It is always a treat to get to interview NYHC veterans. Not only do we love and respect the early musical output, but a lot of them evolved over the years, through various projects, oftentimes way outside of Hardcore boundaries. Such progression makes it that much more intriguing to figure out the artist’s influence and talking to Chaka Malik sure fell in that category. As front person of one of NYHC’s most unique band, Burn, he has been delivering some of the most dynamic and passionate vocals for over 30 on-and-off years now. Between stints in Burn, he spent the bulk of the 90’s in highly regarded Post-HC band Orange 9mm, which could build a groove like no other. Amidst the series of Orange 9mm reissues in the past few years, will we get the chance to witness the band live? A reliable source(!) did tell us that it is a strong possibility…
In most recent years, Chaka also went on a more personal and stripped-down journey, with synth driven solo project Ghost Decibels. The seeds planted by Ghost Decibels color use very intrigued for his next venture, alongside Marie Ann Hedonia, under the name named Sex Prox-Z. The self-described DARK | | SEXY | | SYNTHS | | VOCALS is all you need to know!
Out on August 13th, pick up Orange 9mm’s latest reissue of fully remastered third LP Pretend I’m Human, on Thirty Something Records.
What have you been listening to the most lately?
I’ve listened to a lot of FELA KUTI. African musician, some would call him the father of Worldbeat but his whole thing was, he wanted to be American jazz and James Brown. Him and a drummer named Tony Allen, who also passed away recently, they invented a sound that’s wonderful and it’s been something that kind of saved me from abandoning music to a degree. I was really over a lot of sounds, you know, basic riffy guitars and even a lot of the synth stuff. I love making my synth stuff, but I feel like I’ve been listening to all the synths for the past decade. That’s been my playlist. Obviously, all the big bands, DEPECHE MODE, The CURE, obscure stuff, but listening to that stuff now, it’s just kind of boring. Not that’s the music’s boring, I just listened to it too much. It’s like having the same thing for dinner every day. Then I went on a PRINCE kick, a BOWIE kick, and really listening to songs and videos we’re loving. Very specific songs, like, Bowie, The Secret Life Of Arabia is one, if I was going to listen to something today, it would be it. I would listen to something off Low maybe, Always Crashing In The Same Car or Be My Wife or somewhere weird like that. Prince, I would listen to the oldest Artist stuff. I liked very minimal, kind of dark disco funk or whatever you want to call his thing back then.
Thinking back to Fela, that’s what I was listening to, and I think that the connection there is just the deep groove. The Secret Life Of Arabia, the Bowie song, has this kind of hand drums in it and this tremolo-y guitar *humming a riff*, a side to side shoulder thing. That’s really reminiscent of the Fela stuff. I think I’m now subliminally looking for music – and it’s not a prerequisite, it’s not why I like it – that anybody can listen to it. Me and my mom sat and listened to it recently, when I go see her. That actually helped me get back into it. A sunny day with a wonderful highlife guitar player…is he highlife? I think so but he might not be. I just love the fact that the music is almost unassuming and it’s got a nice rhythm, but then it gets pretty intense and Fela starts talking about power struggles between classes and political stuff. It’s all sort of about the resource needs in certain communities. He starts talking about military, police brutality…the government’s military police got to him and they beat him several times. He was a political artist, with a lot of soul. You go back and look at the video for Sorrow, Tears And Blood, and you see him in his van in Nigeria. To me, it’s a third world country, that looks like that. It’s shot on film, with beautiful archives on film. You get a feel for what it was like, and you can tell that even though people didn’t have resources, no one was frowning. I didn’t see anyone that looked depressed at all. Then they go to this club and they play and the mirrors are kind of mirror shards, but I think they’ve carved them into pieces. Everything looks like it’s been repurposed for new use, or continued to be used beyond typical lifecycle.
It’s a lot different than what we have today, where we have, oftentimes so much at the tip of our fingers. Then we’re depressed. You see people type on Snapchat or their Instagram that they’re bored. You know, I get bored too, but it’s incredible to see people in an environment where, for all intents and purposes, they have very little but they have love in their hearts. There are very little physical resources, toys, things like that, and people are just enjoying themselves. You could feel there was an air of life in their environment, you can see that coming through. I think this is why music doesn’t appeal to me in certain ways, but in today’s society, everyone brags about how bored or tired they are. I know people say that as a joke but these words and this direction of energy, it talks and it has a power, it has a resonance. So a lot of the stuff that I’m listening to now, it’s more from the spirit of, I really want to play music and I lack directional hate, or directional negativity. What I do have is positive energy. When Fela is coming out against people, he’s doing it very intelligently, very forcefully, and also very musically. I mean, this shit is punk. There’s certain songs, not his whole catalog, but some I just won’t listen to it. Not because they’re not good for somebody, but it’s just not what I want from him.
He does have an extensive catalog. What are some of your go-to’s?
Sorrow, Tears And Blood, Colonial Mentality, Water No Get Enemy. Honestly, I’m the kind of person who listens to one song just because it has the resonance I want. Sorrow, Tears And Blood is that song off his catalogue today. Obviously, that’ll probably change but as of today, that song and that 15 minutes long video, it feels like a piece of musical history. It’s like looking at an old Hip Hop video from the Bronx where the birth happened, where people are getting famous, but they still have such a close-knit relationship with their community. I’m not saying with the streets and some drugs shit, or violent shit or anything like that, but just with their community. Old and young. And think about the old Jamaican sound system idea. In the beginning, they would come out and play music for the community and everybody to dance. Obviously, they were selling records too, but it’s for everyone. Maybe it’s because I’m not 25 anymore but that’s the kind of energy that feels like it serves my energy, my spirit, and I think that’s what I would want to end up amplifying right now. Even the Ghost Decibels stuff that I’ve done in the past, I feel like it’s way less about me now. I feel like it’s way more about everything, and everyone.
What are some other of your favorite such artists “of depth”, either political artists or just artists in close, deep relationship with their environment, that truly represent their origin?
The first one I was gonna say is U2, especially if you watch them in the beginning. Maybe that’s my fantasy of what they were doing, but that counts because I bought the fantasy and it was true from what I’ve heard. Also, BOB MARLEY. I don’t listen to Bob Marley at all right now, I go through phases where I put certain songs, especially the earlier stuff on and when I hear it out, it always sounds great. Into a nice system, those grooves are pumping and we’re getting that bass and hear the snap in that rim shot. For me, that stuff sounds great. Even something like The Message, MELLE MEL, that song is a hit. It’s a very simplistic song and it’s a hit because it just speaks so generally to how many people feel. That feeling that he was presenting to people, documenting for people was the resonant energy in his community, how a lot of folks felt in his community. Hearing that as a blues, in the same way you hear a blues, and it’s homeopathic medicine. You introduce a little bit of what’s making you sick and it kind of makes the body shift, and in that kind of phasing, it disperses the power, oftentimes of the intruder, right?
Do you remember the first time music had an impact on you? When you truly discovered your love for music?
I grew up around music. What I would share was the first time I spent money on a record, if that implies something. The first record I bought was the RUSH self-titled record, the one with Working Man on it. Wait, no. The first record I bought was a JIMI HENDRIX record. I grew with my dad and my mom’s record collection that spanned thousands of records, ARETHA FRANKLIN, ROLLING STONES, DOORS, all their original records in the 60’s and 70’s. As a child coming up and listening to that music, I bonded with that music and latched on to that music in those eras, looking at that approach to creating sounds. My dad was like, The Doors, Rolling Stone, JETHRO TULL, but no ZEPPELIN records. Nothing in the Rock, Metal genres, nothing like that. So, me buying that Rush record was me saying, “What else is out there?” Me searching how I could add something that was uniquely mine into my musical taste.
When was your first experience with live music?
My first experience might have been FELA. My dad took me to see MILFORD GRAVES when I was a kid but those were very small shows. I don’t remember much, other than people drinking out of gallons of water. One of them was in Chinatown, because he was in the acupuncture field as well. These were community center size venues, not very big. My first production show, I had gone into the city to buy Power Windows by RUSH, and my father said “I’ll be at the soundstage, on-stage shooting Fela from this time to that time, if you can get down there, tell them you’re my son, and they’ll come get me.” So I did and they brought me on stage and I stood on the side of the stage, with my Rush record in a plastic bag, watching Fela. How crazy is that? This is Central Park Soundstage and back then, that was big, at least two, three, four thousand people, a huge show. They used to do bigger shows back then. The odd thing is, I remember very little of the music. I just remember standing there. I think I was a shock.
Well, sometimes, the live experience is less about the actual music than just the environment, the setting itself, right?
I absolutely agree. I think I was just soaking all of that in. I literally think I was in outer space for the whole show. I remember getting on stage and being there. I don’t remember the set, I don’t remember anything else.
Do you have any other examples in your life of moving experiences with music like this?
There’s a couple of them. Me and my girlfriend at the time, we went to see JANE’S ADDICTION at Hammerstein and we knew we were breaking up, it was the end of our relationship. They are playing Three Days, and the fucking lights were shooting across the room and shit, it was that crescendo with Perry Farrell screaming and everyone’s just fucking shredding on their instruments. This venue is a hall, but the way those with high ceiling sound, when those echoes start to rush around the room. I literally started crying. I remember, she was sitting and we were right on the balcony there. I had my hands on the balcony and I was looking over and I just started to cry.
Sometimes, it’s the tiniest thing. Of course, you didn’t anticipate that walking into the concert. But it’s just this tiny moment, with the music, that overtakes you.
I’m going to relate this to today again, too, I think that’s the beauty of music. I love a lot of recent music and some of the newer Hip Hop and some of it is cool but it’s not going to make me cry because I’m thinking about my ex-girlfriend lovingly and our relationship and what could have been, and getting into this whole metaphorical thing about life. It’s not gonna make me do that. But music like those long Jane’s Addiction songs, they entice and hold your attention long enough for you to fall into a deeper state of entraining with music, aka trance, right? The point of view that is listening to the music to relax and heal is now more open to some of those finer bits that come in and shoot in and invite you to engage. Then, one or two of those catch you off guard and that’s what you wanted and you release the energy, you release the emotion. That only comes with longer form content. The short form content that you consume today, that’s one of the reasons why I believe many people are bored, or this or that, because they’re not listening to something and being like, “Oh shit, I never knew. I love ceramics.” I’m not saying that’s me, but I’m saying that when you engage in long form content, not just 17-minute clip, you sit there and listen to a motherfucker talk for an hour, and the beauty of it is, you have to find something that you care about enough for that to work. But once you find something that you care about enough, and you sit there listening for two hours, I guarantee it will blow up your IQ.
I totally understand. This blog we are doing was actually created in reaction to this trend of content being shorter, and shorter. Interviews that are three questions long, nothing is said. We wanted to go back to the long form and let people talk about what they truly believe and give them time to do so.
I’m nodding in agreement with you right now. I think that’s beautiful. That makes me feel a bit better. I have a video podcasting called Eff With Me that I kind of taken a break from. I was spending a crap ton of energy on it and I wasn’t sure that the energy outlet was matching people’s desire to watch a two hour package. It’s also a format where I don’t have a lot of engagement on YouTube. A buddy of mine, David Palermo is helping to put some clips online for me on the Eff With Me podcast Instagram page, and I’ll be uploading stuff there too. But yes, it’s been real tough man. I’ll spend some time on Instagram, but I just moved to the country a little bit, to chill out and I’ll tell you, I feel less and less of a need to engage with Instagram. I miss my friends that I don’t talk too much on there now, but I still text people. I don’t seek the engagement as much as I used to when I was in the city.
Where do you like to see music? What type of environments do you enjoy?
I was listening to a JIMI HENDRIX interview and he was talking about his plan, he was like, “I just want to play outdoors, man. I want to play out into the air.” I was like, Holy fucking shit. And I thought about that, because Orange 9mm was on the first Warped Tour. That was an incredible package of bands. I remembered what that was like and how, for me and most of my friends, music has a spiritual component. Being able to close your eyes and throw your head back and look up and just seeing the fucking sky is way more connected on a human level than looking up and seeing spotlights in a nightclub. Even in a hall, the ceiling is still not the sky.
Being outside and looking up and hearing the beat and just close your eyes and feeling the fuckin’ music, I mean, that’s fuckin’ incredible. This Fela stuff that I really love, I imagine that outside, with the people you know, for everybody. It’s a beautiful thing to commune in that sense.
What are some of your favorite lyrics and lyricists? Perhaps songs or lines, that live with you all the time. Or in a broader sense, how do you experience lyrics?
I think I experienced lyrics in my imagination. When people talk, I imagine what they’re saying. Sometimes, when people tell me stories, I don’t want to hear the negative parts because I’m energetically creating this thing in my mind and when it gets to something that I don’t want to feel, I don’t want to hear and create it. The line that came to me is Jimi Hendrix, “Orange is young, full of daring, but very unsteady for the first go around.” from Bold As Love. There’s something in that line that I really love. Honestly, I think Jimi may be one of my favorite lyricist. “‘Scuse me, while I kiss the sky.”
That’s a good pick! There’s a lot of great images that comes out of his lyrics.
Exactly. You know, Castles Made Of Sand, Manic Depression. That’s the beauty of Jimi, and some of those covers are fucking iconic covers, like Wild Thing.
When you listen to new music, do you instantly pay attention to lyrics, or is it the music first or well, whatever comes up?
To me, it’s all one thing. Can I take the one thing, or take the whole…if I’m at the club, but I’m dancing with a girl and I think that she’s attractive and I want to keep the conversation going, I’m gonna love the fuck out of the beat. But otherwise, I don’t give a fuck about the beat or the lyrics on their own, it’s a vibe. Oftentimes, stuff that has a beat but shitty lyrics won’t have any resonance for me anyway. I like a lot of music and I don’t even see how important the lyrics are to me now. It’s crazy, I love lyrics. I mean, I like writing lyrics. I think a lot of my friends write great lyrics, the lyric thing, we got a very fuckin’ high bar. People I know, Walter (Schreifels)’s got some great lyrics, Gavin (Van Vlack)’s written some great lyrics. AGNOSTIC FRONT, whoever wrote those songs, they have some great ones. “Who’s gonna suffer?”, I love that.
Which is an entirely different pace than what Jimi writes. Jimi was very dreamy, with a lot of images and Hardcore is really decisive and direct.
Exactly. The thing about lyrics like that, on United Blood, the honesty and the way he says it, “Who’s gonna suffer”, it’s got the perfect balance of like, “Hey man, I’m giving you a chance to fucking express your humanity here”, I’m giving you a chance to be human. I’m a skin, you’re a skin, who’s gonna suffer, right? It’s gonna be one of us. He’s presenting that energy, and I think that’s what makes it a great line for me, because he’s also emboldened in how he presents the lyrics. He presents it as emphatically.
Is that what drove you to the hardcore scene back then, the energy and the lyrics that the went along with the energy?
Once again, it was all just one thing. The lyrics, I mean, now that I think about it, I grew up on Jimi and I don’t know if there’s anybody that’s better for me. Bob Marley, the songs are great, but he’s not Jimi. Jimi, some of those lyrics are just songs within itself. When you think about some of those words, and how sad, like Castles Made Of Sand is, there’s so much compassion. Lyrics’ got to have compassion for me to care about it. In Roger (Miret)’s case, it was expressed with force but I think that you can express that compassion in any way. Jimi expresses that compassion oftentimes in a dreamy, or psychedelic way. Bono expresses that compassion in more of a call to action kind of way. Bob Marley expresses that action in a similar sense, “Rise up, stand up”. Compassionate though, you don’t hear any hate, and there’s no hate in the way he sings it. You think about all these bands, U2, no hate in the music. Jimi, no hate. The compassion is what I like.
If I was the president of a country in really violent times, I would want my Sergeant in arms listening to the hardest, most negative shit out there all the times because I would want him to be able to go there. But for me, that resonance that I look for now, I would like to thrive and enjoy life and be in union with God as much as I can and be in unity with my friends and family. And I think that the kind of music for me that I like, I can do that now with the Fela vibe. Once again, it’s still an expression of passion and Fela expresses his compassion in a way that…I feel like maybe Bono was inspired by Fela because of that kind of chanty, I’m with you, we’re together, that energy, that whole sound, that scream, there’s so much compassion and sacrifice and love that carries in that resonance. I’m on a tangent, but for me, it’s fucking important. That’s what I feel like, music should remind us of our humanity. It should remind us that the other devices and the phones are cool, but I can sit down with an acoustic guitar and sing a song and think about something or sing a song to myself or sing to my friends like Vinny’s going around, sing and doing these calm backyard concerts. I think that’s a wonderful way to share music and to remind us how unnecessary huge productions are, and how necessary a one to one or one to a few is, even with limited ensemble, like just one guitar. That to me, is beautiful and I could be doing those shows. I’ve shared that on social media and I might do it again. But I love that it takes a lot of passion do that. And oftentimes compassion to do your message, that vulnerable, open and all alone, especially if you’re used to playing in a band environment a lot.
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