HipHopFiend Interview: Doomtree – Lazerbeak talks recording ‘No Kings’0

In a time when artists seem like they blow up out of nowhere into instant stardom, it often feels like there is no middle-ground. Sadly it appears that the music industry operates on a basis of luck; you happen to come across the right person with the right contacts, or you have a video that for some reason goes viral and suddenly everyone is listening. However this is not the only way to tackle the music business, and can be proven by Minneapolis hip-hop collective Doomtree, who are slowly but surely climbing the indie ladder, focussing purely on writing and producing great records drawn from their d.i.y ethos and hip-hop roots resulting in elusive longevity; spending last ten years producing and releasing a consistently excellent catalogue of records, including an array of mixtapes and some genre-bending solo albums.

I sat down for a chat with producer Lazerbeak via Skype to discuss the process behind making the new record, and how it has differed from previous releases, as well as what the future holds for the crew…

What was the aim of the new record, No Kings?

We knew that we really wanted to do like a full-on collaborative record. I think with the last crew record, the self-titled one, that was more just us on the come-up. We had all these songs and we really hadn’t put out a proper record yet, and so that one sort of came out as like a compilation where there’s a solo track from everybody and maybe one or two people per song for the most part. (This time around) we learned so much from touring and just being around each other so much that we were like, from the jump lets just make every song a posse cut, like all of us throughout the whole thing. So that was the main goal. It had been about three years since the self-titled record and I think it just felt like it was time. Everyone, all seven of us, even me and (Paper Tiger) had put out solo records finally. We were kind of rolling on this incline and it felt like it was time for us to get together and put something out.

I was kind of cracking the whip a little on making sure it came out. It was a pretty tight timeline that we were working with, because I’ve never even been involved in an album where you make all the songs, record all the songs, and release the album all in one year- never mind nine months! And I don’t know if I’ll ever do that again! But it was an interesting experience.

How was it trying to get everyone together for recording? I know the whole crew is getting very busy with their own individual projects and commitments…

As we’ve grown as a label and as a crew, everyone individually has grown, so they all have their own stuff. I mean, even though we all pretty much live in the city, its rare that we just get to hang out ever. So we knew it was going to be a challenge. I kind of get into being the taskmaster if I have to, like organisation and all that stuff. So in the beginning I was like, “Oh well, I’ll just run point and give everyone a heads up like ‘I’m going to be on your ass! Don’t get annoyed at me (that) I’m going to be hitting you up all the time, because we’ve got to do this!’”

So we started out simply just thinking, “Lets try to make the beats together too.” Instead of just throwing in our solo beats and letting the rappers pick, why not try to collaboratively make the tracks? So me and Stef (P.O.S) and Cecil (Otter) back in March, started getting up probably twice a week and seeing what we could come up with. I didn’t know what that was going to be (like) because I’ve never made beats with anyone before, but it ended up being awesome. We probably stacked like twenty beats, Paper Tiger was in New York unfortunately, but he ended up sending stuff along and he came in for a weekend and helped out. We probably made twenty beats and all the rappers were feeling it, and they sounded different because we had all of our specialties in one track, so I feel like the tracks move around a lot more than they necessarily would before.

Then maybe end of April we’ve got these twenty collaborative beats and then we also had some solo beats, and it was just like, “Okay, there’s no way we are going to write these songs.” I think we had two months to write the record if we were going to stick to this November 22nd date. Sims had just got married and his wife’s parents have a cabin in the state next to us in Wisconsin. So it was like, “Hey, is everybody free this five days? Black it out. We’re going to the cabin and we’re going to lock ourselves up basically.” Because doing stuff in town people just constantly have shit going on, so if we tried to do a session like that here, within an hour someone would have to leave.

So we went to this cabin, it was this magical cabin trip basically. We went there with zero songs and we came back with ten, in five days, and then there was two more that were in the works that we finished up. But it was crazy, I don’t think any of us knew just what to expect, and I was hoping to God that we got it done, because if we didn’t come out with songs we were going to be screwed basically; we would have had to cancel the release and everything for this year. But it somehow ended up working out. I went there just to do more whip-cracking I guess, make sure everyone was on task. But to be able to sit back and watch those guys sit around a table writing a song together and then five hours later we’re in another room with beers and everyone’s demo-ing their parts; like to see the basics of a song happen in a day, I don’t get to see that very often, so it was cool.

So the production actually took a lot longer than the lyrics this time around?

Yeah this time, which is crazy to me. But yeah, we definitely holed up for a couple of months just making sure we had enough stuff, (so) that when we went to the cabin there would be no excuses that we didn’t have enough beats. And those guys had some ideas coming up. But basically all of the ideas came together in those five days, and then fine-tuned when we came home. So yeah I guess you’re right, I guess the words did come quicker. I feel like I’m slacking now on the production here…

Were most of the beats made in the collaborative way you described?

Yeah basically it comes out to be half the record, so six of the tracks are done by two or more people, so me and Cecil ended up being involved with every one of those collaborative beats, then Stef and Papes are on some of those. And then the other half of the album is three of Cecil’s solo beats and three of my solo beats. But the cool thing was that in the mixing process, for the first time, a lot of us were a lot more vocal so even those solo beats got changed a lot from where they were initially; everyone had their input and we brought in some live players to fill out the sound and stuff. I’m really happy because I feel like maybe we were all getting a little too comfortable in our own sound, at least I know I was, in my own beat-making style. So it was cool to break out of that and be forced to work with other people, and then to have that experience be positive and a new sound to come out of that was awesome.

The production felt advanced to me, but yet still familiar. I guess that’s explained by the collaborative process. One of my favourite beats was the opening track, ‘No Way’, was that made collaboratively?

So that’s me Cecil and Stef. I think that was on one of the first days we got together; Cecil came in with the raw initial structure with that chunky guitar part and a little bit of the drums. And then we were like, “Lets start here, this sounds cool.” And Stef added a lot of the kind of the noises, and a bit of the bass, and I worked out on some of the melody lines and stuff. That always felt like, “This is how we had to intro the record.” It catches you’re attention I guess.

What is the meaning behind the No Kings title?

That’s something that’s kind of been in the circle for years now. The cover image is a drawing that Cecil had made, I feel like ten years ago. He used to be out by the trains doing a lot of graffiti stuff, and that was something he’d always written down. It just seemed like a motto, like No Kings; no one is better than you, no one is beneath you, like a call to everyone as equals. It can get a little cheesy I guess. But then also just not worrying about if someone has more money than you or something like that, doesn’t mean they are better than you, or just because they hold a title above you doesn’t mean that they’re your master, stuff like that. It kind of just feels like a call to arms, like we’re all in this together. And we didn’t set out, when we were recording the record, to call it that, but that mentality came up a lot. At first we were going to call it ‘Bangarang’ because we thought that was catchy. But once that shit got done we were like, “This is what we have to call it now.” And it worked out well. Those rappers have a lot more opinions on what it means than I do to be honest with you. But I think it’s about treating people the way you’d like to be treated, that type of stuff, and not holding anything over somebody basically.

From your point of view how would you say you’ve all come on as a crew since the self-titled album back in 2008?

It’s been cool to watch it go down. I think the beats have got better, obviously I’m probably a little biased on all of this stuff, but I’ve seen us producers grow. And we’ve been around long enough now that if you listen to Sims’ first record or if you listen to Dessa’s first False Hopes, those came out like seven years ago, and you really can see the progression; I’m happy that I think the music has got better. It’s been cool to see the rappers kind of find their own individual self through music. When we first came on we were still teaching each other how to make rap songs, and I learned more about how to make beats from Stef and Paper and Cecil than I have from watching Just Blaze on Youtube or anything like that, we kind of taught each other, and I think that was the same with writing the raps, we learned a lot from each other.

So it’s been cool to see those guys grow individually, but then to be able to come together and see them, for the first time, be able to write songs together and not struggle. Because when we put that self-titled record out we just knew we needed to put out a record together called Doomtree, but I don’t think those guys really knew how to write songs together, and I think that shows, that they’re not like these totally finished ideas necessarily. It’s more like, “You got a verse, I got a verse, you got a chorus, there’s our song.” This one I felt like everybody was able to play off each other, and everyone knew where someone would fit better at a certain part. Even when we made the beats our goal was to leave different feelings in each track so you could tailor it to (different people,) so you could have five verses without the same eight bar loop. I’m pretty pumped about it, I think musically we’ve grown a lot, and we’ve grown as people too, it’s been ten years so obviously all of our twenties and some of our teen years we’ve spent together now. So I think we’ve grown individually, but musically I’m happy with where it’s at.

How did the process behind the making of this new record compare to back when you made the self-titled one?

That was the project culmination of almost… some of the songs were five years old. I never thought it was going to come out. Basically that and then the Doomtree False Hopes album, all of those songs were kind of together and we couldn’t put out like a thirty-five song album, so we split it up into the False Hopes that came out prior to the self-titled album. But it was just like; we all move pretty slowly when it comes to making songs in general, and to add that they can’t be solo songs, they’ve got to be written together, that just made it even slower. And we were new back then, we didn’t quite know how to pull that stuff off. I’d say it took close to five years to see that project into the light of day, which is quite different to the nine months that we just wrapped this one up in. I still like that record, but it’s almost painful to listen to at this point, especially because it’s twenty-one tracks. We were very mindful with this one, we said from the jump, no solo tracks and lets keep it to around twelve songs because there’s no reason we ever need to put out another twenty-one track album ever again!

What do you feel are the standout tracks from No Kings and what are the stories behind them?

By the time it gets to a week before release I can’t stand the record anymore, at this point in my life, because I’ve heard it so many times. But I’m sure when I’ve had a breather from it I’ll get back into it.

‘No Way’, the first track stood out to me immediately. So we’re at the cabin, a lot of times these guys are writing around the kitchen table basically, and I remember Cecil coming up with the hook. And, you know Cecil’s style, he’s not usually as in-your-face as Stef, Mike and Sims, and to have him write that hook, and it’s like a “Fuck you. We’re here.”-type of hook, I just remember everyone getting so geeked out about that. And it’s just like a confidence that he’d never had before, and all those guys killed their verses.

I know that ‘The Grand Experiment’ has been one of the favourites for a lot of us. I know it’s a little weirder, that was the first song we put out and I don’t know if people responded super-well to it, but I just like it so much. And that one got made the last day, I actually had to leave so I was hoping that these guys wrote another song or two. So they came back and played that demo for me and I was like, “What were you guys doing up there?” Because it’s so weird, Cecil’s verse is so weird. And then Stef had been working in L.A on his record and he basically just sent over the chorus the day before we mixed it, and then that turned out so good. So it was cool to just watch that come together.

I think ‘Team The Best Team’ is awesome just because it’s got everybody on it.

‘Own Yours’, the second to last song that’s like the big five minute plus song, that was the first beat that we put on when we got to the cabin. Dessa came the next morning, but it was me and the four dude rappers, and we kind of just put that on and we were just feeling out the cabin and how we were going to do this, setting up the studio. So I remember vividly that beat just looping for like three hours, and those guys going to town (on it). So that’s probably the most memorable for me just getting to see that process start for the first time. And then I was so into it, and excited to be there that I ended up writing the hook for that track which ended up getting kept. So I was all like, “I got a hook on the album!” Pumped about that.

So that was how it started, and I think the last track that ended up getting written and recorded was ‘Little Mercy’ with Cecil and Dessa. (When we were at the cabin) Cecil would get up early and had his own seperate little studio room, so he was working on new beats up there. So that beat he made entirely up there and then came home and that’s when he and Dessa wrote it.

So how would you describe the past year for Doomtree?

Its been good man, its been busy as shit. But it’s been really good. I think that we’ve grown a lot, I think our profile has been raised a lot. And that makes me feel really good, because we always want that, as much as we talk about it’s cool to be indie and stuff. I think it’s totally awesome to be indie, but at the end of the day we want people to hear us and know us. So it’s been cool to see it happen. I think it all kind of kicked off end of last year when we did the first Doomtree tour across the states. And then when we came home we put out Bad Time Zoo and everything just seemed to be bubbling up all of the time. And Dessa’s Castor, The Twin record, those are just re-workings of songs we were just going to put that out there because some fans had asked for it, we thought it would be a cool companion piece. But I didn’t expect people to be so into it; people are really into it, she’s out on the East coast now selling clubs out with her band. I guess it’s just been cool to watch people grow, and see from an inside perspective how the outside world is coming to and paying attention a little more this year.

And that was another reason, we have all these ayes on us now- even the Wugazi project coming out raised the profile, because Doomtree got mentioned with that project, the Gayngs remix album, all these little things, SXSW was big for us this year. So it was like, everybody’s talking about us –not everybody, but more than used to- so we should give them something that’s like definitively ours collectively while they are still talking, and that was a huge motivator for making this too I think. So instead of being like, “Doomtree is Wugazi, and then there’s Dessa’s live band, and stuff.” They can be like, “Well Doomtree is No Kings, go there first and learn about Doomtree, then go from there…”

What should we look out for into the new year?

We’re going to do a big crew tour starting in January. So first put the record out, we’re doing our big ‘Doomtree Blowout’ that we do every year, our big hometown show and that’s going to be seven days this year; we’re doing a whole week of shows. So that’s going to be really big for us, I think that’s when we’ll finally be able to breath and take in everything that’s happened this year. Then take the holidays off, do the entire US tour with a little bit of Canada between January, February and March it sounds like. Then it’s high on our priority list to finally get out to the UK, other parts of Europe and potentially Australia as a collective, but no guarantees!

As far as projects, everyone’s still working on their solo stuff, so Mike, Cecil they’re working on their solo records. Stef has basically wrapped, I think he has a couple more tracks to turn in, but P.O.S record should come out this coming year, sooner than later. Paper’s working on an instrumental follow-up, I’m working on a instrumental record called Lava Bangers and Dessa is working on her official full length follow-up to A Badly Broken Code which should come out next year too. Everybody should have finished another solo record at some point next year, we’ll see if they all come out or not, but we got stuff in the works!

No Kings is available now on Itunes…

Doomtree.net