Losing my edge

So that's where I started a record company, I started building a studio and I started becoming aggressive and started like engaging culture which was fun. I'd never really engaged culture, I'd always been like, if there was a bunch of people in New York City who seemed cool, I would just be sour grapes about it, I'd be very like I don't want to go to that place, it's lame, all those people and they all think they're so cool.

I'd just be really bitter and I decided why don't I just go and see if 10% of those people are fun, just like every other 10% of every group of people are pretty alright, 90% of most groups of people are kind of terrible, but like 10%, so I started going to different types of things and meeting different people and started throwing parties and all of a sudden I was kind of cool, which I'd never been in New York, I'd just always been like a total, not even an outsider, just sort of a nobody, just sort of invisible, sad, kind of shy and all of a sudden I was DJing and I felt cool and I threw parties.

I'm telling you something that y'all not gonna get for another five years. I'm enjoying it now but others are gonna wait five more years until they figure this one out and you know what it has to do, it has to do with your prejudice. That's why it's gonna take so long. Because that's what it's all about.

If you look in the face of a white man or woman and you think they're trying to exploit you, you will lose.

If you look in the face of a black man or black woman and you think they have nothing to offer your cooperation but hand skills, you will lose.

If you're afraid of Mexicans coming across your border, you will LOSE!!

The new paradigm is about understanding culture; understanding why these people are so real.

Prejudice will destroy your business life. You already knew that but now you have articulation for it...Being able to look past a person's appearance and have a conversation to find out who that person is is your greatest asset.

I was really a failure, like really, really, really, really, really, really, really a failure.

Like I dropped out of college to make music, but then I stopped making music. I mean like really like just, like not even an epic failure, just sort of like a sad, pathetic failure, just like kind of a real epic failure you could get behind. Like I tried this big thing and it failed and I lost everything.

Like no, I just kind of like frittered my years away doing nothing and being in dead-end relationships and dead-end bands and stuff. And I didn't take responsibility for much. I kind of just like felt bad for myself and wondered why my life wasn't better and stuff like that.

And then when I was about 26, I just realized that wow, this, my life is not at all going the way I want it to go. This is not what I expected. I was always the youngest guy, like when I was like 16, I was in a band where everybody else was in their 20s and I was like the songwriter and the singer, I played guitar and I was always like the kid.

And then suddenly I was like 26 and I wasn't doing anything and I was like, that just seemed like a little too old to be doing nothing and not long after like David Foster Wallace put out the book Infinite Jest and it really just floored, it really depressed me because I was like if I start right now, he's older than me, but if I started right now I wouldn't get it done in time to be done with something, write something like that by the time I was his age and have it come out, it's not possible.

So I don't know, I was pretty disappointed with myself and I kind of just went, I went to therapy basically with an amazing person who, where I was just like I'm not good at my life. I had had it and I don't care what it is, I don't care what you tell them, I just want to not do this anymore, I just need to do something else.

And I started just being, like realizing how, I was lazy but lazy never felt right when I heard that, when I said that to myself, I was like are you lazy? I wasn't that I was lazy, I was just really afraid, I was really afraid of failing. All my life I'd been precocious and I was supposed to be smart and I was supposed to be creative.

And I think hearing those things makes you scared that you're going to do something stupid or do something uninteresting and no one will see you as smart or creative anymore. I've never been given any credit for being hard working or being diligent or anything. So all my credits were based in these attributes that I had no control over, it's like being tall, like congratulations you're tall, it's nothing you can even get excited about.

So I realized that I'd kind of been so afraid of failing and looking bad that I didn't do anything, that I just did nothing and I could claim some sort of safety in doing nothing. But then I decided that's pathetic and I need to work against all of my instincts and start doing things.

So that's where I started a record company, I started building a studio and I started becoming aggressive and started like engaging culture which was fun. I'd never really engaged culture, I'd always been like, if there was a bunch of people in New York City who seemed cool, I would just be sour grapes about it, I'd be very like I don't want to go to that place, it's lame, all those people and they all think they're so cool.

I'd just be really bitter and I decided why don't I just go and see if the 10% of those people are fun, just like every other 10% of every group of people are pretty alright, 90% of most groups of people are kind of terrible, but like 10%, so I started going to different types of things and meeting different people and started throwing parties and all of a sudden I was kind of cool, which I'd never been in New York, I'd just always been like a total, not even an outsider, just sort of a nobody, just sort of invisible, sad, kind of shy and all of a sudden I was DJing and I felt cool and I threw parties.

And then one night I went to go see a band and somebody else was kind of playing the records that I was playing and nobody else was playing the records that I was playing, that was like my thing and I got really mad and I got really defensive and I was just like, that's my, who the hell is this some 22 year old, and I got really embarrassed by being like, these aren't your records, you didn't write them, you just play them, you just own them, you can't be proud of yourself for owning them, but I was mad at the same time because I was like, no, but I know that kid was at one of my parties and it was like this really dense conflict that I couldn't resolve and that's kind of where losing my edge came from, like really just came from this, I didn't have a good answer, like I was angry, but I was also really pathetic for being angry, but also kind of, there wasn't really a right or wrong, it was sort of like, I was right and wrong and this kid was right and wrong and everybody there who was right and wrong and it felt really dense and really like easy to write from, like easy to make something from and so I made that song.

And everybody thought it was terrible, I remember playing it with people and they just would be like, they would be like, they'd give you this face, like, you know, they kind of like, they don't want to say anything and then ask you about like technical things, like, oh, what's the, what are the drums and you're like, okay, you don't like this and only Phil Mossman who was the original LCD guitar player was the only person who was like, I love this and he was older than me, I think it had something to do with age, he was just like, I really love this, this is really funny and so we put it out.

And with literally the people from the label, like my two partners, Tim and John were just like, they afterwards said like, we just thought you were making a big mistake and you were going to look like an idiot and we just kind of felt bad for you, like, it was the B side until the last day, it was the B side to beat connection until the last minute and I was like, no, it's, that should be the A side, that's the one that I should sink or swim with,

(Interviewer: you know, that was a Foster Wallace moment really, it had so huge impact and still has)

well, for, you know, that's a funny thing because I know how many we made and it's not that many, you know, like 4,000, 5,000, 12 inches, which to me was a huge deal, but then when I was like, well, it kind of like, it was a song that everybody knew when I was flying around, this is also when I learned about how much people got music from the internet, I was like, how did everybody know this thing, it's like, we've only sold, you know, 4,000 copies of it and that's to stores, like let alone, you know, clearly some of them haven't gone home with people

But then I started meeting people, that's when I started making friends and meeting people that are other musicians and it was just like, kind of the story, partially the story of their lives too, like I met the Optimo guys from Glasgow very early on and they were just like, yeah, it just kind of felt like this is our lives, kind of this sad, you know, like wondering what to do with yourself, kind of, period of time, oh, and then I had a job, it was the first time I had made, I had made music my whole life, it was the first time I made music that was like, where I wasn't trying to be another thing that I thought I'm supposed to be, that I was just trying to actually be as much myself as I possibly could, like the first time I'd ever done that and it was, and I was actually rewarded for it, which was remarkable, like actually people were liking it and so that was a big change to me.

I've become like, and since then I've become a really intense proponent of my friends, like I'm a, you know, I'm really, now it's been so long and I'm really hard working and I'm effective and I make, you know, good decisions and I'm very like, you know, I'm reliable and so a lot of people that only know me now, like, have this vision of me as being very like, very on top of things, like, you know, which is like, I was the worst disaster, so when I'm trying to like get, I'm like, you guys, you just make something, don't worry about it, just make it, like stop overthinking it, like just make it and put it out and they're like, well you can do that, I'm like, no, you have no idea, like I spent my entire 20s, like you are now younger, like I'm talking to some 27 year old who thinks that I know what I'm talking, you know, like it's easy for me and I was like, when I was your age, I was still five years from putting out "Losing My Edge", like I was five years still of complete and abject failure to go, so you're doing great, like you're actually doing fine.