We’re continuing our coverage of the Down With Webster interview we did for DOPEfm at The CNE. Listen to it with the player at the bottom of the post, download it for free, or read it below. Enjoy!
Chase: “My first exposure to Down With Webster was the ‘Rich Girl$’ video on the Much Music Countdown. “
Chase: “When I was watching it, I thought, ‘Woah, these guys are hip-hop’ even though it was a pop band I was watching. I mean, there’s a break in the song and you do this little handclap dance thing, sparse choreography.”
Pat: “Choreography?”
Chase: “You know, this thing that rappers will do because you don’t wanna dance but you’ll do this little move.”
Cam: “I’ll dance the only way I know how to dance. I’ll hear the music and start moving. I can’t dance. I’ve never tried to say that I could dance. I do what I do. My body just does things.”
Pat: “We started making music in the first place because we weren’t on the dance floor per se.”
Chase: “But what do you say to my comment that you guys are hip-hop because a lot of people would say you’re not?”
Pat: “What’s hip-hop nowadays? I grew up listening to lots of hip-hop and it’s certainly not what it was when I was a kid. And so, define hip-hop.”
Cam: “All the genres are beginning to break down. Like, what’s considered pop music now? I mean hip-hop and pop music have largely somehow become fused together and urban music has made it into rock and vice versa. It’s like this big mesh of stuff and I sort of think that we’re a good example of that way of where music is going where you’re able to incorporate all your favourite elements. You can have electronic and acoustic and all these different genres and instruments in one thing and have it be cool.
My iPod is full of really different stuff. I’ll listen to completely electronic based music for a week, and then I’ll listen to nothing but hip-hop for two months, and then I’ll get into rock because of this guy. I’m around Pat, I’m around people that listen to that type of music.
I think it would suck to be stuck in one genre and if you ever felt like doing something, you’d be like, ‘Well, I can’t do that because I’m hip-hop and I have to follow these rules.’ I think that would suck.”
Pat: “That’s the death of any form of good music, the purist factor. Don’t put rules on it. Get out of here. Be original.”
Chase: “I know for our listeners, because we’re an underground hip-hop show and we’re gonna play your stuff and they’re probably gonna go-”
Cam: “Why’s it so poppy? Why’s it so-”
Pat: “We have plenty of stuff that sounds like underground hip-hop, maybe not what they play on the radio though.”
Chase: “Yeah. I was even thinking when I was listening to the album, ‘Well if I isolate these twenty seconds and play it and mix it, people aren’t gonna know it’s a pop group.”
Cam: “Totally. You can take whole verses and it doesn’t sound super-poppy.”
Chase: “But at the same time, I like your music so I don’t want to chop it up just so it will be presentable to our audience.”
Cam: “We’ve thought of it before too. We’ve opened for tons of different bands, everyone from Fergie, to Snoop Dogg, and certain songs are gonna fly when you’re opening for pop groups that aren’t necessarily gonna fly when you’re opening for hardcore rappers. Which turns out not to be true.
We used to try and tailor our sets, like, ‘This is a super hip-hop crowd so we’re gonna play some stuff that’s more in that vein.’ And we quickly realized that we just need to do what we do and if people like it, they like it. People respond well. The last time we opened for Snoop Dogg-”
Pat: “It was out of control.”
Cam: “People were right into it. It was awesome!”
Pat: “And you’d be surprised, you think you’re gonna open for one genre of music and you’ve gotta fit right in that vein. I mean some groups that open for Snoop Dogg might be purist hip-hop, but is it good? And people, at the end of the day, come to be entertained and they want to see something entertaining, and Snoop Dogg is just that. But there’s also many entertaining dance groups, or rock groups, or any other genre.
If you are good at what you’re doing, I think people are at least gonna tip their hat to you. Even if it’s not their thing, they’ll look at you and say, ‘You’ve worked hard at what you do.’ It’s the same reason why my dad is now listening to Eminem ‘cause he’s finally like, ‘Wow! This guys is good.’
Chase: “I think you need to be open-minded with your music and there are so many people who are closed-minded.”
Cam: “That’s alright. I understand where they’re coming from. I used to be super-closed-minded when I was a kid. I was like, ‘F-this! I’m only about this and that,’ ya know? And then as you grow up, especially as you start making music you realize that all your favourite artists are influenced by this crazy music you’ve never listened to.
Hip-hop essentially comes from a number of different genres being mashed together over a beat. That’s what sampling is. Some of the biggest named samples are from artists that hip-hop heads who considered themselves hip-hop heads that only listen to the hardest stuff. I mean, M.O.P’s ‘Cold as Ice’ is a Foreigner sample. They would never listen to Foreigner, but the guy making the beat did. And chances are M.O.P. are.”
Pat: “I remember when sampling was really big and I had a set of turntables and a sampler. I still make beats. I remember getting together with my friends who made beats and being that I was a guitar player, being able to pull samples from a Genesis record or something, and they’d be like, ‘Where would you hear that?’
And I’d be like, ‘Well, this is what I listen to. What do you mean? I always thought this would make a good hip-hop beat.’ I bob my head to the music the same way I would to a hip-hop record so why not put some drums behind it? That’s what all; the best hip-hop was. It was people that had the mind to sift through records they wouldn’t normally listen to and discover that there’s a break here. something I can really rock a party to.”
Chase: “That all kind of started with Run-DMC bringing in rock sounds and all kinds of different sounds as well.
Cam, you’ve got some great rhymes and I was wondering if you’d ever consider doing a straight underground hip-hop song?”
Cam: “I’ve been thinking about making a mixtape for a while now. I’m just going over some beats that I make or guys in the band make, just as an alternative outlet. When you’ve got a band with this many people in it and actively taking part in the music, you’re gonna get one verse a song, maybe. So yeah. I write a lot of rap. I have all this surplus stuff. So you never know.”
Chase: “That’s cool. You guys also have a DJ as part of your band.”
Cam: “Diggy the DJ. Follow him on Twitter.”
Pat: “Everyone’s on Twitter.”
Cam: “I’m big on Twitter. It’s like my news outlet now.”
Pat: “Sometimes it’s how I find out what city we’re in the next day. ‘I’m so excited to see you tomorrow.’
Cam: “Oh! that’s where I am. Great!”
Well that ends Part 2 of the interview. Come back tomorrow for the conclusion. And don’t forget to subscribe to the DOPEfm podcast. It’s free! We always deliver great content, dope mix sets, underground hip-hop, interviews, and much, much more.
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