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Dynamite Hack
Slims Sept,San Francisco, CA |
  
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......It all began in Austin, Texas where roommates Mark Morris
(guitar/vocals), Chad Robinson (bass/vocals) and Mike Vlahakis (guitar) began
mixing funk , blues, and rock. Dynamite Hack drew inspiration from bands
like Weezer, Pavement, as they began to form their sound.
.......Dynamite Hack's
acoustic folk-rock cover of N.W.A.'s "Boyz -N- the Hood,"
which became a local radio hit in the Austin/ Dallas area in 1999. In its wake,
the group recorded a full-length album title Superfast, which was
released locally in January 2000 and remixed for national distribution by
Universal that summer. "Boyz -in -the Hood" became the most
requested song on radio station 101X…which lasted for nearly 3 months.
......The band soon began to
receive flack for taking a gangster rap song and making it so damn white.
"We were all rap fans growing up," says Chad, "listening to lots
of Public Enemy, NWA and the Ghetto Boys.
.......With the successful
recording of their first album now behind them, the members of Dynamite Hack
are hitting the road. I caught with them playing at Slims in San Francisco for
this Interview..
......INTERVIEW with Mark
Morris of DYNAMITE HACK
Q: It looks like the song "Boyz-N-the Hood" has
pretty much catapulted your music career
A: Yeah. It was kind of accidental really how it
happened. We put it in our first record and our first record was so bad, it was
like a demo that we made for so little money and it was very bad and then we
went in to record again and the producer had these big dreams of how it's going
to be of big record and we weren't going to put Boys- N- the Hood on it, and he
was like "You've got to put Boy's in the Hood on it. It's like your foot
in the door." We totally didn't believe him. It's doesn't matter, no one's
going to hear this at all. So, we re-recorded it, because he thought the first
recorded version of it was just really sloppy and bad and it was. So, we redid
it and we had the album for a like a year and we were just sitting on it, and
then we made copies of it and a friend of ours who is radio DJ at 101X Austin,
he was like - let me put this on. We didn't want him to. No, you can't put in
on. And then, finally, the band was going through a whole bunch of problems,
like we were fighting a whole lot and then we just said oh fine, take it, put
it on, we don't care, nothing's going to happen anyway. Stop bugging us about
it. So, he put it on and phone calls started coming and they went to Dallas and
it was like Number One for three months at the Edge. It was crazy. And then
labels started calling. Yeah. It's been blessed. It's kind of funny though.
Just cause that song is kind of like - I like the song, I think it's catchy and
I think it's fun, but it's kind of not exactly what we are about you know.
Q: Did you have a lot a controversy after that with Dre?
A: You know, they are getting most of the money I think.
So I think Dre was behind it from the beginning, from what we were told. I
don't know - record labels have a history of telling you exactly what you want
to hear, and so, I never talk to him about it. There didn't seem to be too
much. I got some negative e-mail from some gangsters - "Don't come to L.A.
or I'm going to kill you," that kind of thing. I wasn't trying to make fun
of Easy-E . It wasn't like I sat there and said, "Hmm, I want to do this
sociological thing. I'm going to say something so I'm going to make fun of rap
they way - I'm going to steal from them the way they steal from us, or
something like that." People give me way to much credit for it. I was just
trying to write a love song and I started singing that and you know, and it
wasn't like there was any great thought process.
Q: The guitar rifff at the end with the Beattles song
Blackbird was cool?
A: It was at first "Blackbird" and then it was
directly, "pump gas tricking in the dead of night" - I mean just
directly from Blackbird, and then Sony and Michael Jackson said you have to cut
that out, so we changed it. We changed it I think just enough to where they
don't have any legal grounds. But the guitar riff is not anything like
Blackbird, and the melody now isn't anything like it, but people still say they
can see it, they can recognize it in there.
Q: There is a lot of old songs mixed into new music
nowadays and people are getting used to it when it sounds good. But really
their is only so many cord variations you can make, what do you think. ?
A: I think David Bowie or somebody, I forget who it was,
I think it was David Bowie, said that music is like a finite thing. There are
only so many cords that are there, so you can't - there is going to be a
certain point where everything is going to remind you something else that
happened, because there is only so much to work with. It's a pool is what he
said and you're going to drain it and you're going to reach the bottom, you're
not going to just keep draining it forever.
Q: That makes sense. How about using the "N"
word in a song did that kind of upset any one.?.
A: I never wanted to put it in, in the first place. I was
outvoted by every single person in the studio from band members to producers to
engineers to everybody. And then, it always upset me and I never liked singing
it, and then Dre saw the video and he said that's gotta go, so the record label
at the very last minute just did a quick edit and just cut out the sound
completely, which is just horrible. They ended up destroying 90,000 copies of
the record or something, because the edit was so bad that we didn't like them
sending it out. And so, I had changed it from the "N" word to
Brothers, just cause that's workable, so hopefully it hasn't upset too many
people, cause I never like sat there and really believed in it or wanted to say
it.
Q: I'm glad to hear that you got fed up with controversy.
So how are your other songs doing ?
A: "Anyway" has gotten a little bit of air
play. It's not taking the world over, but it's not doing so bad. I think a lot
of people would kill to have as much air play as we have, so like we want to be
the Foo Fighters, so we are just impatiently waiting for it to hopefully pick
up more, but you know.
Q: Has Weezer influenced you in anyway?
A: I think so. I think that every song I've tried to
write, I've tried to write like Rivers Cuomo for many years. And then Chad
wrote "Anyway" and it was right at the period of time when were
listening to a lot of Weezer, so I think it does have some sort of influence on
it, but he won't admit it now, but I think it does.
Q: They were here just a month a go.
A: We were on tour with them. That was a dream come
true. We played 22 shows with them. It was awesome.
Q: I bet that was fun.
A: It was great. The crowds were a little mean. They were
a little impatient for Weezer. Like we'd come out and they'd cheer for a second
and then they'd see that none of us was Rivers and then they'd go "Weezer,
Weezer, Weezer". They are one of my favorite bands ever. By the way, just
for your knowledge, Chase Texas isn't in the band anymore. Yeah, he's our old
drummer and we had to get rid of him and we got Kyle Schneider.
Q: He's from Texas too?
A: He's from Austin.
Q: Is Austin a good place for music now?
A: No. You know they hype it us as the live music capital
of the world, and it's like. Here's how the system works and we are very bitter
about it. The system works like this. If you are white boy funk bad, funk band
and if you are good looking, then the sorority girls go to see you and then the
guys say, wait a minute all the chicks are going here, let's go here, because I
don't want to go see this cool Indy band or this cool pop band, because no
one's there - like no chicks go to see them. And the chicks that do go to see
them, don't give the fraternity guys the time of day. You know they're like all
the alternative chicks that don't want a frat boy boyfriend. So, Austin has a
huge Greek population (not Greek like nationality, but like Greek like in
fraternities), and so, these people like Bob Schneider. Have you ever heard of
him?
A: No.
A: He's a white boy funk kind of guy. He's a good looking
guy. Then there's a band Vallejo. Vallejo is the name of one of the bands and
Bob Schneider's like been in 4 different bands or something, and he's dating
Sandra Bullock. So, girls galore go to see him - both of the bands. All the
frat guys follow, and then consequently, every venue only wants to book bands
like that you know. They don't want to book us. They want to book the bands
that are going to bring 800 drunk frat boys and sorority girls and make a
shitload of money. So, it's a bad scene and it's not as cool you would think it
would be. And you usually get the white boy funk or you get the people who are
trying to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Q: I was wondering about that?
A: And they are failing miserably and they think that
they're just ripping it up and they are doing just the same old blues riffs and
the same old blues solos.
Q: I'm glad you told me that, because I was told Austin
had a music scene with being a University Town. It gets stereotyped and
typecast into a certain thing.
A: Yeah, yeah. And no one ever makes it out of Austin.
Fast Ball did, but no one went to see Fast Fall before they made it. I mean
they were just like us. They were a struggling band in Austin. There a lot of
cool bands there and everyone's friends and it's a cool community, but at the
same time you can't get anybody come see you.
Q: So was it the air play of this song that brought you
to the attention of Universal?
A: Yeah. It got on the air, and like I said it was Number
One in Dallas for so long, but it was actually Number One with the original
Blackbird ending. Then Universal same, and so when they were going to release
it wide, that's when we had to change it. So, yeah, the air play did get them
to come.
Q: How did the song about "Kate Moss" come
about?
A: That was like Chad and I, we used to sit around and
argue who's choice of supermodel future wife was going to be hotter. He liked
this model named Latichia Costa and she's kind of like a full figured big
busted model and I always liked Kate Moss, so we'd get in these big arguments -
Here's Chad now - and Dear Kate was born out of that. So I decided to write a
song. Chad helped me write it. And so, it was kind of jokingly written, but
there are some bad things about it, but he wrote all the bad things and I wrote
all the good things. So... all the insulting things he wrote (laughter).
Q: So you merge on songwriting?
A: Sometimes, but not very often. Most of the times I'll
come in with a song and give it to them and they will do what they want to over
it, but occasionally, like there is 4 or 5 songs that we've written, that we
wrote together.
Q: What do you think might be your next single?
A: I think "Anyway", and then after that, it
might be "Alvin" or "Dear Kate." I think it's kind of
shifted between the two of them. A lot of people want Alvin and a lot of people
want Dear Kate. I don't really care. I like them both a whole lot, so whatever
they choose.
Q: I listened to your C.D. You have a lot of good beats
to your songs. It's catchy.
A: Thank you.
Q: How many times have your toured the East
Coast.
A: We've played the East Coast like 5 times. All year.
We've been out since like May and we have been on the West Coast twice. We were
on the East Coast with Weezer. We played New York City, Boston, Jersey,
Providence. We just went up to Toronto. So we've been there like I said, we've
played Boston twice, Providence twice, New Jersey three times. We've played a
lot up there.
Q: Are you able to write any songs on the road?
A: No, I haven't been able to, but a couple of them have
been. But I mean we all have just a whole crap load of songs at home. We've had
these songs from like 1996 or '97 that are on the record. They're old. They
were written a long time ago - most of them. In that time that we were waiting
to record them we wrote a whole bunch of other songs as well. I think I have
like 30 or 35 songs just sitting at home just waiting to do something.
Q: Do you have to pretty much run the course of this tour
before you can release them.
A: Yes. Good question. We are just kind of like out here
waiting.
Q: So you already talked about influences like Weezer. Is
there any other bands you like?
A: I think lately we all went through the Pavement phase,
so we're getting to like real Indie experimental kind of stuff and less pop. I
don't like the Melvin's , but Chad does.
Q: Chad does has glasses, are you starting to transform
into Melvin ?
A: I could be a Melvin, or one of them.
Q: What about your rap influence?
A: This is going to sound bad, but the only rap band that
I ever listen to is Easy E and NWA. Those are the only two. I listen to the
Beastie Boys, but they're not really gangster rap. So it's still rap I guess.
Q: Lyrically they are really different.
A: And they are a lot more experimental in the music
world.
Q: They are always talking about New York this and
Brooklyn that...
A: Yeah. So I listen to Easy E all the time in high
school. That was my most played CD's in high school.
Q: Hopefully things will change for Dynamite Hack after
you've done this tour and go back to Austin to have hopefully a better turnout
then the sorority people.
A: I know there is a lot of cool people there. They just
don't go do anything. They sit at home and complain how there is nothing to do.
Meanwhile, there are great bands playing places. The good thing is that there
is like every night there is like maybe two, but usually one band that I want
to see, so it's like, that's what I do. I go through the schedule and pick out
that I'm going to go here from 7:00 to 9:00 and then from here from 11:00 to
12:00. Then I would pick two of them .
Q: Does labeling what kind of music you play bother you?
A: I've always been against that, because pop music isn't
really pop. I guess it is now, like Brittany Spears, that pop and its popular.
That's where pop comes from. Like Nirvana, that was one of the most popular
bands around, but they weren't pop. I have always just been against that. As
far as music changing, I would like think that it all works in cycles. Like you
had some good 80's rock bands that came along and then it got so distorted that
everyone started copying them and then it got to be like a joke and then it
went through a boy band phase like New Kids on the Block and all these
non-threatening pop idols started coming out and then everybody got sick of it
and grunge came along and it just blew up. And then it got ridiculous because
everybody started copying everybody and it just got ridiculous and then the boy
bands are back. So I am hoping that there is going to be some band that's going
to come along and just like take everybody over.
By Randy Cohen
This is the
official Rock Publication web site © 2000
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