TLOBF Interview :: Akira The Don

One from the vaults…

Sometime, earlier in 2009, TLOBF managed to take a bite out of Akira The Don’s headless schedule to discuss the triumphs and tragedies that led up to the release of The Omega Sanction. Now set to release his gory new 7-track EP ‘I Am Not Dead (Yeah)’ (complete with compulsory dismemberment flick) it seemed an appropriate time to resurrect this dead lively interview. Sick of the implicit references to Zombies? OK then, let’s begin.

So you support West Brom, then?
My Dad does. Birmingham City Football Club, mayne.

You’re a bluenose?
Oui. Couldn’t tell you shit about what’s going on since ‘98 though. No time.

Script writing, rapping, writing, drawing – what don’t you do that you wish you could?
I wish I could play the piano like Billy Joel and I wish I could do astral projection. And I’d like to ride a horse.

Apart from Chris De Burgh, you appear to have excellent music taste – but what’s the beef with The Beatles?
Deaded! The beef is dead, I am happy to say. It was born out of rage and frustration and more the fault of their Britpop era copyists than themselves, la. That and Paul McCartney wound me up

Generally? Or with his music?
Oh, all of it. His stuff I found unbearably saccharine, and his face annoyed me. I was emotional as a youngster.

Emo?
Haha! Emo didn’t exist then. It was a different time

Aye – it were all METAL
HM Gear catalogue

Skid Row.
Youth gone wild. And Pornograffitti, mainly.

Extreme? You fancied Nuno.
My mum did.

Extreme III was shite.
It was a terrible shame. I bought it, all excited, on vinyl and it sucked balls. It was Queen’s fault. That Freddy Mercury gig went to their heads. That and Brian May saying they were the new Queen.

I reckon you’re the UK’s most political rapper. How say you?
Depends what you mean by politics I guess.

Everything, really. Not just Labour, Conservative etc. You have an opinion that’s not balls.
I do have an opinion, and I am not bothered about disguising it behind nonsense I suppose. Hunter S Thompson always used to say: “Politics is the art of controlling your environment.” He was onto more than he knew, I think.

Did you stay up to hear the results of the US elections?
I did! I drank a whole bottle of Jack Daniels that night. It was disgraceful.

That is very Guns n Roses.
I was at my girlfriend’s house. They had an election party, and I was yelling “HE’LL STILL MURDER THE BABIES!” at her Dad. But I was pleased cos I like it when people get to be happy for a short while – even if it is a hollow kind of joy.

Which life are you currently trapped in amongst the Omega Sanction?
Good question. I think that since I figured it out, and completed The Life Equation, that I am out, but I might be in another one and not know.

What’s your favourite tune on the mixtape?
‘Steam’, ‘The Omega Sanction’; ’18′ too and…well it is all pretty fresh!

You sound pretty loved up and happy on this record…
In places, yeah – probably the newer stuff. Life is as kind as you let it be.

I know you lost a lot of data when recording it – you held it down though.
Man, I had to restart the mixtape AND the album twice. I lost what was going to be the second album in New York. 30 odd songs fell off a table. Bang! Start again, and it came out much better so I am glad.

Can you briefly sum up the writing process?
It is often different these days. A lot of times I’ll be cycling and a song will appear, pretty fully formed, in my head, and I have to sing it into my phone and try not to crash.

Or I wake up with one in my head; or I’m going to sleep and one appears and I have to get up and record it; or I do the Tom Waits thing and sit down at the keyboard and hit chords; or I make a beat, and something appears over the top; or I’ll hear a record, and a new song will appear on top, like a harmony, so I sample it. I bet there’s other ways I’m not thinking of.

Songs are everywhere. The air’s full of them, they’re like ghosts. I get what Steve Wonder means when he says he doesn’t write them; he gets them from God these days. Cos it’s pretty much like that.

Are you religious at all?
Man is a religious animal, but I don’t subscribe to any, no. I suppose I have my own.

Akiraism?
Haha – that’s a good one. I am very interested in religion. I think the ancient wisdoms we have forgotten must all be hidden in the major texts, and I intend to study them all.

Could you have managed to fit any more songs on the CD?
No. I left off about 2 CDs worth. There are songs that didn’t make it that some might say are better, but I was trying to create something that flowed, had structure, and told a story, even if its not that obvious at first. It’ll make more sense when The Life Equation’s out.

Are you a gearhead?
As in techie, or man wot does lots of drugs? I’m too poor to be a gearhead, but I love what I have, and I’m interested in what’s out there. I get excited when people show me new stuff like Ableton 8. And Trigger finger what Joey2Tits (collaborator) showed me the other day. It’s fucking awesome and will change the way I make musics.

What instruments do you play?
I play rudimentary most stuff. Like, enough to paste together into a song. A bit of guitar, bass, keys, xylophone…that sort of thing. Nothing with any great level of skill.

Auto-tuning. Please explain the prevalence of this effect on the Omega Sanction.
Is there a prevalence?

Well – on a few tracks.
I hadn’t noticed. Oops. Ummm. its FUN!

Thought you’d be listening to Cher a fair bit, that’s all.
Haha! Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder. I swear they were using autotube. The backing vocals sound like robots. I love that shit, though it’s not for everyone. I wish Mef hadn’t bothered, but I am of the arrogant opinion that i can do whatever the fuck I like!

Any predictions for Hip-hop in 2009?
Drake’s looking good; Eminem’s looking bad; Wayne will be better than any of us I expect. Big Narstie’s album is amazing and Max B will release a classic.

What’s the beef, chicken and lamb with TV?
Fuck a TV.

Could be tricky.
Just cut a hole in it, and line the thing with steak. EW, nah. TV though, really it’s like having a load of dickheads in your front room that won’t shut the fuck up, or talk about anything that isn’t poisonous bullshit.

But what about The Wire and stuff like that?
I download it. If something’s good, I’ll hear about it. And if I have time, I’ll download it, and enjoy it projected on my wall

RIP John Martyn. Good call on ‘I don’t wanna know…’ When did you first hear that tune?
Thanks! That was Joey2Tits actually. It was snow day when he sent it. I listened to it all day long and wrote it a fortnight later after it had settled into my unconscious. I must have heard the original tune when I was little: my Dad had it.

Who’s your favourite Streetfighter character and why.
Dhalsim for the same reason my favourite character in Soul Calibur is Voldo: they’re awesome, scary fuckers!

If bankers rhymes with wankers. MPs rhymes with…
MPs spent cheese…spent fleas. Poor bastards, its like a feedback loop.

Speaking of wankers – is the forthcoming Life Equation gonna make Interscope go for that?
It’s gonna make them vomit in their mouths

You must still be sore from that. I know I would be.
Nah, not at all. Serious. I got so much out of that experience. It confirmed a lot of stuff I knew, I met amazing people, spent a year travelling America, got a studio. Lucky mud.

The Life Equation – so you believe existence is not futile?
How can it be?

How can it be futile?
Yeah.

I don’t know – I was inferring from the title. I thought you’d adapted the anti-life equation.
I did

Now I’m confused.
Haha. Well, I considered the opposite.

You considered that life was NOT futile?
I have always been of that opinion. I am the opposite of my father, in that respect. I see awesomeness wherever I look, and the potential for awesomeness; like the way some sculptors see the figure in the rock before they carve it.

That relates back to your approach to songwriting, really.
Yeah. It all links. Everything fits together perfectly, no matter how hard you analyse it.

Zen, baby.
Word.

Was Jack Kirby a big influence on your art?
Yeah, definitely. More so as I got older. I actually used to love that Rob Liefeld shit when I was 10. I have no idea why. You look at it now, it doesn’t even make sense. Just loads of ugly scratchy lines. Kirby’s work had such grace, it flows like poetry. Kirby was a true artist.

Why, in your opinion, are comics still so popular?
Comics as an artform or superhero stories?

As a medium and as something people continue to buy.
It’s a unique way of presenting something, of transferring an idea or an experience. It can do stuff no other medium can, so it has to exist because it has value. And the stories people tend to tell within its confines are the oldest stories know to man.

Unlike TV?
Well, TV has its place but its very limited. Comics have but one limit, which is the imagination of the reader.

Are you becoming Darkseid?
What’s the opposite of Darkseid?

I have no idea. Lightseid?
Haha! Well, it’d be nice to be becoming that. He had a dope helmet though…

What can we expect when the album drops?
You can expect humanity to evolve, all at once

I had someone else say that recently.
Who was that?

The guitarist from Blk Jks. He said he was searching for the ideal song to dissolve all matter.
Wow, I respect that.

It’s a bit Bill and Ted though.
I shall have to listen to them. I love Bill and Ted. They had a brilliant attitude. You ever read Evan Dorkin’s Bill and Ted comics?

Nope. Bought the soundtracks though.
GOD GAVE ROCK N ROLL TO YOU!

Would you be Bill or Ted, then?
Was it Bill with the hot Mom?

Yeah
Ted, then. Get the comic, it’s amazing.

Is it different to a graphic novel?
Yep. The guy who did Milk & Cheese did it. He’s a G.

Gangster or genius?
Both. Double G. You can get the comics collected in a graphic novel. I recommend “STATION!” highly.

What can we expect from an ATD live show?
Ooooh, sheeeeeeeeee-it. This one’s gonna be awesome. We’ve rethought the whole thing, stripped it all apart, and put it back together in optimal form for the night specifically. It’s gonna BANG!

What’s this I hear about Zombies?
We’re filming the ‘I Am Not Dead (YEAH!)’ video cut scenes.That’s a zombie film. I wrote 6 months ago. It’s gonna be ace. Me and my band are le resistance fighting the zombie plague with super-soakers.

Akira The Don Official Site