Unpublished Trem Interview (circa 2008)
Remember Method Man’s Wu-Tang/Voltron analogy from 36 Chambers? Apply that to Lyrical Commission and Trem, not the GZA, would form the head. Progressing from painting back in the day to a vicious verbal threat on the mic he released some sought after 12’s before pulling together LC and slapping the scene upside the head. On top of that he helped found Unkut Recordings and has become one of the most talented and respected producers in the game, banging out some more pure heat for Strut’s new LP. Back in early 2008 when Strut dropped “Legend: Official” we got Trem to step out of the studio for a yak on beats, Brad and picking up the pen again.
We know yourself and Brad are really tight-knit. Now while recording Legend Official he went through a lot of bullshit and strife. Was it ever difficult making music together under the circumstances?
No never. When it comes to recording with Brad it’s fairly seamless. We’ve obviously worked together for a long time and I prefer to work with Brad than probably anybody else in the studio. It’s a breeze man. I get a lot out of working with him and I think he does with me. When you look at it from that perspective it doesn’t matter what sort of gets thrown at us. Once we hit the studio together it’s all sweet. None of that gets in the way of the job getting done. Regardless of what we’ve got on in our personal lives or whatever, as soon as we hit the studio together none of that shit is intrusive or fucks up the connection or the link that we’ve got going on in the studio, so it’s all good. If anything it might contribute to a better product at the end of the day. I love working with that dude, he’s my brother and no matter if we’ve got testing times outside of that anyway as soon as we sort of get in the studio there’s a cohesion there that’s really good.
How did the tracks on the album come together? Did you hit Strut with a beat, did he come to you with some lyrics or something he needed to get off his chest?
It was an interesting process the album. I could sort of put the album and the mixtape (Legendary: The Official Mixtape) together. When we first started recording we had just finished the last LC product which was the Murderous release and Strut was just round the corner from me. We were both living in Carnegie at the time and he would continually rock over. So when we finished recording Murderous he was still at the Trematorium ritually every fucking Saturday. Whether that was just drinking or smoking or talking about what we were going to do next or whether it was him just popping over with 16 bars going, “Whack a beat on and let me get this off my chest”. So Strut was just stepping up with raps. With the LC shit we had toured with Murderous and we didn’t have a kind of direction with where we were going except we had an idea that we wanted to do solo releases next. Strut kind of got the ball rolling I guess by constantly turning up weekend after weekend with a 16 or a track or bits and pieces. We kind of started recording it that way with no kind of idea that this was for an album. He started rapping over certain beats that I had lying around and as time went on we accumulated more and more and then we said, “Lets definitely work towards an album”.
The most interesting thing that sticks out to me now, is once we said, “Let’s make the album”, I went through and picked out 25 rough beats. I just flung him a CD of 25 rough beats in their infant stages, some were more progressed. The ones that I were feeling more, the ones that I thought he would flip on were the ones that I had spent a bit more time on getting right. The thing that bugged me out, was that out of 25 beats, the 10 that I thought, “These are definitely what he’s going to rap on”, he didn’t touch them he picked the ones in their infant stages that were mega raw. It was cool like that though. I thought for a Strut solo he might want to branch out a bit in his style. People probably pick Trem beats as one dimensional, boom-bap, 90’s style, all sounding the same, whatever. But I have flipped some other shit and in particular I keep some rappers in mind and I thought that Strut might want to head this way with some of his shit. But he just went – “Boom! Just give me the raw shit.” Hence there is the album. It’s funny cause I read some reviews and its like, “Trem’s beats are very minimalistic and can be tiring after 16 tracks”. But that’s the shit that Strut wanted for his album. I had some beats in there with 3 or 4 change ups, a lot more up and bouncy driven, but Strut wanted the raw shit and that’s what motherfuckers got.
That’s interesting to hear cause a lot of producers are looking to push the boundaries and be innovative with complex beats, but I actually found it refreshing to just hear some raw, stripped back loops combined with that intricate wordplay.
That’s hip hop man. To me anyway you know what I mean. With my beats I can cater to other sort of styles, but they’re still all in that mould. They might have more change ups, be a little more up, not as dirty or crusty and maybe a little more friendly to other people I guess you could say. I always make it so it is kind of always going to fit that mould of what I perceive as real hip hop and real beats. I still listen to that style of hip hop. I love the raw shit and that’s probably the way I will always be. Another thing as well, when I make beats I like to keep it fairly simple for the MC’s. I don’t make beats in the mind state that there is not going to be anyone on it, so I’ve got to get the most out of the music and flip mega different samples in or whatever. I can appreciate people who make shit that way. I like to make beats for my crew and dudes who are dope lyricists anyway. Maybe cause I’ve still got a bit of MC in me, I kind of see that the MC is the front man. I don’t want to fucking take all the shine away with my beat and have heaps of shit coming in over the top. I want it so the MC can get loose on it and flex what he’s got and flip to the maximum on it.
Your verses on Legend have a got lot of heads fiendin for more 16’s from you cause you are spittin straight venom. So when the fuck are we going to see a full-length release from yourself mate? Is it still coming?
Yeah man its coming (Laughs). It’s weird cause it’s something that I started to do over 10 years ago. It has changed shape, it kind of got put on hold, then kind of got ditched forever when we got the LC thing going. In all honesty I get a lot out of working with a team. I don’t play golf or tennis. I love football and cricket, I love team sports and working in a team or with a crew. I get just as much, if not more, out of seeing the people around me thrive and have a good time. That’s just me as a person. So when the opportunity came up and we got LC rocking and that started to take off, my solo career just got squished. It wasn’t even on the backburner, it was just like, “Fuck that! LC is where it’s at. They’re my brothers, that’s my team, let’s do it.” I mean working with other people like Strut, I would rather put my solo on hold, cause I could see that his solo was going to progress a lot quicker then mine and I got just as much working on his album as I would of on mine.
Whatever happened with the relationship with 360? He was signed with Unkut for a while there, dropped that Foul Child track on the Turntable Jediz release and then disappears and winds up on Soulmate Records?
Well he was never actually signed to Unkut. I guess he was going to serve an apprenticeship under us to a degree. I heard of him around 2003 and thought he had potential. I didn’t think he was incredible, but I liked where he was at and I thought we could definitely work with this kid, I think he was only 15 at the time. So we sort of took him under our wing for a bit. He did some stuff that I cringed at and some stuff that was definitely getting somewhere. We just sort of gave him some advice, introduced him to recording techniques and getting shit down and that was about it. We gave him a couple of opportunities with the Terntable Jediz track and then he was going to be involved in a couple of LC tracks. He probably wasn’t progressing lyrically like I had sort of hoped. I think he was really itching to get something out, but I was like “Wait, wait, wait”. I didn’t want him to just put something out willy nilly without him being the best that he could be. I guess at that time he was thinking, “Fuck, I’m ready”. I guess we had a stalemate there where I didn’t think he was ready and I wasn’t going to put something out. So he started working with other dudes and that was all cool. But then another couple of things surfaced. Our name was getting mentioned in beefs and arguments which was totally fucking uncalled for and a bit silly and naïve on his part. You don’t drop LC’s name or Unkut’s name when I don’t even know what the fuck he’s going on about He was already on his path by then and we were continuing on ours and this sort of made us think, “We’ve had enough”.
How instrumental has the support and guidance from Prowla and the Nuff Said family been with the label, the studio, your production and just life in general?
Prowla has been a good close friend of mine since the early 90’s now. I met a lot of influential people early on in the piece back in 91 thereabouts that were really cool for me and Prowla was one of those dudes. He is someone who taught me a lot in the early stages. I had a lot of people teaching me shit like beat digging and Prowls in particular taught me production and recording to a degree. In the mid-90’s we’d be hanging out around his joint in Richmond a bit and he was recording the Formulators tape, which never came out and stuff like that. So I was chilling a lot with him and Jase and I learnt a lot. So when I did the Sheer Talent and Amateurs 12’s they were there then. It was massive learning time for me, cause up til then I didn’t know fuck all about making a track for real. We’d recorded stuff on old reel-to-reel and stuff like that, but that was my first introduction to a digital 4-track where we could bounce tracks and have back ups and all this sort of shit. They introduced me to all that sort of stuff. I actually went on then to buy Prowla’s set-up at that stage, Rob Nat and I did actually. So we got the digital 4-track and the desk and a DAT and we even bought the Atari ST computer. So as Prowls and Jase stepped up their equipment we kind of got the hand me downs. Definitely Prowls has been a massive influence and even right up til now I talk to him about a lot of shit. Like, nobody had heard the Brad Strut album and I took it round to Prowla’s place to listen before I mastered it just to get his opinion. He is my kind on number one go to dude, when I want to ask, “What do you think of this shit?”, and he will point out anything that is wrong to me, which is cool cause I am super critical of my shit now.
Is that why we have never heard that early stuff of yours cause you are very critical? Will we never hear that early 90’s stuff you did with Raise and DJ Idem?
If we could find it! (Laughs). I have got some real old shit, I have got some taped shit, I’m not kidding you man, from like 1987/88 when I was on some Beastie Boys shit or something. But I can’t even find that tape anymore, cause I hated it so much. It could be in my tape drawer somewhere. The early stuff I did with Raise and Idem, I think Idem would have some copies of that shit somewhere. Next time I catch up with that dude I might see if he can dig it up, but he will probably charge me $100 for it though (laughs). Outside of that there isn’t many decent recording going around from back then. There was some pause tape shit which is pretty funny, but I would rather just play it to you, I wouldn’t go releasing it (laughs).
When we did Sheer Talent and Amateurs there was a few tracks still from around then. I was working towards this solo album when I was doing those 12’s. We recorded those 12’s at the same time and there were songs which never surfaced. So I’ve still got those tracks would could come out in some format eventually.
How does it feel to have those two 12’s be real collector’s items now? I mean I’ve seen them on e-bay for a fair bit of cash.
Yeah it’s pretty bugged out. The first thing I think of when I see somebody selling it for $100 is, “Fuck! I didn’t even make $100 on the whole shit!” I probably lost a few hundred on that exercise. When everyone was making tapes and stuff, I was always like, “Nah I’m going to wait until I can afford to press it to wax.” Cause back then I was a mad vinyl head. Tapes were cool, but vinyl is immortal. So I was hell bent on pressing my shit to wax, but it was obviously taking a while. So when we got the four tracks down for the first 12 it was just like, “Fuck an album. Bam! Let’s put out a 12.” Because I hadn’t done the tape thing though it contributed to me not progressing as much in the way I rap. I was mega influenced by the early Melbourne style and I was a cross between that and some of the underground NY heads like Nas. So I wasn’t pushing my style much. I went through a phase not long after they came out where I was really hating on the releases, around the time of Stage is Set. I looked at other dudes like Lazy Grey and how they were emphasising what they were saying and giving it that extra punch. So I thought I needed to combine my wordplay with that added punch then I would develop my style further. I still loved the beats and the rhyme structure and the wordplay, but a few years after the 12’s I wasn’t feeling the way I was rapping because I just progressed a bit more in those couple of years. But I can look back on it again another five years later and go, “Yeah I can see where I was and that’s all cool”. And if people can make a bit of cash off ‘em then lucky them (Laughs).
You still get any chance to write at all? You used to smash shit pretty hard when you were reppin Run For Kover
I used to write a fair bit, but once the whole music shit took off for me I sort of put that to rest. The thing with writing is I always looked at dudes and wanted to keep up with dudes back in the late 80’s, but when you get interested in another facet of hip hop which I did with the music then my graf was slipping and I saw dudes going straight past me. I thought, “Well if I’m not going to be up there with the best, then what’s the point?” That is the way I look at it. I mean if I didn’t think I could compete lyrically with the best dudes, I probably wouldn’t have as much fun with it or want to do it. I basically just stopped. I still bombed a little bit and still to this day I wouldn’t call myself a writer. But a few years ago, Prowls was like, “You got to come out and piece”. So I went out a couple of times with him and got instantly hooked again. It’s something I wish I had more time to do because I love it so much. It’s kind of my escape. If I have a free Sunday then the first thing I would want is to get out and piece. Big shout out to the boys at Ironlak cause they hook me up with the paint these days.
So what can we expect from the Trem LP then?
Trem without further ado. At this stage it is shaping up to be pretty big. A few guest spots remaining nameless at this point of time. I’m not handling all the production, I’ve got Beat Butcha on there, I’ve got Prowls on there and a couple of other surprises for people. So 20 odd years of work and opinion and wordplay and thoughts all wrapped up in one. I guarantee heads will love it. When I rocked the verses on Strutters album I thought, “Fuck yeah I can still burn these motherfuckers!” I read press releases saying that so and so is the next big MC in Oz hip hop and I’m like, “Fuck off man, I’m not going nowhere!” So that’s the way I’m thinking. Trem’s not going nowhere.
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