CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY OF PRINT ISSUE #9, WHICH FEATURES THIS INTERVIEW WITH CUT CHEMIST IN ITS ENTIRETY!

ONCE UPON A TIME, CUT CHEMIST WAS IN A BAND CALLED OZOMATLI. YOU PROBABLY KNOW HIM AS ONE OF THE DJS FROM JURASSIC 5. RECENTLY, HE STEPPED AWAY TO RECORD HIS VERY FIRST SOLO ALBUM, THE AUDIENCE'S LISTENING. I INTERVIEWED HIM. READ IT!

Vinnie Baggadonuts: So are you excited about doing press for an album that is entirely yours?

Cut Chemist: (ON SPEAKERPHONE) What did you say? Maybe I should do this without the speakerphone. That almost sounded private.

VB: (laughs)

CC: (TURNS OFF SPEAKERPHONE) Hey. What’s the question?

VB: I just wondered if it was different doing interviews for an album that’s strictly yours, as opposed to a collaboration with other people.

CC: Oh yeah. It’s totally more personal. It carries a lot more weight.

VB: Is it a hard thing to get into though?

CC: Hard to talk about? Sometimes. I’m the type of artist that likes to do it, not talk about it. But I have to make a living, so I have to talk about it. I have to figure out a way to communicate it to the people before they figure out if they want to buy it.

VB: I don’t know how long it took to make the album, but what frame of mind were you in when you were recording it?

CC: I was struggling.

VB: Really?

CC: Yeah. I was struggling because I was trying to make something that was so unique. And by the time I turned it in, I almost forgot how much of a struggle it was. But then you just reminded me.

VB: (laughs) Sorry.

CC: (laughs) That’s alright.

VB: Was there a struggle at all with your initial vision and how it wound up being in the end, as far as sample clearances or just things progressing differently?

CC: No, it wasn’t too different. The album I wanted to make was exactly the one I did. I don’t think I expected to use the records I did.

VB: So when you started, it wasn’t a thing where you realized you could use all the records you’d been dying to use throughout the years?

CC: Right. I didn’t use any of those.

VB: Really?

CC: No, because I realized the records I wanted to use over the years were played out. You know, like that break-beaty kind of sound wasn’t where it was at anymore, so those songs didn’t make it.

VB: So what was the whole experience like, being able to sit down and do something you’d always dreamt about, and having it be completely yours?

CC: It felt great. I am so used to sharing the process with somebody else, you know? I didn’t get to do that this round. It was just me, so it was kind of lonely.

VB: But you got to go to Brazil.

CC: I got to go to Brazil, that’s true. But that was an adventure I took with other people. I just wound up straying away on my own and found something to do for my album in the process. Initially though, I went down on that trip for [photographer/filmmaker] Brian Cross’s Keep In Time project.

VB: Oh yeah!

CC: So that’s why I was there. I didn’t go there to record anything. It was just like a side dish.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRINT ISSUE #9 TO READ THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW!

READ OUR FIRST INTERVIEW WITH CUT CHEMIST HERE.