Few artists feels more genuine in their creativity than Ira Lee. An emcee with his heart on his sleeve. He has these last few years produced some, in my ears, truly amazing music. So it is with great pleasure that I give you the man himself. And if you stick around to the end of the interview, you will get a previously unreleased song to dance the night away to.
Who is Ira Lee?
My life and times are best explained as a portrait of a small child that drops his ice cream in the dirt and starts to cry.
You are living in France at the moment. Why is that and for how long?
Honestly, I couldn’t get booked on a decent particle of super space in the shattered remnants of my hometown if the entire mega sphere imploded. No matter how adamant my self proclamations of ground broken are on the international scale. It is as impossible to live as an original artist in Canada, as it is everywhere. Signing a deal in France was the last straw for me. I had resigned myself to the solitary life of cultivating the necessary delusions I need to survive independently, and was destined to be artistically and emotionally decimated by the crushing meaningless of simply being. Luckily, I woke the fuck up when the shampoo commercial ended. The only festivals I have ever played in Canada are with my good friends, Pop Montreal in Quebec, 3 times consecutively. I headlined over 6 festivals in France alone, and played almost 30 shows in Europe, in addition to; six albums in the 8 months since moving to the South of France. I have been on tour for the last six months. North American media, industry and culture notoriously refuse to recognize the independent innovator’s on the frontline. I refuse to be punished for making music that is beyond my time. In Europe, I found artists that simply decimated my level of performance, artistry, and song writing ability. The fact they all have nasally, shiftily distinctive voices and sing songs in a language they can’t speak is advantageous on this side of the pond. Imagine that. Ultimately, I will look back and know my time in Europe was the catalyst of my ’asshole’ to ’super talented asshole’ transition.
We’re moving back to Montreal in June because I got a bunch of money from the Canadian government to write and produce an Opera and my wife is managing an art gallery while completing her doctorate. I’m mid way through developing a unique new ’live set’, a one man band approach to dysfunctional pop / rap music that will melt your eyeballs and dick holes shut.
You’re being incredibly productive at the moment. Can you tell us about your current and upcoming projects?
Rubin Steiner and I are releasing the We are the Future LP on Platinum Records in April, a tour (you know the kind that actually happens) of Germany, Canada, and the U.S. is to be expected this summer and fall. Ridd Lore from C.V.E. and I have an EP in its final stages, and Ridd Lore and Gel Roc and I have an LP about 80 percent done, dropping this summer. The Fox Heads (Funken and Ira Lee) We Want to be Numb LP is ready, perfect, and dropping late this summer. K-the-I??? (Mush/Fake Four) and I have an LP 60 percent done, dropping late this fall (Big announcement coming up for this one). I’m heading back to Switzerland next week to finish recording LEJ 2 with mattr. and the album is a truly brilliant achievement in experimental music. I have three different instrumental albums ready to be released when the time is right. The whole ‘free download’ dilemma is a bit depressing.
Can you tell us about your creative process when it comes to making songs?
I want to tell you how to write a song, I really do. So here’s the only ’real’ way to do it. Smoke a lot of drugs and think about some crazy ass shit. Like calculators or dinosaurs using them. Or a dinosaur with a dinosaur calculator mad out of human bones. Or a tribe of wandering skeletons that sell dinosaur bones to street jewelers. Or a robot, that swallows a dinosaur full of diamonds on the run from a gang of street wise skeletons. Think about this kind of shit. Silently. At length and in excruciating detail. Until one single train of thought makes you react almost instinctively. Feel it out. The shape, weight, relationship and environment of this ‘seed’ idea. Let the idea stew and marinate naturally, allow its curse to be uninterrupted, unaffected. Grow this solitary kernel of divine minimalism into the root of everything you have ever felt or believed in. Die in the moment. Give of it, for it. Become the essence of that idea’s irrational struggle into life. Nurture it like a mother scorpion. Gently caress this shapeless, formless newborn until you have gained it‘s absolute trust Then rape it. Hopelessly, brutally, mercilessly. Exploit every conceivable angle and scheme, rob every corner, steal every story, instigate every interpretation, prod every shadow, stalk every nook, cram every cranny. When you have completely, and I mean totally destroyed every fiber of this bottomless, soulless, formless intangible; get high again. On life, dreams, pussy, pills, sweat, lies, whisky, fire, blood, sleep. Hope. Then wash the dishes. Clean the house. Look at things. Feel guilty. Overeat. Over analyze. Under appreciate. Let your raw nature drift though the virtual plains of subconscious infinity and wallow fully and completely in naked, psychic ecstasy. Mother your mercy. Until another innocent, miniscule, fleeting, passing instant sprouts like ragweed on the coconut branch of your soul. Experience, dissect, chronicle, and combine these always dissimilar, vaguely metaphorical, randomly coincidental experiences into a handsome, dysfunctional lazer beam of unrestricted epiphany and intergalactic insight. Push this loaded and flaming punisher to the side of your delicate sensibilities, your deepest beliefs, and pull the trigger. On a never ending loop. Over and over again, describing, realizing, fantasizing. Repetitively, never endlessly. This disjointed voodoo limbo, invariably leads to a decent line or two every now and again. Wash, rinse, and repeat about 60,000 times for ten years and you just might, maybe, write a decent song or two by the time you’re 250 million. Or, if all else fails, pay two bums to fight naked and write down what they scream at each other.
What is your purpose with your music?
To live forever while pushing death back a little bit.
What are you doing when you’re not making music?
The only thing I do in and with my life is make music. When I make a beat or write a song, nothing hurts more, so naturally. Nothing matters as much. I was hospitalized in 2002 -2003 because I would not, and could not stop making music to eat, or sleep, or shit, or fuck. I had my monitors in the bathroom beside the toaster so I could make beats while I took a bath. When I’m not making music, I don’t exist.
I’ve been a huge fan of Canadian hip hop for many years now. What is your opinion of the Canadian scene?
Yikes… L
You seem like a guy who’s not afraid to work with a range of different artists. Do you have a dream collaboration?
Meat Loaf. Dolly Parton. Socalled. Joanna Newsom. Al B. Sure. Boyz II Men. Moxy Früvous.
Final words?
‘Sometimes when I’m reading a book, I’m just passing my eyes over the letters and thinking about boobs.’
Download Ira Lee - A Good Person (prod. by Eric Crusher)
http://iraleeiswack.com/
Platinum Records
Little Eskimo Jesus
The Fox Heads
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