Photo by Lionel Deluy.
Rappfox chatted to Rob Garza, one half of American electronic music duo, Thievery Corporation, in the lead up to their Australian national tour. Thievery Corporation will be playing Perth this week and Rob spoke about his enjoyment touring Australia, influences on the new album and what else Thievery have been working on.
Hey, how’s it going [Rob]? Thank you for taking time out for this interview.
Sure thing.
So I’m from Perth, Western Australia and you’ll be coming here early next month. You’ve been here a couple times now, what do you love about touring in Australia?
We love the people, we love the vibe, we love just hanging out so its tough getting on an airplane to go back north whenever we’re down there. We always have a really great time with the fans. The fans are great and there’s a lot of love for Thievery [Corporation] down there.
Yeah, definitely. And obviously new music out this time, what can fans expect from this show?
This show we’ll be playing a bunch of songs for the new record. We have Racquel Jones touring with us for the first time down there. She’s an artist from Jamaica and she sings on the track Letter to the Editor. So new music and then playing stuff from all of the catalogue so you’ll be hearing all of the Thievery classics and a wide spectrum of music. Lots of different singers and a very energetic show.
Great! Do you ever find it difficult to perform the tracks live?
No, you know, we have a great band and the singers are great and so much so that we actually don’t have to rehearse all that much, cos the singers and musicians, everybody’s in sync and it just flows so everybody just catches the groove. It’s never been an issue to take a song from studio and perform it live.
You mentioned that you don’t have to rehearse all that much, so you’re bringing out of a band that you perform with regularly?
Yes, we have a lot of people that we have been touring with for over a decade so it’s pretty instinctual.
Nice. Let’s take it back to when Eric and yourself first started Thievery Corporation, what inspired the name?
Basically I had this record label that had the name Thievery Corporation in it and we used the name ‘cos at the time we were using a lot of samples and things. There’s such a conflict over samples and controversy with using samples, so it kind of fit with what was happening at the time. [The name] Thievery Corporation made people think about what we were doing and how. You know, using little bits and pieces of older records and how that fits together to create original material.
Hey, how’s it going [Rob]? Thank you for taking time out for this interview.
Sure thing.
So I’m from Perth, Western Australia and you’ll be coming here early next month. You’ve been here a couple times now, what do you love about touring in Australia?
We love the people, we love the vibe, we love just hanging out so its tough getting on an airplane to go back north whenever we’re down there. We always have a really great time with the fans. The fans are great and there’s a lot of love for Thievery [Corporation] down there.
Yeah, definitely. And obviously new music out this time, what can fans expect from this show?
This show we’ll be playing a bunch of songs for the new record. We have Racquel Jones touring with us for the first time down there. She’s an artist from Jamaica and she sings on the track Letter to the Editor. So new music and then playing stuff from all of the catalogue so you’ll be hearing all of the Thievery classics and a wide spectrum of music. Lots of different singers and a very energetic show.
Great! Do you ever find it difficult to perform the tracks live?
No, you know, we have a great band and the singers are great and so much so that we actually don’t have to rehearse all that much, cos the singers and musicians, everybody’s in sync and it just flows so everybody just catches the groove. It’s never been an issue to take a song from studio and perform it live.
You mentioned that you don’t have to rehearse all that much, so you’re bringing out of a band that you perform with regularly?
Yes, we have a lot of people that we have been touring with for over a decade so it’s pretty instinctual.
Nice. Let’s take it back to when Eric and yourself first started Thievery Corporation, what inspired the name?
Basically I had this record label that had the name Thievery Corporation in it and we used the name ‘cos at the time we were using a lot of samples and things. There’s such a conflict over samples and controversy with using samples, so it kind of fit with what was happening at the time. [The name] Thievery Corporation made people think about what we were doing and how. You know, using little bits and pieces of older records and how that fits together to create original material.
I’m a big hip hop fan and you’ve worked a bit with Mr Lif, tell me about how you linked up with him and creating the music.
We met Mr Lif at an event [audio inaudible] and this event was held at the US Capital and Mr Lif was there and that was the first time we met him. He had dreadlocks, back in the day, and we just became friendly with him. Then years later we were looking for someone to feature on some tracks and Mr LIf’s name came up, we invited him and he just nailed it right out of the box. We’ve been travelling with him, for like, seven years or something and he’s part of the Thievery family now.
Cool. What were some of the influences on the most recent album Temple of I & I?
Well Temple of I & I is paying homage to making dub music, which has always been the foundation to us, and we had the opportunity to record in Jamaica. Eric was down there …. and Eric called me up and said “hey do you want to record down here?” I said “sure”. So we packed up and two weeks later we went down there for a few weeks. We were always influenced by the dub sound, so we jumped at the opportunity to go down there and it was a great experience. It was our first time outside of Washington recording which was great and everything was a great influence. For instance, instead of a wall [in the studio], there was a glass wall and you could see outside, straight to the beach, it was really beautiful. Just drinking Jamaican rum and locking ourselves in there for hours, hanging out during the day here and there and checking out things and you know it was great. So it was kind of like in a way, full circle for us, coming back to the Jamaican roots. It was such a positive, fun experience down there.
You released your first album in 1996, how do you think Thievery Corporation’s sound has evolved over that time?
Um, well I think at the time we didn’t necessarily know what we were doing [laughs] so probably an added confidence for what were doing. And I think over the years we grown to be more daring in some ways and being more deliberate about what we’re doing. And I think we’re also really grateful for the fact that we’re still here ‘cos when we started we never expected to have a career doing music. Here we are 23 years later. But you know things are definitely a lot more organic as well, especially on the live front. We never would have thought we would go “live” back in those days and now we travel with a band and it feels really good to be a part of this music that bridges past and the future and to work with musicians doing it.
You guys tend to release an album every couple of years, obviously released an album last year, what are your plans moving forward?
We actually have a sort of companion piece to Temple of I & I which has some other tracks we were working on around the same time … it’s called Treasures from the Temple and it’s coming out in April. And then we’re working on an album with an Eastern European orchestra. We did this thing with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Centre, which is the National Centre for Performing Arts in the United States. The composer and residents asked us to come out and perform so they wrote out all the charts… It was one of the most mind-blowing life experiences and another way of hearing our music, so we’re working on another album that’s built around that.
Wow, great! Well thanks so much for your time and look forward to seeing you in Perth soon.
Awesome, thank you. Have a good one!
For more information on the Perth show and tickets, check out the Facebook event page here.
We met Mr Lif at an event [audio inaudible] and this event was held at the US Capital and Mr Lif was there and that was the first time we met him. He had dreadlocks, back in the day, and we just became friendly with him. Then years later we were looking for someone to feature on some tracks and Mr LIf’s name came up, we invited him and he just nailed it right out of the box. We’ve been travelling with him, for like, seven years or something and he’s part of the Thievery family now.
Cool. What were some of the influences on the most recent album Temple of I & I?
Well Temple of I & I is paying homage to making dub music, which has always been the foundation to us, and we had the opportunity to record in Jamaica. Eric was down there …. and Eric called me up and said “hey do you want to record down here?” I said “sure”. So we packed up and two weeks later we went down there for a few weeks. We were always influenced by the dub sound, so we jumped at the opportunity to go down there and it was a great experience. It was our first time outside of Washington recording which was great and everything was a great influence. For instance, instead of a wall [in the studio], there was a glass wall and you could see outside, straight to the beach, it was really beautiful. Just drinking Jamaican rum and locking ourselves in there for hours, hanging out during the day here and there and checking out things and you know it was great. So it was kind of like in a way, full circle for us, coming back to the Jamaican roots. It was such a positive, fun experience down there.
You released your first album in 1996, how do you think Thievery Corporation’s sound has evolved over that time?
Um, well I think at the time we didn’t necessarily know what we were doing [laughs] so probably an added confidence for what were doing. And I think over the years we grown to be more daring in some ways and being more deliberate about what we’re doing. And I think we’re also really grateful for the fact that we’re still here ‘cos when we started we never expected to have a career doing music. Here we are 23 years later. But you know things are definitely a lot more organic as well, especially on the live front. We never would have thought we would go “live” back in those days and now we travel with a band and it feels really good to be a part of this music that bridges past and the future and to work with musicians doing it.
You guys tend to release an album every couple of years, obviously released an album last year, what are your plans moving forward?
We actually have a sort of companion piece to Temple of I & I which has some other tracks we were working on around the same time … it’s called Treasures from the Temple and it’s coming out in April. And then we’re working on an album with an Eastern European orchestra. We did this thing with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Centre, which is the National Centre for Performing Arts in the United States. The composer and residents asked us to come out and perform so they wrote out all the charts… It was one of the most mind-blowing life experiences and another way of hearing our music, so we’re working on another album that’s built around that.
Wow, great! Well thanks so much for your time and look forward to seeing you in Perth soon.
Awesome, thank you. Have a good one!
For more information on the Perth show and tickets, check out the Facebook event page here.