. So I built my name there and I would go out and do gigs all over the world based out of Arizona. So I took that next step and moved to where the industry is: L.A.
SLUG: I see that you worked with Linkin Parks Chester Bennington on your new album. What was the object of all that? Was it the gathering of money? The satisfying of an audience? Was it purely respect?
Z-T: It was straight to make a pop tune. No, Im joking. The reason is that hes from Phoenix too, and the first time I went on tour with them, I was speaking with him and we both found out that we know the same people. So when it came time to make this record, I reached out to him and it was about making a song with another dude from Arizona. It was just that. It was a thumb to everyone who thinks they know our sound. Both of us are pigeonholed as the guy who screams or the mash-up guy. I said, Fuck that, lets do the opposite of what everyone expects of us.
SLUG: What programs or equipment do you use to make your beats on?
Z-T: EPS 16 Plus, but I make mostly everything on my ASR 10. Eventually everything gets tracked into Pro-Tools for chopping.
SLUG: Who is your favorite band to open up for?
Z-T: Believe it or not, Dave Mathews Band was my favorite because of their crowd. They are the most open-minded to what I do under the umbrella of hip-hop. Then theres James Brown, Rolling Stones, Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Rush, AC/DC, Linkin Park. I dont have a favorite. I like them all.
S: What about the Motown Remixed album; what songs did you cover?
Z-T: At first I wanted to do a very conscious, early 70s Temptations track that talks about protesting war. I couldnt come like that, though. I did a remix of Jackson 5s I Want You Back; I had to make it a little more poppy. Im glad that its the lead on the record. I feel everyone did an equally impressive job on the album.
SLUG: When was the last time you were close to having a nervous breakdown?
Z-T: The album advance that went out prior to the one everyone has now was just 90 percent done, working copy to show everyone at the label. Someone took that copy and sent it out before I was finished.
SLUG: Hollywood was ready to take your shit and run with it, eh?
Z-T: Yeah, we almost got off to a really bad start.
With that, I let Z-Trip finish his turkey-tuna sandwich, which was definitely stale by the end of the interview. Check his website, www.djztrip.com, for more info. .
Subtle
A New White Tour
Monday, Feb. 21st 2005
Show Review by Lance Saunders (SLUG Magazine)
[Subtle, Photo: Ryan McCalmon]
For those who have had the opportunity to attend any live shows at Kilby Court know that it can sometimes lead to an odd assembly of strangers with one common intent: to experience their favorite artists music in an intimate atmosphere. However, odd is an understatement for these particular artists.
On the night of February 21st, traveling all the way from Portland, Oregon, Subtle stopped in Salt Lake City for a little visit and what was to be their third show on that of a 24 stop U.S. tour. The head count was sixteen when I first arrived, which swiftly grew to a 35+ crowd. A sufficient group of boys, girls, moms, and dads filled the frigid Kilby to witness the six individually talented puzzle pieces who like to call themselves Subtle. When these pieces are connected, its the kind of puzzle you glue together and nail to the wall for all to see.
The Subtle six consists of AdamDoseOneDrucker: artist, prop-master, keyboard, words; JeffreyJelLogan: drum&bass machine, mpc; Marty Downers: bass clarinet, tenor sax, keyboard, flute; Dax Pierson: melodica, synth, auto-harp, bells, sampler, keys; Alexander Kort: electric cello, upright bass; and Jordan Dalrymple: live guitar, and drum kit.
Before the show, I sat down with Jeff a.k.a. Jel to talk about the tour and the direction Subtle is going. We have been working on three new videos for A New White and theyll be out soon. One is about aliens who come flying over Denver, come out of their little spaceships and start sucking all the power out of the city, Jel says enthusiastically. I asked him about Alexander Kort (electric cello) working with Sole on Selling Live Water. He stated, yeah, Sole stole him from us for about a year, thats why the album didnt come out sooner, but Im not mad. Sole and Alex did great work together. After the brief chat, the guys consumed their curry/tofu/cigarettes and the show began.
All six approached the prop littered stage consisting of winged skulls, upside-down trees, mannequin arms, and a shoulder cast topped off with a human skull with surprises inside. They were curiously dressed in color coordinated, white uniforms. Wearing the cured skin of a famous white rapper that he ordered from the back of Vibe magazine and apparently used Bright Eyes left index finger as payment. Dose One greeted the intimate crowd, confessing that it was their first show in Utah.
[Subtle, Photo: Ryan McCalmon]
The first song, Jrs Band started off softly, and then exploded with beautiful melodies and complex entanglements of samples. The crowd moved as though the venue was actually being held on a boat out at sea.
Amidst the sweat and convulsions lay Dose One with his 4 microphones in which to compliment his multiple personalities and running in place raps. The aura was electric. Halfway through the performance, Dose attested that his whole rap career started here in Utah; in a place we all miss: Function. Yes, the boys at Function helped with the manufacturing of Hemisperes. Yeah, they messed up the spelling on the album cover, so I just ended up calling it Hemis-peres, thanks guys. Pelt, the Dose One activity book was also published and printed here in Utah.
The show continued with striking electricity, elaborate beats, and sporadic raps blended with gentle vocal harmonies. Subtle played every song from their new Lp (A New White) and some favorites from the 4 season Eps (now out of print). At the end of the Subtle spectacle, they all walked off stage while the music continued to play and left the crowd drooling for more.
[Subtle, Photo: Ryan McCalmon]
Anyone who picks up A New White might be confused for a long period of time, but if you ever come across the chance to see Subtle live, you just might discover that there is a method to the madness. -Lance Saunders
By Lance Saunders
Selecting a name in the rap world is very important. Attitude, information about your origins, philosophies and current activities intertwine throughout the decided pseudonym, giving different meanings to different people. So why in the world would an emcee call himself Piece of Shit?
On the evening of March 13, around 7 p.m., I sit down and share a smoke with P.O.S. on the unsalted sidewalk across the street from Salt Lakes own In The Venue. We talk about the past, present and the future of the Minneapolis based rapper from Doom Tree and the Rhymesayers collective.
Sorry Im late man, he says considerately, lighting up a cigarette. P.O.S. admits that this is his third time playing in Salt Lake City. However, it is his first headlining tour without being under the umbrella of the other Rhymesayers players or the Warped Tour. He says generously that his favorite thing about S.L.C. was the kids. The structure of the city is weird, but he thinks the kids are really cool. Later, onstage he admits that S.L.C. is one of my favorite cities to play in; besides my hometown, I love you guys! It keeps me wondering why P.O.S. also stands for Pissed-off Stef. Hes such a nice guy.
So how did P.O.S. get where he is now, and what was his most important achievement that made him what he is today? He has been in countless bands including Om, Doom Tree, Cadillac Blindside, Building Better Bombs, Room 237, Cenospecies, and now his own solo effort. I think [its] that the fact that I have so many projects and I like to keep myself busy with music, says P.O.S. Whatever style it is, you know? Om was a pop-punk band, I played drums in Cadillac Blindside which was kind of like the Get Up Kids, that vein of stuff in Om, I played guitar and sang. It was gentle pop-punk, I was super young. In Building Better Bombs I played guitar and screamed, he says, it was spazzy hardcore, kind of like the Locust. Room 237 (a name taken from the horrific room in the Shining) was my first taste of making rap music. Then after awhile I found myself in Doom Tree.
P.O.S is something of a hybrid between punk-rock and hip-hop, but its so much more than that. His songs are downbeat and ethereal, horrific and intense, effortless and canny, with ambiguous political punch-lines. His music is also filled with enough substance to go around the table and definitely stands apart from anything else on the Rhymesayers label. In short, its compelling enough to carve its own way into your ear canal. I ask him to describe his new album, Audition, to anyone who has never heard it before. I would say its either super aggressive hip-hop or really mellow hardcore. It is rap, it is a rap record. You want to call me rock-rap, whatever, its just a rap record. It just happens to be a lot more aggressive that most of the other stuff right now.
It occurs to me to ask him which acronym he prefers: Pissed off Stef, Piece of Shit, Promise of Skills or Product of Society? I never liked the name P.O.S., he admits, it stuck because it was the first name given. I either gave it to myself or Marshal from Om gave it to me, yeah, I think it was Marshal. If I had to change it I wouldnt because no matter how you look at it, its deprecating enough that it fits my style without being self-hating, he says, because Im not self-hating at all. I just like the idea of P.O.S. just like that piece of shit over there, you know?
How did P.O.S. find himself on the reigning underground label Rhymesayers? He is part of a crew in Minneapolis call Doom Tree and they collectively put out his first record (Ipecac Neat, not a demo). Dont make a demo, make a record. Why would you spend money on a demo if you could make an LP album for the same price? he says, So the record was out; Slug and I had a mutual friend. Not the magazine the rapper. He asked me to go sell merchandise on the Sevens Travels Tour and I couldnt do it, so I did it on the Warped Tour. He said I could bring a set, but I probably wouldnt rap and two days into it, I was rapping every day. They liked my hustle and my songs, so we just hit it off.
Standing in the cold before the show, people give P.O.S. looks of shy amazement and thumbs up. On kid, Mike, stops us to tell P.O.S. that he loves the new album and all of his friends have it. P.O.S. behaves warmly toward him and explains to me later that a 16-year-old fan showed him and his crew around a local mall last time they were in town. It was a great moment.
I ask P.O.S. what fans can look forward to when it comes to himself, Doom Tree, and Rhymesayers. He promptly responds, Theres no time to relax, Im going to put more work into the new Doom Tree record. You know, just keep myself busy. This tour has been amazing. We have been breaking 100 [crowd] every night, which is baffling, confusing and amazing and Im excited on how its all going, P.O.S. says. Its overwhelming that 150 people bought tickets before I even got where Im so happy.
And he should be happy. The show was amazing and the crowd was prodigious. Utah locals DeadBeats, started it off with a bang, waking the crowd up for the nights regalement. Sims adhered to the crowd by stating that after the show, he is going to rename his Myspace account to Emo Bitch, because he is an emo bitch. His comical rhymes and wacky punch lines won the crowd over with ease. Then P.O.S. approached the stage with a grin spanning from one ear to the other. Im so happy you guys are here! he yelled, starting the show off with his omnipresent energy. Somewhere in between the striking electricity, sporadic raps, and gentle vocal harmonies, the sound cut out. P.O.S. continued the show with spoken word rhymes, thumb-wrestling matches with the crowd and his grab-bag of jokes. This is a little uncomfortable, he moaned after 10 minutes of absent music. Just then, the power came back on and the show was a success! Afterwards, P.O.S. sat down at the end of the stage to greet his fans, sign autographs and shake hands. I myself am anxious for P.O.S. to return to Salt Lake City.