John Tejada
Known for crafting a brand of subtle musical techno, John Tejada has proven to the world over the years that regardless of tempo or style he always retains the quality he has become renowned for. Be it his productions on his own Palette label, his drum & bass excursions with London-based producer Klute, collaborations with Arian Leviste or Titonton Duvante, or even his post-rock electronica experiments as I’m Not A Gun, Tejada is an example of extreme creative talent which shows no genre boundaries.
Hosted by Fergus Murphy It’s my pleasure to welcome John, with a silent J, Tejada. Having clarified and having heard about ten different pronunciations of the name, it’s a pleasure to know how to say it correctly. John Tejada Alright. Fergus Murphy You can of course also say it with a Spanish accent but I’m not going to try that here and now. The other thing, John, over the last week or so with your name coming up and the obvious mispronunciations, I also found quite a lot of people would describe your music in very different names. The word techno came up, the word house came up, I heard some people mention jazzy, broken, all these things. Is there a preferred title for you or... John Tejada I don’t know, I mean to me it’s almost like a BPM issue. You know, if it’s a bit faster it’s techno, if it’s a bit slower, it’s house. If I throw other rhythms in, all of the sudden it’s broken beat but to me it’s sort of the same thing, even like short phase of drum & bass, I just tell people to me, it’s 45 BPM faster and people don’t like that answer like no, you know hip-hop it’s 30 bpm slower, not hip-hop but you my sort of slower thing... Fergus Murphy Downbeat... John Tejada Downbeat and things. I kind of grew up with my parents being classical musicians and just sort of hearing a broad scale of all kinds of music when I was young, so in a way in my head it’s just music in a way, you know, I mean all these things get categorized to death, like house has, tech-house and deep house and about 30 other things and you play it for your mom and it’s like, “Oh yeah okay, it’s all the same really.” Fergus Murphy What BPM is your house cut off? John Tejada Well that’s the whole thing, I don’t see it that way... Fergus Murphy No, no okay. John Tejada But yeah, I don’t know. Fergus Murphy You spent some time as a kid in Vienna, you mentioned just now that your parents are classical musicians... John Tejada Right. Fergus Murphy Why, why Vienna? John Tejada That’s where I was born. Fergus Murphy That’s where you were born yeah and what instruments do they play? John Tejada They started me off on piano when I was... My dad really, he was really into this, he’s going to do everything, so I think around age three or four I had learned piano stuff and then when I moved with my mom to the states, my cousin had a drum set and he was playing drums to Led Zeppelin and all this stuff and when he wasn’t at home, I’d get on his drums and just sort of start playing to it, you know, and then I wanted to play drums and I asked my mom if I had to play piano anymore and she’s like, "Not if you don’t want to," so then drums it was. Fergus Murphy Drums... And I mean this live element when you are recording, do you do all your drum sounds or...? John Tejada For the electronic stuff, it depends, I have in the past but definitely for the other project that I guess we’ll talk about, “I’m Not a Gun,” I’m playing live drums on all the tracks and live as well. Fergus Murphy Yeah so the live element has always been a big part of your music. John Tejada Yeah it depends, my brain thinks in two ways. I really like this programming side where it’s like a rush of programming something just right and really feeling satisfied in that way and then when we do “I’m Not a Gun,” it’s all about capturing a performance, like you know I was explaining earlier or speaking to you that when we do a live show, it’s totally different, I have to play it of course like a musician. But when you’re programming forever, you kind of lose sight of this stuff but we have to play our instruments you know, as perfectly as we can for 40 minutes and it’s totally different to do that or like for me to play a really cool drum track and then have that recorded and you captured it and it will never happen again you know and that’s like a totally different satisfaction, sort of split in my head in two different directions. Fergus Murphy Tell me about, obviously after a short period in Vienna, you moved back to the states and LA still is home, but there’s also a hip-hop past to your life. John Tejada Yeah, that’s also how I got into this music, you know. So drums and then we had a really cool station in LA that just came back but I’m not sure what the deal is but that’s a whole different story but it was called KDAY and it was sort of like the legendary Detroit station you hear of with the mojo on it... Fergus Murphy Electric mojo. John Tejada And this sort of big blend of sounds and DJing so we had a handful of DJs that a few of them became really popular guys and they would just have mix shows all the time and you would get a lot of the east coast hip-hop and a little bit of these West Coast producers but there was a big sort of electro scene in LA with the breaking and stuff and that music and there was some Detroit and New York stuff, lots of New York stuff. At the time that was all hip-hop and it was sort of the faster, futuristic hip-hop and I always sort of geared my ear toward that sound. Fergus Murphy What year are we talking about here? John Tejada Okay, this is in the ’80s, you know about ’85 I really at a young age was trying to follow this music as much as I could. Fergus Murphy What sort of artists do you mean when you describe it as futuristic faster hip-hop? John Tejada Well like, “Planet Rock” and Arthur Baker productions was getting heavy play and in LA, we had Egyptian Lover and Uncle Jamm's Army and they were doing appearances and a lot of DJs were specializing om that sound, like Chris "The Glove" Taylor and all that stuff, so just for a brief period you’d hear a bit of say “No UFO’s” by Model 500 mixed in with a 4/4 beat and then you’d hear more of that and maybe a little bit of early Trax Records and then somehow it just became another genre of, at least to me living in LA being a bit more out of touch than the rest of the world. I just sort of followed that and all of the sudden I was making techno or whatever and it just sort of grew out of hip-hop for me. Fergus Murphy At what point, so the DJing and you were playing drums and then DJing, when did that come into the equation. John Tejada Playing drums was really early when I was sort of trying... Fergus Murphy Yeah John Tejada Play some things when I was eight I think and then I started hearing the mix shows when I was twelve and I would hear people like Aladdin and Jo Cooley doing these tricks and I just had to learn how to do it, I’d take the home record player, you know like everybody else I’m sure messing up the home system trying to scratch and then finally getting enough money together for this really bad set of turntables to practice on. Fergus Murphy Can you still do a flair or a crab or... John Tejada I can do one quick flair and I can do a crabs but you know this back then this didn’t exist so it was about this Joe Cooley style, Aladdin, toggle switch, triple things and everybody had different names for the scratches but I can still get down. Fergus Murphy Yeah John Tejada I can still do it, if I have to. [laughs] Fergus Murphy There might be some challengers later. John Tejada I volunteer for a good loss. Fergus Murphy What name were you DJing under at that time? It’s a famous battle isn’t it, that’s what getting at. John Tejada Okay well there’s friend of mine in Junior High School that named me DJ Domino for some reason and I still don’t know why and I really, even at the time, I wanted to use my name and everybody was like, you can’t use your name, nobody uses their name. Fergus Murphy You have to be someone. John Tejada Actually when I was in high school, I was on a college radio show with a friend of mine, who passed away in LA but being in high school and totally disconnected, I had no idea, I knew we were on the radio but I didn’t think anybody was listening so apparently a few people I guess were getting to... Cut Chemist, he knew me from this show and battling locally and stuff but I was just enjoying doing it, I didn’t think anybody knew about the show or anything and his partner Newmark and I used to battle and we hated each other and then we became friends and I bought my first sampler from him back in like 1990. So that was a big step to start making my own beats and music. Fergus Murphy But you were sworn enemies. John Tejada Not really, we were in two separate crews and crews just all sort of hated each other but I didn’t have any problem with anybody, like I’d alway sort of see them and I’d be like, “Hey he seems cool,” you know, but then the crews would be like, “We’re going to battle you,” you know. And I was like okay and I’m the DJ to do it, so I’d just get thrown into these situations but it was fun. It’s competitive, I mean hip-hop always was with the dancing and the music and that was the sort of fun element that I enjoyed from that genre because it was all about outdoing the other guy and I think we’re all competitive but that just really was unapologetic about it which I think is kind of cool. Fergus Murphy Kind of primal in that respect. John Tejada Yeah. Fergus Murphy So hip-hop was good to you, I mean your first sampler, you bought it from Numark John Tejada Right. Fergus Murphy Do you remember how much you paid? John Tejada I think he overcharged me a bit. At the time it was just an EPS for a four time expander and I mean 1990 samplers, we had I think the choices were an EPS, they didn’t have the 16 plus yet or the SP 1200 but I really wanted to play with keyboard sounds as well because I was hearing this, trying to have ideas about maybe bringing back some piano playing and making some house or whatever I was hearing at the time, so it was between that and the W30 and older stuff and Newmark was using his EPS and showed me how to use it and I bought it. I think it was about 1500 US [dollars] at the time and he let me give him payments you know. Fergus Murphy An installment plan John Tejada Yeah stuff was expensive back then and you know. It’s amazing now a days, you get a thousand dollar laptop and you can produce anything if you put your time into it but you know we paid our dues I think, we had 12-second sampling time and you record everything super fast so you can have more sampling time. You had to work with what you had so I try to remember that in my way of working when I’ve got like a hundred plug ins to use and just sort of try to remember, “Think 12-second sampling times,” get a good idea down, you know. Fergus Murphy It was a rigorous training. John Tejada Yeah it was good you know. Fergus Murphy Working on the old machines... John Tejada They had a soul in them, they were all different, they sort of geared your sound. It was a special time I guess but I’m glad to be past it, I like my computer much better. Fergus Murphy You don’t make hip-hop music nowadays, do you really? John Tejada I mean, I incorporate it, we were speaking about these downtempo records I mean they’ve got elements of that. I think, for a lot of things that make happy creatively, for me at least, it’s a combination of styles you know, just whatever comes out. I still like to practice doing the scratches and try to learn something and I love watching people perform Fergus Murphy So you still get ideas from it? John Tejada Yeah, of course. The programming, the engineering and just everything about it, you know, like I said: It’s a bit slower but it’s the same idea, you’re programming beats, melodies, you know trying to get it to crack, sound as good as you can and in a way it’s all the same. Fergus Murphy Are there any particular artists that you really rate these days? John Tejada For anything? Fergus Murphy For hip-hop’s sake. John Tejada For hip-hop, I’m still partial to all the stuff I sort of grew up with you know like this early bomb squad production and this early Boogie Down Productions, Eric B Rakim stuff and the early Pete Rock stuff, that was just like, that made a really big impact on me. Fergus Murphy Yeah and when did, I mean electronic music you are describing the faster hip-hop and obviously you mentioned Egyptian Lover and Bambaataa and people like that, at what point were you tuning into European sounds? John Tejada I think when I was in the hip-hop the earliest thing European I might’ve heard was Simon Harris but of course there was Kraftwerk, you know and that was a big part of it, I discovered them really early on and I would kind of you know, nowadays, Computer World is like the coolest record ever, but when you’re in sixth grade and you’re listening to synthy stuff with German guys singing, you don’t really play it for your friends, because it wasn’t the coolest thing ever. I would listen to Computer World in my Walkman all the time and just be freaked out by it, that and a lot of early Art of Noise stuff. That was British, of course. Fergus Murphy You were a closet Kraftwerk fan? John Tejada Yeah. Yeah, except there was the one track off every album that, if you’re doing a DJ set everybody had two copies, but I enjoyed the albums all the way through. Fergus Murphy Yeah. In terms in being into electronics, you’re describing in the states, is it a... Obviously at that time you’re saying sixth grade in school, I can understand that you’re not necessarily playing it to your friends, but what was the environment like and what is the environment like in terms of making electronic music in the States? Which is pretty much dominated, as we know, by hip-hop. And country. John Tejada Right. I don’t know, it’s different for everybody. It’s sort of become a home base for me now. I get to come to Europe very frequently and there’s such a strong scene here. I think it just makes it difficult for people at the moment to do parties and to bring people. In a way, I remember when I was younger trying to collect the early Detroit stuff even, and a lot of the UK stuff that was at the same time coming over. I was super hungry for the sound, and it was really hard to find. It was only a lot of more progressive music coming over and it never really made it to the West Coast in a strong way. It was sort of like a few people that caught on, and now we’re all sort of producing things, but we don’t do too much in our hometown. Fergus Murphy Yeah, so you find your audiences would be largely away from the States? John Tejada I don’t know, really, but it seems like it, because... Fergus Murphy That’s where the records sell? John Tejada Yeah. The records are selling in other territories and the clubs are happening, so it makes sense that it’s... Fergus Murphy What about... You mentioned Detroit there, that was what I was going to next. What was it about that sound that tweaked your interest? John Tejada It was just special. Everybody, I think ... When I was listening to these hip-hop shows, one of the tunes, a lot of early Cybotron was being mixed in, and that was always really special. “R9” used to really freak me out. That was such a weird record. One of the first ones were the quarter note kick to start being played was “No UFO’s.” I remember the first time that when I was sort of half asleep and, I just remember god, that was a weird record. That really freaked me out, and that was like ’87. I don’t know, I mean, that sound is special to everyone. Fergus Murphy Rolling drums and... John Tejada Everybody sort of rates it as a very special, special thing. Fergus Murphy Yeah. Yeah. Play us something. John Tejada OK. What are we getting into? Fergus Murphy Something older, I think. John Tejada Older. OK. We will look. I’ll play something... I don’t know how old we can get, but we’ve got this sort of track from three years ago? I can throw it out there. Fergus Murphy OK. That’s old. John Tejada Well, no, not for me either. I mean, I’ve been putting out records for ten years, but I didn’t bring anything extremely old. Fergus Murphy Oh sure, three years is good. What is this track? John Tejada It’s a remix of a track I’ve done for my friend Dan Bell’s 7th City Imprint. And it was originally released and then I did a sort of remix and it’s called “Time Bomb.” Or maybe I should save it, because this is what I’m going to play with in Ableton. Let’s look at a different one, possibly. Getting used to this screen resolution. Okay. This is sort of similar. Another remix from the same period, about... Fergus Murphy Three years, is it? John Tejada A bit more recent, but otherwise I’ve just got the new album with me and you’ve got that. Fergus Murphy We’ll get on to the new album, and that’s yeah, no, just something... John Tejada This is called “Western Starland.” [plays short burst of audio] Whoops. (music: John Tejada - “Western Starland”) This reminded me that the whole segue of my sort of hip-hop influence, this whole track is sort of produced in a hip-hop sense. All the little bits you hear, the drums as well, it’s layered breaks, and instead of just speeding up the break, I was like fitting more of a house rhythm, and the little string and the wha wha. That’s from Zapp & and Roger and it’s all very hip-hop produced. In a way, that’s why it’s the same thing to me. It’s just like loads of rare groove samples, put together, but the result is more house, techno to however it sounds to people. This is sort of a big production influence in the stuff I do, from my hip-hop roots. It’s just sort of satisfying to... Found sounds and putting them together. I think in a different way as well, it can work. Fergus Murphy It’s also I guess coming from the DJing, the aesthetics of that, chopping up records and tricks... John Tejada Yeah. John Tejada Yeah, it’s... You know, a favorite pastime of mine. Fergus Murphy Yeah. John Tejada It’s just fun to chop things up and make new things with them. Fergus Murphy Do you ever use your little tricks these days when you’re DJing? John Tejada A little bit. I used to a lot more. I think people just want to dance instead of ... Sometimes I think it disrupts the flow, I think, like on Sunday night. I started to take double copies of some things, once in a while, and make some patterns out of them, and do a little bit of cutting and something, just to sort of... Fergus Murphy Keep you interested? John Tejada Yeah, I guess, or just to kind of show off, or something. Fergus Murphy Yeah. John Tejada Again, it’s fun. The whole thing, hip-hop, to take a piece of music and remix it on the fly is still something I enjoy doing a lot. Fergus Murphy Yeah, but mostly you use a program called Ableton? John Tejada For the live PAs, yeah. Fergus Murphy Yeah. John Tejada Especially with the new version with the addition of MIDI, it makes it so much more live. Instead of just working with the audio, which works so well, I can translate lines that are from studio tracks and make a MIDI synth play that. Then add loads of control to the MIDI synth and then have more control over all the channels and even the synthesis of some of the tracks. That gives it a much more live feel that just working with the audio. Fergus Murphy Mm. Do you want to give us a demonstration of this? John Tejada Yeah, sure, I’ll try. In the other piece that I was going to play instead of this one, called “Timebomb,” it’s sort of the same production style. Basically, a lot of things were taken off of rare groove records and combined with sort-of techno production. Then, for anybody that actually knows the tune, there’s sort of like new things put in it for the live version that are a bit cheesy to my friend who put out the original record, but it’s pretty fun when you’re playing it live. I’ll sort of fade in some of the elements and play a bit with it... Fergus Murphy How many people here, just before you start, John, use Ableton? One, two three, four, five, six. Okay. This new version is out how long? John Tejada About two, three months. Fergus Murphy Two, three months? John Tejada Yeah, this is a big, new upgrade to add the MIDI and everything in it. Actually, the newer productions I’ve been working on, I’ve just been doing in Ableton, because it has a sort of really cool, creative flow. I’ve just been starting to produce in it, and I think it’s not missing anything. I think it’s great for that. Fergus Murphy For producing? John Tejada Yeah. Fergus Murphy OK. John Tejada Yeah, I think it’s cool. Fergus Murphy OK. Just watching you play around there, it’s endless hours in the bedroom it could be. Not a hell of a lot different from practicing your scratches in hip-hop. John Tejada Right. I mean that’s the trick, is just how to figure out how to do it for a living. Fergus Murphy Yeah, okay. Have you figured that out? Do you make a living in music? John Tejada Yeah. I do, finally, and I’m really happy that that’s possible. It took quite a long time. Fergus Murphy What is the key to that? John Tejada It’s just starting to learn to do some business things and to do things right and trying not to not get screwed over, just to handle that side of your life if you choose to do it yourself, which is a big learning process also because you’re dealing with your art and you just really want to create and people want to make money. That can ruin it and change things around, so just to really be able to create and stay really happy and in control of things has been a long process to learn, I think. Still learning, but... Fergus Murphy But getting better at it? John Tejada Yeah, getting better. Fergus Murphy You have your own label. Is... John Tejada Yeah, it’s called Palette Recordings. I started it eight years ago, today maybe. I don’t know. It could be Palette’s birthday today. I’m not sure. We’ve got number 32 out now, which is great, I think. I was doing it in LA. I started recording for a few labels but also there’s this whole A&R process. There were tracks that I thought fit together really well and people would shoot you down, like “No, that doesn’t work.” It’s like, “Well, screw it. I’m starting my own label.” I expected to maybe get to number three and then run out of money, but luckily they’ve all made money and now we’re at 32 and on the iTunes store and have some CD compilations and lots of licensing. I couldn’t be happier, really. It’s been really good. Fergus Murphy Would that be the primary source of income, or is the DJing and... John Tejada It’s a combination of everything. It all makes everything else go around. The records are promotions for the gigs, the gigs help sell the records, the records are on the record label. It’s all a machine that works together. It’s all components that have to be going at the same time, at least for the way I’m doing things. Fergus Murphy Yeah. You’ve had some bad experiences with other labels, or... John Tejada Yeah. Everyone has, but you learn from it. You have to learn to be tough and take care of things properly and just do the best you can, really, unless you have someone looking after you. Fergus Murphy Yeah. John Tejada I prefer to stay in control of it myself, but... Fergus Murphy Your new album, is that on Palette? John Tejada No, we’re working with my collaborator, Leviste, who we were speaking with before, who I’ve been working with for 13 years, actually. Fergus Murphy Is he your production partner, or... John Tejada Yeah. Well, the releases we do have both our names on them, so that accounts for about half of the releases. Fergus Murphy What does he bring to the equation, or... John Tejada Well, we started together. We met through a mutual friend and we were just excited about this music that nobody else we knew seemed to know about and just started trying to make some. All my collaboration processes have been pretty relaxed. I figure it’s a collaboration and you have to give up 50% of the control. Sometimes I’ve tried some projects where that isn’t the case. Somebody has a really specific view of how things should be, but with me and Arian, we’re best friends for almost 14 years now. We just take turns in the chair and work on a piece. He can do whatever he wants. There’s rarely a time... There’s no arguments. I think at the most, it would be a moment where we both look at each other like, “That thing we just did really sucks, doesn’t it.” It’s like, “Yeah, okay.” We’re usually both in agreement about taking it out, but with that or with Titonton it’s just totally easy. Fergus Murphy Is this Titonton Devanté? John Tejada Yeah, another really good friend of mine. That’s the way I like collaborations. I think you’re not going to get 100% of what you want, and that’s the point of it. Fergus Murphy Could you play us something from your new album? John Tejada Sure. Fergus Murphy You mentioned this is not on Palette Records. This is... John Tejada No, this is on an LA label called Plug Research. I’ve done a few singles in the past for them, and I’ve also made one other album on it called Daydreams In Cold Weather. This new album is out this week. It’s called Logic Memory Center, and it actually features lots of guests on it to sing, which I don’t do so often, but I’ve got my friend, Jimmy, who’s in the Postal Service singing, and I’ve got my friend... (clapping from audience member) OK, we’ll play that one then. We’re got Kimi Recor, who’s my friend who’s on Gigolo doing this Invisibles project. Then we’ve got Carl Finlow singing, as well, who’s done a thousand things: Silicon Scally, Carl Finlow Random Factor. Spin me up. Play a bit of each vocal. Fergus Murphy Yeah, and was there a thinking behind this album when you set out to do it? John Tejada Well, I guess the overall theme is... A lot of my older music is very melody-based, my musical upbringing of always layered melodies. In a lot of my new production I’m trying to strip things down a bit to make one theme the main theme. That’s a newer idea. With this album, I guess I would call it my computer record. It’s all very heavy sound design, and it was actually also an effort to move away from a lot of the melodic elements. A lot of it is sound design. Of course everything has a tambour to it, and playing a note, but a lot of it it sound design, which put together again this hip-hop production of collage combinations of patterns and sound design. A lot of it is sound design and melodies come out of it, but it’s not really stacks of synthesism I’d usually do in the past. This first song with, it’s not Ben Gibbard singing but it’s Jimmy from Dentel singing. I really enjoy his voice. You can hear a bit of Miles Davis cut up in there from Bitches Brew and a lot of sound design and stuff. I’ll play this. This is called “Everything Will Be Okay.” Then I’ll play a bit of the Carl Finlow track. (music: John Tejada - “Everything Will Be OK" / applause) John Tejada Thanks. This is Carl Finlow who I swear could be a pop star. His voice is really beautiful, but as all of us, super embarrassed to hear their own voice. Fergus Murphy Was it your first time working with vocalists? John Tejada No, I’ve done a few things, but just here and there. This is the first album where there’s three vocal cuts and a few of the other ones feature some leftovers cut here and there. It’s definitely the most vocals I’ve used on a record so far. This is the romantic track that Carl really made it that. I actually had Carl Finlow sing to the track we just heard, and he’s living in Paris, so I sent that over to him and he sang to that. When I got it back, I had the intention of making a new track to it almost to remix it, but even when I heard him singing on it I was like it doesn’t sound like he’s singing on the track and so I created this new track around it and because of the lyrics I made it ultra personal and... I used a new software, also, like the older Meta Synth where you can analyze pictures, and I would load in pictures that meant something special to me and then the sound generated by the picture was used in the track as well. One of the first sounds you hear is from a special pictures. Knowing all these things... Audience Member Can you please repeat that? John Tejada It’s a software. The name slips my mind, it’s a new version. This older software Meta Synth, you could load in pictures and by additive, I could be getting this wrong so I’m sorry, but I think by the different harmonics, the different colors would represent different harmonics, so it would play through the spectrum of colors and you would get a sound. Most of the time it just sounds bad, but somehow one of the pictures I loaded in had a really beautiful sound and it was a special picture. That’s the first sound you hear with some drums, and then more of the sound design stuff and then Carl’s nice vocals. Carl sort of did his own multi-tracking of vocals. He wanted to give them to me all separately, but I felt what he brought to it was so special that I wanted a two-track balance. I wasn’t going to touch it. He put vocoders and all this stuff in it and pitch shifting, that was his input to it and I didn’t want to change it. When he heard it, it was a completely different piece of music. Luckily, he was okay with that. Fergus Murphy He liked it? John Tejada Yeah, he liked it. He thought it was better than what he sang to. Jimmy was happy with this piece and I was happy with all of it. I’ll play Carl singing. This is called, “Alone With You.” (music: John Tejada - “Alone With You” / applause) Fergus Murphy Johnny, I think it’s fair to say that at this stage there’s a familiar sound to your productions. What would you have to say about that? John Tejada I would hope so by now. Whether it’s slow or faster. I saw my dad who I’m sort of out of touch with, I don’t know if this is a compliment or put down, but I played him my latest piece and he said, “Oh yeah, you wrote something like that when you were five years old.” I guess I’ve always had this sound to me, but I think that’s a good thing. I would hope I have a sound by now. Fergus Murphy Yeah. What’s the process of achieving a sound? John Tejada That’s too hippy dippy to talk about I guess. Fergus Murphy Maybe not. John Tejada Feelings. I’m still enjoying, I’m only making music because I really enjoy it and I have to. A lot of times my titles hint to something being a musical diary like Daydreams In Cold Weather, and Logic Memory Center, it’s all cataloged experiences set to music in a way. I think that’s how I keep track of everything that happens. Fergus Murphy Feeding pictures into computers. John Tejada Yeah that too. That’s pretty literal translating of memory to music. Fergus Murphy There’s another project that you do called I’m Not a Gun. John Tejada Yeah, I’m Not A Gun. Fergus Murphy. Which is an entirely different thing, really is it? John Tejada Not if you ask me. But it’s based on, like I said way before, capturing a life performance playing drums and guitar. Lots of drums and guitar life playing. Fergus Murphy The guitar is very much up front. John Tejada The guitar is the main element I guess. I deal with another collaborative mind named Takeshi Nishimoto and we met about five years ago through mutual friends. Again, with Arian, we were hipped to the stuff that we were really influenced by that nobody else we knew seemed to know. And again, with Takeshi, it was the same kind of meeting and he started coming over ever Wednesday and we started jamming and putting down ideas. Eventually we made a first album. It’s on a Berlin Label called City Center Offices. We just released a new one and we titled it, Our Lives On Wednesdays because for five years now it’s been this tradition of Wednesday, calls, and he comes over. Every Wednesday this is drum and guitar day. He’s responsible for... I played a bit of guitar before, but he’s really responsible for teaching me so many things. He’s also responsible for the main complicated guitars while I’m just doing the little simple things. It’s also a lot of electronics from this kind of stuff. It’s more of a blend of things from when I was younger I guess. The electronic side and then drumming and playing instruments. Everything together. I don’t know how it would be categorized even. I can play a piece and... Fergus Murphy Future jazz? (laughs) John Tejada I don’t know. That future word. I don’t have a time machine. Fergus Murphy Go on, nail that word for us once and for all. What is wrong with that word? John Tejada None of us have a time machine. Sci-fi is the coolest thing to all of us guys, we love this thing of future, but to call, I couldn’t call my music futuristic, it’s something from now. Or influenced from things from the past. I don’t know. Retro, as Jake would say, retro futurist, I don’t know. Fergus Murphy Sometimes, you look at old visions of the future, say from the ’50s tell us more about the ’50s than they do about what was going to happen in the future. John Tejada Right. So many things are ... Fergus Murphy Do you think it’s the same today? John Tejada I don’t know. I don’t know. Fergus Murphy I’m just looking for you to drive a stake through the heart of that word. John Tejada Right. I don’t know what to say anymore. I will play a track from it and then if it makes anybody think of the future, then that’s great. Fergus Murphy Then that’s okay. John Tejada Yup. This is a new album which has been more electronic and on the rock side than the previous stuff. I’m doing the electronics and playing drums. Some of the guitar is mine, a lot of it is Takeshi’s. Fergus Murphy And you’ve been doing live shows with this in Japan recently? John Tejada Yeah, we got to do a few up there and a little bit in LA. It’s really fun because again, it’s like... Fergus Murphy What’s the live set up? John Tejada I’m using Ableton. I’ve got very stripped down ... Basically anything. Sort of like the computer is a third band member. There’s a lot of friends that want to play with us, but we’re very tightknit with our ideas and sometimes the thing with collaboration is you bring one person in and it can be really great, but all of a sudden they’re... We’re very much in agreement with what we want to do. We don’t need to risk somebody saying, “You know this part really sucks, you should do it this way.” Fergus Murphy It’s just the two of you. John Tejada The computer is our third band member and I’m using Ableton and any of the stuff we can’t recreate live is being played with Ableton. I’m getting a click-track and I’m also speaking instructions to myself of when to start and stop because we’ve got lots of starts a stops. Takeshi’s actually combining two or three guitar parts that we’ve done together or pieces I’ve played because he’s just that good. I can’t play very good. I’m never playing guitar on stage, so that’s our live set up. Audience Member You’ve also done remix of, “Such Great Heights,” Right? John Tejada Yeah, I’ve remixed all sorts of things. You mean of this band project, or of other bands? Audience Member I don’t know if you’re doing it alone, the track “Such Great Heights.” John Tejada Oh, yeah. I guess in a way that’s a very electronic band. It’s like this indie-rock, poppy, electronic thing. But yeah, I enjoy working on remixes that have a lot more acoustic elements and vocals and guitars and things and transforming that into my style. I’ll play one. I don’t know which one to play. I’ll play the first track. Fergus Murphy Your favorite. John Tejada I don’t know which one’s my favorite. (music: John Tejada - unknown / applause) Fergus Murphy It is quite different, really, isn’t it? There’s rocky elements. It’s a bit melancholy, maybe is it? John Tejada All of our stuff is. I don’t know. Yeah, melancholy. I don’t know. Fergus Murphy Any questions? Here. Oh, you’ve got one. Audience Member Can you tell a bit more about your broken side of things? The stuff you’re doing with Titonton. John Tejada Oh yeah, I’ve got one here. Fergus Murphy Get to use your... John Tejada Coming from a lot of hip-hop stuff, it’s fun to program different beats also because I’m a drummer. It’s fun to do this stuff. I think I’ve done some things in the past before people were calling it broken beat. I know Titonton loves this kind of sound. We’ve done two or three tracks in this style. For the most part it’s not so different to me. It has a strong fusion element for a few producers, which I always enjoy as well. Fusion, funky, jazzy, stuff I like that vibe a lot. Audience Member He’s an American guy, huh? John Tejada Yeah, he lives in Columbus, Ohio. I was telling a story earlier that ordinarily I’m trying to spend a lot of time to make productions the way I want them to be. In the past before I would knock out lots and lots of music, but when me and Titonton get together we’re really really limited on time, so both times we’ve done two EPs. One for my label Pallete and one for his, Residual, and both times we made the three songs in one day which was pretty trying experience. That’s telling you that when we made this one, when we heard it on the ride to the airport the next day we just hated it until I heard another friend of ours Dan Curtain come out to LA and he played the A side and I was like, “Oh what is that? I know that record, I really like it.” I never heard it again. I thought it was total throw away crap and then after I heard Dan Curtain play it I had to call Titonton and I was like, “Hey man, I heard the A side it sounds pretty good, man.” And he was like, “Okay let’s put it out.” I think this track was between lunch burritos and dinner. This is one of our more broken beat things. (music: John Tejada & Titonton Duvanté - unknown) Fergus Murphy That’s from an EP Freaky Deaky, Titonton Duvanté and John Tejada. Unless there’s any questions I will say a very big thank you, John, for coming in. John Tejada No problem, thank you. Fergus Murphy It’s been a pleasure, and maybe you play us out with something from the I’m Not A Gun, this new album with the guitar and live drums? John Tejada Sure, sure. Fergus Murphy Set us up nicely for Italian lunch in the courtyard. John Tejada Cool. Thanks everybody for coming to hear me blab on about... [applause]