Tortured Soul
The Power Trio Changing the Face of House Music
5 MAGAZINE: How does the songwriting process work for you guys?
CHRISTIAN: It depends, it can start with a thought, it can start with the lyrics, it can start with the riff, it can start with a lot of different things.
JKRIV: Most of the songs have begun as a song that Christian wrote. The process is hard to sort of pin down. Like in the song "How's Your Life" - it began as a group jam that we then built that into a whole song. A lot of the music that gets written and recorded we then rework into a live arrangement that's sort of like a remix .
5 MAGAZINE: Do you ever redo other songs? Cover songs?
JKRIV: We've toyed around with that idea a couple of times. But I think for now we're still just focusing on putting on our own stuff.
CHRISTIAN: It feels a little cheesy...
ETHAN: We've considered it but now we're at a point where it could be cool. When we were first starting out I think we really wanted to establish our music.
CHRISTIAN: I guess it would depend on the venue we were at as well. If we were playing for a heavy House crowd, then there might be something cool about it and more appropriate. If we're playing in a festival where 70 percent of the people have never seen us, I think there's an integrity to just doing your own music.
ETHAN: At Bonaroo you could have counted the Househeads on both hands.
5 MAGAZINE: Where are some of the places you've played at here in Chicago?
JKRIV: We've played Smart Bar a few times, Metro, The District, the Hothouse...
5 MAGAZINE: I can't imagine you guys playing at Smart Bar, such a small venue.
ETHAN: It's kinda fun because you end up with people all around you. We all spent many years playing in similar clubs in New York City. We're used to that.
5 MAGAZINE: So are you all Househeads?
CHRISTIAN: I guess it depends what that means. We're music heads. I think we're preferential to good music. We find that there's a lot of House music that we like a lot... Basically there are a lot of people out there that are like, "I just want to hear House."
JKRIV: We listen to a wide variety of music. When we travel in a car, which does happen from time to time - although we fly more and more these days, we still find ourselves in a car for many hours. I would say we listen to House music 10, 15 percent of the time. We really change it up. There isn't like one genre... It could be anywhere from piano sonatas to House music to Led Zeppelin.
5 MAGAZINE: Do you all 3 have the same taste?
ETHAN: Close enough that we don't fight! But distant enough that we all have different music on in our selections.
5 MAGAZINE: In terms of House what DJs or producers do you like to listen to?
JKRIV: Right now I like Frank Roger, I like stuff Alix Alvarez is doing and I like some other quirkier German stuff. Some of the techier kinda stuff.
ETHAN: I really like your Ten City boys, Osunlade, some Rasoul mixes I'll put on and rock out to.
CHRISTIAN: I like soulful House in general. I can give a little shoutout to the DJ who's playing with us tonight, we have a number of different mixes by DJ Whyteout.
5 MAGAZINE: How did you guys meet him?
ETHAN: We first met him at The District. We played the night I believe that Mr. A.L.I. normally plays but for some reason they weren't doing it and it was us.
JKRIV: We met Whyteout that night. It was a really funny night because at the last minute they booked an afterparty for Ginuwine... and so it was velvet ropes and all of a sudden the cover went from $5 to $20. And all these people that wanted to get in couldn't get in. They weren't even letting in people on our list!
ETHAN: This was before we had a booking agent. We invited a booking agent to come down and check us out and they wouldn't let him in! This was like two years ago.
5 MAGAZINE: What do you think of the whole New York vs. Chicago thing?
JKRIV: We don't even think about that. I will say that as far as House music goes, the scene in Chicago is a lot stronger. In New York there's a lot of good music and a lot of great DJs, but the scenes are really sort of compartmentalized and spread out. And it's like that with everything in New York.
ETHAN: In New York you could have a House show and get all sorts. Like last week I went to the Body and Soul party at P.S. 1 and it was packed full of people. Whereas I feel that Chicago it's more like a close-knit kind of scene. In New York, there are a lot of people listen to House music but they're not necessarily Househeads.
5 MAGAZINE: What about hip-hop? Do you guys listen to it?
JKRIV: I have not been feeling hip-hop for a while. I haven't been into hip-hop since 1995. I liked it a lot before then!
CHRISTIAN: I used to love it. I used to be in a hip-hop band. I played the drums and I did a couple of verses but there was a lead rapper. But I would say maybe even earlier than Jason stopped liking it, you know like the early '90s I stopped listening to it.
5 MAGAZINE: So I'm sure everybody always asks you how do you play the drums and sing at the same time...
CHRISTIAN: From having practiced rap. [laughs] Years of playing and singing and combining the two...
5 MAGAZINE: When you guys record, do you try to do a perfect take or do you fix it with a computer?
JKRIV: Well the current record is a mix, but most of the songs are not live drums, they're sequenced. There's other live elements in there, live keys and live bass. We're actually having this conversation a lot right now because we're about to embark on the next record which is gonna be a little different from the previous one in that we really want it to focus on what we do live. I think it all really depends on the production style and what the song calls for. We definitely want the root of our music in the next record to be the three of us playing live, we want that to be the feel. As far as release date we couldn't really say right now. We're about to finish up the run of gigs we have through the summer and early fall, and then we're going to take a solid four or five months off to get the album together.
5 MAGAZINE: You all have your own solo stuff too.
CHRISTIAN: We all have various things that we're doing. Cooly's Hot Box was a project of mine, still is. I've got another moniker I'm doing stuff under called Cowboy Johnny Christ. I just sang on Spinna's record, his intergalactic soul thing. And I'm doing some work with N'Dea Davenport.
ETHAN: I've been doing some stuff under the name Easy Tracks and I have some collaborations. Actually one of the guys I'm collaborating with is part of 3 Degrees, this guy Ed Dunn from New York. We have a track with Trish Angus who was just on Spinna's new album. And we have something we're working on with Stephanie Cooke.
JKRIV: I have a project called The Moves. We had a couple of releases on Central Park Recordings, which was the original label that Tortured Soul was on. Our current label is R2 out of London.
I have another little project called bgb, which is sort of electro-disco stuff. It was on Dessous Recordings out of Germany.
5 MAGAZINE: I always ask this question with people I interview... With the whole House vs. hip-hop thing, do you think House will ever get the same notoriety that hip-hop has?
CHRISTIAN: I don't know if it will here, but in London it's a much different thing. House music is more like pop music. It's more embraced by a much bigger group of people and it's a lot bigger than it is here. It's not so much a niche thing. I think it's very undervalued here.
5 MAGAZINE: Europe in general too...
CHRISTIAN: Yeah, dance music is more of a mainstay and a common word.
JKRIV: Here's the question, do you think most Househeads would want House music to be as big as hip-hop? I think a lot of people like the fact that it's underground. They don't want to be a part of the mainstream necessarily. The more mainstream type of House music in Europe is no better than the mainstream hip-hop.
ETHAN: It's not good.
5 MAGAZINE: Do you guys ever think about breaking up?
JKRIV: No!
ETHAN: Definitely not. Not so far... Great idea, thanks 5 Magazine!
5 MAGAZINE: [laughs] I guess I meant more of having hard times...
JKRIV: Like anything, we have obstacles we have to overcome.
ETHAN: I've probably spent more time with these two guys than my family members. We've been together (if you include the band before this)... six to seven years. We've done over 300 gigs as Tortured Soul.
JKRIV: If you added them all together we've probably done 500 gigs.
ETHAN: We may be dysfunctional, but we are functional. We're more functional than my family!
For more information on tour dates, music and other news check out their websites at torturedsoulmusic.com and myspace.com/torturedsoul.
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