From Elitaste

Interview by Jamie Benson
elitaste recently had the opportunity to chop it up with a producer with an unusual name who had an equally-unusual path to a career in hip hop. From his earlier days as a summertime street performer in Europe to his spot behind the boards of the new Camp Lo album, The Apple Juice Kid has caught the attention of traditional hip hop fans with his live drums and his jazz roots. In this thorough interview, you’ll get the inside scoop on his recently-released Miles Remixed project, the musical relationship he holds with Camp Lo, and a list of artists he’d love to work with.

First question – how’d you come up with the Apple Juice Kid moniker?

I was traveling in Europe and playing drums on the street for money during the summertime. I met a bunch of musicians and traveled around Europe, along with this one rapper named Kodiak Brinks. We were all trying to come up with stage names and one night we were talking about how you can divide the world into two paths – when you’re a kid you chose to drink apple juice or you chose to drink orange juice; that would determine your life’s path. I was an apple juice kid because I liked sweet…if you were an orange juice kid you like acidic, or whatever. [The name] just kinda stuck.

I’ve also made up a story; that’s the long story and I have a short, untrue story that I used to tell people because I was so sick of telling the entire story. I told people I won a drumming contest sponsored by Mott’s Apple Juice when I was like twelve.

As far as music training goes, you seem to have expertise in a wide range of genres. Were you always a hip-hop head?

I’ve been through a couple of phases in my life, musically. I started drumming when I was eleven – that’s when I first got into music in general. My first concert I ever went to was Bon Jovi and Cinderella, so that was my first introduction to the musical world. A year later, my second concert was Public Enemy, Run DMC, and DJ Jazzy Jeff. I had only known about Run DMC and Jazzy Jeff; I had never heard of Public Enemy. I went with my parents when I was like twelve and we were definitely one of ten white people there. That was my first introduction to hip hop. From there, I got heavy into Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and from there I got heavy into jazz. Once I got into jazz, I shut off everything and for me it was just jazz. I was really obsessed with Miles Davis and I loved John Coltrane. I had a drum teacher and jazz head named Pete Crawford who told me, “you’ve got to learn about every genre in music to be an incredible drummer. But really, jazz is where it’s at. If you learn to play jazz, you can play anything.” Jazz really encompasses all genres, and hip hop is very similar as well in that it can encompass multiple genres. When I went to college I got all these opportunities to travel the world and study abroad – that’s when I got real wide open. I got out of my jazz phase and became obsessed with any new instrument or genre that I heard across the world.

You’re an eight-time beat battle champion. Was there ever a moment where you asked yourself: where’s the competition?

Nah, each time I went into [a battle] I went in thinking I definitely wasn’t going to win. I went in in awe of a lot of other people in the competition. I know I’ve got the potential [to win], but I go in real nervous each time. I can be cocky about some things, but with the beat battle, there’s definitely incredible competition out there and I was just lucky to be apart of it. You get to build a lot of relationships with other artists and everyone is really supportive of each other; it’s not some crazy cutthroat competition where everyone wants to win or whatever.

Is it true that Miles Remixed was originally intended to be a soundtrack for a Miles Davis movie? What happened?

Basically, I’ve been in touch with [the singer] Yahzarah for quite awhile because she lives in the same area. We started casually working together and she called me one day and told me she got this opportunity for this Miles Davis project. She said, “I know you love jazz so you could probably flip this stuff,” and I got so excited about the opportunity. I wrote what I considered to be the entire soundtrack to the movie, not just one or two tracks. She wrote to one of them [“Come 2 Me” with Raheem DeVaughn] and then I had nine or ten other tracks that I just put together as an album for fun. We were sitting [on the project] for a long time. They said they loved it; it was all the normal industry thing – but a year and a half rolled by and still nothing happened. It was just one of those projects on my computer that hadn’t seen the light. Instead of waiting another two years to see if the movie was going to come out, I just decided to release it.

With the help of Hallway Jay from illRoots, the album got sent to Dan and Femi over at Okayplayer and within thirty minutes they decided they were going to put it out the next week. It was a project I wanted to get out in advance of the Camp Lo and Freebass 808 albums so I had an individual producer project.

On your MySpace page, you list The Foreign Exchange as one of your influences. What was it like living in North Carolina and being around musicians like Phonte, Nicolay, & Yahzarah?

I was a part of a group called Sankofa [in North Carolina]. We actually played some shows with Outkast and The Roots; we were a live hip hop band. Everyone thought we were going to be the next to blow or whatever. I would do these open mics and Phonte would show up. I knew the Justus League existed, but they weren’t really huge at the time. They used to talk shit about Sankofa because we were opening up for The Roots and Little Brother wasn’t. It was kinda funny at the time.

But just as Little Brother was exploding, Sankofa was breaking up. [The two events] weren’t directly related to each other, but Sankofa had been around five or six years and it was just our time to not do it anymore. That’s how I know Yahzarah and Phonte; Yahzarah and I are pretty close, Phonte and I talk but we’ve never worked on a [full] project together. I’m a big fan of The Foreign Exchange. I got to know Nicolay through IM, and I’ve gone to Wilmington to sit down and have dinner with him.

What kind of artist comparisons did you hear?

I don’t hear so much people telling me who I sound like. If anything they say, “you sound so versatile, you have so many different things going on.” I don’t have the same snare, same whatever on every song, so when I was first starting out I thought that was gonna be something that would mess me up. I mean, right now I feel like I’m still developing my sound with the live drums and the percussion. I did used to tell people that I wanted to create a sound similar to if you were to put ?uestlove and Swizz Beats in the same room. I wanna keep that live element but still be able to make a club hit out of it.

You’re behind the boards of the new Camp Lo album along with Ski & Korleon. How does the sound of A Piece of Action compare to classic Lo albums like Uptown Saturday Night?

We’re still trying to go for that 7-0 sound, that’s always been Camp Lo. We’re trying to bring it into the future, so it’s like vintage-futuristic essentially. It’s a real collaboration; the three of us just get into a room and I’ll start making beats, Cheeba will suggest something, and we’ll just make something that all three of us think is hot. I don’t really think about Uptown Saturday Night; I think about Cheeba and Suede. I know them well enough now that I know what they both like, I know what I like, and we all gotta love it in order to go forward.

Freebass 808 is a group that you and Suede created not too long ago. Can we expect an album release anytime soon?

There’s already an album that’s done called The Overdose Vol. 1. It’s not really our official major label album, but it’s definitely like an appetizer to give [to the fans]. I don’t want to call it a mixtape because it’s all original material, but we call it a volume because that was our way of telling people what it was. The album will be coming out; I don’t know about the timing with the Camp Lo album and when we’re dropping this, but both of them will be coming out soon.

Are there any artists you’re dying to work with? Or notable projects that you having coming out?

As far as artists I’m dying to work with, Missy Elliot is someone that I’ve always admired. I love her experimentation with music. Wale is honestly someone that I’ve been a big fan of and I feel fortunate that I’m submitting music for his debut album. D’Angelo would be someone I’d be thrilled to work with; one of my favorite albums is Voodoo and if I were trying to go back to my jazz roots I would love to help recreate the Voodoo sound with a twist. Also, I loved the way Mark Ronson mashed genres together on Here Comes The Fuzz; Uffie, MIA, Diplo- any artist who loves to twist up genres, revolution, and make people dance.

Suede and I have a company called La Universe in which we’re developing artists – Jungle Boogie Brown is one of them who is been a part of Camp Lo. Rare Formula is another extremely talented group- obviously Freebass 808 is gonna be the first group we jump out with, there’s also a great young artist named Cream, another amazing female singer named Jana (apple juice orchestra). My band, The Remix Project will be dropping a tape soon. Ninth Wonder and I have done some production for a truly unique MC, Omotade(O Period). Right now, I’m all about collaborating with producers like Ski, Symbolic One, as well as a few others.

Click HERE to download an exclusive Apple Juice Kid track (Clocks In ATL f. Matthew Johnson). http://www.myspace.com/theapplejuicekid