Swollen Members Interview with Rob the Viking and Prevail in Support of their 2006 Release, Black Magic

Swollen Members Interview with Rob the Viking and Prevail in Support of their 2006 Release, Black Magic
by Dixon Christie

PunkTV.ca: We are talking with the producer, Rob the Viking from Swollen Members, how are you Rob?
Rob the Producer: Good, good.

PunkTV.ca: Where are you right now?
Rob the Producer: We are in San Diego right now, we got a show tonight. 

PunkTV.ca: How did the show in Las Vegas go last night?
Rob the Producer: Vegas was amazing.  We played at a venue called Jillians, it was actually their last show there I guess the company got bought out or something.  So we got the chance to play the last show there.

PunkTV.ca: Rough crowd, fun time?
Rob the Producer: Oh ya it was crazy.  The fans were there, they were rocking the bandanas, everything.  It was great, energy was very very sick.

PunkTV.ca: I’m wondering if the clubs like seeing all the kids running around with skeleton bandanas on, those new bandanas that you got everyone wearing.
Rob the Producer: We got black magic bandanas with all of our numbers on them.  It’s pretty cool, you can fold them up and put em across your face, it looks like the bottom half of a skull.  A lot of kids have been wearing that, it’s really cool.

PunkTV.ca: Where did you come up with that idea?
Rob the Producer: That was a group decision I think.  We have a designer named Mark Gainer who helped us out with the creative aspect of putting our album together and a lot of the layout and everything so he’s been really helping us out with that.  The design is actually a guy named Kingsley.

PunkTV.ca: That’s totally cool.  I want to say congratulations; I saw you guy in Blender this week.
Rob the Producer: Ya we had a couple ads in Blender and Fader magazine and a bunch of other ones. 

PunkTV.ca: Ok so I’ll ask you a bunch of questions and then we can go to Prevail.  So tell us about how the beat writing process works for you guys and how you put together your sweet beats.
Rob the Producer: It’s a lot of different things.  I may come up with a sample or find a sample or a melody that I like and I’ll just build off f that, put the drums together add the bass and make the skeleton and get it as close to it as I want to get it before I show it to them and then they’ll take it.  They’ll take that mood that I’ve created and paint themselves into that picture, it’s really cool.  Mad Child, I’ll give him a CDand he’ll take it to his living room or his kitchen table and write something, come up with something.  And Prev, we each sort of have your places that we like to go to and create.  Then we all come together at the studio and build on it from there. 

PunkTV.ca: For Rob the producer, yourself, what is your preferred tool? Do you ever write with Reason or Fruityloops, Cubase or Cakewalk?
Rob the Producer: I guess you could say my premier piece of equipment is the MPC 2000.  I had that for probably like 8 years and I use pro tools around that and I use keyboards and a guitar, stuff like that.  I like to add those touches but it usually starts from a sample from the MPC 2000. 

PunkTV.ca: So I also heard that you guys are the best selling hip-hop group in Canadian history.  How did that feel?
Rob the Producer: It’s an honor that our country has embraced us on that scale.  To be a success like that its given us so much inspiration to take our styles further and to continue on.  And I think its helped a lot of people understand that you really can do something big with your music in Canada, especially with hip hop music.  There’s a lot of other artists that have really shot up and we’ve seen a lot of cool people come out.  I think Sweatshop Union was one of those groups and K-Os is really doing well in Canada as well. It was a huge celebration for us when we found out that we won that first Juno and the radio play that came out of that and the Much Music and what not.  Its like given us so much inspiration and we’re gonna take it down to the United States now and tour across America to build up our presence.  We’re building a movement down here.

PunkTV.ca: Nice.  So speaking of which, when we met in person at Showgirls here, (they bought me drinks all night, totally cool people!) you were telling me how important it was for you to represent Canada and how proud you were of being a Canadian.
Rob the Producer: Of course.  Music is universal, it doesn’t matter where you come from but we’re definitely repping our country and we want to come out and show the world what we can do as artists in general, it doesn’t matter where we’re from, and make our country proud, put ourselves on the map.

PunkTV.ca: Good stuff. And you guys will be out touring this album for 2 years like your last one eh?
Oh ya, we’re touring until Christmas time.  The Black Magic tour is a 3 and a half month tour so far up until Christmas and if people want to check out where we’re playing you can check out www.Swollen members.com and you can get all the information for tour dates and what not.

PunkTV.ca: Ok brother thanks so much, I’ve got a couple more questions for Prev and we’re out.
Rob the Producer: No prob, thanks. Here’s Prev.

PunkTV.ca: Thank you dude. 
Prevail: What’s up bro?

PunkTV.ca: Hey how are you Prev?
Prevail: Good how are you man?

PunkTV.ca: Good, can you tell us a little bit about the album “Black Magic”?
Prevail: The new Swollen Album, “Black Magic” is our first album in 2 years.  We feel it’s our most truthful, heartfelt album.  We wanted to get back to our signature sound which is being able to paint the dark and light aspects of life over high energy, experimental beats which is lyrically abstract.  We really just wanted to get back to ourselves on this album, we feel 100% positive that we did that. 

PunkTV.ca: Tell us about some of the friends that you got onto the album with you for this one, Ghost Face Killer, Everlast, Dialated Peoples.
Prevail:  Well Swollen Members loves being able to make music with our friends in the case of Dialated and in the case of Everlast. Especially Dialated we’ve been family with those guys for a long time and we’ve been building a friendship with Everlast for a couple years now  so it’s just great for us to be able to make music with people that we’re inspired by and people we grew up listening to who we have mutual respect for each others music.

PunkTV.ca: Well I want to thank you for your time, that’s all we need for today brother.
Prevail: Thanks a lot bro.

PunkTV.ca: Ok peace out.
Prevail: You bet, peace.