pseudo-interview with Greg Backus

Greg Backus is part of the percussive arm of the intoxicating band Warmer Milks that my band played with about a week ago, as it goes with the formula of this blog, I wanted to know what made him tick, so I asked:

FL: to begin, what kind of stimulus do you respond to the most: aural, visual, etc?

GB: Reruns of daytime television game shows. Viscerally stimulating. Dinah Shore's talk show - a real winner. Really probably emotional or idealistic stimuli, largely internal or interpersonal. I like silence and memory, history and science fiction.

FL: what is the primary source, other than the most obvious (music, film, visual art, etc) and what are the most direct effects of this stimulation on your art?

GB: The primary sources often seem to be just some idea. Think about something specific - you just realized your house was on fire. Or instruments or sound sources become character voices in a dialogue or a chorus.
The most obvious "sources" would be the doods in the band. Our paintings, drawings and designs are ours and our friends. It's hard to differentiate between different "sources" of stimulation. Creation itself is stimuation and is a very immediate feedback loop. Hopefully the immediate source is someone who is doing something really cool in the immediate context.
We all seem able to inspire each-other occasionally.
Make a bunch of accidents and see how they sound together

FL: what kind of imagery does the act of creating music conjure in your head? can you give a semi-detailed description of your mode of thought while creating music, visual or otherwise?

GB: Primitive. Visual becomes secondary to the audial which is something somewhat rare in the history of each individual sensory unit (read: person). Vision becomes a sense by which reality is supported where it normally defines it. The acronyms that Stanislaw Lem made up in his stories, absurd compound words. Non-sense. Phonemes. Gibberish science - SMASH THE REACTIONARY MIND! I've become an association engine.
How to build and how to break. How to foster an environment that can contain some powerful freak weird howlings and sounds like puking, like someone's sick in the corner or draw out from it with the first book you read in hand - I am a pit full of self.

FL: if you could pen an artist's statement regarding your music without relying on favored terminology (cross-referencing, genre pegging, ect.) what would it say?

GB: I thought that Stevie Wonder and the Beatles were the same person when I first started listening to music. Oops. That's name dropping.

FL: can you give a breif explanation of why you decided to make music in the first place and why "experimental" music is appealing to you? what draws you to it?

GB: I was able to connect emotionally more often than with other "sources". experiemental music appeals to me because it is so subjective.