First, help everyone get to know who they are reading about. Who is Rick Whispers? Where do you live; where are you going; what do you do?
Hello out there in music land, my name is Rick Whispers I am an indie hip hop artist from Albany N.Y. I am currently finishing up my fifth solo record and seventh album total to date. The name of this record is called Death in the Immediate Family, I know I’m sure you’re excited to hear this happy uplifting thing
Where I am going is wherever this roller coaster turns next, hands off the brakes. Typically I write to music most times however I do randomly write short stories and spoken word pieces from time to time, as you will see some of on this new record.
What are a few things people should keep in mind while getting to know you - what can they expect?
People should know that for the most part I’m not your average “rapper” or “indie musician” as I take what I do seriously but not myself to seriously. Life loses its flavor when you do that. Things to expect when listening to my music, melancholy, downbeat, screaming, rambling, addicted, confused, sad, angry, lost, forgotten, newly constructed hope, the feeling that maybe life isn’t uniquely horrible for YOU and only YOU. I want people to relate to my music because it is honest to the skeleton.
Talk a bit about your craft and its components; for instance, what got you started, who were your earliest influences, who are your heroes and mentors?
My earliest influences were people like Henry Rollins, Earth Crisis, Rancid, minor threat, Bad Religion, Public Enemy, and tons and tons of countless Motown and golden oldies era artists as well as bad brains and traditional reggae music. I also grew up watching literally hundreds of bands come through Albany N.Y. in the early to mid nineties. My biggest hero of all time, Lenny Bruce. He was so engrained in what he stood for that he would go to jail for it. That to me was so amazing, to have that amount of belief in your words that you don’t care what the repercussions are for them. No matter what, nobody can take that from you. My friend Ian Raydo got arrested at the mall when we were kids for wearing a Phishbone t shirt that said “fuck racism” the thinking behind him getting arrested for that statement is precisely what makes me detest part of society.
How about your writing process? For as many different artists there are you’ll find as many different approaches and methods to writing. Expand on your own process and feel free to reveal as much or as little as you like.
The writing process for me begins usually with music or at least a rough skeleton of drums and a thought of where I’d like to take the song, whether to tell a story, or speak about something relevant to myself at the time or in the world. I read an article in Thrasher Magazine on Tom Waits and it said that he writes songs the same way. Play the music in the bathroom because of the acoustics in there. Make noises to a melody and later replace the noises with words that add up to create the sum of the song. Either that or I start with the words and have someone build a beat to it later on.
How automatic is your writing? Does it happen in an inspirational flash or are you more methodical and slow with your compositions?
As for the approach to writing, I would say that it happens both in flashes and slow and drawn out. For instance I have a song called “Oceans of Ivory” off of my album Awed by the Backdrop. During the writing of this song I showed up to the studio and Khil put the beat on and fifteen minutes later the whole song was done, verses and hooks. While songs like Bottles, I took my time with the verse and wrote it in three different sessions. I am a good judge of knowing when the words aren’t going in the correct direction I want them to and stop.
How influential is your physical environment (where you live and work) and the people who surround you to your approach to your music, and deeper still, to your own life?
My physical environment is pretty much the hand holding the pen that wrote this entire new album. You can go song to song with a friend of mine and they will go, “oh yeah this song is when A, B, and C happened in his life”.
You have a new album ready to do a lot of damage out there. Please tell all about it! Label? Release date? Distribution? How long did it take to write/record?
I do have a new album, the record is called Death in the Immediate Family or ditif as I lovingly write on CD’s I’ve been mailing out. The record is 13 songs and roughly 42 minutes in length. This album is extremely personal at points and at other points speaks in generalities about certain conflicts and struggles that everyone I came into contact with when writing this was going through. I had family members get sick, people went to prison, people died, I had some learning experiences with relationships gone wrong. I learned and grew as a person and as a man during this time period and my goal was to puke it out onto a CD. I was being managed by Freeze management who handles bands like The Used and Head Automatica and that fell apart and I had a label that went under who was suppose to put the record out, signed contracts publicist, tour, etc no hard feelings at all what so ever but I mention this to shed light on the direction I went with the record. I cut songs off of the album, had people screaming on it. I had live bass, drums, and a whole realm of creative freedom I could not have asked for before. I was living on a floor at a house rented by a few close friends, I had a laundry bag of clothes and a car load of recording gear, I had just left a bad breakup and was completely upside down in life. One day I decided to build a home studio in the basement of this house and bang this record came out when I was done puking, bleeding and crying it all out onto the floor (yeah shut up I know wahhh). The release date is 10/31/2009 exclusively at www.rickwhispers.bandcamp.com as a digital download. I am not pressing physical copies of this record ever.
Who composes your beats?
Most of my beats over the course of the past ten years have been made by one man, his name is Khil and we grew up skating and getting in trouble together, much like you and I did ha .
There are many dark themes threaded through this album. Is this your catharsis? Do you find that writing of these things helps you maintain a grounded perspective?
This record as I stated slightly before was my Frankenstein, all the parts that fell out when I started writing about what had happened in my life in the past roughly three years. Not that all of the events in my life were terrible during this time period or that any one individual is to blame of course. I just felt obligated to make an album as a release and at the same time possibly reach some fans who may be going through the same or about to go through similar situations.
You come from an aggressive music background (hardcore and metal). To what extent do you find those roots influencing your music today? What are the chances of a cross-genre collaboration and if so, what artists would you be psyched to work with and why?
The fact that I grew up mostly going to metal and hardcore shows is definitely visible on this new album and probably will become more apparent on the one to follow. I have began translating these new songs into a live show featuring a band comprised of Christian Minick and his brother Jesse Minick of a band called Dead Stuff on drums and bass respectively and Madison Peruzzi of a band called the Viking on guitar. Music for me is and always will be an outlet and release and life is a fucked up evil and cold place most of the time so anger will always be part of that for me. I would love to work with, and this is going to sound completely off kilter to everyone probably but Ben Folds I’d be super excited to work with Every time I die, their tour looks like a mobile keg party to me and that is probably fun as fuck. They worked their asses off to get all the fans they currently have and I admire them for that the partying that is.
Give a couple phrases or lines which you’ve written for the new album and go a little deeper explaining the whys and wherefores of those words. Give a story or two which relate to your writings.
“life is all fucked like brats in a burning orphanage/ so merry Christmas lick the lead paint up off the ornaments” I’d say that this about sums up my attitude during the whole writing process ha-ha. Wow did I really write that? Hmm yeah I guess that is something I’d say. I was really all about “fuck everything” at that time. This is taken from the song “Cash Cow” which is a song basically stating if I ever make any money from anything it will be art and if not I’ll die broke and smiling. This is taken from the song “Picture it like this”, “wooden bridge knocked down past hell and back/ wooden rungs blown apart like vertebrate in shotgun blasts/sunlight cutting apart pupils, exploding in a camera flash/poor mans math/how to stay afloat in a blood bath” this is a song I wrote about watching the end of the world through a 35mm camera lens. The lines that I just took are basically stating every time I felt like I was crossing over the shit storm and into something good I was ambushed by something else even more horrible and crippled. This also may have to do with the fact that I have friends with masters degrees and no work in their respective field but we all no how to add up quarters to pay the diner tab and we survive just fine. The one story that comes to mind is this, I went to a hospital with my mother and basically watched a cousin die in front of us. I held my mother while she cried hysterically and then only a month later was told that my father would basically not be able to walk the same as he had once for a very long time if ever. These two events being so close to one another filled me with so much anger and hatred for everything in the world I would find myself just walking around like a landmine tripwire ready to explode. I found some good healthy releases in working out and writing and reading and got my shit back together but for a while I was probably unbearable to be around.
What are a few things that you’d like someone to walk away with having heard your music?
A few things I would like people to take away after hearing my music are these A. I am not a role model by any stretch of the imagination B. You are not alone if you relate to anything on this record, know that millions of people are depressed as shit on a daily basis and hate everything. C. You are not a piece of garbage no matter what anyone says about you or what your passions/goals are, do you and do it until your heart explodes. If you want to be a space pirate do it.
If you could sit down with yourself of ten years ago, what would you say? What advice would you give?
If I could sit myself down ten years ago I would say this, “Do what ever you are going to do and just be patient with life, everything is the way it is so you can learn from it. p.s. go to pharmacy school and use your scholarship and don’t go to jail asshole”
More realistically, if you could give anyone else advice relating to music and the writing process, what would it be?
If I was to give anyone advice about creating anything at all it would be, do whatever you want to with whatever platform you want. Do not pigeon hole yourself into what other artists are doing who are popular or successful. On the same note do not try and be “different” be yourself because you are unique to everyone else, so if you leave your fingerprint in your art, at the very least you will have the respect of yourself for staying true to what you know and who you are. Do you aspire to fame or are you content with humility and anonymity? I do not aspire for anything at the moment with my art other than to make it grow in my own eyes. If I get a bag full of diamonds along the way for doing that then I’m blowing it all on pez and wii games and coffee anyway.
Would you classify yourself as an extrovert or an introvert?
I would say that most of the time I am pretty introverted, not in a weird sit in the basement and play magic cards hot topic kind of way either, just in a I don’t have much to say in a crowded room anxiety kind of way..
Any parting thoughts?
Please go pick up my new record, if you can not afford a copy of it please burn it from someone who already has it and tell them I said it was ok. The album is available only as a digital download exclusively at www.rickwhispers.bandcamp.com and came out on 10/31/2009. I’ve been recording and setting some shows up with Weerd Science, look out for his new album on Equal vision records called Sick kids. Another group I am part of is Body Language www.myspace.com/body518 with Sev Statik of deepspace 5 and Tunnel Rats. We have an album for sale for 7.99 at www.sevstatik.com I am also working on a project with Twig Courage of xreign of terrorx called Terracotta Army www.myspace.com/terracottaarmyhiphop please support this project we will be finishing this over the course of the next year and have some new songs up right now, one with lazerbeak of doom tree fame on beats. I would also like to thank the following; the acacia strain, winds of plague, earth crisis, terror, shai hulud, sworn enemy, xafbx, recon, pcm, stress, travis, tone, dez, the city of Albany ny for making me a product of my environment. Heroine clothing, Duane peters, dead presidents lounge tattoo, dead stuff, the nightlife, the Viking, dead stuff, one king down, most precious blood, tara ruttle, Khil, freeze management and nick storch.. Thank you very much Rob for taking time to sit with me!
![Eppard Extravaganza!
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
Slimy Penis Breath 15 year anniversary reunionPlus special* performances from:
John (The Baker) Eppard [fresh from the West Coast] Jimmy Eppard Joey Eppard Josh Eppard
*Solo performances + group renditions of material spanningEppard Brothers, 3, Weerd Science
plus special guests!!!
RSVP: last.fm | iLike | facebook
- brief recap on all previous Eppard Brothers shows -](http://13.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ktwosgxB4J1qzvefmo1_400.jpg)
Brand New have finally announced the full lineup for their massive November 28th hometown show at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY.
