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- [00:00]
A
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B
Welcome back, everyone to the Jokerman Death Grips podcast. I'm Evan.
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A
I'm Ian. And thrilled to be joined for the first time with a guest on one of these Death Grips episode. Probably the last time. Also, Benjamin Booker, welcome back to the program.
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C
Wow. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Nobody else after me. Never. It's never happening again.
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A
You know, for Death Grips, I don't know, we were just.
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B
It's been something that we, I think have been on a journey of figuring out how we're doing this ourselves. So it felt kind of irresponsible to be like, why don't you get in here too?
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C
Yeah.
- [01:19]
B
I think we're at a point now though, where this is exactly the right moment to open it up and bring in another voice. And we're very happy to have you. There's a case to be made that the album we're talking about today, it's not so high stakes. Like I think that they set out when they made this album. Bottomless pit, judging by the message on the back of the album, very shallow listening. It might be a hint that they're doing something a little bit more, I don't want to say pop oriented, but
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C
copiest album since the Money Store. They're coming back with some bangers, I feel like.
- [02:05]
A
Yes, yes, very much so. What's your, what's your experience with, with Death Grips, Benjamin? Because we, we were messaging a little bit a couple weeks ago and I just said, you know, you want to come on and talk a record. And you, you said bottomless pit. That was the first one that came to mind was this, this, this was a record you were digging at the time.
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C
This is, I guess, the record. When I had seen them live, like, I think I saw them probably around 2018. They were playing at Afropunk in Atlanta.
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A
Sure.
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C
And we were playing the festival and like, I had heard some of their songs before, but like, was kind of More in like a different place, I guess. Back then, I don't remember what I was really know, but then when I saw them at the concert, it was. It was one of those concerts where like the entire field, like, the vibe was just kind of like everyone's draw on the ground kind of standing still. Like, just like a wall of sound kind of thing for the whole set. It was like a. It was like it started at 10 and then just kept going the whole time. You know what I mean? Like, if. When you talk about, like, having like, visceral experiences with art, it's like
- [03:17]
B
the
- [03:18]
C
most high degree of that you could have. You know what I mean? Like, so I think that that was when I was like, oh, man, this is a great band.
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B
What's your. Your history with listening to them? Like, have you been aware of them from the start or.
- [03:32]
C
Well, I went. I went back after, like, I remember when like, Ex Military came out and stuff like that and, like, hearing like, those songs and seeing the videos, but it was just. It wasn't hitting me at the right time. Like, I just wasn't in that place back then. I was listening to way different stuff. But I really went back to them after JPEG Mafia came out because his fans were constantly comparing him to Death Grips and to a point where he hated it. And I was like, let me go listen to Death Grips again, because I love the music that he was making. I was like, oh, this is why they're comparing him to Death Rips. When you hear this, this is such a kind of more masterful, well put together, bigger, more ambitious version of what I think that he does. And it's like, when I found that I kind of started listening more to them and less to jpeg.
- [04:29]
A
That makes sense. Yeah. I remember. I really love Veteran when that came out, which is still a great record. And all my heroes are cornballs also. But there is a. I don't know. Not to put down Peggy, but it's a little more like, kind of jokey, you know, or a little more shitposty. And this is more kind of like taking that stuff and doing it. Doing it, like, sort of seriously, not humorlessly, but like. Yeah, there's. There's a. There's a mastery, I think, to this.
- [04:56]
C
They seem so much more. So much more focused. Like, like, in the way that it's almost like, like the Kanye level kind of like focus, where it's just like a. You're just gonna do one thing for the whole album. And, like, they've given themselves a little Bit of room to play with certain sounds and stuff like that. But it's like a very kind of pointed, I feel like, record, you know what I mean? That's why I think when I. When I hear people who are artists or different people putting together records, it's like, do they have something to say? But that's what I mean. Do they have, like, a reason before they get started that they can, like, accomplish? And it seems like they were like, this is exactly what we want to make, like, you know?
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A
Absolutely.
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B
How do you think of them in terms of, like, where they stand in terms of, like, rock versus hip hop for you? Do you view them more one way or the other as an act?
- [05:53]
C
No, I think that that's one of the things that's so good about them is that they are able to take both of those and fuse them together and seamlessly. It's like around this time you had people like. You had also artists like Tame Impala, people taking guitar music, but kind of approaching it like electronic producers, you know what I mean? So guitar, the fuzzy, like, kind of guitar sounds, things like that just become more kind of like a. A texture that they're using and, like, less associated with the instrument, you know what I'm saying? It's like when you listen to, like, the. The first couple of songs, which are kind of like remind you of, like, hardcore punk. But it's like if an electronic musician was like, putting together, like a record song, you know what I mean?
- [06:42]
B
Like, yeah, on, like, Giving Bad People Good Ideas. Hear the first track.
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C
Yeah.
- [06:48]
A
What I love about it, and I think it kind of dovetails with what you were just saying there is that punk. We love punk rock here. Everyone loves punk rock. But sometimes, especially modern punk music, it can feel sort of costumey. And people are just doing the thing. They're hewing to the established genre conventions. They look a certain way, they sound a certain way, they, you know, they enunciate a certain way as singers or whatever. And that can still be an effective formula, but, like, it doesn't have the real juice of life that it might have had in 1970. Something.
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B
Well, it is a formula is the thing, when you do it that way.
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A
And, yeah, and Death Grips seems to be able to do that, but, like, actually do it, like, for real.
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B
Take a look at their album cover here. I mean, it's such an unmarketable and strange, inscrutable picture that they put on the COVID And the next album cover they put out is, like, even weirder.
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A
I love that.
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B
I guess All I'm saying is, when it comes to any kind of, like, punk or transgressive music ethos, I think that they're one of the few groups that maintain the element of surprise that's necessary.
- [08:00]
C
Totally. I feel like they actually feel dangerous.
- [08:04]
A
Totally. We're gonna focus on. On Death Grips here today. Bottomless bit, but listeners may know, of course, Ben put out a great. You put out a great record last year. Just last year, right?
- [08:16]
C
Early last year it was Jan. Yeah, yeah. January.
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A
January 25th.
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C
Yeah.
- [08:20]
A
And I talked to you for an interview on that lower, which is a bit of a left turn from what listeners might have come to expect from you. Something that, of course, Death Grips has done themselves. Can you just talk about that component of the work that you're doing?
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C
I'm way more excited about making music now that I think that I've been able to kind of get away more from genre. You know what I mean? Like, when you started. When I first started off, like, I thought a lot about songwriting and kind of the core elements of the song, like the chords and the. The main melody. I was coming from, like, folk and punk. And it's just, like, more about kind of, like, the main song and, like, less kind of about recording and those kinds of things. But Death Griffs are an example of, like, people who are doing insane music. Like, stuff that, like, I feel like would have been impossible to do easily on their own, I feel like. But now I think it's really exciting to just have access, to be able to do whatever you want with recording pretty easily at home. I still feel like hip hop, like, kind of, like drums and, like, different forms of hip hop mixed with noise. It's a very unexplored kind of, like, area in music. And I. That's, like, what I'm interested in now. That's what Death Grips have done for years. But, I mean, there's still so many more places to go with it for some reason. Like the. When you. There's very little, like, electronic music with, like, waves of distortion. You know what I mean? Like, it's like these two worlds don't merge.
- [10:05]
A
Yeah. We were talking about this a little bit on the last episode when we were doing Jenny Death, you know, which is sort of, you know, their rock record. And the fact that, like, you know, quote unquote, rap rock is like a. Like a. Like a sort of disreputable genre, at least when you think about, like, Bizkit or whatever. But, like, they're able to do that, but do it in, like, the complete opposite way. You know, this is not. This doesn't sound like Limp Bizkit, but you could say that it is like rap rock in a sense.
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C
Yeah, yeah.