MC Lars
We caught up with MC Lars at his recent Norwich gig to chat about Hearts That Hate, 'The Graduate' and Mark Hoppus...
We caught up with MC Lars at his recent Norwich gig to chat about Hearts That Hate, 'The Graduate' and Mark Hoppus...
This genre you're part of - post-punk laptop rap - technically, it doesn't exist. How has that made things harder for you?
I make hip hop music with all the rock influences in a different way and that has made it harder because it's like, when you're trying to get on tours, it's hard. If I did straight rock music that's harder to do, but I think that more people try to figure out where to market you, you know what I mean? So it's like, doing post-punk laptop rap has let me get on tours with a lot of different bands and I've toured with all sorts of people, but it also in limiting.
Has this made things easier for you in any way?
It helps that it's different - it stands out a little bit and I think that if I were doing rock, I probably wouldn't be doing music professionally because there's so many rock bands; you really have to be a great singer, or a really technically great guitar player, and I'm more just kind of quirky and different.
So why create your own genre? Why not step into something that already exists?
Well, I think if you try to copy what's on the radio, if you try to be like the next My Chemical Romance, in six months no-one's going to want to hear something that sounds like that. From a business perspective it's silly to try to be someone else, and from a creative perspective it's boring; you kind of have to do your own thing.
With being a genre by yourself, where do you draw your influences from?
I love old-school punk rock, I love a lot of indie hip hop stuff, old-school rap and I like a lot of indie music. I also like funny music like Weird Al and Bloodhound Gang, so it's a weird hodge-podge of influences.
Having previously played in a guitar-oriented band, where did the inspiration come from to do something that's almost the complete opposite?
I got bored of doing the punk stuff. I went to college and I started doing a hip hop radio show and that was really cool because there was all this vinyl form like, the 70s and 80s and I got into old-school hip hop, and I realised that there was this whole history to this music and my generation isn't particularly aware of that. We know Snoop Dogg and we know Dre, and Eminem, but there's all this stuff that I hadn't heard of and that really inspired me to try to contribute to that underground. It's exciting.
By not going 'mainstream' how has this made things both easier and harder for you to get your music heard?
That's a good question. When you avoid the mainstream channels it's harder because you have to work a lot more, and it's a lot more hands-on management and micro-managing everything, but it's easier because I make all the decisions, like I can do a track in a day and then get it on iTunes the next day. It's not part of this big machine. It's like, doing it independently gives you more creative freedom too; I got to pick everything that went on the record. I think that most bands try to do that, and want to do that but it's like, if you have an A&R guy, you have to go through that channel, and if you're your own A&R person - it's awesome.
You've collaborated with a number of different people on the album ['The Graduate'] - how did they come about?
The Bowling For Soup collaboration was because I toured with them in 2005. I got Ill Bill from Non Phixion on the last record because he knew this dude who knew my manager. MC Chris, I played a show with him and he'd heard of me; I asked him to do it and he said he would. Who else? Oh, The Matches I toured with in Australia, it's kind of just random friends. It goes back to what you were saying earlier about being different; because I can be in a whole bunch of different scene, I was able to pull in a bunch of different guests.
And who would you most like to work with in future?
On the new album, I'm doing songs with Mark Hoppus from Blink 182 - that's gonna be good, but I'd love to do stuff with Chuck D, and like, the old-school hip hop guys - that'd be fun. Or Missy Elliot, Lady Sovereign; she's got some great production, great beats.
The 'Laptop EP' has been categorised under 'Urban' and yet the album has been categorised in music stores under 'Rock and Pop'. Is this how you see your music - as crossing those boundaries?
Yeah, it's weird. It's a hip hop album but people who buy Mims and 50 Cent aren't gonna buy my record; people who buy Bowling For Soup or Wheatus records are probably gonna like it. It's a hip hop record - it's black music for white kids, really, which is a terrible way to look at it, but in the market, that's where it fits in.
With the samples you've used, have you ever had problems getting any of them cleared?
For 'Download This Song', Iggy Pop's publishers and label wouldn't let us use it, but then Iggy Pop liked the message in 'Download This Song' and said, "Yeah, they can use it." So we got cleared by Iggy, but there was friction with his label, because they didn't like the idea of free downloading, you know? Major labels don't like it. It's like David and Goliath though. I mean, they won't make it. People don't like working and giving money to companies that don't respect them or supporting their artists. They'll crumble.
The 'Hearts That Hate' spoof - where did that idea come from?
I wrote that song ['Signing Emo'] in 2004 and I feel like emo - mainstream emo - those bands kind of reached their peak in 2003. I wanted to open up peoples' eyes to how this movement, which was seemingly organic and coming from a long tradition was really manufactured when it came to all the bands that came after Brand New and Dashboard, so it's was like, I wanted to tell a story of how the music industry machine chews up and spits out these bands. Now it's funny, because, like, it's 2007 - there's a lot more 'Hearts That Hate' stories - so many bands who kind of have a similar story to them. It's kind of like a harbinger of what happened.
How did people respond to that?
Some people thought it was a real band and tried to book them for their high school proms. It didn't help that we made a fake website and fake email! We tricked a lot of people into thinking they were real.
How did this tour slot come about?
I'm friends with the guy who organised it. I met him because he put out Army of Freshmen's record in 2005 and he was hanging out on the Bowling For Soup tour in the October of '05, and then I did some shows with the Good To Go Tour '06 with Aquabats, and then Ed - the dude who organised it - asked me to be on this tour, and I said "I'd love to"... and here we are, in Norwich!
With this being the last night of the Good To Go Tour, what have been the high and low points of the tour?
Highlights have been becoming friends with Wheatus and hanging out with them, and getting to know Punchline, and the fact that there were so many kids at every show - lots and lots of people - that was great. Low points were that I kind of ran out of merch halfway through, so I had to order more - that was kind of stressful. But really, there weren't any low points. It's been a very comfortable, fun, exciting tour.
What have you missed the most about home?
I miss being in one place for more than six hours, you know what I mean? But it's cool - touring's fun.
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