Although the interview process was a little soured by the most uptight phone conference interview manager we’ve ever come across, our chat with Jesse Keeler, aka. JFK from
MSTRKRFT/
Death from Above 1979, was still a blast. In the strict 10-minutes we were allowed, an unbridled Jesse opened up about his solo plans, David Bowie and driving around in a giant pair of headphones.
Phone Lady: Thank you for holding Tim, you’re on the line with Jesse and you have ten minutes.
Jesse F Keeler: Woah, so regimented.
Tim O’Shea: Hi Jesse, how you going?
JFK: Good thanks.
TO: Did I hear you say it was a little regimented?
JFK: Yeah, YOU’VE GOT TEN MINUTES... and now I’ve wasted 40-seconds.
TO: Alright, we better get on with it. So my first question is on what you have coming up. you’ve been involved in a lot of projects, Death From Above has been put away, there has been murmurs of it coming back. What’s on the Jesse radar today?
JFK: Well I’m working on a lot of music right now and I actually have a solo record that I’ve been working on for a number of years. 2009 is when I started working on it, and I kept putting it on the back burner because I always had fifty other things that I was trying to do, or at least two other things I was trying to do so now I’m almost done. My hope is that it will be done before I come and visit you in your continent again. But I’m working on that, and still dance stuff. I’m trying to balance all of it, and I just said ‘yes’ to doing remixes again. I said ‘no’ for years just ‘cos I got tired of it, but now I’ve found myself wanting to do it again. Cranking ‘em out over here.
TO: Well both those bits of news are great.
JFK: I think so. I’m really excited – they both give me insomnia and a reason to wake up.
TO: You’ve had a lot of different sounds and covered a lot of genres under a lot of projects. What direction is your solo stuff heading in?
JFK: Ahhhh. I’m making the most ‘me’ dance record I’ve ever made. There are some interesting things with it that I think I should just keep as secrets until it’s out, then you’ll remember that we had this conversation. I’ve made a lot of punk records over the years, about fifteen or so since the mid-90s and there’re a bunch of elements from that way of making records that I feel get neglected in an all digital record release. So I think I figured out a way to find a compromise for that – I hope it’s enjoyable for everyone to listen to. Actually I made a rough demo today, and I had to drive across the city and listen to it all the way through. I was really excited. I almost got into a couple of car accidents (laughs), so I think it’s going pretty good.
TO: Yeah, I think the car is my favourite place to listen to music.
JFK: Yeah, you’re doing something else so the music is like a soundtrack. And the sound, it’s kind of like you’re inside a huge pair of headphones. You never get to hear things that way anywhere else. I’m sure everybody that has ever recorded and mixed music has done the car test. The car is forgiving but also makes mistakes pretty obvious.
TO: Okay, so while you’re not giving too much away, I’m pretty confident we shouldn’t be on the look out for
a book of sheet music like Beck?
JFK: Actually, people have been asking me to do a sheet of book music from all the Death from Above stuff so that people could actually learn how to play it. I know that my management has been talking to some people that do that sort of thing. Hopefully when it’s done I can just show up to a show and just pass the bass to some kids and they can just play it (laughs). I’ll figure out another instrument in the meantime. I don’t mean to be cryptic, I just feel like with music these days there’s an element of pop art in everything, the impact of things is based on someone being unprepared to hear it. The Andy Warhol soup cans – anyone could have done that, but he did and the value in it was that no one else had done it before. Not expecting things and having stuff surprise you is part of the enjoyment. I feel like I’m giving away a lot by just saying I’m working on music
TO: Yeah, I know what you mean. An album release is such a complicated thing these days, distribution has changed a lot. Does that scare you?
JFK: Yeah, honestly for at least a year I didn’t want to put out anything. I didn’t like anything that was going on, I didn’t like how music was. Last year the two songs that MSTRKRFT put out, we gave away for free. When the first one came out a day later kids were like, “This is awesome, when’s the next one?” I was like, “My God, digest!” It was like people were swallowing everything whole and feeding like blue whales with a huge sieve that goes through the music ocean, just clearing the sea and not tasting anything. I’m getting old, I still remember wanting to hear something, and not being able to hear it. The first time I hear something is the first time I have it, there was no way to preview things, there was no way of knowing for sure that something was coming. You didn’t know it was for real until it was in your hands. There’s a certain joy in not knowing – the things that are unknown are the things that I love the most. This is the first interview I’ve done today, I’m sure the later interviews I do after the lady comes on the line and tells us to stop will be a lot more polished (laughs). I want to apologise to you.
TO: No, polished answers are boring. This is much better. It brings to mind what I suspect was another unpolished answer. When you released Fist Of God, you said in an interview you were sure people were going to hate this album and that it was going to cop some bad reviews, but that you liked that. That’s a pretty unpolished answer.
JFK: Well, here is my explanation of that. You’re familiar with David Bowie’s work I’m going to assume. All through the ‘70s he would create characters and then just get rid of them, and then he would switch styles completely and go from the Ziggy Stardust Bowie, to the golden years Bowie or the young American Bowie, Broadway style Bowie…
Phone Lady: Sorry for the interruption but you have one minute remaining.
JFK: I’ll get it in in a minute, thanks… and we look at it now from a distance and we see it all at once. You can just skip around and you can listen to
Moonage Daydream and then you can listen to
Heroes in the next moment, but when those things were happening he was alienating a fan base every time. They were like, ‘Oh we’re so used to this glam character,’ and then he just killed it off and never went back, he never touched it again. Growing up listening to him you didn’t get that sense of perspective of the immense amount of time between all those records and all those things that changed. It’s only realistic to assume that as you change you will lose some of your old fans, because they are there for that specific thing but maybe not a fan of your music taste in general, which will be evident through whatever you do.
I don’t expect anyone who likes Death From Above to like MSTRKRFT, or to like anything I do dance-wise. I don’t expect anyone who likes MSTRKRFT to like anything I do dance-wise for myself. Or to continue following me through a bunch of different things because I don’t want to make the same record over and over again, and I don’t think music fans would like that anyway – like people who are actually interested in music. Is that that a good answer in the minute that woman so graciously let us have?
TO: Yeah mate you did well, good answer.
JFK: (laughs).
TO: Well dude, I better go before we get cut off.
JFK: No, we could keep going, where are you calling from?
TO: Australia.
JFK: No, where in Australia?
TO: In Melbourne, inside a phone booth actually. There’s a vintage phone booth in the lobby of my work, it’s the only quiet place to make calls. It’s a little strange, a red number from the ‘60s.
JFK: So its like you're in Doctor Who’s spaceship right now?
TO: Yeah, the Tardis.
Phone Lady: Excuse me Tim your time is up.
JFK: (laughs loudly).
JFK MSTRKRFT is performing at Stereosonic. Check out the full lineup here or enter Everguide’s competition to win double passes here.
STEREOSONIC 2012 DATES:
Saturday 24 November – Sydney Showground, Sydney
Sunday 25 November – Claremont Showground, Perth
Saturday 1 December – Melbourne Showgrounds, Melbourne
Saturday 1 December – Bonython Park, Adelaide
Sunday 2 December - RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
WORDS: Tim O’Shea