(Remix via Spine)
There are multiple reasons why an El-P interview always makes for an entertaining read. He is pretentious, but never elitist or arrogant. He speaks with a sense of grandeur, but is always thoughtful, insightful, and honest. This interview with Remix Magazine is no different. Largely about the production process of his upcoming album I'll Sleep When You're Dead, El-Producto touches on remixing for other artists, discovering the secret to the Neptunes' success, and challenges faced with completing his own album. Notable highlights are...
"The album went through a bunch of title phases, and I'll Sleep When You're Dead [Definitive Jux, 2007] won as the most fucked-up album title I could think of. I figured it was probably the most threatening album title, that's for sure."
"I picked up the Korg Triton just for fun and to see what it could do. When I heard it I realized that's what it takes to make a Neptunes beat. I only wish I'd gotten one years earlier and beaten them to the punch. So now the challenge is to use the Triton without sounding like The Neptunes."
"I've known Chan [Marshall] for a few years now. We've always kind of said that we'd do something together. That song was completely done. I had something else happening at the end of it, but it just wasn't working for me. I couldn't figure out what to do. All I knew is that I wanted some sort of vocal there. So I bumped into her randomly right before I had to finish the album, and a couple of days later she came by the studio and knocked out a vocal ending for me. After we did it, I realized that, weirdly enough, I had written the words to a loop I'd made from her song ''"Love and Communication''" from her album The Greatest. It didn't even occur to me until after we did it. Not to say that there's some mystical circumstance surrounding every song on my record, but that coincidence was interesting to me. It came out great."
"There are days when I sit down in the studio and have no idea what I'm doing. I'll be staring at $50,000 worth of musical equipment and have no clue what to do with it. I'll spend weeks like that, and then two songs will happen in four days."
"I just turned 30, and my personal political view is that the entertainment industry is going to be radically altered in the next five years, so I'd like to get a few more things done before time runs out on this madness."
I'm excited for this album to say the least.