FEATURE | BadBadNotGood

"It doesn't matter where we were last night, cause we're here now and it's f**king awesome"

If there is anyone you would want to share a 10ft by 10ft bar storage space with it's Alex, Matt and Chester from the revolutionary jazz trio BADBADNOTGOOD. They are imaginative and interpretive geniuses, uniting jazz and electronic music that has managed to grab the attention of some major names in the biz. Their jam sessions with Tyler the Creator launched them on to the scene in 2011 and they're headed nowhere but up. Keep an eye out for these dudes. Their new album, a collaboration with Wu-Tang's very own Ghostface Killah, is coming out early next year. Take in their witty banter below....

EWM: First off, what’s the interview question that you hate being asked the most?

ALEX: That’s a good question! There are actually a bunch, but we usually answer them all anyways, but usually ones about Odd Future. Or asking us what someone is like. I mean I’ll tell you but that’s just based off my personal experience.

MATT: I mean, it’s weird when someone is like, “So Frank Ocean, what’s he like?” or, “what’s his hype?”

ALEX: Yeah, usually when someone asks we’ll just say, “Yeah, he’s a great guy.”

EWM: So you hate that one, any others?

CHESTER: “Can you compare the characters of Frank Ocean and Tyler the Creator?” that was a weird one.

ALEX: Sometimes people want to get really deep into knowing more about them through us and it’s a weird thing. I never know what they’re expecting, chances are I’m probably just going to say they’re nice – I’m not just going to dish out dirt…you know?

EWM: Very true! So how did you guys get hooked up with your manager Matt Langille? Through YouTube?

MATT: He booked our first show in Toronto.

EWM: September 17, 2011?

BBNG: Yeah yeah, I think so! How did you know that?

EWM: Sleuthin’…

ALEX: Ahh yeah, you’ve got that factual notepad right there. It was our three-year anniversary…are you sure it wasn’t the 21st? Nah wait, you probably looked it up. I likely don’t remember it.

EWM: So, Ghostface. You got hooked up with him through Frank Dukes? How did you create that relationship?

ALEX: The same day that we met Langille actually! We went for pho at Golden Turtle [in Toronto] and Langille invited Dukes. He was doing Ghostface impressions and telling us all these stories. Just great vibes from Ghost and that kind of stuff. Then we were chatting with him afterwards (now it’s hilarious), because it was such a distant conversation because we didn’t know each other and now we’re basically best friends. He was doing his whole producer-catalogue chat you know? Talking about all the artists he’s worked with and stuff like that.

EWM: Have you ever really been star struck?

CHESTER: Oh definitely – many times. For sure the first time we met Ghostface or dudes like that.

MATT: The first time we met Frank Ocean is another one.

ALEX: Anytime we’ve met someone when we’ve been at the “place” first and they walk into the room, and everyone notices. Everyone kinda goes, “oh shit”, it’s crazy.

CHESTER: Anyone whose music really admire, like Flying Lotus a few years ago, that pretty unreal.

EWM: Have you seen the footage from his [Flying Lotus'] shows?

MATT: Yeah we’ve been to some of his shows. The new one with the cube has three or maybe even four screens.

EWM: Would you guys ever want to do visuals like that for your shows?

ALEX: Definitely would be cool to expand into stuff like that. I feel like you kind of have to make it work. I mean in his case it makes up for him being behind a booth and stuff, so he can create a whole different vibe visually and creatively, as well as being an energy and presence on the stage, I guess. Yeah, I think you’d definitely have to do it right, make it flow and seem like it’s something…I don’t know.

EWM: And with where the industry seems to be heading there’s an increased importance of audio-visuals. What do you guys think about all that?

CHESTER: It’s almost just expected now.

ALEX: Definitely for DJ’s and producers because if not you’re just f***king standing there DJ-ing and playing your set – you definitely need something to pair with it. But even so you don’t really get much because you have this whole show worked out but nothing really happens unless the audience is just so stoked that people are going crazy or something.

EWM: Have you guys followed the Iggy Pop stuff? Or the news that in 2014 there have been no Platinum Records?

BBNG: Wait, except for the Frozen soundtrack.

EWM: How does that make you guys feel?

BBNG: *Laughs* Well, we’re not going to be platinum selling artists.

EWM: Is it a testament to where things might be at right now?

BBNG: I was thinking about it today actually and it’s kinda tight. That means that these f**king synthetic, or wait I don’t want to use those words, definitely not ones I would normally use. Basically it means these huge artists who have so much money and so much build behind them – they didn’t sell! That’s cool right? All these small artists are getting all this attention and people aren’t’ buying CDs they’re downloading, going to shows, or buying vinyl which has a huge market now. I think that’s cool – leveling out the playing field a bit.

EWM: Do you guys mind buying music?

BBNG: If it’s a record I really want, or it’s on vinyl then no problem. Sometimes you just get caught up downloading and never get around to actually buying anything. Definitely trying to do more of it. Obviously being an artist trying to sell music it’s a shame to run around downloading.

EWM: Ok, lets say the worst happens, the music industry shuts down, and you guys can’t be musicians anymore. What’s plan B?

ALEX: I was thinking about massage therapy or something like that. Learn more about muscles and how to undo knots and that stuff.

CHESTER: Probably open a café/bookstore.

MATT: Programming or something like that. I originally almost went to school for computer science…so yeah programmer. The band was a turn of fate in a way I guess.

EWM: You guys have been traveling a lot over the past little while, how do you find touring? Is it fun, is it a burden? When you go back to Toronto or Ottawa what’s one of the first things you want to do?

BBNG: It’s definitely a bit of both but I think obviously coming from a non-touring band of any kind or from doing small things in the city we’re still just so grateful for all the opportunities. The lengthy ones get a little frustrating and tiresome but you know, we would have never imagined doing this in any other context so it’s kind of cool that you can find places to go play, where people want to see your show, so you do it anyways because it’s totally f**king worth it. It doesn’t matter where you were last because you’re here now and it’s awesome. You also make friends in different places; I mean we have friends in Russia, which is pretty crazy. [Ryan] Hemsworth was actually just talking about it. You make all these friends and see them maybe once a year but it’s still cool. You kind of disconnect with your friends at home, it’s all-good though – definitely a true test of whether or not they’re actually your friends. If they’re willing to stay in touch and basically be your Internet friend...[keep ‘em].

CHESTER: When I get home I chill. Just chill.

EWM: Top 5 favourite tour cities?

BBNG: London, Tokyo, New York - *laughs* I guess all the cliché big ones.

Matt: Actually, Rotterdam maybe. It was pretty fun there.

EWM: What happened in Rotterdam?

BBNG: We have a bunch of friends there. Somehow we’ve played so many shows there. I wouldn’t say so many actually, just more than a lot of other cities. [We’ve kept in touch with] the people putting on the show, the DJs or whoever. We would just start chatting with them all and then managed to stay in touch vaguely through Facebook or whatever. Then you go back again and you’re like, “Oh hey, lets hang out! We don’t know anyone else here!” Definitely solidifies the relationship.

MATT: I really like Tokyo too.

CHESTER: Dublin. We’ve been there like three times this year. Ireland is pretty cool.

EWM: Drunkest or most jokes touring story?

BBNG: Uhhh, we’ve been really drunk a bunch of times.

ALEX: I don’t actually think I’ve ever thrown up on tour…

BBNG: The only time I can think of is at FYF (F*** Yeah Festival) - which wasn’t even part of our tour. We were just there because Hemsworth was there. We had just played a show at a museum in LA and we were just there to do a couple of things for a few days.

Alex to Chester: Yeah you and me have never actually barfed on tour from getting drunk.

CHESTER: It’s true, I don’t really throw up…

MATT: ...I throw up all the time – just because I drink too much. I don’t drink a lot all the time but every once in a while I’ll get a little too crazy.

ALEX: Yeah, last time it was from Lime-A-Ritas too.

MATT: That time was crazy. I’ve been Internet friends with the new guitar player for Mac DeMarco’s band for like six years now and that was the first time I’d ever met him. We weren’t even playing a show and we were just chilling with Ryan, he had a rider, so were just getting super drunk. They kept putting these giant buckets of Lime-a-ritas backstage.

ALEX: So much sugar in that s**t…just saying.

MATT: Yeah, it was the worst. I threw up everywhere. It was so bad.

EWM: You’re hosting a jam session; you can have three people (alive or dead) jam with you. Who would they be?

BBNG: Jimi Hendrix – that would be a funny first one because that’s what everyone would choose. He’s incredible though. John Bonham too, he’s also amazing. Tony Williams maybe? James Jameson on bass. Let’s get four in there, why not, two drummers, a guitar player, a piano player and a bass player.

EWM: Major, minor or diminished chords, which one is your favourite?

MATT: Major 6 chords… I’m not even joking. It’s a really great chord. Major 6 chords and minor 6 chords. Because major 6 chords are also minor chords just a different inversion, but when you play them as a major 6 chord you’re really making a minor 6.

CHESTER: They can lead to anything. You can do so much crazy shit.

MATT: Yeah, and minor 6 chords are just so dope, even though they’re weird sounding.

ALEX: 100% 6 chords all the way. That was a nerdy answer.

CHESTER: I don’t think we’ve ever been asked an actually theory question before.

ALEX: Very tight. That’s all we talk about usually. We’ll try to see who has perfect pitch and try and guess the chords.

EWM: You’ll really appreciate having this intelligent question to answer next: what would you rather? Have Cheeto fingers everyday for the rest of your life…You know how after you eat Cheetos and your fingers are all orange and cheesy? Ya – that everyday – or have a popcorn kernel stuck in the back of your throat for the rest of your life?

BBNG: Cheetoh fingers –easily. At least you can lick them. Having a kernel stuck back there would be the worst.

ALEX: I went through a phase as a kid where I couldn’t eat popcorn because I would always choke on it. Like I couldn’t f**king figure out how to eat it, I would chew it a lot but then couldn’t’ swallow it. Now I can safely eat popcorn though.

MATT: Having cheese fingers would be super annoying though.

EWM: Yeah, if you lick it, it comes right back. Think about playing the piano with that.

ALEX: Yeah but the popcorn kernel is just as f**kin’ bad. At least you can eat popcorn properly with cheese fingers.

EWM: Fingers as long as your legs? Or legs as long as your fingers?

MATT: I feel like legs as long as fingers…..might be better.

ALEX: Yeah…grabbing stuff is pretty important.

EWM: You could really increase your reach though.

MATT: Would you have the same dexterity as normal fingers? They wouldn’t be clunky and awkward?

EWM: Just really long fingers.

ALEX: That would be pretty crazy. Probably that then, at least you’d have normal legs to do everything else.

CHESTER: And I guess if you could curl up your hands then you could get around without hitting everything.

ALEX: You know actually, you could get some sort of sweater where you could put them inside your sleeves or something…custom gloves.

EWM: Alex, we heard you may have been involved with a giant robot a few years ago at Nuit Blanche?

ALEX: Definitely…how do you know that? I don’t know. It was kind of stupid but really fun. We just kind of built this robot and carried it around Nuit Blanche, this was in my explorative days you know? Yeah we went down to Yonge Street and started screaming at people.

CHESTER: Was that the same night you played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” like 100 times?

ALEX: No that was a different time. That was pretty fun. But the robot thing was fun. I have a friend who lives at Dupont and Spadina and we would just play shows there all the time which was pretty sweet and a bunch of crazy, really awesome people were they and we would just do this funny robot/future thing. Everyone was really intoxicated.

EWM: What’s the most memorable, surreal onstage moment you’ve had so far?

BBNG: Last night was one of the top. [Referring to playing onstage with Raekwon and Ghostface Killah at the Halifax Pop Explosion.]

CHESTER: I kept playing and looking up and was just like, “Ugghhh, woah, that’s Ghostface.”

MATT: I’d say maybe Frank Ocean is another one…through the welding mask.

ALEX: One of the first times we went to London we were playing before Austin Peralta, SBTRKT, you know?

CHESTER: There were probably a thousand people there.

ALEX: Yeah, Jamie xx played, Hudson Mohawke played. It was kind of before they really blew up too I think.

Matt: Jamie xx was pretty big though. It was pretty crazy, members of Sun Ra’s Arkestra were there.

ALEX: It was our first show out of Toronto too…crazy.

CHESTER: Thundercat played right before us.

ALEX: No, he played after us I think.

MATT: The backstage hang was pretty nuts too.

ALEX: SBTRKT performed and Little Dragon was there…

EWM: Did they combo that?

ALEX: Yeah, what’s they’re song called?

EWM: Wildfire!

ALEX: Yeah they did that live, which was insane.

MATT: Pretty legendary show, come to think of it. There were so many people there.

EWM: Just going back to Ghostface and your album, do you have any themes that you can talk about?

MATT: Just “vibes” I guess.

EWM: Funny you should say that, “vibes” is our favourite word.

MATT: Very important word.

ALEX: It’s the most universal…like…feeling, I guess.

MATT: You put a record on and you feel the vibes, you know?

ALEX: Frank Dukes, who basically set that whole thing up and produced that album with us for the last three years kind of went with some ideas to Ghost with some different ideas for songs and stuff like that. I don’t know exactly what the themes are exactly. Releasing feelings, maybe some kind of hard s**t.

MATT: Lyrically the themes are kind of all over the place just because Ghost raps about whatever he wants.

ALEX: They’re all kind of from the heart places you know?

MATT: Definitely some emotional stuff for Ghost I would say.

ALEX: You put on the record and hopefully play it all the way through, that’s the vibe I think he’s going for.

CHESTER: Basically him imparting his knowledge.

EWM: So how do you transition from a jam to making a track? Is that how you go through your song writing process?

BBNG: Well there’s no process. Every song we’ve made has been totally different. The record was the first time we’ve ever really been “song writing” because at that time we were still playing shows with a couple of originals and covers.

CHESTER: It was kind of intimidating too. The studio where we recorded in New York was where a lot of amazing musicians work out of and we didn’t even know Frank Dukes super well at that point so we were like “wow this producer is like…producing us.”

ALEX: These are they guys who have played on Amy Winehouse’s record and [being able to work with] crazy engineers and stuff.

MATT: It was cool, and super natural. Looking back on it I don’t think it could have gone any better.

ALEX: And that’s only one context of the writing now, because now we know if we’re going to write for a rapper it’s a little bit more restraining in terms of keeping it “rappable” unless it’s possible to make something almost “avant-garde” for someone to rap on. Then if it’s for us, we just jam out ideas for hours until they make sense. Or even recently we’ve been doing it pretty quickly, like that “Velvet” song was done in a day I think.

We’re also at a different stage in terms of creating our own shit, and shit for other people, and now kind of finding a world of like, “OK, we can find a vibe and maybe even solidify ideas a lot faster”. Also being able to record more instantaneously has been a big help. Before it was iPhone demos then we have to go somewhere else and do it, but now that we have a space where we can go and get sounds that we’re really stoked on it’s definitely a little bit faster.

EWM: You built the studio with your own money…?

CHESTER: Yeah, us and Dukes. We had to renovate a garage that another band had formerly been in and then they took everything out. It was sound proof.

MATT: They literally stripped the walls and the floors and stuff. They took everything out.

ALEX: We did a subfloor and then hardwood over it. It took months.

CHESTER: We had to get this professional carpenter/contractor guy to help us.

MATT: They did us a super big favour and charged us next to nothing for all of his time. We all did it, but it was a really huge process. It took almost a year between getting the studio and actually making it a functional place we could record in. It’s a good vibe that’s for sure.

EWM: Speaking of vibes, let’s hear BADBADNOTGOOD’s playlist?

BBNG: Jerry Paper - Big Pop for Chameleon World

Flying Lotus - You're Dead

Kendrick Lamar – I

TI – Why You Wanna?

Gwen Stefani and Eve – Let Me Blow Your Mind

JASON ALDEAN - Just Getting Started

~

Big thanks to the boys of BADBADNOTGOOD. They put on such great shows at HPX 2014 and if you're lucky enough to be in Toronto December 13th be sure to check them out at The Opera House.

#feature