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MC Frontalot Interview
by Doom
As seen in this article, MC Frontalot is quite the rapper. Recently, I got to sit down for an interview with him [well, not really; we conducted it over e-mail].
Here it is:
1. When did you decide that fronting 24/7 was your calling in life?
I did not decide to front 24/7. I just can't help it. I did actually try to put a schedule together where I was going to front maybe half an hour daily and be totally authentic the rest of the time. Hasn't worked out.
2. What do you do for a living, other than rapping?
I design web pages and print materials, write and edit copy, and I take occasional mountaineering gigs as a sherpa.
3. Which songs of yours that you are most proud of, musically?
Indier Than Thou came out pretty well. Not that I wrote any of the music in there, but I did a good job of pulling bars out of my friend Gaby's long keyboard improv and arranging them. Rewind also has kind of a nice feel.
4. What are you working on currently?
I have to get a no-sample album together so I can get signed to some indie label and then attain superstardom. Also, I'm putting together a band in Brooklyn.
5. What was it like performing at the Penny Arcade Expo?
Oh man that was awesome. People were hollering and bribing each other for tickets. People were mouthing the words to the songs. I was sweaty. It ruled.
6. What compelled you to start writing politically-oriented songs?
Well, I grew up in Berkeley, so it's a little bit in the blood. Plus, I got to feeling like the American protest song hasn't been as visible as it ought to be. With such a lousy president, everyone should be complaining loudly over fat beats! Just doing my civic duty. I am very glad to see that Chuck D has spearheaded a huge grassroots protest rap project over at rapstation.
7. What tech do you use for recording your songs?
Microphone, laptop. Adobe Audition (nee Cool Edit Pro) and a Tascam US-424 interface. Which has asstastic drivers, I can't really recommend it.
8. How successful is your Valued Sucker Program?
Better than I'd ever hoped, yet totally meager in terms of income.
9. How much traffic does your site rake in, on average?
Less than 10,000 visits a month.
10. What was it like working on KOMPRESSOR on 'Rappers We Crush' and MC
Hawking on 'Bitchslap'?
Those were both good clean fun. Kompressor is a kind and gentle soul. I think it is his extreme sensitivity that has inspired him to stop giving songs away for free on the internet. Or maybe the need to get money for jars of ants. His new album is lovely, just a whole lot of beautiful harmonies in there. MC Stephen Hawking is another story. Misanthrope. Runs over babies in his chair. I had a lot of fun writing that song with him, although he kept making me rein it in; the original version had the bitch-ass TA pointing out that Hawk had spoo'd in his trousers (because of giving a co-ed a ride to class) and then the class laughs at him. That was changed to getting him the wrong kind of coffee, which is less humiliating, but still worked okay in the narrative. MC Stephen Hawking was concerned that the other (non-MC) Stephen Hawking would hear the song and feel less positive about the project in general. If it centered on spoo.
11. Have you ever gotten any hate mail?
There was one after Special Delivery, it just said "All her enemies will burn" in red italics. I think it was from the arsonist new boyfriend of an ex-girlfriend.
12. You've recently put up a merchandise section on your website, selling T-shirts and stickers and the like. What Frontalot related novelty products are you interested in peddling?
If I could really sell anything I wanted, there would be action figures, monkey diapers, designer eyeglasses, wingtips, cheese knives and/or oyster shucking kits, a GBA game, language training cassette tapes, and rat poison.
13. Any internet musicians you'd like to give a shout out to?
All of them.
14. Who's more hardcore: you or Vanilla Ice?
Embarrassingly enough, the answer is probably Vanilla Ice. We don't think of him as hard per se, but he does stomp around and talk all angry these days.
I don't think I'll ever do that.
15. What's more nerdcore: Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Gallactica?
It's funny that all three of those properties phase-shift through dork culture from decade to decade. In 1986, you'd have to say Star Trek, as its fan base was composed entirely of devoted weirdoes with Klingon dictionaries on their bookshelves and convention travel plans. Jedi was only a few years old at that time and tons of reasonably popular fifth graders still played with the Kenner toys. Then Next Generation brought Star Trek back to the TV audience, and Star Wars ripened into a thing kept alive by obsessives, collectors, and conventioneers... I'd say that about a month before Phantom Menace came out, Star Wars was at its critical mass of nerdcore fervor--but then that piece of shit movie came out, plus the next one, and now blech. The SW universe is massively devalued. Most of us have to struggle to remember the thrill of standing in line for Empire Strikes Back. It's so much easier to conjure the image of five thousand billion Jar Jar Burger King toys degassing in a landfill. Star Trek also suffers from mass-cultural saturation, what with the endless procession of lame spin-offs and C-grade movies, but those are a little closer to invisible to non-Trekkie folks. I would then have to say Battlestar fandom is the nerdcorestest, except they made that terrible, overslick modernization. At least it was only on Sci-Fi Channel. Or was it USA?
16. Favorite space alien?
David Bowie in the Man Who Fell To Earth. I think the blobby kids at the end of The Explorers would have been greatly improved by turning into coke fiends.
17. Transformers or G.I. Joes?
Oh come on. Transformers. Though they will be permanently inferior to the Japanese toys their designs were licensed from.
18. If there was a film about your life, who would portray you?
Reese Witherspoon
19. More nerdcore: Fred Savage in The Wizard, or Dennis Hopper as King Koopa in Super Mario Bros.: The Movie?
Believe it or not I've never seen either of those movies. This revelation will probably end my rapping career.
20. Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to conduct this interview. Anything else you would like to say?
Register to vote! Then actually vote!
There you have it, folks. MC Frontalot, internet superstar.