Chemistry Class
For his solo debut, Cut Chemist had to bounce from Jurassic 5 and put everything on the line - and then some.

Published in the September 2006 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 19 - Number 9
By Brian O'Connor

     In the opening narrative to Cut Chemist's solo album, a voice says, "DJ work is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding tasks a person can set for themselves…" And thus begins one of the more imaginative, intelligent and soulful albums to come forth from a DJ in some time.
     The Audience's Listening (Warner Brothers) is a long time coming. Of course, DJs have known that Chemist, aka Luke MacFadden, had this in him. The 33-year-old Cut has enjoyed marquee success with Jurassic 5, explored the fringe with DJ Shadow (Brainfreeze), fused deck-sterity and Latin music with Ozomatli, and, on 1998's Live at the Future Primitive Sound Session-his live turntablist collaboration with DJ Shortkut-has checked his old-school influ-ences, too.
     So one can hardly imagine Cut being artistically constrained by his previous outlets. But The Audience's Listening crackles with an abandon; indeed, Cut knows this represents his big chance. He left the safe confines of J5 to finish this record (four years in the making), and traveled as far as Brazil to com-plete it. The result is a record that traverses time and space. The Brazilian rhythms of "The Garden" lie at the opposite end of the arc from the neo-electro of "Storm" and the bouncy robotics of "(My 1st) Big Break." Add the crossfader jazz of "Spat" and the sunny hip hop of "What's the Attitude," and you have an ambitious record that belongs in the bins alongside DJ Shadow and Kid Koala.
     But like all first-time efforts, Cut had to take certain risks. Maybe that's why that same opening-cut narrative on this record says, "If you don't like the product, keep your mouth shut…it's as simple as that."
     DJ Times caught up with MacFadden and asked him about language barriers with Brazilian samba bands, leaving underground hip hop's biggest group, and harmonic scratch effects.


DJ Times: Did you always know you were going to make a solo record?
Cut Chemist: Oh, ever since I started doing this. The titles have been the same but the arrangements have changed with the times. "(My 1st) Big Break" was a title I had pretty much when I started-obviously, for the double entendre reasons-and so when I did "Lessons 4" back in '94 I knew I was going to embark on a solo mission because that whole idea of doing "Lesson 4" was, that was supposed to be an a-side, and "Unified Revolution" was supposed to be the b-side, which was the J5 cut. But "Unified" came out so good, that became the a-side, and that kind of intercepted my idea, and that was great. So "Lesson 4" became the b-side, and it became this kind of dual, double a-side, so I always had the intention of embarking on the solo DJ career.

DJ Times: How long ago did you know you were recording these songs for a solo album?
Cut Chemist: Probably around the time we were recording Power in Numbers. I remember being in the studio and we were recording "I Am Somebody" and I had "Motivational Speaker" and I played it for Nu-Mark, with "The Lift," I was like, here's some bugged out things I've been working on in my late night jam sessions, check 'em out. That's when I knew I was formulating some kind of narrative for a record.

DJ Times: So you had to put that solo ambition on the back burner?
Cut Chemist: Yeah I did. J5 did really well, with "Unified," and it was like, let's give this a shot-while I was doing the DJing thing too. I always managed to sneak solo efforts through the cracks. I always had titles, you know, "Motivational Speaker," "(My 1st) Big Break," "Garden," that was actually made in the mid-'90s as well. It wasn't until 2002 that I went down to Brazil to finish it. And you know, I had over 100 songs that I'd made in between time that didn't make it [to J5].

DJ Times: So there were 100 songs that you had to whittle down to make this solo record?
Cut Chemist: Give or take, yeah. It could be 112, or thereabouts. It's the recorded output of my life, basically, of the last 12 years anyway.

DJ Times: That's fairly productive, like one song every month.
Cut Chemist: Yeah, but that's nothing compared to Madlib, he's got like one thousand and…twelve.

DJ Times: How does one go about whittling down from 112 songs and choosing which ones to put on the record?
Cut Chemist: You just know, you know what's good. Plus, things change, the climate changes.

DJ Times: How has the musical climate changed?
Cut Chemist: Less break-beat oriented, for me anyway. Once you stick on something so long you try to change it up to keep yourself interested. I think for the most part everybody feels the same. "(My 1st) Big Break" started out as one of those, all the famous producers talking about the first time they went record shopping and they found a beat, and that was played over a series of drum breaks. And that sounded great, in 1996. But that just got old, the breaks got old, the idea got old, it was like, you know, the idea of digging, everybody knew about it. I wasn't schooling anybody anymore, I didn't think. So the beat changed to this swinging kind of rockabilly rhythm, and I was like, "OK, that works, that's something new;" and then let's put a twist in it, the robots are coming, "Ok cool." So now it's about this robot sci-fi thing instead of crate digging, and it sounds like a surf song, which brings a whole other light to the title-"(My 1st) Big Break." Now we have surfing robots and drumbeats, perfect. So that's the new concept for "(My 1st) Big Break," and I don't think it'll ever play out because I'm not sure I even know what it means…it means something to somebody, but at least it evokes a visual.

DJ Times: How did Brazil change your approach to music?
Cut Chemist: They do love to party. I took classes in Brazilian music in college-Ozomatli sparked that interest, they were pretty schooled in Brazilian music. I was into Brazilian break-dancing, and the culture seemed way cool. So when I went down there, of course, I had already loved the music, but experiencing the culture first hand, there's nothing like it. You're never going to be ready for it reading it out of a textbook, or watching it. When I went down there, I was really blown away by the passion for…anything, really, it's a passionate place on any extreme, which I guess accounts for a lot of the violence we hear going on down there, and the great things, too. It's a place of extremes, there's nothing in the middle. It makes it so exciting. They live life hard and late, they keep doing it, and it's a good way to go.

Chemist extolls the science behind the "vocal harmonic scratch."

DJ Times: What did you accomplish recording-wise in your visit to Brazil?
Cut Chemist: I was there for about two weeks, and I found a samba band down there, that's what I set out to do. I brought my "The Garden" backing track, and I wanted to find a samba group and a studio and record it, and that's exactly what happened. It was great. It was in November, so they were gearing up for Carnivale, so it wasn't too hard to find, all the samba schools were really active.

DJ Times: Tell me about recording a samba band in Brazil…
Cut Chemist: They didn't speak English, and I of course, don't speak any Portuguese. So I just played the track and had them do whatever they felt they needed to do. We just laid 50 some-odd tracks of percussion. I had suggestions, and they would motion [with their hands], like, no, no that's not gonna work because that's a salsa rhythm and not a samba rhythm, stuff like that, but they would do that by hitting their instruments and shaking their head, and I would get it somehow. It was all very sur-real, but it worked out.

DJ Times: Did the Brazil trip impact other tracks, even after you returned to L.A.?
Cut Chemist: Oh yeah, the "A Peak in Time" track, creating what I like to call the vocal harmonic scratch.

DJ Times: How did you create that vocal harmonic scratch?
Cut Chemist:That was great. I just took these two notes, two vocals, and cut 'em up and stacked different pitches down on the pitch control and created harmonies with it, so it's almost like having my own Brazilian vocalist, but creating it through scratch and you know, I took a lot of trial and error finding what harmonies I did want to create, and then doing a rhythm with the transformer, and then in the end I just arranged it, and I thought it was pretty much like a vocal pattern would sound like in a samba song, that I have come to know. So I was like, cool, that's my vocal section. I didn't even need to hire anybody.

DJ Times: When did you start shopping the record around?
Cut Chemist: 2001. I was shopping it around on the basis of my success with my other projects, not having an album ready, of course. That's how the deal came about. I didn't have an album to show anybody when I made the deal with Warner Brothers. I was like, "Listen, [projects with DJ Shadow] "Brain Freeze" is hot, "Product Placement" is hot, I'm doing pretty successful on my own, do you want to get in on it?" That was my Mister Salesman. J5 is doing well, I think it's a pretty secure risk. They were like, "No problem, as long as we get the record in a year." I was like, no problem. And four years later…

DJ Times: Any six month reminder calls?
Cut Chemist: No, I couldn't believe it. They probably thought they weren't going to get a record, that I was going to take the money and run, pull a J-Swift on them. They were really patient, and I had one guy there who was really supportive and I would feed him songs. A year would go by and I'd say, "Hey man, I'm working on this, here are some concepts and tracks." And then after a while I had a whole record, unmixed, but I was like, "Here man check it out." He was like, "Great, I can't wait." So they knew something was brewing.

DJ Times: Sounds pretty flexible.
Cut Chemist: They never had any input, in terms of, can you make this a little more this, a little less that. I can't believe it.

DJ Times: What's up with J5?
Cut Chemist: I had to bounce to fulfill my end of the bargain for Warner. There was a point when they were breathing down my neck, at the three-year mark, they were like, "Ok, what's the deal? We're dropping artists." They were doing their annual sweep of who they let go, and the money guys in their suits in the Warner cave is thinking, "Who isn't generating any money for Warner Brothers?" I didn't want to be on that list, and my people at Warner were very supportive and fought very hard to keep me on, and I was blown away by that, because I thought my goose was cooked. But when I stayed on, they were like. "Hey man, we need a record." That's when J5 was going to hit the road again, and I couldn't go. I had missed shows before, but I foresaw this conflict that wasn't fair to anybody, not to the group, because I'd have to miss every show, which wasn't fair to the group or the fans. So I just said, hey guys, I gotta bounce and do this and give it a shot that it deserves. Everybody was totally understanding and supportive. It was a clean break, even though I had been making beats for the new J-5 album, none of them made it on there, so there were no ties with them, artistically, so that was fortunate.

Chemist survived multiple artist purges at Warner Brothers.

DJ Times: How did you leave it with J5?
Cut Chemist: We left it open ended, but it's unofficial where everybody is. Their album is going in a certain direction, my album is in a certain direction, so it's not fair to say what's gonna happen. We're just waiting to see, so right now I'm not with them. We just did our first show together, a benefit, me and DJ Shadow on a bill with J5. It was the first show I'd been to as an audience member. It was cool and weird at the same time, like, so this is what it all looks like.

DJ Times: What are you going to do to support the record?
Cut Chemist: It seems to be a no-brainer overseas, I've been getting show offers like crazy-Europe, Australia, Japan. In The States, however, it's always a weird place to market something alternative, but I'm trying to work out a tour.

DJ Times: What's your live show going to be like?
Cut Chemist: I don't want to stray too far away from my foundation, so it'll be me with four turntables, as always, and extra little goodies. Will I have visuals? I don't know. I like the uphill battle of being center of attention without the deviation of the visual thing taking away from me. But at the same time, I have a lot of promoters asking me, "What's your visual show like?" I tell them, "Uh…it's me." I'm looking into the Pioneer DVJ, I've seen DJ Shadow doing some brilliant things with it, and I've seen a couple others do some things with it. My thing is always, what can I do differently from everybody else, as an artist? I think if I fiddled around with the Pioneer for a minute I could probably come up with something, so yeah, I'm thinking of buying one.

DJ Times: What can you do, differently, as an artist?
Cut Chemist: I think there's a bit more audience participation in my show. I'll get out and have my portable CD burner and my finale for the show is I'll get out there with a microphone and walk out into the audience and say, "Hey what's your name and blah blah blah" with like five people. Meanwhile, I'm burning their vocals onto my burner, and then I put in the instrumental to "Alphabet Aerobics" and then I put the CD into the CDJ and then scratch their vocals. People love it. They're like, "Wow, that's me being scratched!" It's like a Disneyland bit. I just did it opening for Ozomatli and it went real well. I also try to make everything live as possible. All the mixing is happening live, the scratching and blending. So when I do "The Garden," I'm re-creating it, more or less, so you can decipher how I put the layers in when I'm producing in the studio-for the most part. I'm trying to figure out how to re-create the vocal harmonic scratch in "A Peak in Time," which may involve loop pedals. That's another technology I need to explore, and maybe I can ask DJ Radar about that, because he's the master at that.

DJ Times: To you, what's a great show?
Cut Chemist: When I see a good Kid Koala show, that's what I want to do. To me, he's the most captivating, without the super hi-tech stuff. He's just got a little pen-cil drawing in his overhead projector, the algebra class, and he just cuts up a storm and does some crazy arrangement. That's what it's all about for me.

DJ Times: Musically, what do you think music needs?
Cut Chemist: I think it needs some patience. I think people need to sit down and listen a little bit more, instead of, "Oh, there's 100 songs out today, and there'll be another 100 songs out next week." What do they say in White Men Can't Jump: "You're listening to Jimi, but you're just not hearing Jimi." I think that's the case with every-body, although I'm taking it backwards, you're hearing it, you're just not listening to it. Hence, the title The Audience's Listening…people are hearing, but are they listening? Am I listening? So it just needs a little imagination, and don't become so focused on the rules. Too many rules out there.