INTERVIEWS
Nahko and Medicine for the People Fight for Progress on Take Your Power Back
When singer and songwriter Nahko Bear wrote “Dear Brother” for Nahko and Medicine for the People’s fourth album, Take Your Power Back, it wasn’t to charge up the masses to fight against racial injustice and police brutality in 2020. It was written in 2014 — a year after the Black Lives Matter Movement was born and during the time of civil unrest in Ferguson following the death of Michael Brown. “I wrote that song the day after Ferguson happened,” Nahko told SPIN about “Dear Brother.” “It’s completely directed at injustice, inequality, racism in the country, and the authoritarian system. And yes, it’s just literally directed at that.” [embedded content] Nahko and Medicine for the People is a collective of musicians, led by Nahko, from all over the globe. And wi...
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Shaquille O’Neal Aims to Make “Huge Impact In the World” with Forthcoming Livestream [Interview]
When two of the most venerated athletes of all-time in their respective sports team up for a project away from the game, the venture is met with both question marks and nervous excitement. Throw in the fact that those athletes are also two of the most charismatic and magnetic personalities in the entertainment industry, with deep ties to electronic music, and you have a bona fide fever pitch and a can’t-miss spectacle. Enter Shaquille O’Neal and Rob Gronkowski, who have coalesced their resplendent event brands into a virtual party called “Shaq’s Fun House vs. Gronk Beach.” The three-hour virtual fundraiser this Saturday, June 27th, which is directing donations to NAACP Empowerment Programs and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America,&nbs...
10 Years, 10 Questions With David Koepp: On Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Spider-Man, and Stephen King
“I love the idea that you can go into a house and your grip on reality starts to loosen,” says director and screenwriter David Koepp, who confesses, “I feel like I’ve been telling that story for 25 years, but what can you do? You like what you like.” Over Zoom, the Hollywood veteran weighs in on the parallels between his latest film You Should Have Left and his previous directorial efforts, particularly 1999’s Stir of Echoes and 2004’s Secret Window. He’s not wrong: All three films revolve around troubled male protagonists left to their own devices as they dig deeper holes for themselves. But Koepp is also being modest. After all, you don’t become one of the most successful screenwriters of all time by telling the same damn story again and again — and, to be frank, he hasn’t. For 30 years ...
GWAR’s Blothar: Oderus Urungus Wouldn’t Have Wanted His Statue Next to a “Row of Losers”
Over the past week or so, a petition to replace a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, with one of late GWAR frontman Oderus Urungus has garnered more than 55,000 signatures. While it would be cool for scumdogs everywhere to see their fallen leader honored, current GWAR singer Blothar the Berserker tells us that Oderus wouldn’t want a statue of himself alongside a “row of losers.” As controversial statues continue to get toppled amid worldwide protests, the petition calls Robert E. Lee a “failed war general that supported a racist cause” while touting Oderus as a “great local leader.” While Oderus may have come from the planet Scumdogia and settled in Antarctica, his alter ego, Dave Brockie (who passed away in 2014), called Richmond his home. Blothar beamed in...
Chuck D Talks Public Enemy Reunion, DJ Premier Collab, and His Least Favorite President
In a world where little makes sense anymore, Public Enemy suddenly reemerging to release a fiery new song on Juneteenth actually makes a lot of sense. Early on Friday morning, the legendary hip-hop pioneers released their latest song, “State of the Union (STFU),” with a video to go along with it. It marked the first time that Flavor Flav returned to the equation after a very public dispute over Public Enemy Radio’s appearance at a Bernie Sanders rally earlier this year. But as Chuck D sees it, it’s Flav returning to what the pair does best: An unflinching condemnation of what the scumbag administration of the day has done now. It’s something Chuck has been outspoken about ever since forming Prophets of Rage with Cypress Hill’s B-Real, and three-fourths of Rage Against the Machine (To...
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ill.GATES on Racial Injustice, SummerEyes Festival, and New Single “Trapezoid” [Q&A + Premiere]
Veteran producer ill.GATES has established himself as a vital figure in the bass community, consistently using his music and platform to help artists learn and do more. However, while working in the studio last week, ill.GATES, A.K.A. Dylan Gates, found himself in a position where he was admittedly afraid to speak up. “I’d been taking a break from the news when everything popped off,” Gates told EDM.com amid current nationwide protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a police officer. “The day [of Floyd’s death,] I wasn’t really online much [because] I was focusing on my work,” said Gates. “[My friend Joy] called me up and basically said, ‘Dylan, you have all these political samples in your music, but you’re not usin...
An Oral History of Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Feature artwork by Cody Schibi (Purchase Prints + More). Few movies are written with a sequel in mind. That is, of course, if you have a franchise planned, in which case you’re being both ambitious and presumptuous. Even rarer is a movie that demands a sequel. Sure, there are a few rare gems that manage to further the storyline, or at least retain some of the magical elements that made their predecessor work so well. But, more often than not, sequels just feel like a retread and another sign that Hollywood is running out of ideas. Gremlins 2: The New Batch is an exception to that rule. In 1989, director Joe Dante was given complete creative control by Warner Bros. to followup 1984’s Gremlins — and he milked that control for everything it was worth. There’s breaking the fourth wall in an on...
Maja Ivarsson of the Sounds on Their New Album and Life in Sweden During COVID-19
It was the KB Theater, alright, no doubt about it, Maja Ivarsson recalls thinking one recent Friday night in April. The same red-hot nightclub in her Swedish hometown of Malmo where her band the Sounds had first cut its punky power-pop teeth over two decades earlier — same layout, same seating, same beer-dispensing bar. But as the group took the stage for its full-production livestream “Safe and Sound” concert to premiere its rollicking new Things We Do for Love hookfest — which was out on Friday (June 12) — there was just one small difference. Looking out on where the adoring crowd should be, the kinetic blonde sparkplug was rattled at first. “Because there was obviously no one in the audience, so it was super-strange because we’ve played that club so many times,” she sighs. “But I tried ...
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Maro Music on His Pandemic Experiences, New Music, and Award-Winning Audio Company Bettermaker [Interview]
We had the distinct pleasure of chatting with DJ, producer, audio engineer, and Bettermaker owner Maro Music about what music he has in the pipeline, his radio show, and his experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. EDM.COM: You’ve just hit episode #100 of your weekly “Addicted To Music” syndicated radio mixshow….congrats! In an era, post-pandemic, when it seems the entire EDM world has gone online (because it has), how do you make your mixshow unique? We’re also diggin’ your new remix of Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now.” MARO MUSIC: My show is always about fun, about putting you in a specific mood. You cannot go to a club, so I can bring a little bit of club to you. Being on lockdown does not mean you are not allowed to have fun. Dance around your room, your car, outside your home. No on...
Bootsy Collins on James Brown’s Best Piece of Advice and Why Funk Will Always Prevail
Bassmaster Bootsy Collins is known for living his life “on the one.” Looking back on his legacy as an intergalactic, P-Funk pioneer, it’s easy to imagine him on his own planet floating in a galaxy of groove. But you’d be wrong. From his early days playing with James Brown to Parliament-Funkadelic and even his decades-long solo career, Collins always finds a way to attract talented musicians into his orbit. Even in a pandemic, he’s never stopped being Bootsy. With COVID-19 taking lives all over the world, the legendary musician and producer did his part to remind people through his music that even in quarantine we’re still able to come together as one nation under a groove. His latest song, “Stars,” features an eclectic virtual assemblage of virtuosos recording separately for charity to don...
Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil on Protests, Quarantine and Teaming Up With Brandi Carlile
Like most of us, Kim Thayil has spent the past few months more or less sheltering in place. Which, by his own definition, might not be something particularly out of character for the 59-year-old Soundgarden guitarist. “So many of the people I know who are writers and players, if they’re not the kind of person that jumps around and parties all the time, tend to live as hermits to begin with,” he says, calling SPIN from his Seattle-area home. But while Thayil, whose dense, twisted-metal riffs and noise-damaged, often frenzied solos belie his generally reserved public demeanor, would likely never be perceived as the jump-around-and-party type, he has managed to remain fairly active while also staying home and doing nothing much at all. “I think a lot of this shelter-in-place thing has really ...
Muzz’s Paul Banks and Matt Barrick on Their Genesis and Why They’ll ‘Definitely Continue’ to Make Music Together
Paul Banks swears that he never intended to form another band. The singer-guitarist had a busy enough work schedule with his main outfit, Interpol, not to mention other diversions like Banks and Steelz — his side project with rapper-turned-film-director RZA — and solo albums as Julian Plenti and under his own name, like Banks in 2012. But he couldn’t help himself with his new trio Muzz — the chance to work with his childhood guitar-whiz chum Josh Kaufman (of Bonny Light Horseman renown) and their mutual percussionist pal Matt Barrick just proved too tempting. And his instinct was on the money. The eponymous Muzz debut is a moody, melodic masterpiece, falling somewhere between the delicate melancholy of the Blue Nile and the sinister atmospherics of vintage The The, which is held ...
