Avril, Of Twentee

The following is the transcript of an interview with Idiopathic conducted at the time of the release of Presents The 04/20 Album! in which Idiopathic changes names, describes the recording process, discusses Scotchguard addiction, and gives shout outs to rear ends that sound good and animals that get it on.

Interviewer:  After the release of 2018 Covers Of Unreleased Songs, Volume One, you say you did not have much opportunity to spend time in the studio again until April 2020.

Idiopathic:  Yeah, 4/20, that’s true. Do I have to admit to anymore?

Interviewer:  Well, I wasn’t accusing you of anything but your fan might want to know what you were doing all that time?

Idiopathic:  Fan?

Interviewer:  Well, yes. Me.

Idiopathic:  And who are you?

Interviewer:  I’m you.

Idiopathic:  But you don’t do that annoying mouth thing when you speak.  How, ahh nevermind.  Well, that’s amazing! I should tell you though, I don’t do autographs, yard work or even little smiley faces, just letting you know. What do you want to know again?”

Interviewer:  What were you doing for a year and a half?

Idiopathic:  Oh you know, fucking off, mast . . .

Interviewer:  No, I’m not talking about what you do in the studio. What were you doing in the period between your last record in 2018 and April 2020

Idiopathic:  Do I have to say? I mean . . .

Interviewer:  You know, you are kind of a halfwit

Idiopathic:  I wasn’t in prison, at least not in the US.  Halfwit? Hey, halfwit. Halfwit! I like that! It’s like, what is it called, a witticism but like, divided by two. So instead of one, there are two, all of sudden, now, in the world. Like a divided baby cell growing. I think I am going to change my name!

Interviewer:  Okay, you want to call yourself Halfwit now?

Idiopathic:  No. No. More like . . . . . The Halfwit Formerly Unknown As Idiopathic.  Has a sort of Games Of Thones-ian type air. Like a noble title.

Interviewer:  Let’s move on.  So am I to understand this is all of the music you made in April of 2020?

Idiopathic:  No, there’s a few more songs but they sound like . . . ass. You know what ass sounds like. And not even the good kind of sounding ass. I mean like really really shitty ass. No pun intended.

Interviewer:  Let me rephrase: From the calendar on the cover, are we to believe that you wrote all of these songs in April of 2020?

Idiopathic:  I don’t really write songs. I just go in there, press record, and then pray. Sometimes I pray a really fucking long time.

Interviewer:  To whom are you praying and what are you praying for?

Idiopathic:  I’m praying to Jimi, of course. And I’m praying that no water comes anywhere near me when I have that guitar in my hands.  I mean, I tried to put the pickups in it myself but there were a lot of extra parts and I couldn’t figure out how they all went back in.  Since then, there’s these weird vibrations passing through my body when I’m playing, like, electric, you know?

Interviewer:  Yeah, you might should take that guitar to someone who knows what they are doing.  So after you are finished praying, then what?

Idiopathic:  I don’t know, I just start hitting the strings until it is something I like, then I loop that, and then I loop other guitar parts over it, and then play the drums, and then loop the drum playing, and loop a bass riff, and some samples, loop some vocals, play with some effects, tear it down, build it back up, make up new stuff.

Interviewer:  That is the most coherent thing you’ve said yet.

Idiopathic:  Gratitude.

Interviewer:  What about keyboards?

Idiopathic:  Keyboards? I don’t use keyboards, I gave those up when I stopped huffing Scotchguard. And I feel much better for it.

Interviewer:  Yeah, that probably was a good decision to stop huffing Scothguard.

Idiopathic:  No, I’m talking about the keyboards. I fell off the Scotchguard wagon about a week later.

Interviewer:  You really, should not, you know. Huff Scotchguard.

Idiopathic:  Yeah.

Interviewer:  So if not synths, what are those synthy sounds? Are you going in afterwards and putting stuff in.

Idiopathic:  Oh no, I don’t do overdubs, don’t have the patience to figure that out, to be honest.  No, those synthy sounds are just effects on the guitar.  Like boiinnnnggg, and then you press, pppt, and then it’s waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Interviewer:  But you said you loop samples.

Idiopathic:  Yeah, well those are just robots being fed text and reading the text.

Interviewer:  Robots?

Idiopathic:  Yeah. But not like danger Will Robinson robot, more like the Her robot.

Interviewer:  Her robot?

Idiopathic:  Yeah, you know, the movie Her. With the dude who killed a bunch of people in that movie about a comedian.

Interviewer:  Well, the Her robot was actually an A.I. and ahhh nevermind. Do you write the text that you feed the AI, I mean, robot?

Idiopathic:  Yeah, just you know. Little Scotchguard induced .. . . .

Interviewer:  Stop right there, I get it. It’s making sense to me now.

Idiopathic:  You get it, you understand? Wow! I’m so happy!

Interviewer:  Yeah, uhh, no, It’s that I don’t get it that makes sense to me now. Anyway, so you get in there and play, what, guitars, drums, bass, “robot” samples, some vocals, though not a whole lot of vocals apparently.

Idiopathic:  Not sure if I was sung to as a baby, I have terrible pitch when singing.

Interviewer:  But the little bit on the record doesn’t sound out of tune.

Idiopathic:  Those were the only ones in tune, the rest, as they say, ended up in the butcher’s belly.

Interviewer:  Who is they? I have never heard that phrase before.

Idiopathic:  I may have gotten my Ubiquitous They catch-phrases all tangled in word salad, sorry.

Interviewer:  So you go in there and start recording and somehow the songs come out the way they sound on the record? You, by yourself, are playing those songs in one go?

Idiopathic:  Yes.

Interviewer:  Really? You?

Idiopathic:  Yes.

Interviewer:  By yourself.

Idiopathic:  Yes.

Interviewer:  So that first song is what, five and a half minutes and you somehow improvised that five and a half minute piece, as we hear it? That’s incredi . . . ..

Idiopathic:  No.

Interviewer:  I don’t understand.

Idiopathic:  I play it live but I will play a ten, twenty or even a sixty minute piece that I edit for length. But that is pretty much the only editing that I do.

Interviewer:  Okay., that makes more sense.

Idiopathic:  Except. The sounds of copulating animals, I don’t play those live. I don’t have animals that copulate in my presence. Unfortunately. Those I add in later.

Interviewer:  That’s good. I’m leaving now.

The Halfwit Formerly Known As Idiopathic’s new record, “Presents The 04/20 Album!” from Manymanyhaha Record Things is available wherever it is sold.