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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!
