It’s His Thing

RJD2 Doing What He Wants to Do

After releasing his debut, Deadringer, in 2002, it was clear that RJD2 was embarking upon a fruitful career of longevity and innovation. The DJ/producer, and later vocalist, had an undeniable vibe and an eclectic palette of sounds at his disposal. With an understanding of music theory and chord progressions, his instrumentals played out more like a score than the average programmed beats, and while it was natural to lump him into the hip-hop gene pool at first, you knew he would eventually go on and grow into his own.

His preceding solo albums showed a quick evolution. As he began shifting further away from his hip-hop base with Since We Last Spoke and The Third Hand, he had group projects with MCs like Blueprint and later Aceyalone that were catered more toward his core. RJ’s output, whether it was his own albums, lending his production to other projects or through a series of mixtapes, remained consistent and always pushed the creative boundaries he had cast on his last.

Complacency is a word that doesn’t exist in RJ’s vocabulary. He is always recording and creating, always touring, and now that he started his own label to back it up he is always working. It’s a job he enjoys though, and one that he is quite good at.

In support of an upcoming stop at the Crocker Art Museum on Oct. 16, 2010 Submerge reached out to the Oregon-born renaissance man. Excited to bring his four turntable and two sampler setup, he talked about the past and present and what to expect in the near future.

I want to talk about the progression of your career. From your early days with MHz on the underground rap tip, to creating what some dubbed as an “indie rock” album, to your last album The Colossus which was a collage of all kinds of genres, you have shown you can do it all. Was it always the plan to be this all-encompassing artist?
No, I never had any kind of any master plan of this is where I want to be in five or 10 years. I’ve just been kind of looking at what’s immediately in front of me, and behind me too, and sort of responding and reacting to those things. One thing that I feel compelled to mention is you brought up the “indie rock” record. I haven’t been working on that in any master plan, but there have been some constants in my career; some common threads that have ran through almost everything that I’ve done. From the beginning of my career to now the most driving influence in everything I do still is soul and R&B music. It has permeated in every record and decision. It’s not conscious or anything, it’s just how it comes out. I know people refer to The Third Hand as more of an indie rock record, and I assume that is because of the singing, but from my perspective if you look at the production and sound of that record, it’s very much drawn from soul, funk and psychedelic rock influences.

Going off what you just said, and I hope this doesn’t come off offensive, but do you think it was labeled that because you are white?
[Laughs] Well, I’ll put it this way… For one, I don’t take that as offensive. I’ll pose a statement to you: A band like TV on the Radio can make a certain type of record, and for better of for worse they are going to get lumped into the category of “black rock.” I don’t know how they feel about it, but I assume a group like that doesn’t really care for that classification. I don’t know, we could play the game of hypothetically speaking thing all day, but to answer the question, it’s entirely possible [laughs]. One thing I will say to play devil’s advocate, I wouldn’t rule out the opinion of it’s how I sang on that record made it feel more like an indie rock singer than, say, a Curtis Mayfield soul record. And you know, to this day I don’t particularly fancy myself as the most accomplished vocalist. On that record, though, it’s not a bravado-heavy style of singing, it’s harmony-dependent. Singing-wise, I can see how people would say it was an indie rock style of vocalization, but to me there is so much more that goes into all music than just who’s singing; it’s the sound of the drums, the production techniques and all that other stuff make up the cumulative effect.

Is it bothersome for someone like yourself who works without boundaries that ultimately it’s the journalists and such who say what each album is? Do you read that stuff and just get a headache?
I learned it doesn’t put me in a healthy place to read reviews of my records. I do everything possible to avoid them actually. Right around the time of The Third Hand is when I learned to disassociate myself from reviews. I vividly remember reading the first two reviews, and they were so wildly disparate it just made me realize it wasn’t making me more effective as a producer, or better yet as a person. The only thing I lament about with the current climate is that it seems we have entered into an arena where the reigns over and the rest follow. It’s funny because I’ve had journalists tell me that other journalists, or magazines and blogs or whatever, wait for the larger source in their field to sort of say what’s good and what’s not, and then everyone else follows suit. As a listener, I don’t think that serves anyone well.

Have you found in the interviews that you do that the level of journalism has dropped?
Yeah, I have found that people are less prepared. A lot of times it seems like I’m answering questions that are straight out of my bio. It doesn’t bother me, but it annoys my publicist the most [laughs]. I’ve gotten used to answering the same questions over and over. But yeah, I have noticed people not doing any research. Again, I’m not reading them, so I don’t see the final product, but the preparation seems to have dropped. There are still a lot of folks writing about stuff that they are interested in, which to me makes the most sense. It seems natural that you would write about the stuff you like opposed to the things you don’t.

OK, fair enough. To switch gears completely, I want to talk about your new label that you created, Electrical Connections, and get your perspective on being an artist/label owner. Was it more work than you expected?
It has been more work than I expected, but not a huge amount. At first it was tough, and I was taking on a lot of things–I reissued three records, put out a box set and released a new album in the course of four months. That period, of what was essentially putting out four records in as many months, was really rough. In hindsight though it’s only about 20 percent more work than what I was used to. I had a small label I was running called Bustown Pride on which I just pressed CDs and sent them straight to the distributors. Honestly, looking at the profit margins and the work that goes into everything, I’m still in awe how any record label can afford to have a staff.

Would you say it was a grueling process with a big reward, a grueling process with little reward, or say a fun process with a great reward?
I would say somewhere between grueling and a tolerable process, with a great reward. The reward for me is ownership of masters, which isn’t always immediately gratifying. It’s basically either going to pay off or not in the future, but I’m still wholeheartedly pleased with the way I’ve gone about it. My biggest concern was that I would put The Colossus out and no one would know anything about it. Love it or hate it, I feel like the visibility is about the same as it has in the past, and that is good enough for me.

With the name Electrical Connections, I have to ask about a video I saw of you where you built a wireless MIDI controller that linked up to your MPC… I gotta say, it was pretty awesome. I know you enjoy building and tweaking your equipment. I wanted to know if you have any other big projects in the works?
[Laughs] Recording-wise yes, I just moved and I set up a new studio space that is much bigger than my previous. The added new space will allow me to have several rooms that are all inter-connected in the house. The ergonomics of doing completely live music, or synth-orientated music, or sample-based music and having each in their own spaces but will all great. It’s all wired into one control room, and I have video and USB feeds going through each room. There are times you don’t want to blend it together, but one of the things I really liked about my last record was having all kinds of themed approaches to recording. I get bored doing the same thing over and over, but I like the idea of doing just sample-based music, but I like to be able to easily blend them. I have a couple records finished that I’m in the process of getting ready to be released. I’m just waiting to get the studio done.

Can you divulge on those?
Yeah, the first one… I’m pretty into horror and sci-fi soundtracks from like the mid-‘70s to like 1984. It’s all instrumental, and sort of an homage to that kind of cinematic approach to scoring music. I also did a record with a group I started with a singer named Aaron Livingston, who is featured on The Colossus. It’s all him singing and me on production, the group is called Ice Bird. Those two will be coming out in the next year for sure, hopefully before that.

And with a little foresight, how will journalists label Ice Bird?
[Laughs] I have no idea. I have proven to be a poor judge of that.

Last one. This interview is in support of your upcoming gig in Sacramento at the Crocker Art Museum. I have a feeling this may be different from a typical club gig you might get on tour, so I’m wondering if or how you change up your set depending on the setting?
I try to stay prepared. In the last year I’ve been using Serato [DJ software], but in the past I had to create dub plates so that I’d have everything for the live show. If I find myself in front of a crowd that doesn’t necessarily know my music, and they just want to hear something else, it’s like an eject button. Depending on the crowd though, I try to keep focused on doing my own thing.

RJD2 will perform as a featured guest at Neo-Crocker 2010: A Modern Culture Party at the Crocker Museum on Oct. 16. The party will run from 8 p.m.—2 a.m. and will also feature performances from DJ Shaun Slaughter, the Sacramento Ballet and much, much more. Tickets are $75 in advance and $90 at the door. For more information, go to www.neocrocker.com.