Extremist Makeover from 28 Days
The new 28 Days album, Extremist Makeover is a powerful shot of post punk energy infused with a sense of both the good old pre-pokies live energy days and modern times, where anything goes. One of the band's features that keep them firmly in the new millennium is the inclusion of someone on the decks. That someone is DJ Jedi and we caught up with him to get the spin on the new album.
What was the punk scene in Melbourne like in the early days?
“Going back to the eighties when we were first old enough to go to those kind of shows, it was small and underground, more of a pub scene. A lot of bands like The Meanies, Cosmic Psychos and Damage. It was great back then with no pokies.”
How did you get started on the decks?
“It was bizarre, we were skating one day and it was hard rubbish day, a day when the council removes junk left on the side of the road in front of peoples' houses and we found this black box. We figured we could skate on so we took it to a mate’s house and opened it up and it was actually a DJ consol. It had a mixer and one turntable, that didn't work, so we replace the broken deck with a couple of second hand decks and away we went.”
Do you still skate?
“Yeah, I just moved house and it’s next to a bowl so I’m going to get back into it this summer.”
How do you come up with your sounds? Do you use samples and vinyl or tweaked live sounds?
“We cut up a lot of dub plates ourselves so I'll get vocals, screams or guitar ring outs, that sort of stuff. And other sounds we synthesize ourselves like beats and stuff that we program ourselves.”
Do you try to stay away from nicking things on vinyl?
“No, I do to a certain extent, back on the first album we did it a lot but it was more sine tones than samples from other artists. But now we delve more into dub plates and things like that.”
When you do use artist samples do you tweak them enough so there is no copy-write infringement? In the early days, it was come one come all wasn't it?
“Yeah exactly, I think De La Soul was the first band to get really stung by it and from then on everyone has been really careful because you can lose a lot of money that way. We haven't used anything that could become a problem.”
You're better off using stuff you've recorded yourselves?
Yeah, that's why we use dub plates.”
When do you add your parts during the recording process?
“It’s different from album to album, on the first album, when I actually joined the band, they got me into the studio for two separate days, one at the start and one at the end, now we usually all go in before Jay and then he will come in and lay down his vocals and then we do another session and put up some dub plates. We usually use vinyl before Jay comes in and then use his stuff after. But it's different with each producer.”
What was (producer) Ulrich Wild like to work with?
“It was excellent, of course I'm a little biased because he's the best producer we have ever worked with. He had a really good understanding of the band. We've always had a problem converting out live show to album but Ulrich was ballsy enough to not even use a click track. The whole idea was to catch the live show and he did that.”
What was the band’s involvement with the video game Medal of Honor?
“We're all gamers and we've had a bit of a relationship with EA Sports bringing them songs and stuff and the new tie-in works as a marketing thing.”
Did you get to see advanced previews of the game and score parts of it or did they just pick existing songs to use in the game?
“Yeah the picked songs, they're also using one of the band’s songs in an upcoming rugby game.”
A friend of mine has some decks and I got to try to make some decent noise out of them and since then I have a lot more respect for what a DJ can do, it can be a lot more than just spinning albums.
“There are different levels of DJing, there's your simple sort of club mixing, mixing one track into another and making sure they're in key. That's what most people think DJing is but then you've got the whole turntablist movement where you try to use the turntable as an instrument, weather it be adding percussion or getting a tone and manipulating it by using the pitch slider, you just use your imagination and see what you can come up with.”
Were your contributions to the band ever questioned by the band’s audience?
“Not at the start because at that time a lot of other bands were doing it and it was a sort of trend thing but then the trend stigma turned around and bit us on the ass because now a lot of people look at it as a gimmick next to bands like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit and that sort of scene. There is a bit of a backlash against turntables in a band at the moment but some of that is a record company thing with them seeing it as a trend thing, with the whole New Metal stigma attached to it.”
Did you have any inspirations, DJ wise, when you started?
“Back in the days when I started, I took anything I could. I DJed for break dances, any club I could get work at and ran my own club nights, basically anything I could get.”
So for you it was more a matter of learning your trade from the live work rather than listening to records?
“No, I was influenced by others, one of my earlier influences was a video of a DJ world championship and I picked things up from that and just from experimenting on my own.”
How many songs were the band working on for Extremist Makeover before you finally settled on the final eleven?
“We had about forty. We've been songwriting pretty solidly for about the last year. We've pretty much taken the last year off other than a few assorted gigs to get the material together.”
It there a tour on the way? Who will you be touring with?
“Definitely, we're actually off to Bathurst in a few days and then we're doing major shows in all the major cities and then following that up with regional shows. As for support acts we're still working on that.”
With a moniker like Jedi you must be a Star Wars fan?
“I've always been a Star Wars fan. I'm a big fan of the merchandise but only the original stuff not any of the new stuff.”
Have you seen the new DVDs?
‘No, I haven't yet but I'm mainly interested in seeing it for that fourth extra disc.”
The hardcore fans are up in arms about the changes Lucas made to the films, like dubbing in Temuera Morrison’s voice as Jango Fett in the earlier films.
“No, I'm not down for that sort of thing. Lucas has sort of lost it as soon as he started taking himself too seriously and started writing love stories. I don't count the new episodes as part of Star Wars, to me it was the trilogy.”
The new album really provides a good shot of energy.
“That's what we tried to do this time, put that whole live 28 Days thing down on CD.”
That live show both on disc and in the flesh will be coming to a universe near you this October.
Rob Hudson
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