Causecast

With the release of the critically-acclaimed 2005 album Artifact, Santa Cruz-based STS9 have become a dominant force of genre-blending “post-rock dance music.” Just as important is STS9’s commitment to various causes, including the rebuilding of New Orleans through the Make It Right Foundation.

Causecast’s one and only Brandon Deroche hunted STS9 down for a quick conversation on maintaining their independent vision, their contributions to New Orleans, and what peace means to them.

Causecast: I’m of the opinion that as a society we’re living in a very transitional time, with this underlying shift taking place in culture, we‘re on the brink of something major, whether it‘s good or bad. So I‘m wondering, do you feel that?

Hunter Brown: We absolutely feel that. I mean, I think that’s something that we’re inspired by a lot in our music, that feeling of change, that feeling that something, just the urgency of the times in general. Not so much positive or negative, where it’s going. I think we’d be happier to see more activism; I think a lot of people would, but it just hasn’t reached that tipping point where people have realized the collective power they have in our democracy. I look forward to that time, and hopefully that’s what we’re coming up to.

David Phipps: Yeah, absolutely. I think that as well as the technology and the internet and the speed of which information gets passed contributes a lot to the sense of urgency, and how much we can actually get done in these times. So, everything’s happening quicker and has a lot more effect as it goes around.

CC: Exactly! Speaking of activism, tell us about your efforts with the Make It Right Foundation?

Hunter: We’ve been playing New Orleans for a few years, and we love that city. We have a good friend who lives down there who, right after – it was about eight months after Katrina hit – he took us around the whole city, including the Ninth Ward, and we were really just kind of shocked and beside ourselves at what we saw. We’ve never seen that kind of destruction. We’ve never been to war, or anything like that. We’ve never really seen that kind of destruction, and I think like a lot of people, we wanted to see if there was anything that we could do about it, you know what I mean? If there’s anything that we could pitch in. We saw other…Make It Right was an obvious choice. They were there already, building sustainable homes in the Ninth Ward. About a year later after our first visit we went back just to see how things had progressed, and met a couple of people, some families who were actually living in some of the Make It Right homes, and I got a couple of tours through the homes – they were amazing.

“So, it’s really not just the five of us or our management’s effort – it’s every person that comes to a show. Whether you knew it or not, you’ve contributed to this house.”
- David Phipps [speaking about their work with the Make It Right Foundation]

And we were just inspired to kind of do what we could to figure out something that we could do to pitch in to the cause a little bit. You know, organize our small community to try to affect some kind of change there. Some kind of pragmatic… something we could actually see, something that we could actually do and feel. And this was the obvious choice, since we had about thirty artists donate remixes, and donate it to a record that went to Make It Right, and we’re hoping to build a house down there within the next couple years. So, it’s something that’s been close to our heart, I mean there’s so much history. New Orleans is just a very important and quintessential American city, and we want to see it come back. We want to help the people who were there any way we can, so it was something that we were just happy to do.

CC: Did you receive a lot of positive feedback from your fans?

Hunter: Yeah, they’re excited, because I think we’re all in it together. There’s this feeling that alone we’re sort of powerless, but together, we create this bigger force that can affect more change. So I think that excited all of us, and our fans.

David: I think a good point as well is, besides the remix project (the album that is towards Make It Right), our entire charity effort over 2009 including a dollar per ticket sold, it goes to that effort. So, in reality, we talk about we’re doing this, but it’s actually the fans – every person that comes to the show has put a dollar towards this. So it’s not us, it’s the fans making it happen as well as the promoters agreeing to raise the ticket price by a dollar, and dealing with the whole thing. So it’s really not just the five of us or our management’s effort – it’s every person that comes to a show. Whether you knew it or not, you’ve contributed to this house and, you know, seven dollars buys a light bulb and there’s all different levels of what gets bought in the building of this house. So whether you know it or not, you’re part of it, and that’s what’s making it happen. It’s not us.

“… Just that energy that’s inside, everything that we take in, the good and bad, you know, the personal and the worldly, all gets translated through that music somehow.”
- Hunter Brown

CC: So you’re facilitators. How would you say your consciousness affects your music, and then in turn your music affect your audience’s consciousness?

Hunter: That’s a tough question, but I think… Our music is a direct reflection of our consciousness, which is constantly evolving and changing and growing, hopefully. And the music that we create together and the art that we create together is just the closest thing that we can articulate to what that is, and I think just that energy that’s inside, everything that we take in, the good and bad, you know, the personal and the worldly, all gets translated through that music somehow, and felt and returned, and we’re feeling what people say back to us, what they’re feeling, what, you know. It’s a very reciprocal, creative process and it’s what really inspired us to get into this, and really motivates us to keep going, I think.

CC: Do you feel affected at all by the state of the music industry? Or do you feel that you’ve been able to put your blinders on by doing your own thing, and not let the collapse really impact your career?

David: It definitely affects us and has an impact, but we’ve always done our thing, and just kind of played our own place in how things unfold. You know what I mean? I think we’ve done well, and the changes of the music industry has benefited us more than hurt us, compared to major label artists. So we just kind of follow along, and follow along the news and how things happen, and what different artists are doing now. NIN, Radiohead… You know, free music, donate music. We just kind of take it all in and just stick to what we feel holds integrity as art and as artists, and just kind of make it up as we go along. [laughs]

Hunter: I think there’s a level, too where when we got into this, we got into a band and playing music and playing live shows, I think that part of our inspiration was to not go that route, to kind of deflect the music industry a little bit. So, we’ve always cherished our independence, and it’s been an important aspect of everything that we do, from releasing records to anything else. So, it hasn’t really affected us in a weird way. It has in all the positive ways, I think, as [David] Phipps was just saying, but in another way We’ve never opened ourselves up to it.

David: We’ve always been told we weren’t commercially viable to begin with, from the beginning. If you don’t get a singer, it’s not going to work. If you don’t write a song that’s less than seventeen minutes, it’s not going to work. It’s always worked for us, and the way we wanted it to. So a lot of it motivates us to just keep being ourselves.

CC: The word ‘peace’ has been used for a long time, but I don’t know if people necessarily know specifically what they‘re referring to when they say ‘peace,’ in terms what it is we’re trying to achieve. So, what does ‘peace’ mean to you guys?

Hunter: That’s a big one. That’s a really big one. I think, it’s a big one because I think it’s something that we question a lot in our talks and our inspiration. We’re inspired by the times, obviously, and the politics behind the times, and the use of language, and how distorted words become and how meaningless some words like ‘peace’ have become, maybe. And that question of ‘what is all this for?’ I think is what…that is the meaning… I don’t know, that could be a start to find the definition of ‘peace’ maybe, because as of now, I don’t know, maybe we’re all living for different reasons. We’re not sure why we’re here in general, you know what I mean? Depending on what your world view is, there’s any definition for ‘peace,’ I think. But, mine is, first off, I guess, is no war would be ‘peace.’ That’s an obvious one. Some kind of motive beyond greed, would be a good start for ‘peace,’ I think. I could talk about this all day, I don’t know.

David: I guess I could give a personal description of ‘peace.’ I have a two and half year-old daughter, and a garden out back. And, you know, picking strawberries from my garden with my daughter is my definition of peace. And if I can only hope that everyone in the world can be in their backyard picking fruit from their garden with their own daughter without worrying about bombs dropping and just experience that feeling of like, ‘things are okay,’ and ‘my family is going to be fine.’ That’s peace to me.

Read more Causecast musician interviews at www.causecast.org/music.

Find more on STS9 at www.STS9.com

Transcription by NICHOLAS CHUNG, Causecast Writer

Photo 1 by brother monk, flickr.

Photo 2 by unratednyc115, flickr.