Interview with Jake Duzsik of HEALTH

moodgusic interviewed vocalist Jake Duzsik of HEALTH just before the Californian noise rockers took the stage at Belfast's Mandela Hall.This interview took place 08/10/10 

moodgusic: This is Matthew Larkin, interviewing Jake from HEALTH, who's playing tonight at the Mandela Hall with Crystal Castles. So how’s it going Jake?

JD: Uh, all right. I’m kind of tired.

moodgusic: Yeah, you just played Moscow last night?

JD: It wasn’t last night; we were just kind of travelling all last night. So we played on the night of the 6^th, I believe. So today is what, the 8^th?

moodgusic: The 8^th yeah, so it was two days ago.

JD: I’m all fucked up.

moodgusic: That’s no problem.. All right so your latest release: DISCO2, it’s a remix album. What is the remixing process, do you guys approach another band or do you get offers for bands for the remixes?

JD: It pretty much always goes the former on that one, like we find people that we like or are interested in like.. We take it really seriously; it’s very hands on. We don’t want to, um, you know we had the idea to release the first remix record to a company like basically a noise album and that seemed like an interesting way to-‘cause we were listening to a lot of electronic music, but we wanted to work. Like that the albums could stand alone in themselves and sound like fit aesthetically. So it’s not like, we’re not a band that’s trying to like cash in on remix albums or saturate the market, I mean it’s cool that we have four releases, y’know rather than just two. Um, but so the way we approach it is very much like trying to craft, like we’ll say we really like this artist and before even sending them the track, we’ll thing well like what’s the right track for them to remix based on like what kind of music their making. Like if it’s going to be more droney or if it’s going to be more like a club banger or something. So yeah, and we give them notes, you know we’ll say “hey we really like this part, but this part’s shit, so maybe you could take that out or fix something”. So yeah it’s a pretty involved process, but I mean it is them. You know that’s what’s great about it is you can also feel proud of a song without feeling too, like too much hubris or egotism because it’s someone else. Y’know but you get a song back, it’s like you get it in your inbox and you’re like “oh shit that’s good, that’s better than the original” or whatever. So yeah it’s fun.

moodgusic: You said that it’s good that you have four records out, the really good thing about HEALTH is that you release quite frequently. So you have a record come out more or less every year. Should the fans worry about you guys wearing yourselves out maybe burning out and having a big long break?

JD: I don’t think you can afford to do that these days as a band unless you’re Radiohead or something. Y’know like you can’t, um I don’t know what we’d be doing. We’re able to do that because of the remix records though, because it is tedious for us to write and I think we’re getting faster at it now. But y’know we didn’t just like, have a manifesto and figure out our sound, it was like very painfully discovered through lots of experimenting and trying to write songs that were atypical in terms of structure or melody or lack there of. And so we write slowly, so hopefully-we try to have-we try to not go longer than 2 years between full lengths. And that’s why it’s nice for us to feel like we can release-and that’s why on this last remix record it was important to us to also have a single, the lead of track is an original song so but it’s a bit of a hybrid y’know it’s more electronic by nature but we wrote the song entirely ourselves and recorded it. So that way we’re sort of also saying “here’s a remix record and here’s some new material” and maybe a little more of what things might sound like.

moodgusic: So, USA Boys’ the track you’re talking about. It fits very well with the dance aesthetic of DISCO2. Can the fans take as perhaps a look into the future sound of HEALTH?

JD: Yeah I think so, I mean in as much-I think when we released GET COLOR with the single Die Slow like, a lot of people were like “oh wow is this going to be what the record’s going to be like?” and it’s like “no”. Because we weren’t really ready at that point to make a transition to like a really melodic record. And now I think we are, but at the same time, there’s going to be super crazy shit on the record too. It’s not like we’re just going to just make a pop album. But there will be a continuation of things like, certainly those two songs are the most, I guess, immediately gratifying.

moodgusic: So, outside of music what kind of influences do you guys take? Maybe from movies, places you’ve been-

JD: It’s just music-

moodgusic: Just music then..

JD: Yeah. I mean, I guess like-someone asked me this the other day in Moscow and whether or not there was-I guess for me growing up, like I was really into skateboarding and the music surrounding that was basically you know-and there’s this element of like machismo in it, like it’s adrenaline based. I listened to a lot of punk rock, but ultimately it’s just a means to an end of like getting into music. I think what inspires us is music. We’re not very-I consider myself an intellectual guy but I don’t like it when bands pontificate about like y’know “oh yeah well I was reading a lot of Fuoco and I wrote this song” it’s like “fuck you, it sounds like a fall song” y’know, it’s like you know where you got excited and were about to write that song. It’s not because you like meditated or-I don’t know, for some people that works but I think a lot of times that’s hyperbole. So for us we’re inspired by music.

moodgusic: Compare the shows you did when touring your debut self titled record with the shows you were doing last year when you were touring GET COLOR. Was the crowd more receptive to either album?

JD: The crowd was definitely more receptive to the second record, but that may well also be due to the fact that we had been a band for longer and had been building a fan base. Y’know so it’s like when you come out with another record you make more fans and then you have the existing fans that are excited to see you. But I guess I would say that there are certain elements on some of the newer songs that people, I think can latch onto faster. So, crowd responses were much more physical, they were more like excitable than the first record where I think a lot of people, when we toured that record just didn’t know what the hell we were doing.

moodgusic: In 2009 you opened the final shows for Nine Inch Nails, what was that experience like?

JD: Well we had actually already toured with them before, so it was in some ways kind of mellower. Because, y’know we did these intimate shows in various small venues for them. And they were in our hometown, and we already had, like made all those connections, like we knew the crew, we knew Trent Reznor. Before when we toured we did a stadium tour, which was really like-y’know we played hockey arenas and shit, which was really weird for us. To have like 40 tones of lighting rigging. So we had got over that, and the cool thing was we just kind of came in was like “oh we’re going to play another show”. But that experience was amazing, I mean that whole organization and Trent has been nothing but like welcoming to us. Y’know like the last show we played with them like they had us, we played on stage with them and we did like a Gang of Four cover and like I sang with Gary Numan and Trent Reznor. So it was pretty cool experience, yeah it was amazing. That’s uh, everything we’ve done that’s associated with them has been nothing but really, really positive.

 moodgusic: It’s coming up to the end of the year, so for you what have been the records that have came out in 2010 and really held your attention?

JD: Um, I really like the Salem record. I mean I like that band, but it kind of all sounds like it’s one song –

moodgusic: They’ve got a lot of bad press, did you see the show, the live show you did with the rapping? 

JD: Oh yeah, yeah they got like booed off stage and everything. Yeah I mean those guys did a remix for us. I mean I like to listen to their record.. It’s been kind of a rough year for me. Uh I’ve listened to a lot of classic rock lately. Sabbath, um a lot of Thin Lizzy actually, Irish band. Um, I like some of that other witch house stuff, the darker shit like um the band White Ring, have you guys heard of them? They don’t have a proper full length. But yeah they’re really good. I’m trying to think, in 2009 I knew what releases I really liked, I do like the Crystal Castles record quite a bit this year. Like last year I thought the Pictureplane, we took them on tour, like that was my favorite record last year. Last year you kind of had a bigger year, you had like Animal Collective and bands like that.

moodgusic: GET COLOR?

JD: Oh yeah, that’s my favorite! Yeah I like a lot of that weird-we got turned onto a lot of this kind of-the term witch house is already getting this really negative association with it but there’s bands like this kid we got turned on to ‘cause he sampled USA Boys in a song called Rituals. That shit’s really good, White Ring’s really good, um we’ve been kind of listening to a lot of Ministry, but obviously that’s not a new release. I used to listen to that shit a lot when I was a kid and it’s so goofy, but now it’s just kind of like, whatever I’m enjoying it so yeah that’s about all I got for that one.

Interview recording~[audio http://moodgusic.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/b428a-interview_with_healths_jake.mp3]
INTERVIEW_WITH_HEALTH'S_JAKE.mp3