Greg Fox is an incredibly busy Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist who participates in the groups Teeth Mountain, Guardian Alien, Liturgy, and his solo project GDFX (among others), and runs the Infinite Limbs record label. Guardian Alien performed at the second day of NY Eye & Ear, and their mesmerizing set of processed vocals, explosive percussion, and expert Japan Banjo playing had me itching to pick Greg’s brain on a number of issues. Topics discussed include Blues Control, the amoral New York Post, and Fox’s upcoming July 4th blowout at Shea Stadium.
Max Burke: Tell me about the genesis of the GDFX project – how it came to be, and where it is currently.
Greg Fox: I’ve been playing drums for a long time and I play a lot of instruments. After I got out of high school, I ended up sort of getting kicked out of my house; and I grew up in New York, so I got a job at Manny’s Music, which no longer exists. I got a job there, and I got an apartment on Myrtle and Broadway – this is like seven years ago. And while I was working there, Korg put out this Electribe. They’d been putting them out for a while, but they put out a new one and they set it up on display so I started playing with it a lot. As somebody who’d only ever played “real instruments” – whatever that means – it was fascinating to me to write a song on a single piece of hardware, because computer music never really caught my interest. So I started messing around with this thing, and I would make rap beats and video game-sounding music. So I had this machine. And when I eventually went to college, I brought it to school, just messing around with it. Me and my friends would get drunk and high, rap, and goof around.
But then I saw this band Blues Control play. They’re not using any of the same machines or anything like that, but Russ and Lea – meeting them, catching them a few times, listening to their recordings – something clicked for me in terms of their approach to composing. Kind of a looseness to their music that I just loved. So I went back to this Electribe that I had and I started trying to approach it like a drum machine/sequencer/sampler/synthesizer, but from a more free point of view. While I was in college, I got commissioned to make a soundtrack for an Atari video game. So I put it out; that was the last output of the videogamey, super straight stuff.
What game was that?
It’s called N+, a ninja game for PSP and DS. I did that and at that point I graduated and my band Teeth Mountain went on tour and I brought my gear with me to mess around with in my free time. And we had a show in Colorado and they needed another band. So I was like, well, I’ve never played by myself before but I’ll try. So I set up and I played, and people liked it. I hadn’t learned not to criticize myself while I was playing music. But people liked it, and I got some press from that one show. At that point, I’d already come up with the name GDFX. I was doing graffiti at the time, tagging GDFX on stuff. So I started going by that; and when I got back to New York, I started booking shows, figuring out what I was doing. It was just an excuse to experiment and do things outside the realm of all the other bands I’d been playing with, which had been taking up a lot of my time. So those shows were just an excuse to set my shit up and do something, and I never had any kind of plan — it would be all over the place. Only recently did I learn not to think about what I’m doing while I’m doing it. So that’s how that all started.
I did a couple recordings. One of them got put out on Little Fury Things, this tape label. So after that I started realizing that it seemed silly to be doing a project by myself that didn’t feature my drumming, because I feel like that’s something I had to bring to the table. I started incorporating the drumming into it, and I started experimenting with drones. My band Teeth Mountain does a lot of droney material — so that was a big influence on me. Then I started learning how to throat sing. The guy from Bloody Panda – this sweet doom stoner metal band that used to be based in Brooklyn, but is now in Brooklyn and LA — throat sings, and he taught me Tuvan-style throat singing. He gave me the basic building blocks, and I started experimenting with it. That just opened up a whole other thing: I can play drums, I can make these vocal loops using throat singing. I realized what my instruments were outside of having just electronics. Then that kind of brings it to Guardian Alien. I started saying to myself, I’m doing this thing now. Wouldn’t it be cool to do it with other people?
So that’s why I started a band. For a while we were just doing it under the name GDFX, but then I had this experience and I’m not sure what it was…a left brain talking to the right brain thing. Something happened to me, and that’s where I got the idea for the name Guardian Alien. The other thing is, while studying throat singing, I learned that the natural note I sing is B Flat. After reading into it, I found out that B Flat is the Crown Chakra, as well as the resonating tone of deep space and black holes. It seems to have a lot of significance, even if I don’t know exactly what it is that I’m channeling.
GDFX, live at Market Hotel, 2009. Photo by Joe Perez/Eyebodega.
We were talking earlier about energy – putting energy into spaces. I think a lot of the bands at NY Eye & Ear have a notion of that, and that it’s channeled through…different sorts of ideas that you might tag spiritual, might not. They don’t necessarily have to be spiritual, they can be very pragmatic. But for you in Guardian Alien and GDFX…can you talk a little bit about what that energy means to you, and how it works in your music?
There’s a lot to say. I feel, first of all, that every day you wake up and you go into the world. Especially last night, when I was hanging out here; I haven’t spent time hanging out in Williamsburg proper late at night. Seeing the way people are, you can feel people’s energy and it’s – not everybody learns this lesson – but it’s a conscious choice — what energy you give out into the world, and what you share. It’s not as simple as “I’m just negative” or “I’m just positive.” Whether you realize it or not, everybody’s contributing. Being aware of that to some degree and being conscious of what it is you’re trying to contribute energetically — it’s as simple as, If I’m gonna be selfish, I wanna feel good and I want other people around me to feel good. Because when other people around me are feeling good, it makes me feel good. It’s like you go to these places, or you hang out on the corner, and you can feel this negative vibe that a lot of people carry on their sleeve. For me it’s like a personal mission to push back against that with a positive energy.
Is that something that manifests itself in all of your activities – GDFX, Guardian Alien, Teeth Mountain, the record label? For a lot of the artists here, that’s what it’s about: pushing against that negativity.
The world is what you make it. There’s that fucking oil spill and, did you see the cover of the Post yesterday? The cover of the New York Post was a toreador in Spain getting gored through the mouth, out of his mouth. It was on the fucking cover. This is what they’re putting out. And like so many stupid New Yorkers – I’m gonna try not to be, but I’m gonna be judgmental – so many stupid New Yorkers that pride themselves on reading the Post are looking at that. I was in the bodega on this corner and there was a kid running around and that thing was on the bottom shelf of the newsstand. That’s fucked up. Not to mention that that’s not news either. All sorts of gory, horrible things happen to people in real life on a daily basis. It’s one thing to have an awareness of that, but its another thing to project it. Not only that, but to be projecting it instead of the fact that the world is currently home to the worst environmental crisis in history.
Exactly. We can talk about a million different issues. Everyone wants to talk about global warming; let’s talk about Zimbabwe, Darfur, human rights in China. I think the reason a lot of people put this negativity out is so they can feel that they’re aware of it — and do something about it, and gratify their own ego. They’re not really doing anything about it, but they can say, I’m a conscious person. Whereas for me, pushing back against it is what it’s about. You’re not gonna solve all the world’s problems; but if you can push against it, and try and distance yourself from it, then at least you can make a small positive change.
Yeah, I can’t stop that oil spill. I can’t do that. And I can’t fix that guy’s face after getting gored. And I can’t save everybody in Darfur. I can’t do any of that just by wanting the world to be perfect, but I can have a positive effect on the people I have a direct contact with — and music is the best way to do it. I don’t have to write a song about sunshine; I just have to come into my playing space with that feeling of positivity and my intention and my will for immediate surroundings — and I can effect positive change. I can insert that positivity and that spirit of unity. There’s a lot to say about it, but “think globally, act locally” is a good slogan. It’s all about you and the people around you; and to the extent that that can be a microcosm of the whole world – with the awareness of all the fucked up shit that’s happening – you can have control over what you put out into your surroundings. There is also a collective consciousness; thoughts aren’t just in your head, they go out. Energy flies all over the place; it’s not just cellphone signals. You meet people who exude an energy that you can feel when they walk into a room — whether it’s a good energy or a bad energy.
It’s an ongoing reality that everyone deals with, and everybody makes it more or less a priority. I think we’ve said a lot. Let’s switch gears and talk about upcoming shows, booking, Fourth of July at Shea Stadium?
I used to book a lot more shows. I’m kind of trying to get out of it. When you tour a lot, you end up meeting a lot of people. And it’s like, Oh, my cousin runs a venue in Brooklyn. I get emails from people — “Can you hook me up with a show?” — and I wanna help them out, and I’m all over the place with my own shit, trying to hustle in New York, pay my rent, do odd jobs, and play music in all these different projects. On top of that, trying to put together a good show for somebody who’s coming through is not always possible. The people who dedicate themselves to booking only are really the people who should be booking shows.
You also don’t wanna talk to someone whose music you really respond to and try and put something together and not do it as well as you should…
Or on the flip side, somebody you really like as a person whose music you don’t really like. They come through and they want you to help them out with a show. It’s like, Uhhh….alright.
That can be a hard thing to navigate. Even though the Brooklyn scene is pretty big and stretches out across the country, it’s hard to be friendly with someone and care about them and be like, I don’t really like your band. It’s not about “integrity” in an abstract or ideological way. It’s just about being honest and truthful.
It’s really important to be honest though. I will also say that as an example, I toured with Future Islands a little bit. The first time I toured with them, I’d met them before and I thought they were awesome dudes. When I first heard them – this is a while ago, they’ve come along way – it wasn’t my vibe. But after getting to know them more and touring with them more and becoming really good friends with them, I love Future Islands now. I love their new album, I listen to it all the time. That can happen too; it’s like when you get close to somebody you can start appreciating their music in a way that you didn’t when you didn’t know them.
But getting back to the booking thing…I was booking other shows, I used to book at Market Hotel a lot, I had a studio there for a while. I was the only person booking shows there for a while other than Todd. I had a couple really great shows there, but also a lot of really mediocre shows, where I was doing a favor for someone who was coming through. So I did that for a while, and that situation got kind of shitty, so I got out of the Market. My cousin opened this new venue, Shea. So I started doing the same hing. Some of the shows were great; some of them weren’t. The first show I ever booked there was when they moved into the new space at 20 Meadow St. I’m trying to remember who I booked…a lot of people came out. So I just kind of decided, I wanna book one show a year at my cousin’s venue. I’m gonna ask all my favorite bands and my friends and just do it once a year and never book any other shows. Fourth of July this year at Shea Stadium. Future Islands is playing, White Mice, CSC Funk Band, Liturgy, Guardian Alien, Telecult Powers, Lexie Mountain’s new project. I’m blowing it the fuck out.
Greg Fox appears June 12 at Bonnaroo with the Dan Deacon Ensemble, July 4th at Shea Stadium with Guardian Alien and the aforementioned groups, and August 26 as GDFX at Telecult Powers’ Cosmic Meditation Zone in Crown Heights. Listen to GDFX at the Free Music Archive.
Interview by Max Burke
Photo (top) via GDFX’s Myspace
Tags: Bonnaroo, GDFX, Greg Fox, Guardian Alien, Infinite Limbs, Little Fury Things, Manny's Music, Market Hotel, NY Eye & Ear, Shea Stadium
dude you are it! and I love that:)
LIKE!!!! <3 greg