Cage: Depart From Me
Posted on 04/13/2009
At this year’s Paid Dues festival in San Bernardino, CA, on March 28th, Okayplayer’s Nick McClure was able to catch up with Cage for a quick interview. Read about his new album, his upcoming film, working with Shia Leboeuf, Camu-Tao’s masterpiece, life after drugs, and more.
Okayplayer: You’ve mentioned before your earlier work was influenced by substance use. Coming clean now, is it hard to find inspiration to write or is it the opposite?
Cage: There’s actually no difference at all, it’s all bullshit. When I was fucked up, I was writing fast and I was writing about being fucked up and just fantastical randomness. Then when I was sober for a long time, I was still writing the same way but I was writing about more personal things. Now, you know, I smoke pot or drink beer every now and again, cigarettes I’m trying to kick ’cause they’re the worst. I don’t do any hard drugs, I don’t do pills or anything like that. Now, I feel like I write faster and I write better cause I’m a lot more focused. And I’m focused because I’m not fucked up all the time. So I think it’s all bullshit. I think I fell under that whole spell of “expanding my mind.”
OKP: So you feel the motivation was false?
Cage: The motivation was to write music and you kind of lose the focus of it cause of all the other things in your life you’re doing to yourself.
OKP: As a service to all Cage fans, I gotta ask about the film. If I’m not mistaken it’s about your life and Shia Labeouf would be playing you. He’s a good actor, but can he rap? Or is it not that direct?
Cage: No, it’s not like that at all. That’s definitely the first time I’ve been asked that question and this is a question I know he would like to have answered. Yeah, he doesn’t rap and I think that’s something that might be out there. The movie is kinda about childhood and right up into “Agent Orange.” There’s the mental hospital stint and shit like that.
OKP: So this is all pre-label and releases?
Cage: Totally, it’s before all that and it’s the most fucked-up part of the whole thing. As he says, we’re writing the third act now. He directed my new video and he’s kinda using that as leverage to introduce the project a little more. And he says it, he has selfish reasons that he’s even making the video.
OKP: I just saw a glimpse of the video online and it looks interesting.
Cage: Yeah, and it’s a little different. You know, I don’t know of any A-list actors who in their spare time with an injury would shoot a video or even do anything interesting.
OKP: Ok, well it seems like the “early years” would be more, I don’t know, “entertaining” or a better story to tell than an artist’s career.
Cage: Yeah, and the coolest part of the whole thing is that we knew each other before he blew up so it was great to see him be successful. And if I hadn’t met him then, this whole thing might never have happened.
OKP: I hear the new album, Depart From Me, has more live instrumentation.
Cage: Yes, it’s pretty sample-free. Sean Martin did most of the production. It’s pretty guitar-heavy, hook-heavy. There’s some glitchy shit on there and it’s the most personal of anything I’ve done. There’s not much social commentary on it. It’s not a preachy record, it’s not an opinion-heavy record. It’s kind of, either you can relate to it or you can’t. If you can dig the tunes than it’s cool. It’s definitely a dark record, definitely the darkest I’ve done. It deals with duress. It helped me get through a really fucked up time, you know? My best friend was dying when I was recording and he was my closest collaborator on it. I figured if I can’t make anyone feel anything than I was kinda failing as an artist. It’s kinda fortunate for me that everyone’s doing the same shit ’cause you can stick out. It makes things easier to do something new. In this video I feel we actually did something interesting, you know, it’s not girl’s asses and ostentatious bullshit. All the Cardboard City shit – we try to stray away from all that. I’m not gonna lie to you, there’s some pretentious shit on there…
OKP: Naturally, that’s hard to avoid as an artist.
Cage: It’s always fun to indulge ya know?
OKP: Yup. Now I didn’t want to bring up Camu-Tao ’cause he’s a close friend of yours, but since you mentioned him I gotta ask, was he directly involved with this record? Did he provide any production on it? [Editor’s note: R.I.P. Camu-Tao, who passed away last year]
Cage: Yeah, there is production from him on the record. We didn’t want his involvement to seem like we just scattered a bunch of his shit on this record, so we’re being really tasteful with the way that we’re doing it. Then there’s his record. He recorded this amazing record but he never finished it. There’s these songs he recorded that are the greatest songs I’ve ever heard and I know the verses but he was sick and only recorded the hooks. So you’d hear these amazing songs with great hooks…but there’s no verses. So you hear the song and you just see how huge it would be if it was finished.
OKP: I hear Outkast references thrown out there a lot.
Cage: I mean, he (Camu-Tao) was doing that style before the whole Gnarls Barkley shit even happened. When he got sick, he was sick for about a year and the Gnarls Barkley shit came out and everyone was just like “Fuck.” In 2004 he had these songs and was performing 5 or 6 of them a night on the Hell’s Winter Tour and people were just standing there in shock not knowing how to react to it. Kind of like how my performance was tonight. Which was awesome cause I’m happy to stick out. ‘Cause fuck rules and formulas, there’s more interesting ways to put your stuff out. The Camu record is phenomenal but the way you hear it I think will probably be as he left it. It’s just got to be polished up now. Some of the audio is recorded through like atmosphere mics on a laptop, you know, and not dropped. Some of the stuff was just recorded at sessions, like some of the stuff he recorded sounds like the fucking Beatles. So if you can think of the Beatles doing hip-hop.
OKP: Honestly, no I can’t (laughing).
Cage: Yeah, but there’s songs like that that sound like 50’s meets electro-punk. It’s a sick-ass fucking record. We had the same ideas to our records, he just never got to finish his. That’s what makes it a really tough project to deal with, cause you have to be so delicate with it.
OKP: Alright, my last question, which you may have been asked before, is if we’ll ever get to hear an official Weathermen release?
Cage: Yeah, definitely. We have 3 songs recorded already. El-P is working like crazy on his record right now, but Aes and I have some free time. So you’ll hear Aesop Rock production on there, El-P will have production on there, more Sean Martin production. I think the goal right now is to come out to Cali for a few months, rent a house, and record the whole thing. I think it will be a good record.
– Nick McClure
Cage’s new album, Depart From Me, is set to drop 7/7/09 on Def Jux.