If you missed Part 1 of this interview, be sure to check it out.
We are speaking with Windchill Factor from Artists Over Industry and After.Words. This interview aired on Dope FM radio and is now available as a free podcast. Go download it and while you are there make sure to subscribe so you can get the best in dope, underground hip hop each and every week.
And without further ado, here is part two of the interview.
CHASE: “I want to talk to you about your autobiographical aspects of your songs because you just told us that you’ve lost hope from time to time, and everybody has, but listening to the After.Words album it seems like there is a lot of autobiographical aspects in there, like in ‘Maybe’ you say, ‘Maybe my father wasn’t meant to be with my mother.’ And I heard another song ‘cause after I got here Gamma Krush was playing ‘Step Into My World’ I think that’s off of your ‘I Have Arrived’ album. I haven’t been able to hear that whole album yet but I’ve heard a few things off of it. And you get more into your parents and the issues there.
I didn’t play this song at this point in the interview but I’d like to drop it now for you. Here’s is “Step Into My World” by Windchill off of his “I Have Arrived” album.
CHASE: “Is that all true? Autobiographical stuff?”
WINDCHILL: “Yeah, absolutely man. 100% true. I swear, you guys are on your P’s and Q’s, I gotta say because I know what you’re saying cause when you listen to ‘Step into My World’ I don’t bash my mom because I do love her and we have a great relationship now. But you can tell that there were some problems through my rhymes, ya know what I mean. You can tell some troubled family things arouse at those times and when I did ‘I Have Arrived’ I was trying to get all that old stuff off my chest. Like everything on that album is pretty much autobiographical.
And that line I wrote in ‘Maybe’ – “maybe my father wasn’t meant to be with my mother.’ Was me, basically, being at a point in my life where I could accept it. For the longest time I had problems with the step-dad growing up. And I was not a really easy kid to deal with. Obviously my parents got divorced. I was very young. It screwed me up. And it just threw me in the blender. Like in my mind, I was jacked up. My brain was crazy.
I couldn’t go nowhere without headphones on, like walking from class to class with headphones. I remember I would take like my favourite song and it put it on a whole tape, like a 60 minute tape. I’d pick two songs and put one on one side and one on the other and I would just listen to them all day long. One joint would be ‘Around the Way Girl’ by LL Cool J and the other side would be like ‘Award Tour’ by A Tribe Called Quest. And, like, I just listened to those songs a million times. And it was a way of coping with what had happened with my parents.
But, when my moms split, you can tell basically from ‘I Have Arrived’ that I had resentment toward my mom for leaving because I was so screwed up in the brain that I really couldn’t see that she just didn’t love my dad. Ya know what I mean, I took it really personal. When my mom left, I took it personal. I’m not gonna get into it and make her look bad but at the time, I had a right to do that. Ya know, my mom left and I didn’t see her for a long time after she left. Now, like I said, I see her all the time. On the weekends we go out. She goes out to a couple shows. My mom came to a KRS-One show by the way.”
CHASE: “Nice.”
WINDCHILL: “My Mom’s like 45, 50 years old and she came out to a KRS-One show. Like me and my mom are great now. But I wasn’t at one point so I vented that through ‘I Have Arrived.’ My mom told me that that song made her cry. But she told me, ‘Don’t be sorry Matthew, don’t be sorry. I know you had to get it off your chest.’ But she’s like, ‘You really did make me cry with that.’
So when I wrote ‘Maybe’ I wanted to kind of give my mom something back. I wanted to drop that line that when my mom heard it she would smile instead of cry because that’s where I truly am right now with her.
And I came to the realization, after getting to know my dad over the years and getting to know my dad over the years, that I can’t believe they even hung out one day. And that was part of my screw up because they were so different. Like growing up my dad was like, ‘Home at this time. Chores!’ like a drill sergeant and she’d be on the back porch just drinking with her friends and I could come and go as I pleased. So it was that that kind of screwed me up but I just wanted to show my mom that everything was cool and it so funny that you say that man, but my mom heard that line and the first time she saw me after she heard the album, she hugged me with tears, she wasn’t weeping, and she just said, ‘Thank you.’ And I was like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ and she told me that she thanked me for writing that line. And I was like, ‘You don’t got to thank me,” ya know what I mean? But I wrote that line because I realized that everything happened the way it should be.
For the longest time I was that kid that ‘I just want my family back.’ But in reality, that would’ve been even worse because my mom and my dad are like oil and water. They don’t even need to be in the same room together. So that’s kind of crazy that you found the connection between those two songs. That’s amazing to me.”
CHASE: “Well I can identify with it for number one. I’m a teacher so I see this kind of thing a lot with my students and I can see how it affects them. And also, my parents split when I was young and I didn’t know what was going on either. And I stayed with my mom for a bit and then I bounced to my dad’s. And I saw that lyric and could identify with it and it’s real. And I love when MCs can give us something like that. So I think a lot of people can identify with that song.
That’s the one thing I love about hip hop is how honest we are as MCs and DJs and listeners. We can just straight out put it out there and it’s accepted and people listen to it. And believe it or not, that probably helps people. Like that’s what I’m talking about – the positives of hip hop. People can identify with that, then they can hear your line later and seeing that you’re cool with your mom and maybe they’ll be like, ‘Ya know maybe my dad wasn’t such a dick for leaving or maybe my mom. Or maybe I realize that, yeah, they just weren’t meant to be together.’ And that’s a good realization to come to and mend those bridges and still have good relationships with both your parents. So props man, awesome.”
WINDCHILL: “Yeah, dude. Life is a crazy, crazy journey. And I realized that when I was really young, you gotta roll with the punches per se. And not to say that you don’t want to stand your ground, obviously. My dad always told me it was about picking and choosing your battles. Because you can kind of relate life to a war, ya know. It’s filled with a bunch of different battles and if you try to fight everyone of them, you’re never gonna make it to the end. So it was like, pick and choose your battle and when you pick your battle, you pick your stance on something and those are the things you stand up for and don’t budge for anybody. But when it’s really trivial, sometimes you just gotta roll with it and when it’s time, stand your ground, know what I mean?”
CHASE: “Man, I love talking with you. This interview is so awesome but we’ve been talking for a while so let’s drop another track.”
WINDCHILL: “Sure, absolutely.”
CHASE: “I mostly familiar with the ‘Before The War’ album so I’d like to drop another track off of that one if it’s alright with you?”
WINDCHILL: “Yeah, that’d be great man. For sure.”
CHASE: “Alright. I’d like to play ‘Look Inside of You’ cause once again there’s some really inspirational lyrics in there.”
WINDCHILL: “You’re reading my mind. That’s crazy.”
CHASE: “Nice, that’s what you would’ve picked to play now too?”
WINDCHILL: “Yup!’
CHASE: “Alright, so this is ‘Look Inside of You’ by After.Words. This is Chase March and Gamma Krush here on the ones and twos for Dope FM. Stay tuned after the song because we’ll be talking more with Windchill.”
You can hear this song on their facebook page here. http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/After.Words/track/Look+Inside+of+You
That’s it for today. See you tomorrow for Part 3 of this interview. Windchill continues to opens up with us and get personal about life and hip hop. You definitely don’t want to miss it. And you shouldn’t miss another podcast either. Subscribe for free to get the weekly mix shows we do where we always highlight the best in underground hip hop. Thanks for tuning in. See you tomorrow for Part 3 of the transcript right here.