Interview: The Optimen
The Optimen are an Australian hip hop group based in Brisbane. No long intro is needed; all you need to know is below!
What’s the story of The Optimen?
The story, like our general intelligence, is quite simple. Fortunately, like our collective attention spans, it is also quite short!
The three emcees in the group (Sammsonite, DATS and myself Kristoff the Russian) met sometime in the later part of the 90s. Our high schools were literally on opposite sides of the street and, as such, there were many combined school parties on the weekends where we would eventually meet up and discover our shared interest in beat based music and just generally having a good time.
Though there were ‘freestyle cyphers’ and that sort of thing going on for us, we were actually more involved in DJ-ing at that time: Sammsonite had turntables and a mixer and I had the beginnings of what would one day grow to become a quite sizeable hip-hop vinyl collection (RIP), so we’d regularly get roped into playing at parties – usually for a ride to and from and some beer.
Turning our attention to rapping, recording and producing our own albums developed shortly after: Sammsonite completed a sound engineering course at SAE (he’d eventually earn a sound design degree from QUT) and had a modest recording set-up in the basement of his parents’ house (the original ‘Space Ghost Studio’) and DATS became a diligently self-taught audio-expert around the same time.
So, we thought “Hey, let’s make an album!”
We didn’t.
We actually made an EP first (‘O2: Breath Control’ – 2002), produced completely in-house. Despite being crude and lacking the sophistication of our more recent work, it somehow received a very positive response from the music media and gave us our first taste of national radio play (we were all at Sammsonite’s place when it came on the radio unexpectedly – for the first minute, we thought it was a prank). Our decision to make all creative choices ourselves and keep production in-house, though we didn’t realise it at the time, would set the DIY ethos for The Optimen across our career.
For the EP we collaborated with our friends the Terntable Jediz (DJs Sheep, Damage and Kenny), who all contributed cuts and would continue to for all of our releases across our catalogue – the former two would also become official members of the group. Damage, while unable to tour due to health reasons, is still a member.
Time passes and we play hundreds of shows, tour the country, win some awards, drink a whole lot of beer, play to crowds of hundreds at festivals and concerts, often alongside some of the local and international names we idolised from as far back as our adolescent years. We also release a couple of albums, shoot a couple of film clips, make a bunch of new fans and occasionally quip a witty remark on Twitter.
In this time, more importantly, we also pick up long-time pal Peter ‘The Premier’ Beaty, who assists us with studio mixing but, more importantly, rocks out on stage, punching out our instrumental samples on the Korg Padkontrol sampler and Greg ‘Minty Slice’ Arnott, an amazing pianist (‘Wash your mouth!’) who contributes keys to our studio recordings and live shows.
Basically, we’re a bunch of pals who get to hang out and play music once in a while. Pretty sweet deal.
What can you tell about your music making process?
It very much depends. I buy a lot of old and obscure vinyl albums, which is where we source most of our samples. Often we’ll find a piece of music that has a particular feel to it, or it might contain a vocal phrase, and that might establish the theme of the track, so we start writing from there. Other times Sammsonite or DATS might share a new beat around that they made, and someone will throw out a suggestion for what the track could be about. Other times, we might hear a saying somewhere or the name of a movie or TV show (we feed off popular/not so popular culture a lot) and just run with it.
Nothing is too rigid or structured with how we come up with ideas or develop them: whatever way it happens, that’s okay. Generally speaking though, Sammsonite and DATS produce the beats and Kristoff comes up with the larger percentage of track themes and chorus hooks.
Which acts have shaped and inspired you?
Each of the three emcees writes their own verses. There may be small exceptions to this, but it’s the general rule. Coming up with choruses is a task that is shared: whoever comes up with the most preferred option – that’s the one we’re going to run with.
As for inspiration, there are far too many, especially across so many of us, but we are big fans of soul, soul-jazz, big band, rock, blues… most kinds of music really – particularly those with African-American roots. We pay homage to these musicians in our track ‘Respecognise’.
Other than that, film and documentary makers, authors, poets, philosophers, radicals and agents of change. These people all give us ideas and inspiration.
Personally speaking, I additionally like Quentin Tarantino, Charles Bukowski and 1970s European prog rock. I don’t know if art and entertainment consumption preferences and inspiration are necessarily one and the same thing, though.
People who grow stronger and persevere through adversity and who free themselves by letting go of fear. They inspire me.
80s Babies
How did you get into rap and hip-hop?
I always liked rap music as a kid growing up in the 80s. It was exciting and new and had all this damn attitude. The wordplay and the cool rhythm of the drums was appealing to me (I’d been a fan of Dr. Seuss and rock drums since before school) and so, when I discovered there was a more ‘underground’ culture of hip-hop happening (it really should have been obvious, right?) in my first year of high-school, I went bananas on it.
I saw a flyer for ‘Phat Tape Hip Hop Show’ which was a show hosted by historical local figure DJ Katch (and eventually Seany B) every Sunday night from 10pm to midnight. Because it was a school night, I’d mostly tape the show (audio cassette, kids) and that right there would be my listening material for the week. Consequently, I’d come to learn the lyrics to lots of songs very well, become accustomed to rappers’ voices and beatmakers’ production sounds and styles.
Some people talk about owning their first car being the most liberating moment in their life. For me, it was being gifted a Sony cassette walkman. Come to think of it, I won it in a school raffle in grade 5. My family was too poor for cassette walkmans.
So yeah, by the time I met Sammsonite and DATS, they’d been into the Beastie Boys, Gravediggaz, Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, Notorious B.I.G, and stuff like that too, so, for 1996, that meant we had a lot in common, being from the predominantly white, inner-western suburbs of Brisbane, Australia.
I dabbled with DJ-ing and B-boying too, just for fun, but graffiti was what occupied most of my time (more than rapping) for most of my life since I first picked up an aerosol can at age 14. However, I’ve had several run-ins with the law by now and I’m focusing on music much more, so it’s pretty safe to say that I’ve had my fun with paint. Time to move on.
What’s the best piece of praise you’ve received so far?
I’m never sure how to answer a question like this, or how other musicians or performers choose to answer them: it’s so complicated. As strange as it is, despite the fact that we’ve won some awards, been selected to support influential international acts, and had our own local fans and street press offer accolades, some of the most honouring praise, for me, comes from people on the other side of the world.
Every now and then we’ll receive an email, a YouTube or Myspace comment, a private message on Twitter or whatever, from someone in Bolivia or Spain or America or Canada or Scotland or Japan or Sweden … from places all over the world, who have taken time to comment on our music and tell us how much they enjoyed it. This is always so rewarding for us, to know that a couple of kids who started goofing around in a suburban basement, recording rap tracks, have produced something that wound up in the hands of someone halfway around the world – and they really enjoyed it!
Just this year we received an email from a French film producer who asked if he could use one of our songs for a movie he’s working on. That was pretty freaky too. Like, in a good way.
Your lastest album ‘The out Of Money Experience’ was released last year; what can you tell us about it?
This has definitely been our most polished body of work to date. Coming in at over an hour, this release, in some ways, took us our entire lives to produce. In more worldly and literal ways, however, it took about two to three years.
We’ve drawn on our life experiences much more than before this time around, as well as commenting on society and admitting to our own flaws (something we’re pretty open with).
Musically, it’s very diverse, with a broad assortment of instrumental samples that have been sourced from all over the world (Japan, Czech Republic, Philippines, France and of course, America). We really tried to craft better songs this time around, so we paid a lot of attention to the development and progression of each song, ensuring it started in one place, then built and climaxed, then found resolve and worked its way back down.
This was probably the most key difference for this album. It was also the first time we’d used session musicians, and the first time we’d featured international guest emcees (Phil the Agony – USA, and Jehst – UK). A lot of firsts for this album, actually. It is easily the album we’re most proud of, speaking personally and I’m sure on behalf of the group too.
Do you prefer performing live or recording?
Again, this is pretty hard to answer definitively, one way or the other, and it might vary depend on who in the group you ask – especially because, for example, Greg Minty has really played a lot more shows than he has spent hours in the studio.
While I don’t enjoy the actual hours spent recording and mixing, I probaby prefer the studio for some reason. This is where it all comes together and your album takes shape, track by track. Ideas get bounced around here too and while it can be very challenging to try to satisfy the most number of people most of the time, it keeps us grounded and forces us to make compromises (when consensus can’t be reached). Fortunately we almost always see eye-to-eye on creative decisions.
Live shows are a darned heck load of freshly baked country fun, but creating in the studio is more rewarding. Yee haw!
How do you promote your music?
How we market our music usually comes down to what budget we have at the time. For our most recent album ‘The Out of Money Experience’ (which, ironically, we injected the most money into), we employed a third party publicist, who helped to line up press opportunities and acted as a mediator between The Optimen, as the artist, and various nationwide and regional radio stations and media outlets, hoping to score some radio play for us.
Through this avenue, as well as by our own means, we marketed by print ads (street press, graffiti magazines etc) and created some online banners that we used both as paid-for ad space on relevant websites, but also as something to embed on myspace comments etc and that would link to our online store.
Other than this, we’re pretty much a grassroots/street-level sort of self-promoting act, so we rely heavily on word of mouth, stickers, album and live show reviews, and also on social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and (not so much any more) MySpace.
We also have most of our music and film clips up on YouTube, Vimeo and SoundCloud – with some tracks free for download … Oh, and our music on iTunes. That has been a very helpful way for us to get our music out there too.
And lastly; what are your plans for 2011?
2011, even though there may not be a new release on shelves, strictly speaking, is sort of one of the most exciting periods for us so far. Now that it’s been a year since our ‘The Out of Money Experience’ album has been out, the ripples have sort of been sent out and are now reaching us again on their return: we’re still getting lots of live show requests (even overseas), and now that our Twitter is taking off, we’re discovering more and more Australian artists that we’ve looked up to for some time think very highly of what we do, which is obviously very satisfying for us.
In terms of actual creativity – this is where it gets really exciting. Sammsonite and a female vocalist friend of ours (who featured on our last album) have almost completed a project called ‘Bankrupt Billionaires’. It sounds absolutely incredible with no word of a lie. It’s absolutely game-changing stuff – and I’m not even on it! Haha. But I did come up with the name of the group and submitted a large quantity of the samples they used, so I still feel somehow involved. Haha. DATS has also contributed some beats for this release.
It’s a much more ‘musical’ album than what we ordinarily put together – mostly by virtue of it containing melodic vocals, but also in that it sort of captures past eras of soul and rhythm & blues but modernises them too, but not to the point where it sounds like co-opted over-commercialised crap. It’s honestly incredible. I’m sure I used that word already, but I’m getting excited just thinking about it!
In addition to this, I’m actually working on a couple of side projects: one is called ‘Black & Chrome’ where I’ve partnered up with beat maker Dave V (VHS in this case) and I’ve adopted the name ‘Vladimir Vodkashot’. It sort of has a retro-futuristic feel to it and we’ve made a pact that we want to ensure the album has a very un-laboured feel to it.
Because VHS plays his beats out in one take on the SP-404 (sampler), after he’s properly conceptualised them, of course, they can contain slight glitches and imperfections. We made the deliberate decision to keep these ‘human’ qualities, for this project – no quantisation!
I haven’t began writing to these instrumentals yet, but from what he’s been sending me so far, it won’t take long.
It has been a new experience for me, working with someone outside of The Optimen, and I think it’s going to be helpful for me to keep the process of writing and recording new and fresh for when we start out on the next Optimen album.
My other side project is called ‘Wolfgang Winters’, where I’ve basically adopted the persona of some tormented loner from a cold place that snows a lot (cheerily called ‘Wonderland’ – get it?) who basically takes exception to almost anything, especially authority figures and ‘outsiders’ and subsequently ends up chasing most of them through the woods, killing them and burying them in the snow.
I sort of wanted to bring something more like a Tarantino film into music – stuff that’s very visual and, even when it depicts confronting acts and ideas, like putting a slug in a law enforcement officer and encasing them in ice – it can also be done in a way where the listener understands they are consuming entertainment and fiction and that it’s in no way literal or a suggestion for them to copy the same sort of lifestyle… if they even could. Basically it’s all just meant to be a bit of fun… believe it or not. Haha.
As for new Optimen material – we have a couple new songs that we’re pretty much ready to unleash. We’re hoping to have these out in a month or so but we’ll be looking to release them, if only digitally via iTunes or something, mid-year. With any luck, we’ll get a chance to follow them up with a bit of a national tour, even if just major cities and larger town centers on the east coast.
I’m really excited about our next group album though. We’ve all already learned so much since our latest release, and Sammsonite and DATS are only ever getting better (somehow) on the boards. They’re using more instruments and plug-ins and junk than ever, and now that Sammsonite has the new and improved studio (Space Ghost Studios) we can do more session recording for drums or guitar or whatever we want.
Also, this is going to be the first release that Greg ‘Minty Slice’ Arnott has been on board for from the jump, so we’ll benefit from his tender touch on the keys for the whole recording process. It’s going to be crazy. I’ve already got some stupid new samples for us to work out, so with the samples, the studio, the keys and the production skills on deck – I can’t wait to see what happens.
We’ve always committed to improving our sound and style with each release. Over four releases we’ve managed to keep that the case so far, I thik. I look forward to bettering our last release again. It will be mega monster rap 5000. No doubt.
