WT: How did you first come into contact with chip music?
Kool Skull: My friend Lars (http://brainjuiceink.com) showed me the band Mindless Self Indulgence, and they had just released the "Animal" video by M Dot Strange. I looked up M Dot strange, and his movie "we are the strange" had a chiptune soundtrack. I hit him up and he showed me kittenrock.co.uk and that's always been my favourite chip label ever since.
WT: What are some of your main influences musically?
KS: I listen to a lot of Ray Charles. I think he's an amazing lyricist and composer. Martin Denny is also a great composer. I always loved vocalists like Jack white, Ol Dirty Bastard, Darby Crash, Iggy Pop, Stickyfingaz, and Joanna Newsom. Those singers influence what i do heavily. Chip wise, i don't listen to much chip other than shitbird, Baseck, Chalices of the Past, Cerebral scars, Joss Manley... that's pretty much it. Some of my friends make cool shit, but i don't listen to it that much anymore.
WT: What influenced your first delving into chipthrash?
KS: It just made sense to me. I didn't like poppy chiptune, and at the time I started, I didn't know what breakcore was, or hardcore or speedcore or any of these internet music scenes. I just like harsh "thrashy" beats. So chipthrash was like a play on chiptune. So I called my music chipthrash.
WT: Could you tell us a bit about your involvement in the LA chipthrash scene?
KS: It's not really a scene, we just call it that. Its just a bunch of dudes in LA with gameboys that throw shows together. Most of us are involved heavily within other "Scenes" so the "chipthrash" community doesn't get much attention since its only like, maybe ten of us total haha. The LA chiptune scene is starting to get somewhere, but i don't do much chip anymore. The breakcore scene with "Baseck" and "wet Mango" and "WMX" is going pretty heavily as it always did, but gameboys are sparse nowadays.
WT: How did your working relationship with Datathrash come about?
KS: I had a label named "Datamoshpit". It was cool, but i sucked at running it. This guy Arnie Holder decided to make a new label named "Datathrash" and originally, they were supposed to be sister labels, but i'm a flake and Arnie get's shit done. Haha.. I've been a part of datathrash since day 1. The first compilation, too. They do a good job. Sick homies.
WT: What do you use to create your music?
KS: Other than my brain? lol.. right now, mostly anything haha. Whenever i have an idea for a song i just remember it however i best can. Usually i fuck around on my iphone, and send it to reaper on my desktop. But once its there, its all kinds of shit going into it. LGPT, LSDJ, anything i want, whatever comes about. I'll just perform with my iphone now tho. Its so simple.
WT: What influenced you to start using your iPhone to create music?
KS: I just wanted simplicity. My friend Chad gave me an old school iPhone 1 that he had lying around so i could fuck with nanoloop. As it turned out, nanoloop kinda sucked and i couldn't do what i wanted on it lol (it doesn't suck it just didn't fit my needs). So i looked around for software, and i saved up and bought Nanostudio. Since then, I've worked with close to every music production app on iOS and I've learned a lot. I still stick to nanostudio. It's all the essentials. I love it.
WT: What influenced you to start making rap?
KS: I always used to say "rap is crap" as a little kid. But I started to get into the Gorillaz and then the Beastie Boys, and after that Beck. Eventually i got into Onyx, and Wu Tang Clan. I like Odd future, not that they influence what i do a lot, but it makes me irritated that they're so famous. Their success makes me want to push what i'm doing harder, cause it shows that it's possible. I love their shit, but i see them cutting a lot of corners, and screwing around a lot. I feel like if i were to do what i really really am trying to do, everyone's mind would explode. I have more ideas than i'm able to keep up with, and even at that rate, im still the most productive person i know. I hope all this pays off soon, i don't wanna struggle anymore. I wanna make money, buy a house, buy a car, get married, have a kid, all that stuff. Music and art is always gonna be happening, that's just default, but i do want stability.
WT: Could you tell us a bit about Thrash44?
KS: Thrash44 is a collective of artists from LA. My buddy Kroyclub and I came up with an idea of including all of our friends to make a really cool new record label. Most of the kids in the collective are from the south bay, like torrance, carson, inglewood, and some of them knew odd future kids. We all saw odd future happen. We're just like, fuck this man, we can do it too. We're better producers than them. Lol we even have better rappers, and better ideas haha. Not just odd future, but labels we like... Dim Mak, Ed Banger, Boysnoize, iheartcomix, etc. I mean, I don't want to talk shit, we love odd future and all those labels - their ideas aren't "bad", but sometimes i think stuff they could do, could be taken to a higher level. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to be better than the things that influenced us. We're trying to raise the bar. Our new record "ULTRA3000" ( http://thrash44records.bandcamp.com/ ) is mostly hip hop, trap, and chillwave rock stuff, but we're not gonna limit our genre. It's basically whatever we feel like making.
WT: As well as music you also do a lot of art, could you tell us a bit about this, and what influenced your unique style?
KS: I just drew a lot. My friend Lars made a lot of twisted cartoons, and i always wanted to copy him. I took from him, Danny antonnuci, Robert crumb, Ed roth, and put it all into something i ended up really liking. I don't like art much though, it gets boring and it's repetitive. I like music and video more now.
WT: What went into making your Weekly Treats
KS: Caffeine.. hahah
WT: What does the future hold for KoolSkull?
KS: Money. I'm actually sure I'm eventually going to be one of the greats. Maybe i'm jinxing myself by saying that, but even if i were to die today, i think i've done enough to be remembered. I'm pretty sure I'd still influence a lot of people hopefully. I fucked around, and i think everyone should try and show the world what's going on in their brain to the world. The internet makes it easy. I hope one day, people see what i did wrong and say to themselves "man, koolskull talks a lot of shit, fuck that guy, my music's better than his".. that's what i say about most artists I like. Haha but still, the body of work I've made is something i'm super proud of. I'm still my favourite artist, and some of my favourite songs are my own. That's all i really want to make music for, to listen to it. Maybe that's dreadfully narcissistic, but i don't care, it's honest.
