Around the mid to late nineties, a small music zine made the rounds, The Wardrobe. The editor in chief was one CultureShockLewis. At that time, his specialty was interviewing. He had a knack for making the interviewee feel and ease and opening up to him in a free flowing conversation. Csl would then report the interview word for word even including the sighs so that the reader could easily visualize the interview taking place. CultureShockLewis has actually gone on to work with Siemens with their off shore wind turbines. However, I was able to track him down and convince him to emerge from his journalist retirement to interview a few of the C/Fe artists. The first interview features Ikarus Jonze of The Still Lifes. Unfortunately, Willem was unavailable at the time of the interview. Csl is actually working on an expanded interview which The Still Lifes will soon be posting on their website, http://thestilllifes.wordpress.com/. Until then, please enjoy Csl’s reluctant return to interviewing!
The Still Lifes
CultureShockLewis—So, how long have you guys been making music together?
Ikarus Jones—We started around 2000 calling ourselves Gypsy Street Legacy, but it was primarily an instrumental project. We did one song will vocals, both Willem’s and mine, “At the Back of the North Wind.” We also did “You Never Close Your Eyes” at that time which we are incorporating in the next album. We started the Still Lifes a year later with more of a focus on my spoken word, but we also included Willem’s vocals more prominently. Dennis saw us in 2002 playing somewhere in Oklahoma. Huh, it was sometime after that when we broke up due to Willem heading off to University and me being too busy trying to start a career.
CSL—And, when did you guys start back up?
Ikarus—Dennis emailed me about playing in Korea. He was there teaching English. Willem and I both had wanted to go to Asia for some time. What better way to visit someplace than to play a show there? It was heaps of fun and quite interesting. Willem and I decided to start recording again, and Dennis came back to the states with the idea that he could release our stuff. It’s taking us a long time to finish the music. Even the three songs on C/Fe Menagerie aren’t finished yet. Hopefully we’ll be ready for release in Spring 2010. Considering the futuristic, sf theme of the album, 2010 release will be perfect. I just need to write a song about a fetus hovering over the Earth.
CSL—So you guys didn’t start with the sci-fi schtick?
Ikarus—Haha, I like the way you put that. Well, no actually we started out a little different. “At the Back of the North Wind” was based on a faerie story and “Great Divide” was based on a similar type of story, but most of our other stuff before was just…well…actually our other stuff was kind of boring in retrospect. I’m wanting to move on eventually to something more like the progressive dance of the late eighties and early nineties. So, the theme then would be more romantic.
CSL—Sounds pretty cool, but I’d like to know more about the three songs on the sampler. Could you tell me about how they were written…and stuff?
Ikarus—Certainly, Willem wrote the kernel of all the songs. I added my two cents to the music and put together some words for two of them. The first, “Sebastian…,” is instrumental, and I just added a little guidance and a couple of sounds here and there, but it was collaborative enough that we made it a Still Lifes track. It reminded me of my favorite sf movie, so that’s the reason for the film allusion of the title. “Future in Question” on the other hand was all Willem musically. I just added the lyrics which are actually a compilation of some of my favorite quotes about the future. It’s kind of like sampling literature into a individualized piece. “They Sent Us Their Dreams” was actually a track that I loved musically, but the poem is very personal to me. It’s based on a (Ray) Bradbury novel seriously struck a chord with me. It took me a little bit, but I finally agreed with Willem that the music perfectly fits the lyrics.
CSL—It sounds like you have a lot of literary influences. What are your musical influences?
Ikarus—For Still Lifes, I take inspiration from Steve Scott, T Bone Burnett, and William S. Burroughs for the spoken word. Willem is trying hard to not allow his influences to affect him when he writes for our stuff, but I think you can see he likes Steve Reich and Louis and Bebe Barron. We both like Laurie Anderson and Suicide and others from that scene.
CSL—What about some spoken word influence from Shatner?
Ikarus—Haha, well naturally. I loved Has Been! But I must say Stewie’s cover of Shatner’s version of Rocket Man is somehow better than Shatner’s
CSL—Final Question, what’s your favorite scenario of the future?
Ikarus—I’m not really a big fan of Kurzweil’s values, but I imagine they will gain importance. I’d say…Roddenberry’s future dream really.
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