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Boole are many things to many people, but mostly unheard from the last half a decade. They returned to the music world with the monstrous, challenging, and downright fun "The Vital Few" this year. I spoke to Boole's three main players, ringleader Br0d, brother and co-ringleader MAB, and instigator and all around nice guy Blimpcaptain (née Andy).
What transpired is as weird and varied as Boole's music is. Read and be educated, entertained, and most likely mildly confused. The band would have it no other way.
It's been five long years since Pheromones came out. What the hell have you lazy dicks been doing that took "The Vital Few" so long?
Br0d: I did some really fun remixes in 2003 and 2004, and then from
2005-2006 it was mostly just laziness in combination with a pretty
crappy and depressing night shift work schedule. I was a zombie, and
zombies don't release albums - they just stagger, moan, and bite people
on the arse.
MAB: Spying on foreign governments, playing ice hockey, and drinking wine.
When I have time, I like to do what I call Redneck Wine Reviews. Check em
out on http://www.winelog.net/winelog/boole.
Blimpcaptain: Playing hopscotch... What else?!
What's the process for each of you in the song writing for Boole? Who does what?
Br0d: A few songs here and there are fully collaborative, like "Tabby", and
they usually end up being bizarre because we are drinking. Most of the
songs, I write like Barry Manilow. And well, I'm usually drinking when
writing alone too, so I can't explain why "Tabby" is more bizarre than
the rest.
Blimpcaptain: I materialize right around the time Brad has whittled his most recent trials, tribulations, and observations into song form. If the timing is right, my voice ends up on a track. It's a pretty sweet gig, but my union representative says I should be doing more than one track per CD so I've been seriously considering writing some lyrics. That is, if I can shelve my hopscotch addiction for awhile.
MAB: Basically, I write all the lyrics and music while Brad and Andy sit around and bother me with incessant queries about how I got so awesome. Haha, no
seriously, for this album especially, the lion's fucking share was done by
Brad in his Laurel studio. It is a primary pastime for Brad, and his
studio has a much better vocal setup than mine (which only became relevant
when we moved to separate domiciles in 2006 and I built a replica studio
at my place, which is recently coming up to speed), so this album
basically consists of Brad's musical DNA with a couple fingerprints of
mine and Andy's. Plus, of course, some of Inox's lyrical genius is thrown
in here and there.
Previous albums involved us more because we lived in one place and jointly
developed songs more often, along with a variety of other reasons. I did
a good amount of recording, mixing, production, saxes, etc., on the
previous albums, but this one really took shape in Brad's studio. Pretty
much the only song on this album that resembles the olden days is "Tabby".
Name three bands that currently inspire you and three authors that currently inspire you.
Br0d: Bands - Stevie Wonder, Infected Mushroom and Meat Beat Manifesto.
Authors - Gibran, Carroll, and Crowley.
Blimpcaptain: Uwe Schmidt, Mario Girard, and Krzysztof Penderecki, then Salman Rushdie, Jim Thompson, Franz Kafka
MAB: Since you used the verb "inspire" as opposed to influence, I'll cite
Justice, Tool, and Thievery Corporation as current/recent inspiration.
Most recent authors I've been reading include Rushdie, Milan Kundera, and
Aldous Huxley.
Post 9/11 you came out with the powerful, reactionary "Thanks For Playing", which some took as a very nationalistic track. It's been 6 years since that track, and with everything that's happened since its release on "Pheromones" do you feel the same way you did as when you wrote it?
Br0d: Absolutely, despite how saturated by news media FUD we've been since
then, I feel the same way. It was written on 9/12/01 as a gut level
anger reaction to the idea of deliberate civilian terror on native
soil, and it would be just as relevant if someone had attacked the
Netherlands. If someone nukes St. Louis, regardless of the fact that
George Bush has hijacked our collective will, it is not the average
person's fault, and they don't deserve such misery. Writers like C.
Wright Mills and even our own president Eisenhower had predicted a
military industry which would become entirely self-governing as early
as the 1950s, American foreign policy is and has become more a
function of corporatism than of some deliberate civilian complicity.
But I think we can at least temporarily delay that reality by voting
for Obama in November. But eventually voting will have no effect.
MAB: As a contributor to the production of that song, I'd say no, I don't think
anybody feels the same way they did in the days immediately following
9/11. As has been said before, that song is as much about internal
corruption as it is about terrorist jihad. Around '03-'04 we thought we
had to preface our performances of "Thanks For Playing" with a disclaimer that we wrote the
song right after 9/11, sort of as an excuse for it, because frankly that
was a pretty disheartening time to be an American, but lately we haven't
done that as much. This is because the original idea makes sense
independent of 9/11, even though the events of that day inspired it.
Blimpcaptain: Absolutely. Terrorists of all stripes can plant a thick rainbow of lipstick around my pole. That includes assholes who hurt and kill innocent civilians and also the media, whose non-stop fear-peddling and fomenting is simply insupportable.
Boole's got an extremely unique mix of influences in it's tracks-- what kind of music did you grow up with and what brought you to electronic music as means to express your ideas?
Blimpcaptain: My first four albums (borrowed from my parents) were Led Zeppelin II, Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant," "L.A. Woman" by the Doors, and Elton John's Greatest Hits. I also got my hands on several boxes of old 45's... Everything from Curtis Lee to Brenda Lee... Aretha Franklin to Zager & Evans... That was around age 5. I consumed music like mother's milk during my entire childhood, listening to as many different artists as I could find. I rarely had a single "favorite song," opting instead for any number of tracks that caught my fancy during a particular phase. I can remember being really fond of "Light My Fire" by the Doors around age 8 or so, and I can still hum the entire keyboard & guitar solos. I played trumpet growing up and took piano lessons for a couple of years in my teens. I listened to mostly classic rock, soul, prog-rock, classical and jazz during high school with a growing interest in funk, punk, goth and industrial music.
I was actually friends with Brad's freshman roommate before meeting him. After seeing his collection of cassettes and being told by his roommate that he was "weird, and kept strange hours," I figured he was someone worth getting to know. When we met shortly thereafter, a musical collision of tectonic proportions occurred. I began exploring punk, thrash, and metal with increased enthusiasm while providing Brad with a growing cache of electronic and industrial influences. It wasn't long after we met that he discovered the amply outfitted electronic music studio at Salisbury and started laying down tracks. This early period of experimentation marked the birth of the Apologizers, with our adventures around campus and town being translated into little ditties and tunes in the studio by Brad and unleashed on as many people as I could foist them off on. Boole was born several years later as an outlet for Brad's more ambitious and serious efforts.
Br0d: I first got into music around 6, and jazz around age 11. My neighbor
was a saxophonist, and I wanted to be like him. My first record was
John Coltrane's Giant Steps. In high school, JJ got me into punk and
metal. Being used to improvisational and very textural forms like jazz
and fusion, I hated repetitive shit like Metallica and Megadeth at
first. But then I sorta "got it" and started really digging it.
About the same time, I was also getting more into funk with the school
jazz band. You can imagine that at this time, albums like the Chili
Peppers' "Uplift Mofo Party Plan" seemed like a godsend. Inox was also
an integral influence, he was cutting edge, he saw NIN on the Peter
Murphy tour, later on he brought bands like Covenant to the Baltimore
Washington area.
I got into computer based music composition in 1986 or so, with Music
Construction set on the Apple ][ and then more so with Music Studio
for the Apple ][gs. Before that Mike and I (yes, he was 7 years old)
were experimenting with sound by hacking the Apple PC speaker with
poke commands. So that was the real beginning of my electronic
experience, the Apple POKE command.
The real turning point came with the formation of the Apologizers in
1990 at SSU. I had met Andy and he was literally the most mentally
unstable social genius on the campus. And he came bearing Meat Beat
Manifesto. At the same time, I had buddy'd up with a gay music
professor (no homo) and a dramatic influence on both me and JJ, named
Dr. Ray Zeigler. He was sort of a musical anarchist. He would give
people A's on their musical projects if he could detect that they
earnestly believed in what they had done, no matter how much it
sucked. Sort of prepared me for the world of pop music.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I blame it ALL on Andy, ARMED
AUDIO WARFARE and STORM THE STUDIO. Those two CDs are the reason I am doing this shit now. So it's all Jack Dangers' fault. And Andy's.
MAB: I remember Brad and JJ working with Music Construction Set on the Apple
when I was maybe 7 years old or so. That was my first introduction to
electronic music. As a kid, I was a huge fan of jazz, metal, and
classical, and I got a little bit into popular orchestral shit because I
was in every band and orchestra the school offered from age 7 through
graduation. I was about 11 when Scatterbrain's first album came out, and
I thought it was the shit. I liked the early days of the Chili's,
Metallica, and Primus a lot, and I was a big Jaco Pastorius fan. Ween was
a huge influence on me, and actually "The Pod" was the first CD I ever
purchased. Later in my teen/college years, I was into Tool, Rage Against The Machine, Helmet,
Parliament, and Steely Dan, and in the early 90's I got into Frontline Assembled and Meat Beat Manifesto as my first real electronic music obsessions. In the very early days of
Boole, I was influenced quite a bit by Meat Beat Manifesto, X Marks The Pedwalk, and Covenant. Nowadays
my primary influences are Bette Midler and the band from the
www.freecreditreport.com commercials.
Does the band have any touring or live plans? Where are some places you'd like to hit?
Br0d: Yeah we're doing two shows this year, we may take on more. Honestly
the enthusiasm of the person booking has a lot to do with how into a
show we are. If someone called us from Fiji absolutely demanding that
we play there, we'd probably fly there and play. It's not really about
money, but sharing a vibe with like minded people. Then we're
also doing another show for this obnoxious noise pariah up in Madison
Wisconsin on August 23, his name escapes me at the moment. (Note: It's the Reverence Festival that the fine interviewer of this piece puts together. Boole will be sleeping on the street for it)
MAB: The 2008 Jump Up My Butt Tour will be hitting a shitty near you! Cher is
opening for us.
Actually, we like playing any city that can draw us a big crowd of cool
people. So far, that has primarily consisted of Madison, Charlottesville,
and depending on the night of the week and venue, Baltimore. Dracula's Ball
in Philly wasn't bad either, except for the historic winter storm
featuring thunder snow, so we'd probably do that again if invited.
Blimpcaptain: The schnoz of Bill O'Reilly is a place I'd like to hit. I'd love to perform pretty much anywhere folks are willing to assemble and groove to our tunes. A show on board a blimp or along the river Neckar would be quite spectacular. I'd also be down with tapping into the Canadian market -- Montreal and Toronto are both fun cities, and if I could squeeze in some pond hockey, that'd make my day.
What do you think the biggest misconception of the band is?
Blimpcaptain: That's hard to say. I'm not in contact very often with many of our fans and almost invisible in terms of the online/public presence, but the ones whom I've met seem to be very friendly and open-minded. Most of those with whom I've spoken seem to understand that we take our music seriously and want for people to enjoy Boole, but that we're not overly serious about ourselves. I can say, though, that the rumors that Mike is pregnant with my love child are pure tabloid trash!
Br0d: That we're as rude and mean as we were in 1998-2002. Hahaha. I used to
be really antisocial, messing with people a lot, talking shit, etc.
Basically I loved getting a rise out of people, calling the emperor
naked, and embarrassing people. I'm really over that phase of my life.
Oddly enough, I've always gotten along with Bryan Erickson. There are
obviously people who still carry grudges and well, a grudge is
something you carry for someone else, so as the Buddha would say, the
burden is yours.
Another misconception I've noticed is that some people think comical
music isn't serious or professional. We're big Ween fans. People who
take themselves too seriously HATE Ween. But if you really examine
their music, they are some of the most gifted pop musicians in all of
America. The talent, the eclecticism, those guys are fucking
fantastic.
MAB: First of all, we are not a gay band. Just because I am having Andy's baby
and you can find a song called "The I'm Gay Song" on our website, does not
make us gay. At least that is what my psychiatrist, also Andy, told me.
Secondly, I did not have sex with that guy in Stromkern, no matter what
you media jackals insinuate.
(continued next week)
Relevant links
B001e official site
Boole @ MySpace
-- interview by Matt Fanale (May 2008)
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