Vice Cooler is one of the most energetic, prolific, and enthusiastic people DIRTY has ever met. With the new album from his solo electronic-pop project, Hawnay Troof, coming out this week, Alistair Clark gets time to sit down with him and find out about Cooler's extensive touring, guests who feature on his new album, his head splitting open at a recent XBXRX gig, his favourite songs and more!
How's the tour going?
I've been on tour since mid-August. Pros have been: playing to 20,000 people in Australia; playing in general with really good bands, some good shows; not having a bad show yet, all of them have been fun; what was the other pro...oh! MTV. I'm really into being on television so that's cool.
The cons have been: having an enormous 150 pound dog bite on my arm and not let go; getting stitches in my head, on my forehead, which I'm very not stoked on; having the police steal our rental car; having to drive a U-Haul to San Diego then to Los Angeles then back to San Fransisco, that was not good; and having to walk in the rain to go get it, not good; the airplane breaking down today; having to be stressed out for like 22 hours on how I'm going to get here for the show; them not having my vegan meal on the flight was kinda stressful cause I was very hungry and there was no time for me to eat because I was having to like argue with people and whatever; getting detained by customs was not fun; and there was one other... lost baggage. Not fun. That's like a summary of the past two months.
"...Then I looked down and there was blood all over the floor..."
Can you tell me about splitting your head open before the tour?
This other band I play in [XBXRX], we were playing a show two nights ago, and there was a giant PA and I climbed on top of it for the last last five seconds of a song; I like jumped up, climbed up it and jumped on the top. The PA was like shaking and everybody was like, "Aw fuck, if he jumps off he's going to break his legs." It was really high up. I jumped off and I landed and I was fine and everybody was like, "Woah! He's okay," and I was getting up like, "Hey! I'm okay everybody," and our drummer did not see my jump so he knocked his drums over and I was like getting up after that jump and just all these drums knock me back over. I was really out of it and like my jaw shut because I got hit so hard, and I couldn't think cause it was just like this really huge thing hitting me in the head, and I had the drums on top of me and I was like on the floor, and I didn't even know what to do, I was in total shock. Then I looked down and there was blood all over the floor. I put my hand to my head and it was just covered in blood. Then our drummer handed me his towel and was like, "Woah! Are you alright?" Then my friend George came up. George Chen, who plays in Kit. He came up and he was like, "Uhh, we need to go to the hospital." I was really out of it. I was just like, "What the fuck, man?" He just kinda like dragged me out into his car.
Then I walked into the hospital in this baby blue outfit with all these like red stripes with like giant yellow buttons, and it's covered in blood. It's just like all this blood everywhere. I just like walked into the hospital like that. My head bleeding everywhere. It was like the record skipping. I walked in and it was just like [makes sound of record stopping abruptly]. I think they tried to do me quick to get me out of there 'cause they thought I was crazy. The doctor came in and he was like, "Any alcohol involved?" He was like, "What happened?" I was like, "A drum set fell on me." And he was like, "Oh, you're in a band." I was like, "yeah." He was like, and this is at like 1 in the morning, "any alochol involved?" I was like, "No." He was like, "You do drugs?" And I was like "No." He just looked at me like I was full of shit. I was like, "No really. That's what's sad about it is I'm sober and these things happen to me. It sucks." So I had to get 8 stitches and my head was in total pain until my flight started and then it just went.
Did that almost jeopardise the tour?
For a split second I was like, "I quit music. I don't want to play any more." The I was like, "Whatever. It was an accident. I'll figure out a way to get cheap laser surgery to get rid of the scar."
Was your 20 month tour really non-stop or were there quite a lot of breaks? How far did it take you in the world?
Last June I circumfrenced the whole planet in 14 days. I started in San Fransisco, did England, flew from England to Moscow, Moscow to Beijing, played in Beijing, then flew to Shanghai, had a show that got cancelled, and then flew to San Fransisco. That was all in 14 days. So I did the whole planet.
I played like Egypt, and Iceland, and Mexico, Canada, a lot of places: 6 Europe tours in that period, I think more than that, I think 8, I did 6 last year and 2 the year before that in that 2 year period. Went to a lot of places. Learned a lot of new things. Met a lot of new people.
I've seen videos of Hawnay Troof with a female member. Did it used to be a two-piece?
It was never a two-piece on record. Sometimes, like on the tour with Peaches, Peaches would do the set with me, sometimes my friend Jenny does it, and her ex-girlfriend sometimes would do it, and when I first moved to California my friends Seth and Heather used to do it with me. It's kind of like whoever's around. But probably the thing you saw was with Alison Wolf, who I don't play with any more. She was on tour with me for like maybe a 14 month period or something. But we happened to do a lot of touring. We did a lot of big tours then with like Mates of State and Numbers, so like there was a lot of documenting of that time-period and a lot of people saw it because the shows were bigger so I think a lot of people think she's still in the band because of YouTube basically. We're friends. She's just not in the band. She's in this band Partyline now and she lives on the East Coast. They're pretty out-of-their-minds. I was just in Australia and I got the lowdown on some of their shows. Like their guitarist peeing into a pint cup on stage through her leotard because she's so drunk. I was like, "That sounds fucking awesome."
Can you tell me about the video you made for 'Connection' with Vim Crony?
It cost $60 to make. I paid for it myself and it was the wisest $60 I've ever spent. Most of the expenses, of that $60, was his bus ticket. I think it was like $48, or something like that, because he lives in Vegas and we shot it in Los Angeles. Then I bought like $10 of glitter. And we got one of those fans which is featured in the video for like five seconds. And the tape. So that's the expenses of the vieo shoot. Then my publicist wrote me right before my tour started and was like, "I need the video in this format . Blah blah blah. It needs to be close-captioned. MTV's going to premiere it on this date." And I think everybody involved was like, "What? Really?" I think it had to do with things in the US are getting really turned upside down and huge corporations like that are getting flipped upside-down because they don't know what's cool any more and the rules have changed. There's bands like Dan Deacon and Girl Talk and Deerhoof and Animal Collective. Like this weird, really non-comercial music is selling out places that like the Grateful Dead played at. I think it's cool. It's like exposing cooler things to kids who wouldn't be aware of those things.
"I'm really into Christmas music like Alvin and the Chipmunks..."
My video being on MTV is awesome because I was a really young kid in the South, in Mobile, like really isolated and there was nobody to like be like, "Check out this." It wasn't like New York City or San Francisco. My friends who grew up in places like that it was like they got into really obscure stuff when they were like 10 because people were like, "Oh, check out this." They're like buying 7"s when they're 9 years old. It was a little bit harder for me and my brother. MTV exposed us to like Nirvana. Then we started getting into '120 Minutes', that TV show that showed weirder videos. Because of that we got into Masonna and Sonic Youth. It was strictly to do with MTV. That was the middle point. It was like B from going A to C. So I think there's still kids in really rural isolated areas, who watch MTV. So I think it's kinda cool. Maybe some kid in the Mid-West gets into me then gets into High Places because they saw my video on MTV. Like, I'm sure they sell 10 times as many records as I sell, but maybe MTV would be the gateway to that. And maybe because of that they'd be encouraged to make their own music too. Like that's what happened to me. Just seeing that stuff and being really inspired by that, being like, "Oh cool!". Like seeing Deerhoof when I was 15, which had to do with Unwound, like seeing Unwound play. Unwound and the Peaches and them. And Unwound I found out about through Kill Rock Stars, which I found out about through Bikini Kill and Free Kitten, which I found out about through Sonic Youth, which I found out about through Nirvana, which I found out about through MTV. So it's like you can trace it down to that. That's my view-point. People look at it like this really evil thing. It's easy to think that when you live in a big city, like the city I live in, where nobody even has MTV.
There's quite a few guests featuring on the album, who did you get involved with?
I pretty much only work with my friends. It's based on who's in the room when I'm working on a song. Mary, from High Places, Rob's not on it, we had plans for him to be on it but it didn't work out. Mary and Rob are really good friends of mine. Like their first 14 of 16 shows they played were with me. I brought them to Alaska and stuff like that. We get along really well and they always stay with me when they're in the Bay Area. Mary was just at my house and I was working on this stuff. Her voice sounded cool so I was just like, "Mary, will you just like do something?" and she's like, "Do what?" and I was like, "I'll just play it for you and just record whatever comes to your mind." So she just listened to it once and then I just started recording. She did three songs with me, the other two are on my next record.
"Stay focused and try to be aware of yourself and what's important to you as an individual and the people around you."
Xiu Xiu. I've known Jamie for a long time, since before he was in Xiu Xiu, when he was in this band called Ten In The Swear Jar. I'm really into working with things that people would look at as a clash to dance music cause then it's like this whole other perspective of it. Kinda warped, y'know? I think that makes it interesting. So I was talking to Jamie and I was like, "Would you like to work on a song with me?" So I went over to his house for like two hours and we did that. That was it. It was mixed then, like it was done.
No Age. I haven't seen them since the record came out. I'm kinda worried because I think the press are like blowing all the guests more out of proportion. You know it's like, "No Age on the new Hawnay Troof record!" It's like, "Well, yeah, kind of." When they were working on Weirdo Rippers, all the stuff that ended up being on that, they had this house in LA that they don't have anymore. It's really amazing. It's in Holywood. It was this two-storey place behind a house that was like really tiny but two floors. They just had like the shittiest studio set up in their living room. It was like this amp with only one of the speakers worked. The bass and middle tone knobs didn't work and that was their playback monitor. They had all these wires and it was like the weirdest set up ever. But like Randy was working on all these samples and I was like, "Could I record some of those? Would you mind?" and he was like, "Yeah, man. Totally." So I recorded a bunch of the samples he'd made and some of that stuff ended up on the record on two different songs songs but it's not like this really up front thing where you'd hear it and be like, "That's No Age." It's more obscure, which I think's cool. I haven't even talked to them since the record came out so I don't even know if they've heard it or not. It's all just based on who's around when it's getting recorded. No Age hadn't blown up then. High Places hadn't blown up then. A lot of reviews are like, "It's a hipster-fest." And it's like, "Well I guess." But it's not. It was just based on friends that were around an their bands happened to get big after the stuff was recorded.
I mean, people don't talk about Iggy Baby being on the record because people don't know who he is, but his track's amazing. The headlines aren't like, "Iggy Baby!" It's like not a buzz-word enough or something. Or Bozullich. No one's even talked to me about Carla Bozullich being on it. She has a really good vocal part on two songs.
When did you first get into rap music?
I do not look at what I do as rap whatsoever. Pitchfork was like, "The record's totally like Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique." I've never even heard that record. I don't even have a Beastie Boys MP3. I don't have anything to do with them. I'm totally aware that like, yeah they influenced Jay-Z and like everybody and they're this huge part of American art culture, but like... There's like hip-hop and rap and there's pop music. A lot of stuff that's on the radio is just demented pop-music. Like M.I.A., people call her a rapper sometimes and it's like, "Are you fucking kidding me? She's just a pop musician doing a weird form of pop." I feel like I have more in common with that than like Beastie Boys. If you played my record for DMX he would not say it's rap and he would not say it's hip-hop. I feel like it's kind of a misleading term to use, but for some reason people really focus on that. I mean I am into rap and there are like aspects of it, like it's based on rhythm and dancing and crowd participation and stuff like that. But that could be related to gospel music too. It could be connected to so many other things.
Most people are really bummed out when they look at my iTunes and what's most played on it. I'm really into Christmas music like Alvin and the Chipmunks - 'Christmas Time Is Here' is one of the most played things on my iTunes, and I'm really into the Little Mermaid theme, 'Under the Sea', and Albert Ayler - 'Love Cry'. A lot of it probably isn't what people would suspect. I'm into Bindy Irwin, the crocodile hunter's daughter. She's 5 and she recorded this record. I'm into a lot of my friends music, like Barr and High Places and stuff like that. People's perception of what my influences are sometimes are completely off and not accurate.
As far as rap, I like that 'A Milli' song by Lil Wayne that just came out. That's really good. It's like the biggest song in the US. It's just a kick, a snare, and a loop of "a milli a milli a milli a milli", and there's no hook. Me and my roadie heard that on tour and we're just like, "that's fucking insane." I really like UGK right now. There's this really good song. It was a big hit, but I never heard it until recently, 'International Player's Anthem', where it's like Andre 3000 and Big Boy on it. I really like Outkast too, but like are they even rap at this point? Like 'Hey Ya'. That's not a rap song. I feel like I am more influenced by something like 'Hey Ya' than, like, 50 Cent.
I'm doing a video for every song on the record. Half of them are done. Theoretically, a DVD of it's coming out in February and then I have a new album that's almost done. I have a week when I get home from this between tours so I'm going to try to finish it during that week. Maybe have it mastered in November so it would come out in summer or something. Those are my two plans with those project right now. And I'm doing touring next year.
It seems like you're quite into being inspirational. Is there any advice you'd like to end on?
I don't really look at it as inspirational. Me and Brendan from Barr were talking about it once. I don't know if it got over here, this term, but a lot of people started using it in California, "posi-core". It's like positive music or whatever. Me and Brendon were like, "Some of the lyrics to our stuff is kinda dark." We were both like, "I don't feel positive all the time. If you become posi-core does that make negative emotions invalid?" Then he did that record, 'Summary', which is like one of my favourite records, but it's so sad, it's like a really heartbreaking record. I feel like people's reception of that was really confused but it's exactly the same as his stuff that was looked on as posi-core. It's just as real. It's just a different emotion.
"I look at myself as the instigator but not the show itself."
What're your plans?
I'm really obsessed with connecting to people. If there's people there, I want them to feel just as important as anybody who's playing. I do look at it as like the room becomes the band and the band's not based on one thing. It's like I roll the snowball down the hill and hopefully it catches snow down the hill. I look at myself as the instigator but not the show itself. I mean that could be inspirational or it could not be. I feel like there's shows where I'm just a fucking bummer because I'm just not feeling good and I'll talk about it. I feel weird giving people advice because I don't feel like I'm validated to do it because I fuck up so much. I think one thing that's good is just to stay focused and try to be aware of yourself and what's important to you as an indivdual and the people that're around you.
[Suddenly] My advice! I got this from Barr, I played with him on the tour I just did. He stopped in the middle of this song, it was going and totally picking up pace, and he just stops it and was like, "You know what I was just thinking about? If you're ever dating somebody and they say "shut up" to you, break up with them right then. That's totally fucked up and you shouldn't deal with it." Then he started playing the song again and I was like, "That's awesome." So I'll steal advice from Brendan. Never tell people to shut up because it's totally fucked and rude.
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