Friday 26 April 2013

Week #17| Fauxhound- Jos

We're hitting New Zealand up this week for another previous TWG-er, the one-of-a-kind spoken word chipster, Fauxhound! Grab the track here!!


WT: How did you first come into contact with the chiptune scene?

Fauxhound: Well, I first heard chipmusic, other than via video games, through a small variety of emotronic artists like PlayRadio!Play. It was a very loose form of chipmusic but it definitely inspired me to dig up other artists, like Henry Homesweet and Rushjet1, from the worldwide web. I was thrashing Henry's Pocket Monsters EP on a regular basis when my friend, Dove Bailey of futurnari and A Art , was like "I'm gunna put an order in for some stuff from kitsch-bent, we can get free shipping if you get off that emulator and buy an LSDJ cart!". So I got my first cart, modded my DMG, and decided to go see cTrix and 10k at a festival in New Zealand called Campus Alow Hum. It was during this festival, after watching NZ chip-hero Old Grey Wolf, we got talking with Tom and Chris and everyone decided to play for each other from Chris' car stereo in the car park, my passion for NZchip spawned!

WT: What spurred you into adding vocals to your music, especially with a vocal style so unique?

F: Funny you should ask! When I was growing up/blooming forth into puberty I created this project entitled Boy Eat All, and it was pretty much me shouting over these heavy synth backing tracks with breakdowns and stuff. After playing around with various musical persuasions I ended up producing an EP, which I released on compact disc, that was very stripped back and featured spoken word over the top, later I wrote a lot of music using similar aesthetics but under the moniker Fox and Hound. When I started writing on the DMG I simply changed my name to Fauxhound but continued my passion for spoken word and lyrical content. As a side note I still pronounce my alias as Foxhound.

WT: I’m assuming from your output the answer to this question will be quite extensive, but who are the main influences, musically, behind what you produce?

F: Well you see, the thing is I grew up on punk and hardcore and so on and such forth, so there are plenty of punk elements laced throughout my music, these are very hard to ignore. I can definitely blame the style of my drum patterns to Rickie Mazzotta of mewithoutYou. From a chiptune perspective, I feel, Little Scale changed my perceptions of what was possible within chipmusic and I especially admire his work in Dynasty and NKYW, the latter being my all-time favourite chip release. 10k is an obvious influence along with, but possibly less obvious, is Dot.AY's release Ceratopian Society. I spend a vast portion of my spare time hanging out with Lisandru Grigorut , aka $noregazZzm, he is, without doubt, a huge inspiration and influence to me. I'm also reasonably active in the wider Auckland music scene where I pick up plenty of small nuances. As my live sets become more frequent my writing style is slowly evolving toward more dance-friendly tracks which is a shame but, unavoidable. Lyrically I take a lot from Aaron Weiss of mewithoutYou and a plethora of 'spoken word-esque' vocalists like Mark E. Smith, Henry Rollins etc etc. 

WT: Could you explain a bit as to what went into your WeeklyTreat submission please?

F: Like my previous release, 'This is Not a Game, Boy’, my submission track, 'Jos', was created on my PSP using Little Piggy Tracker. 'Jos' is written using oscillator functions and LSDJ drumkit samples, mostly 909s, TINAGB did not contain any oscillator functions. I wrote the song first, then dug up an old poetry jam and combined the two, I'm not sure if this the most eloquent of writing styles but interesting things seem to emerge, maybe like chalk and cheese [shrug] I don't know. Lyrically this song is a throwback to Auckland mid-2011. The song describes my feelings of leaving Christchurch after the February earthquake and the changes I experienced adjusting into Auckland social life. The song is not completely serious and parts can be perceived as satire. Jos is also my middle name, and the name I've been called since birth.

WT: What ambitions do you have in terms of direction for ‘Fauxhound’?

F: Musically I'm not too sure where Fauxhound is headed. I'm foreseeing it becoming far more calculated than experimental. I have contemplated turning it into a band but the concept never meets fruition, life is easy when you're alone! What I really want is to tour more, especially internationally, after playing Sydney's Death Rave and Melbourne's Soundbytes last year. I realised DIY touring is super fun, you get to meet tons of really rad people and see lots of cool places. Also I have a European passport so the idea of playing in Europe, for me, is financially quite achievable, I just have to stop procrastinating. I'd be keen to play Camp Alow Hum here in NZ next year but I doubt I'll be invited, probably have to rock another renegade show. I'm planning on moving to Japan, mid 2014, finding new communities/scenes is a lot of fun and isn't too hard because chiptune enthusiasts have a large internet presence. I'm working on a split atm with Dracula Factory which should be out soonish, it should be of similar vein too the above submission. That's all for ambitions, I guess, just play more shows and write better songs!