ANTIMC
(PRONOUNCED ANT-EYE-EM-SEE)
A NEW SOUND FOR A NEW GENERATION, ANTIMC GETS TO GRIPS WITH OUR QUESTIONS

Matthew Aaron Alsberg. I play guitar, bass, piano, trombone, synths, a turntable, a sampler, and a drum machine. And some other stuff. Basically if it makes a sound, I‘ll give it a shot.

How did the recording sessions for the new album go?
Slowly. I recorded the album at my mom and dad’s while I was still living with them. I had to find time between working on other peoples’ careers and my full social calendar to actually do what I told everyone I was doing, being a musician. Plus, every time I got some new equipment or learned some new technique of recording or playing, I had to re-record whole sections of the album.

What goals did you set yourself before you started recording?
To make my Sandanista, but shorter. I wanted to really capture all of the music I love to hear and play on one album - just get it all out there - and make it as cohesive and it could possibly be.

What do you feel are your own limitations when it comes to creating/writing music?
I think, based on the last answer, that I often think that since I love dub and punk and hip-hop and electro and a little bit of everything, that it’ll make sense to everyone like it does to me, to have it all on one album, or multiple genres married in the course of one song. A lot of music writers don’t seem to agree. I also sometimes pick up my guitar and feel a bit down that since I focused on making beats for so long, my full-on shred chops have fallen off a bit.

Tell us 3 of your favourite songs from your career and the inspiration behind them?
1. “The True Believer” with Saafir from It’s Free, But It’s Not Cheap. I was trying to really make an epic hip-hop track with big, sweeping, orchestral layers of sound built over bumpin’ drums and really progressing and developing into a huge finish. I was looking for a rapper who could tell a great story or express a real immediacy in his rhymes to be on my album, and a good friend of mine, Shane, put me in touch with Saafir. Saafir had been one of my favorite emcees when I was younger, and I was ecstatic to get the chance to work with him.

2. “Folding Dirty Laundry” from Free Kamal. I was really proud of this track when I finished it and gave it to Kamal (Radioinactive). Working on Free Kamal, I was trying to really make a really sunshiny ‘60s pop song to put on a rap record. Like a lot of the stuff I worked on with Radio, the inspiration just came from wanting to do something new.

3. “Aggressive Fun” with Radioinactive from the Aggressive Fun/Cruise Control 7” I was just starting to try and figure out how to make rap songs with bridges and parts and movements. I was at the same time just learning how to program drums a bit better and put samples together more seamlessly. Also, I think Radio really came with his A-game on the hook and the verses.

What would you say was the best show you ever played? why?
There have been a few that really stand out, all of them for different reasons. When I was backing Boom Bip in 2005, we played Istanbul, Turkey at an Eastern European dance club. The show was not that remarkable, but being in Istanbul and then partying with wild wealthy young Turkish kids afterwards was. Actually, that whole tour was pretty fun. Playing London in 2003 with Boom Bip was also pretty awesome. It was, at that point, the biggest show I’d played in that we were headlining, there was a long line outside, and I was thousands of miles from home. We really played well that night and when we came out for an encore, we just did some crazy noise thing and freaked everyone out. It was a blast. In terms of actual Antimc shows, the best was the first: an afternoon show at the Echo in Los Angeles. I played two songs and my backing band was Boom Bip on bass and photographer/drummer Dan Monick. Les McCann came and played on “I’m a Star Now” and it was completely disorganized and loose. Afterwards, my friend Cali DeWitt came over and told us that it was the most punk rock show he had ever seen. That was a pretty good show for me.

What are the bands plans for the rest of the year?
Considering it’s early February, I suppose I should just play it safe and say touring and starting on a new record. In the near future, I’m going on the road with Busdriver and Rjd2 in March, shooting a video for “Ten Days Out” with Adam Weisman who shot the Stüssy World Tour Documentary, and getting It’s Free, But It’s Not Cheap released in Europe through KFM. I actually just put a band together to try and tour the songs. It’s myself and two other DJ/musicians, Them Jeans (Jason Stewart) and Desert Eagles (Devin Foley), and the show is like a mix of an instrumental rock show, a hip-hop show, and a dance club. We’re trying to make it as fun as possible and still give a good representation of the music on the album.

How would you describe your own/bands sound?
It’s like driving down a busy street in Los Angeles on a Friday night with the window rolled down and absorbing everything you hear at once.

Who is currently moving you musically at the moment?
Madchester. Euro-Crunk. Hyphy. English Punk and Post-Punk. A lot of early LA sort of proto-gangsta rap. Dub and Reggae. Anything set in the proverbial “club.”

What album changed your life and why?
There’s been different albums at different times in my life. A short list: Run D.M.C. Raising Hell, N.W.A. and the Posse, Guns N’ Roses Appetite for Destruction, Black Sheep A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, The Clash London Calling, Spiritualized Ladies and Gentlemen, We’re Floating in Space, A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory, Various Artists Project Blowed (the original cassette version, not the CD re-issue). All of them changed the way I thought about listening to music and later, making music, and I can still hear something from any of them and be taken back to that special time or whatever.

A moment in your life and a song that seem so perfectly intertwined in your memory?
Fourth grade. Music appreciation with Mr. Nolet. He played Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” and I was blown away. I asked him to play it about ten more times after that, and he humored me (and a few others in the class) a couple more times. It was just at the dawn of my becoming aware of music as not just something that was in Disney movies or that my mom listened to in the car while she drove me to school, but as something that I could define my own taste in. It is a moment I vividly remember.

Your proudest achievement so far?
I thought about this one for a while, and I can’t really think of one thing. I’m one of those people that feel everything is a big deal, so, every couple days something happens in my personal or business life that I think is probably the coolest thing ever. So, I suppose maintaining my boyish exuberance is the overarching grand accomplishment.

If you could erase one single/album from history (your own or someone else's) which would it be and why?
The Clash London Calling. Then I’d re-record it with my name on it and no one would be the wiser.

How do you see yourself altering the band and your sound in the future? is there anything you wish to attempt in the future that's inspiring you right now?
I think I’d like to do one complete album with one vocalist. I know he just did something with Mouse on Mars, but I’d love to do a record with Mark E. Smith, and something with Mike Muir. I think in order to please some of the music cognoscenti, I also have to work on solidifying “a” sound as well. Or not.

A rumour you'd like to start about yourself, or one you'd like stopped?
I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t want anyone to say about me. The more salacious the better, or better, the more salacious the more accurate. There’s probably not much that could be said that would top the actual things that do happen in my sordid life.

What drives you?
Competition. Greed. Curiosity. Not necessarily in that order, but kinda.

What are your fears?
Disappointing people I respect. Flying. Roller coasters. Fireworks sometimes freak me out, too. Oh, and the fact that my beloved country is being hijacked by idiots.

The revolution comes, who would you like to be first against the wall (and if you're feeling particularly bitchy, a second, third, fourth and so on...)?
As an American, I feel it would be in bad taste for me to answer questions about a revolution in an English magazine.

Best piece of advice you'd give to aspiring musicians, or the best piece of advice you were given when you started?
No lie, the best piece of advice I think I’ve ever gotten, but have not used yet was from the great jazz pianist Les McCann, who told me when I was about 14, “Matt, never let a man suck your dick.”

If you're in a car going at the speed of light, and someone turns the headlamps on, would they do anything? It would look like I was telling ghost stories around a campfire. The headlights would illuminate the bottom half of my face while I passed through them.

Thanks to Nick @ Smash Press

- JEREMY CHICK, EDITOR IN CHIEF