It’s rare in today’s music business to come across a band that truly takes live music to a new level. With electronic music producers selling out 100k+ arenas it isn’t uncommon to find a sold out show where the stage and light production is much more of a spectacle than the actual performer, but with GWAR, no such distinction need be made. For 28 years these outer space rock gods have blown other acts out of the water with over the top characters, intricate costumes, and a hilarious, inspired mythos, all while featuring some of the best talent in the industry. After the unexpected death of lead guitarist Cory Smoot (or Flattus Maximus in GWAR lore), GWAR has seen an outpouring of support from both its die hard fan base as well as its peers in the industry, and although it has cast a mournful shadow over their current tour, GWAR has confronted it head on, continuing to tear down venues, behead and dismember fans, and pay proper tribute to their fallen comrade through it all. We were lucky enough to sit down with lead singer and founding member of the Scumdogs of the Universe, Oderus Urungus (Dave Brockie), before their sold out show at The Fox Theatre in Boulder.

LMB: How’s the tour going so far?
OU: Very fucking incredibly awesome. We’ve been pretty much sold out every night and it’s going to be jammed and packed with maniacs again this evening so it has been really good.

LMB: GWAR has been on earth for over 25 years now. How have you seen your fan base change?
OU: Generally speaking if they can survive the shows, GWAR fans will keep coming back again and again, hiding under the corpses of their dead friends to do so, and they will get older and they will have children and they will bring their children to the shows. You’ll see the dad and the child and the child’s child and the grandmother all there covered in blood in a big pile of dead bodies as our slaves root through their corpses for valuables. But no change really, they just get older. And they smell worse when they die.

LMB: But you do a pretty good job of killing off old fans and bringing in new ones?
OU: Yes, there is a turnover. We don’t want to kill all the fans, just enough to keep the dance floor nice and slick and then we’ll leave about half of them so they can go home and spawn so they can fill up the club the next time we’re there.

LMB: What are the plans for the next album?
OU: We are going to try and take it slowly. Everyone knows that Flattus [Cory Smoot] has departed the planet so we’re going to take our time on this next record and explore our musical futures probably using some guest guitar players, some friends of the band. Some buddies of Flattus are going to stop by the planet and lay down some tracks. We’re about three songs into it so far and it’s sounding good. We’re recording it at our own studio, Slave Pit Studios, back in Antarctica via Richmond of course and maybe by the end of the year or early next year we’ll have a new GWAR album.

LMB: It’s been said that Randy Blythe (Lamb of God) will be working of some of Cory’s unrecorded tracks.
OU: It is true he is already doing that. It’s kind of a weird twisted story. The album ‘Bloody Pit of Horror’ was originally a solo project that Cory was working on and he wanted Randy and me do some vocals on it. I was like yeah I’ll do some vocals on it but it should be a GWAR album and so that’s what turned the music and made it into a GWAR album, but Randy had never gotten around to doing his tracks and then Cory took that music and warped it a little more and turned it into the Cory Smoot Experiment and all the while Randy wanted to come in and record but he just never got the chance. He still does have the tracks and he’s out on the road right now with Lamb of God but he’s listening to them and he’s coming up with some ideas and he’s going to come record when he has a chance so maybe we’ll do a little digital EP or something which would be really cool and all the proceeds would go to the Smoot family fund.

LMB: That’s really awesome.
OU: Yeah it’s really cool that Randy would do that. Him just putting his name on it would probably sell more records than GWAR could sell so it would be excellent. Maybe I can find a way to embezzle the money.

LMB: Nick Landendorf, a candidate for Missouri State Legislature, recently said that Rush Limbaugh is the political equivalent to GWAR because he is so over the top. Would you agree?
OU: Yeah I guess I could see that but in the totally opposite way if there are symbols of the right and how disgusting and corpulent they are then the symbols of the left have to be equally extreme. I’ve never considered us left or right. We hate both of them very much… but we hate right people more. For some reason, of all the people we’ve killed on stage we’ve never killed Rush Limbaugh. I’m ashamed of us.

LMB: What do you think about Oderus Urungus as a write in candidate 2012?
OU: Absolutely not! I don’t recognize your political systems. I am already Lord and Master of this planet why should I want the puny title of President of the United States!

LMB: So no political endorsements from GWAR then?
OU: Of course not! Kill them all! Put them to the wheel! Break them! Herd them like cattle!

LMB: From First to Last front man Sonny Moore has recently made international fame as dubstep artist Skrillex. Korn front man Jonathon Davis is also getting involved in electronic music as J.Devil. What does GWAR think about the growing link between metal and electronica?
OU: We don’t know anything about it! We’re a fucking Rock n’ Roll band! I’m sure there are kids out there that are into this stuff but rest assured it means absolutely nothing to me whatsoever! We will continue to plod our way through our dinosaur like metal compositions and blast everyone’s fucking eardrums in the process. If it works for Motorhead, it can work for GWAR.

LMB: You recently spoke out against Dave Mustaine. Is there anyone else in the industry you’re particularly pissed off at?
OU: Not this week. If I pick only one person each week to get pissed off at it prevents getting too much attention.

LMB: GWAR has long been known for its theatrics and live performances. How do you keep your shows fresh?
OU: By rocking the fuck out and being talented and awesome. Also getting your dick sucked right before you go on stage. Being really high on drugs when we play is another thing we do that helps. Did I mention the blowjobs? Truly enjoying what we do is very important too…and tits hanging over the barricade. It motivates us. Tits hanging over the barricade are beautiful…unless they’re attached to a man, then they’re not so good… but they are in another horribly grotesque way when we realize it’s a bearded woman covered in tattoos.

LMB: A lot of people have said that your most recent record is a return to roots for GWAR. Are you done experimenting with different sounds and genres?
OU: I don’t know we just write the fucking thing! Everyone’s like ‘Oh Oderus your new album is this’ or ‘your new album is that’. I didn’t know that! I didn’t know we really made it! I just stumble into rooms there’s microphones I yell and scream I break things and then the albums out. They don’t even tell me anymore unless of course its time to shill it. Schlep it. Plug it. On radio shows and newspaper article and in interviews like this! So yes there is still an album out called Bloody Pit of Horror and we’re still supporting that and I don’t even know what the question was anymore. What’s next?

LMB: That’s actually all I’ve got for you.
OU: THAT’S IT? How mercifully short this was! Well thank you sir for giving me time to blab about GWAR!

LMB: Absolutely! Thanks for sparing my life!

Continuing on with our recap and coverage of this year’s excellent SnowBall Music Festival in Vail, here’s my final interview from the festival when I sat down with Zion Godchaux and Russ Randolph of Boombox. They rocked the Groove Tent at 4:15pm on the last day of the festival…

LMB: How do you guys like being out in CO for Snowball?
ZG: It feels really good.
RR: This is awesome. It’s a very unique experience actually.

LMB: I know a lot of festivals don’t really happen in the winter, is that throwing you off?
ZG: The size of it is.
RR: Yea, just the sheer amount of what is actually outside. We’ve done things in like Copper Mountain where it’s very closed, everyone’s very close to their rooms. You don’t have to go that far. But these people have actually been weathering storms for a while out here. This is awesome.

LMB: Is there anyone in particular you’re looking forward to seeing here?
RR: We’ll check out TV on the Radio. I’ve ever seen those guys live.

LMB: Where do you think BoomBox stands out from other instrumental/electronic hybrid acts?
RR: I think that we’re more Rock ‘n’ Roll.
ZG: Yea.
RR: We think of ourselves as a Rock band, first and foremost, that happens to use electronic devices to create our music. We’re writing dance music. But, we’re writing songs… traditional rock songs and stuff like that. I think that’s the major thing that sets us apart.
ZG: But at the same time the other thing that sets us apart, ironically, is just the straight up house connection that we have. We’re more house. I consider us more house than most of the electronic acts. They play different types of genres. We’re real rooted in house. But at the same time house falls into a sub-category of our Rock ‘n’ Roll approach.
RR: But our approach to tracks and the way we transition more tracks is the way a house DJ would so we definitely built our foundation the way a house DJ would.

LMB: You guys have a remix to “Visiting Day” on the “Widespread Dirty Side Down Remixes” album. Can we expect anything like that from you guys in the future?
RR: Possibly, if the right one comes along. We tried to do one with Beats Antique with their last album but the schedules just didn’t work out. We’re always down. If there’s a track that we feel good about, and we can do something with, we’re always down to try something.

LMB: Do you feel influenced by the scene around you or do you feel more like you influence the scene?
RR: I think we’re influenced by everything around us.
ZG: Life.
RR: We don’t necessarily pay attention to other artists. We’re not catching up with the scene every second, “this artist did this… they did this,” so we don’t base our decisions against what everybody else does. But, we’re definitely influenced by what’s going on around us.

LMB: What do you like to listen to on your own?
ZG: It just depends on the evening. It could be all types of stuff. We love all types of music: old—every kind of music. Just to pin it down we listen to Jazz, Blues—
RR: We listen to a lot of [Grateful] Dead.
ZG: Funk.
RR: We listen to a lot of just… funky old funk records and stuff like that. We don’t listen to a lot of modern stuff necessarily. It’s mostly the older kind of classics or the masters, or what we consider the masters… that kind of stuff.

LMB: What can your fans expect when your next album hits the market?
RR: It’s gonna be an evolution. It’s gonna be different. But, it’s still songs written by us. It’s still from our brains and our world. It’s just a different evolution of that. We’ve got some new toys, we’ve got new noise makers. There’s a lot of new stuff in our world that we’re exploring and figuring out so I think this new record is gonna reflect that.
ZG: We’re hoping that it exceeds people’s expectations. That’s the goal.
RR: The cool thing about this one is that this one is gonna be, I think, more similar to our first album, “Visions of Backbeat”, in that we are the final step, we’re doing everything ourselves. We’ve got other people recording in studio with us, maybe some other guest artists, that kind of thing at the very end but the thing that you hear came from us. We made the final moves on that, the final mix is in, it’s from our world. We feel good about that. I think the fans will maybe, get a more clear picture of what we’re trying to create.

LMB: Do you find yourselves changing instrumentation a lot or sticking to certain conventions in production and on stage?
RR: We’re both drummers so… that’s our natural tendency to go for a percussion kind of thing. But, we’ll grab and play anything—keyboard, different guitars, everything—anything that sounds cool that you can mic, we’re gonna try and do something with it that you can at least explore.

LMB: Is it pretty much a non-stop grind for you guys or do you find time for yourselves outside of BoomBox?
ZG: We have some time off here and there. I’ve got a three and a half year old son so when I get home I’m hanging out with him, taking him places.
RR: I like repair/restore vintage watches, stuff like that. We’ve got to a point in our touring and with the schedule now where we do have a home off. We tour like half the year and another half we’re at home. Traveling, for it to make sense, where you’re not just home for a couple days… if we’re out for like three weeks maybe four weeks at least we’re home for two or three weeks before we go back out. So yea, we have some time at home. We don’t have as much time to hang out here [at SnowBall] as we’d like.
ZG: But I mean, it’s what we love to do so it’s not really a grind. We don’t think of it like that. We’re so blessed to be able to do what we love to do… we get really really tired.

LMB: On the topic of touring, do you guys have any favorite venues to play at?
ZG: Lately it’s been the National for me.
RR: The National in Richmond, Virginia is a good one. It depends. There’s a lot of cool big venues like the National but we were at the Knotty Pine in Victor, Idaho across [the border] from Jackson [Hole, Wyoming] last night. It’s a small place, there’s a restaurant… a lot of things that would normally not add up to the coolest venue but… I had a great time last night.
ZG: Yea, it can happen anywhere.
RR: We played a place in Eureka: The Red Fox… a small little place… but, so cool.

LMB: So finally is there anything that you’d like to say to your fans?
RR: Thank you for supporting and coming to get down.
ZG: Yea, thanks.

Thanks to Zion Godchaux and Russ Randolph for hanging out and chatting with us…

Along with chatting with MiM0SA and Gramatik at SnowBall 2012, we also sat down and chatted with Adam Deitch and Borahm Lee, otherwise known as Break Science…

LMB: So you guys met in New York City on the underground hip-hop scene. What triggered your transition into working with guys like Derek (Pretty Lights) and moving into the electronic scene?
BL: Well we’ve always been fascinated with electronic influence in hip-hop music, in funk music, in dub music, in reggae music, and just using samples, using different sounds that came from everywhere you know what I mean. And then also it filtered into different rhythms and stuff too like different genres. We’ve always been aware of drum and bass and even though we might not have been super into techno early on, we were always aware of it and know it’s there. As the presence grew, the gap started bridging more between the analog instrumentalist and the electronic music world with its cold digital side. And that’s where we came in. We’ve always been fascinated by different sounds in different contexts, making it work.

LMB: So out of all of those electronic sub-genres, do you find yourself drawing from any one in particular?
AD: We love hip-hop, we love glitch, we love drum and bass. We like a lot of dubstep, a lot of drumstep, a lot of juke music, dirty south bounce music, East coast hip-hop, West coast hip-hop. That’s the kind of stuff we grew up on. I was going to raves when I was 16, when this was all illegal, getting broken-up and stuff. It’s fun for me to see this is so legit now.
BL: I mean, at this point all the genres that Adam names, you can flip them and make them groove and sound good. You can flip them into a way that you can really make your mark.
AD: Do something different.
BL: Yea you know, be creative with it. But use those as vehicles that have meaning.

LMB: We’ve seen a lot of guys who try to mix bass music with hip-hop, and I feel that you guys are some of the few that have really found that happy medium. Do you have a key or a secret to success as to where the boundary overlaps in a successful way?
AD: I mean we’re jazz musicians and we love songs, funk and jazz. In that, there are forms to music like the blues that are a vehicle for playing something. You can do whatever you want. Drum and bass has a form. Dubstep has a form, it’s got its drops and its builds and its snares.
BL: When I think about our music as opposed to other bass music that’s out there, what’s different about us is that we take a little more musical approach to it so it’s not an atonal thing or it’s not just one note that repeats the different bass sounds. We’re really changing keys, and we’re really aware of harmony and stuff like that. We really try to apply that and make the bass music musical, and not just bombastic sounds, which is cool also and which we love also.
AD: Because he’s (BL) a keyboard player and I’m a keyboard player we just feel that our contribution to this is to add the kind of the chords we add behind it, and the way the bass line goes with everything and the samples, that’s kind of our style. Just a little more depth, it’s a different thing than just the straight up, knock you on your face. We still wanna do that too, but we wanna put music in there also.

LMB: I feel you, it takes a certain musical talent and ability in terms of instrumentality to be able to put that into those techno tracks so to speak.
AD: Right we’re trying we’ve both been playing our whole lives.
BL: Yea and just keep in mind also that it’s our take on it. Maybe someone else that doesn’t have the jazz or musical background can still create something amazing. We’re definitely finding our sound more and more now that we’re getting into our third release this year, and we’re locking in on that. We definitely feel like that’s our path.

LMB: Talking about your second release, Monolith Code, is that a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey?
BL: I mean it definitely it had a big influence on it. And just more the concept of it being a symbol of the evolution of consciousness. But it’s not just 2001. There are monoliths all around. The symbolism definitely runs very deep in our society and our cultures whether people realize it or not. So to me it’s just a towering symbol pretty much that is taking us to the next stage of who we are.

LMB: This album is really different in terms of the sound of it from the last one. What’s in store for future Break Science releases?
AD: We played two songs tonight, brand new stuff that we never dropped. One is kind of on some chill just vibey stuff and the other one we did is almost like a rock song. Kind of like arena rock with synths. There are a lot of different ways to approach electronic music now, especially with the use of samples and we have a lot of musician friends that’ll come through and do some guitar stuff and we’ll put it backwards and forwards, run it through all kinds of amps.
BL: We’re excited to be able to explore a couple different kinds of vibes. With an EP it’s more of a statement and a phrase almost, more of a general cohesive idea. But with an album you can have a little more exploration. So like we were saying, we’re gonna be doing more chill stuff, but the chill stuff is still gonna hit hard and you can still dance to it. But you can still listen to it when you come home from the club and you’ve been listening to dubstep all night and you don’t want anymore dubstep. I think we’re still gonna be making bass music, but I’m gonna say it’s probably gonna be a little more… actually, I’m not gonna put any restrictions on it. It’s just going to be diverse. I’ll say it like that. We’re definitely going to be getting into some different things.

LMB: Are there going to be as many collaborations on this new one as the first one?
AD: Yea we’re gonna have a lot of guests.
BL: Vocalists, Instrumentalists
AD: We’re gonna use their stuff in different ways, not your traditional singing or rapping over a track. We’ll take their vocals and like—
BL: Turn ’em up side down
AD: —do all sorts of crazy stuff to it (laughs).

LMB: Is there anybody you’ve already worked with that you can share with us?
AD: You’ll have to wait and see man (laughs).
BL: There are a lot of people in the mix right now and when the final copy is cut and print, some people might be there, some people might not be there. I don’t wanna single anyone out.

LMB: Are there any acts you’re looking forward to?
AD: I’m looking forward to seeing Paul Basic. I haven’t seen him yet and he’s our labelmate. I haven’t even met him yet, but I’ll be at his show. We’re about to tour with him in March for our big tour with Gramatik. It’s Paul Basic, Gramatik, and us, so yea I’m psyched to see him, psyched to see all the PLM (Pretty Lights Music) guys.
BL: Snoop.
AD: Snoop is gonna be great, looking forward to that.

LMB: As far as being a part of PLM, do you find yourselves feeding off of each other creatively?
BL: You’re talking about the labelmates?

LMB: Yea.
BL: Oh, definitely.
AD: Everyone’s got their niche or their style and we all borrow pieces from each other you know. I’m a band guy, I grew up being in bands. Even if everyone’s in small groups or sole artists we still kind of feed off each other like a band. I hear what they’re doing or their originals and it’s like “ok, ok” so I’ll try to push it up.
BL: It’s just great to have such awesome musical peers that we’re connected through this umbrella label, which is such a strong label.

LMB: Great well that’s all for us, hope you guys enjoy the rest of the festival.
em>AD: For sure, definitely.

Continuing on with our recap and coverage of this year’s excellent SnowBall Music Festival in Vail, here’s my interview with Tigran Mimosa (aka MiM0SA) sometime before his set at the Groove Tent at 7:45pm on the first day…

LMB: It’s good to have you in Colorado. Are you excited to be playing Snowball this year?
TM: Yea absolutely man, I’m super stoked. It’s awesome being out here. I love playing in Colorado any chance I get.

LMB: You have a really big following out here in the Rocky Mountains, what’s your relationship with Colorado like?
TM: I’ve been coming here for a long time. This was one of the first markets that I broke into besides California when I was first starting to play. I love this place and I feel a lot of support from it. So, I’m always stoked to be around here.

LMB: You have a diverse musical style and everyone loves you for that. Where does the creative process begin when you are putting together a track?
TM: I tend not have a formula. I try to stick away from that because I don’t want to have any sort of pattern. I find that you tend to make the same type of song. If you take a different approach to it every time then you’ll get a completely different sound that’s more just going with the moment and going with where the energy is taking you rather than having to go through a process to try and make something.

LMB: How would you describe your sound?
TM: Future Trill (laughs). I dunno, It’s just bass music. I’m just doing what I feel. I make all sorts of music from progressive dubstep to super melodic chill stuff so I don’t necessarily have one sound. It’s whatever you wanna call it.

LMB: Your newest album, Sanctuary, came out last October. How would you say this one sounds compared to Flux for Life or other older works?
TM: I’d say this one’s a little bit more underground hip-hop oriented where I utilize a lot of the 808 kind of drum kit and it’s just a lot more rhythm oriented than my previous stuff. It’s not trying to be too aggressive or too overwhelming or anything like that. I was just going for a chill groove keeping a good solid vibe. It is what it is.

LMB: Are you planning on playing a little bit of that at your set?
TM: Absolutely yea.

LMB: Any surprises?
TM: Yea I got a lot of new tracks that I’m gonna test out. I’m working on my next album right now actually which is gonna be called “dream states.” I’m about halfway done so I’m just gonna play out some of the tracks and see how it goes. It’s gonna be the first time I’m gonna play it anywhere.

LMB: What’s the rest of 2012 looking like for you?
TM: Right now I’m just taking some time off to work on my album and doing festivals here and there. I hope to tour sometime in the fall after all the festivals are done.

LMB: What have been your biggest influences as an artist?
TM: Life, love and death. Those are my greatest influences for sure.

Thanks to Tigran Mimosa for sitting down with us…

In case you missed some of our coverage from SnowBall Music Festival, we got some great photos and some great thoughts from the three-day festival set in Vail a few weeks ago. And I’ve finally gotten around to getting some of my interviews posted that I did when I was chilling in the media area waiting for the music to start. On Friday at 3:45pm in the Groove Tent, Gramatik did a set and was definitely killing it…here’s what we talked about (with Ales, his guitarist) before his set…

LMB CO interview with Gramatik

LMB: How do you feel about being back in Colorado?
G: It’s awesome. I wish it was a little less cold but it’s pretty cool here.

LMB: Do you have any acts you’re really looking forward to seeing?
G: Yea, I’d love to see Snoop Dogg… like everybody else of course. I’d like to see a lot of people here. They’re all amazing artists. It’s a festival in Colorado. What more can I say? You know it’s gonna be awesome. So yea, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing some stuff.

LMB: Where does the production process start with you?
G: It differs, it’s very dynamic. I’m not a static creature. I don’t do anything in routines because I feel that makes me a robot and I’m a human. I always like to keep a dynamic that’s just going with the flow you know what I feel like. That way maybe I’ll start with drums maybe I’ll start with a bass line maybe I’ll start with his (pointing to Ales) guitar. I like to keep it open so whatever can come through. I hear a sample and I’m like “aw shit I really wanna chop that shit up right now” or I hear a bass line in my head and I really wanna play it so it depends on the mood you know.

LMB: Your music uses elements from many different genres. Do you feel that you draw influences from anywhere in particular?
G: Yea, I draw influences from everywhere in particular (laughs). Anything inspires me to the point where I want to incorporate that style or that sound, I put my own twist on it. That’s most evident in hip-hop productions because when I do hip-hop I do it like the old school way, like the DJ Premier/Pete Rock kinda way just like choppin up mad samples. I also try to elevate to a different level where I take like five or six different tracks from different time periods, take something out of every track and then combine it all into one puzzle. Derek and I call it collage sampling because that’s what we do. We’re not amused anymore by just sampling one track and putting the kick and snare to it. It’s just like sampling one umph or whatever but we’re more and more intrigued by combining all these different tracks from different time periods, the 30′s, 60′s, 50′s, 70′s, whatever. It’s like taking small bits and pieces out of every track and combining and making something beautiful out of all of that. I think that’s the future of hip-hop in terms of sampling. But then again I also like to incorporate a lot of synth stuff in my tracks more and more now making some sort of hybrid between classical hardcore hip-hop and the new glitch and steppy sound. It always differs but I draw influences from everything, not just music, even people and TV shows. The Daily Show with John Stewart is one of my biggest inspirations ever. You wouldn’t believe how many times it’s happened to me where I’ve watched an episode of The Daily Show and it was so fuckin’ awesome and it amazed me and just like left me totally inspired that I went straight to working on music. And I wasn’t inspired by another musician. So inspiration comes in various forms of course that’s nothing new but something like The Daily Show with John Stewart definitely inspires me to be creative in my own craft. People always think I have to be inspired by something that’s the same as what I’m doing. But that’s not true. You can take creative input from a person no matter what the craft is he’s doing and put it into your own craft that might completely something different.

LMB: Do you sometimes find things you want to chop up and sample when you’re watching TV or movies?
G: All the time. I’ll be like, “Yo dude (pointing to Ales, his guitarist) get the Shazam on it. I want to know this track.” And it’s a nightmare sometimes because you find tracks in random places like mixes and sets and sometimes you never discover what the track is. You can’t find it anywhere. And there are still a couple of tracks like that that I heard parts on the radio, Shazam didn’t work, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I googled it for a day and couldn’t find it, like every single search. But it did happen, there was this one track I was looking for for like three years and then one day somebody played it. I was at this dudes house and he had it on his computer. I’m like, “Are you fucking kidding me. That track.” It was like this track from the 60′s that I was just unable to find. Whatever I did, I couldn’t find it. And then I found it like that. So that’s one of life’s moments where I really appreciate being alive… cause that’s the beauty of life. After three years of searching, I already gave up and then it just pops in your face at a random moment. And then you have it, and then I sample it, and that track is on “Beatz & Pieces” so it’s pretty cool. That’s one of the things I enjoy most about music.

LMB: What sort of hardware and software do you use in your set?
G: The sets nothing crazy. I just use Ableton Live, an APC 40 and a bunch of effects, VST’s to tweak shit up right away and I use some separate channels besides the two track channels. I’m using three of four channels with like, percussions and hi hat loops and stuff like that like shakers and vocals samples and then I play that over and I try to rearrange the arrangement when I play it live, but nothing too crazy. And then of course he (points to Ales) plays guitar over through Ableton and through Guitar Rig. So… yea, we have fun.

LMB: What was it that brought you from Slovenia to America?
G: I’ve always wanted to visit America since I was a kid. I’ve been in love with New York since I first saw it in movies and now we’re living there so it’s pretty cool. But, before I even came to America “Street Bangerz Vol. 1″ came out and it was doing really well on Beatport so I got spotted by PGA by Hunter Williams which is my booking agent now and also Pretty Lights’ booking agent and SuperVision’s and so on. He spotted me on there and signed me for North American territory and up until that point I’d never performed as Gramatik. I was just making beats and releasing them on Beatport. I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t even think they would sell on Beatport because at the time it was just electro house and techno. I didn’t think anybody would buy my shit off Beatport because it’s just a weird platform to sell hip-hop beats. But it just so happened that people liked it, and it charted really well for like 6 months so my agent saw me there and brought me over to support Derek (Pretty Lights) on his first tour so that’s how I got to America. And then I kinda liked it and I stayed here.

LMB: We’re glad to have you. Do you have any final words for your fans on SnowBall?
G: Yea, we’re Snowballin. It’s definitely a nice growing festival… even though it’s really odd that it’s a festival in the winter. But, it’s working. People are here, raging. It’s fucking freezing cold but everybody is having fun so I guess festivals work in winter as well so I’m looking forward to next year.

Thanks to Gramatik for taking the time to sit down with us…