This is the third part of the interview transcript. To hear the entire show for free, please go and download the podcast. If you want to read the interview and catch some YouTube videos, make sure you check out Part 1 and Part 2.
And without further ado, here is part 3.
CHASE: “Alright we’re lucky enough to be sitting with Windchill from Artists Over Industry and After.Words. Well, actually we’re on the phone and he’s sitting in another part of the continent but modern technology, we’re all together here on Dope FM. How ya doing Windchill?”
WINDCHILL: “I’m chilling man, no pun intended. The sun’s going down. It’s starting to get dark out and I can see the driveway where all the cars come in to this club and they keep pouring in. So I think it’s gonna be a banger man, I’m excited.”
CHASE: “Yes, that’s right. We’ll just remind everyone that you are performing at tonight’s Central PA Music Awards and are up for an award as well.’
GAMMA KRUSH: “Hey, this is a typical question but where did you come up with the name Windchill? Was that something you always went with or did you go by any other name?”
WINDCHILL: “I used to go by a bunch of names and that was kind of why I had to shed them all. And none of the names, I never made them up myself. I would love to say that there was some crazy thought that went into Windchill but this is what I came up with. I had the name Lieutenant Freestyle was one of my names, for a long time I went my White Gold, and this other time, I always used to write the hooks. Like my first group was like seven rappers called the Major Factors and we would like all write a verse to the beat, like don’t even care about no topic, let’s just write. And then every time we’d be done, they’d be like, ‘Yo, write us a chorus.’ So my one boy, who I pretty much credit my career in hip hop to, his name is Money Rhymes, he called me Captain Hook and I started dying yo. That was the funniest and it fit so perfectly.
So I had all these names and they were all given to me but I wanted to come up with something on my own so I gave it some thought. I remember that a few things always led me to Windchill. People hate the cold. You can take like a nice 20-degree day in the winter and, you know, it’s cold, it’s freezing already but you put some wind in the mix and then before you know it, people are just miserable. You know it drops 30 degree and it’s negative 20 now because of the wind, ya know what I mean. And whenever the news came on and said, “The wind-chill factor today is negative 30, I don’t know why I’d be like that’s pretty cool.
And another thing was that I really liked Mother Nature. I’m very fascinated by mother nature and how mankind look like idiots even trying to stand up to it. But at any rate, it was a force of nature. It’s just one of those things you can’t stop and then I started learning back then about the wind itself, how it could generate power almost the same as water. Wind power is one of the most efficient and easiest thing to harness. So all those things combined just kind of led me to it. My name when I started was The Windchill Factor, but that’s just too much.”
CHASE: “Yeah.”
WINDCHILL: “I’ve been called everything man. Ya know, Chill Factor. No one calls me Windchill, they just call me Chill. I shouldn’t say no one, I should just say my close group of people. Like everyone just dropped the wind, they just call me Chill, which is cool too. I actually like that. And the only other name I go by nowadays, and it’s definitely an a.k.a. name, I don’t even put it on my myspace or nothing is actually Reality Check and that goes back to what we were talking about fellas with putting your real life and your experiences down on the paper and the rhymes that you spit. So I always thought my rhymes gave people kind of a sense of reality check. That was my other name. So it’s really Windchill or Chill or you can call me Reality Check, no one calls me that though. You know how Wu-Tang always had, like Method Man was Meth Tical and they all had like 4 names.”
GAMMA KRUSH: “Yeah, Wu-Gambinos. Noodles.”
WINDCHILL: “Like each one had a whole bunch of names too. Like U-God was Baby U.”
GAMMA KRUSH: “Golden Arms.”
WINDCHILL: “And RZA was Bobby Digital. They all had like 3 names. I was like, ‘Yo, I want at least two. Ya know what I mean?’
GAMMA KRUSH: “Yeah, Chase and I are a little guilty of that too.”
CHASE: “I’ve shed everything except Chase March for the time being. I still get called some of the old ones now but I had some wack ones like you and Chase fits, ya know. So the album title, ‘Before the War,’ ya like that segue? The album title ‘Before the War.” Is there a war coming?”
WINDCHILL: “I think the war is pretty much already here. It’s a war on you mind, basically. Everything that is basically pushed to the mass populace, everything pushed through media, MTV, VH1, any corporation that has control of television or anything, everything that’s put out there is meant to distract people. Because the reason why we have everything we have now is because there was time for people to sit around, walk around in the storm with like a kite and a key and get struck by lightning and find electricity. Like if Ben Franklin has to worry about the TV, a job, kids, a mortgage payment, and a car payment, he would’ve never discovered electricity.
And everything that is made by all the corporations is an attempt to dumb people down. It’s an attempt to give then 101 ways of escapism. And that is the war that’s going on because that war against your mind is taking you away from the divine reason that you are here. The divine reason that you are here is to figure out what life is about. I think everyone should leave a mark on the world where they’ve at least made things better. And it just seems that everything these days has got people dumbed down. I wish I could think of the MC who said it, I think it was Pharaohe, he said, ‘Of course it’s your favourite song, they play it on the radio 20 times a day.’ Ya know what I mean?
GAMMA KRUSH: “‘Why must you believe something is fat just because it’s played on the radio 20 times a day?’ Yes, that was from ‘Stress.’”
CHASE: “We’ve been talking for a while. Let’s play that track now. It’s called “Stress” by Organized Konfusion. Prince Po is the first MC on the track but then Pharaohe Monche then comes on and says that line we just talked about it. Check it out,
CHASE: “Yeah, that line by Pharaohe Monche sure says a lot, doesn’t it?”
WINDCHILL: “I’m not trying to be full of myself or any underground rapper, but put that on the radio 30 times a day and they will be the next big thing. It’s not hard, ya know what I mean. Like take a song from my album. Put ‘Pay Homage’ on constant rotation tomorrow on all the big stations and I’ll be a star. And it sucks to say that, ya know what I mean, cause anyone can do it. But why we never make it to that point because they want whatever’s readily available music is the most ignorant form of music possible so people can’t get enlightened by it.”
CHASE: “I completely agree.”
WINDCHILL: “They don’t want someone walking around like ‘Before the War’ trying to call out the Federal Reserve and how it’s like an illegal operation, and call out this and call out that. They would never allow that on the mainstream waves.”
CHASE: “Yeah, we actually are ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ to quote Neil Postman who wrote a book on this whole topic in 1985 believe it or not, but I just read it, just from the library, just out of my own amusement like last summer. And it’s amazing how he saw that coming. And that’s where we are. And almost like Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World.’ People were afraid George Orwell’s 1984 was gonna come true, but, ya know, if the people just stop caring and are amusing themselves constantly, we’re gonna be in a bad state. So I totally agree with what you’re saying there.”
WINDCHILL: “That’s what it is. It’s gotten to the point that people have retreated as far as they’ve retreated and their only save haven is their living room, Like they don’t care if someone gets shanked to death out front. They’ll watch it through the blinds but they won’t pick up the phone and call the cops, ya know what I mean?”
CHASE: “But they’ll tape it on their cellphone.”
WINDCHILL: Like everyone’s ‘Like leave me alone, in my own house, just don’t’ come in here.’ That’s where everyone’s retreated to. No one protests nothing. For example, listen to this fellas, around here in PA, in this part of Pennsylvania. It’s called **** and it’s the water company that deals with most of PA. Well, these use chlorine in water to clean it and, of course, everyone’s known that for years. But chlorine causes bladder cancer and all this other stuff and it’s proven but everyone seems to be okay with that. But I guess it’s not killing people fast enough because now, around here, unannounced to the public until it was already in the drinking water supply was a chemical called chloramine. It’s basically chlorine and some other crazy chemical. I can’t remember right off the top of my head, I wish I did ‘cause I’d sound really smart, but I don’t. I just know it’s chlorine mixed with something else and it’s double as harmful and way worse on this and way worse on that. I have an article I was reading at the house. And that just effects all the people here in PA. Well, not even the whole state, just the local area. **** Water, they decided to go from chlorine to chloramine. And of course all the back info on chloramine is horrible.”
CHASE: “Woah, I haven’t heard anything about that. We got some crazy sodium levels and we’ve got certain places here in the province where you can’t drink the tap water, and boil water advisories. It’s crazy what’s going on.”
GAMMA KRUSH: “Yeah, we’re not really that far. We’re just like right above y’all. We’re pretty much in the same backyard almost.”
WINDCHILL: “Aren’t you guys right on the other side of New York? Don’t you huys touch New York state at all?”
GAMMA KRUSH; “Yes we do and a little bit of Pennsylvania, I think.”
WINDCHILL: “No doubt, that’s awesome. I knew you guys weren’t too far but I need to get up on my geography man. On tour we went through Buffalo, New York and I know Buffalo is fairly close ”
CHASE: “I rolled through Pennsylvania once. I think it was a bout a six hour drive from here”
GAMMA KRUSH: “And Buffalo’s like an hour from us.”
WINDCHILL; “Okay.”
CHASE: “I was down in Pennsylvania for a Scout Camp. I remember, it was horrible actually. It was rainy. It was crazy. And muddy and very uncomfortable. So that’s why I haven’t been back. Nah, I’m just kidding. I got reason to come back now. The hip hop scene looks amazing out there. Too bad I’m not at the show. I’d love to be able to see you perform tonight.”
WINDCHILL: “That’d be dope man, And if you guys were here that would be cool. I can tell that we’re all on the same plane.”
CHASE: “It feels like I could talk to you all night. I mean, we got an overnight show but I know you gotta perform or we could stay on air all night. We could like spin a set and come back and talk to you again. This has been wicked.”
Believe it or not folks, we are not done yet. Windchill is a dope hip hop musician and a great person to talk to. We’ve covered a lot more than just beats, rhymes, and life. Stay tuned for the fourth and final part of this interview transcript tomorrow. And don’t forget to go download the podcast of this interview for free from Dope FM.
See you tomorrow for Part 4.
2 responses to “Windchill Interview Part 3”
I would like to exchange links with your site chasemarch.blogspot.com
Is this possible?
That's kind of hard to do when you remain anonymous.
Let me know send me the link to your site. An exchange sounds like a good idea.
Thanks!