DJ Shadow records for Mo'Wax most of the time. Sometimes Mr. Josh Davis consorts with UNKLE. And sometimes he gets all decked out in his Quannum garb.
Soundproof: You’ve got the new label now, Quannum. The most recent project, Spectrum, featured mostly west coast artists and producers on it.
Davis: Yeah, everybody that contributed to the record with the exception of El-P, is west coast based. Lyrics Born from Quannum did three tracks. Chief Xcel from Quannum did three. I did four and El P did one with Lyrics Born and myself.
Soundproof: You recorded some of that over at Cut Chemist’s house didn’t you?
Davis: Just one track, the one with J5. The rest was done either at my house, the Automator’s house or Xcel’s house.
Soundproof: A lot of the tracks on the album had funk and soul elements. Do you feel that it’s important to you to put tracks together that represent the funk and soul roots of hip-hop?
Davis: I don’t know if it’s so much that. I don’t think any of us are trying to preach about the roots of it. The real funk and soul stuff was mostly Lyrics Born. He did the song with the Poets of Rhythm, from Germany; they’re a funk band. He did the one with Joyo Velarde singing, which is real soulful, like early Eighties kind of stuff. We all listen to different types of music and you can just as easily pinpoint certain influences that have nothing to do with soul or funk. We all listen to it to some degree.
Soundproof: Besides the Poets of Rhythm album that you’ll be putting out on your label, will you be expanding to encompass other projects like that from around the world?
Davis: It’d be nice. I mean there’s billion things that we would have liked to have done. We’re working with people outside of our own internal unit. It’s just more about time. I’m on the road. Right now at this very minute, Latyrx and Blackilicious are getting ready to go overseas. On any given day, since it’s our label, we’re very rarely in the office. You’ve got to be in the office to do a lot of that stuff. We’re doing about the best we can. I don’t think we’ll ever be as prolific as some labels. I can think of like ABB Records from Oakland; they’re like three floors above us. They do Dilated Peoples, Defari, Joey Chavez, Sound Providers, etc. They’ve been around like two years and they’ve put out like twice as many records as we have. Quannum is an aspect of what all of us do, but it isn’t the end-all be-all of what all of us do.
Soundproof: Can you tell us a little bit about the Brainfreeze stuff that you were doing? I know that you were going to be doing a couple more shows like that because it was so successful. Obviously it was for fun.
Davis: Yeah. I think the smart thing would probably be that we leave it at just what it was. Just because we enjoy doing it, we’re going to do it again. It was originally going to be three dates, now it’s six. The 45’s are going to be trashed by the time it’s all said and done. It’s just for fun. I think Cut Chemist and myself sort of really…I mean the fact that both of our first records were called Lesson 4 should give you kind of a hint that we’re very much on a similar wavelength as far as hip-hop in general. Even though we didn’t know that…I did my Lesson 4, he never heard it. He did his Lesson 4. That is what initially brought us together. He was good enough to do the Number Song remix.
Soundproof: I should apologize for selling all those copies on Ebay.
Davis: That was a joke wasn’t it?
Soundproof: Yes. Are you going to be doing any more visual projects like the Futura 2000 art that you had for the Unkle album and tour?
Davis: Sort of. Phil Frost who did the Preemptive Strike cover…he’s an artist who’s living in New York…he’s got a gallery opening this weekend. I’m DJing that just to show support because he’s a good friend and he wanted a DJ to play. He did a couple tour shirts for me as well. We’re sort of holding off on those so we can sell this other one that has all the cities on the back. The tour is called the International Goodwill tour because, on one level it’s about the thrift store and just hitting all the different cities and tying in the whole beat shopping thing. The main reason is just because, I won’t be really out there at all next year, because I’ll be in the studio working on my follow up to Endtroducing. I just feel that I want to go to as many places as possible this year and see as many different people and do the best I can to get out and represent myself as good as I can before I disappear. I hope people don’t forget. It’s not that I’m disappearing for good. I just have to do the album. I didn’t do a single gig when I was recording Endtroducing. That was a ten to eleven month period. It’ll be that way again.
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