Gym Class Heroes

Sophie interviews guitarist, Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo

One of my fond memories of the day I got to interview Gym Class Heroes’ guitarist, Disashi, was laughing while watching Travis McCoy (lead vocalist) wander around the Warped Tour grounds in his low ride bike, wearing his pyjama pants, keeping it cool. What a unique character that Travis! When I finally sat by the tour buses with Disashi, we spoke about their experience on this year’s famous Vans Warped Tour. We also discussed about the evolution of their writing and recording process for their latest album, ‘The Quilt’ that was just released in early September. This will be my last interview from the Vans Warped Tour 2008 series.

CONFRONT: So I’m with Disashi from Gym Class Heroes! Have you been on Warped Tour since the beginning?

Disashi: Yeah! We’ve been on… We’re going to be basically on the entire thing, we’re about halfway through right now.

CONFRONT: Doing the whole thing, great! Any new bands that you discovered so far that you like?

Disashi: Um… No…

(both laugh)

Disashi: But I’ve been checking a lot of the old bands that I really love…

CONFRONT: Like who?

Disashi: The Academy Is…, Say Anything, you know, Cobra Starship… Everyone that you’d expect that I listen to.

(both laugh)

CONFRONT: How was working with Busta Rhymes for the new album?

Disashi: Amazing! I mean I didn’t actually basically work WITH him in the studio but we recently met him for the video shoot for “Peace Sign, Index Down” and he was so professional, so animated it’s great! He kind of walked in you know and then the director says action and all of a sudden it’s like you’re watching a kind of cartoon. It’s great to see him inject his personality into the song, because Busta Rhymes is probably one of the first hip-hop artists I ever really got into so it was awesome!

CONFRONT: Yeah it’s really awesome that you met him! Why did you call the album ‘The Quilt’?

Disashi: We called the album ‘The Quilt’ because you know, one of the awesome things about Gym Class Heroes is that we all have such eclectic music tastes and basically for this album we kind dug deep inside of ourselves and you know, put all of those tastes into each song. You know, you hear a song like our current single “Cookie Jar” that’s like a club song. Then you hear like “Peace Sign” that’s like a hip-hop song. And you have other songs like “Live a Little” [which] is like a rock song. Then there’s reggae influenced songs, you know. Every song is a patch, you know and they all come together to make this one big quilt.

CONFRONT: Awesome! Yeah and it’s pretty cool, the EP being called “Patches of The Quilt”…

Disashi: (at the same time) “Patches…” yeah…

CONFRONT: So you collaborated with Busta, who else do you see yourself collaborating with in the future?

Disashi: Oh, I don’t know! There’s so many artists out there who are amazing. I mean I’m a huge fan of Muse, Bloc Party you know… At this point we’ve collaborated with Busta Rhymes and Daryl Hall from Hall & Oates; some like legendary artists so, I can’t really say “Oh I don’t see myself working with X person” you know, because at this point we could be working with anyone so…

CONFRONT: What are your plans after Warped?

Disashi: After Warped Tour, we go to the UK for a little bit of touring over there. We haven’t been touring over there for about a year or so… The album gets released September 9th, which is really exciting. Then we do touring with The Roots, we do a co-headlining tour with The Roots, which is also extremely exciting because we grew up listening to The Roots…

CONFRONT: Totally…

Disashi: We’ve got so many comparisons to The Roots, just because we’re both bands that are rooted in hip-hop. But I think this tour is going to be a great opportunity for people to see that even though we both respect hip-hop and that we came from that hip-hop background, as bands, we are not the same band at all.

CONFRONT: They’re going to be able to see the difference.

Disashi: Yeah!

CONFRONT: In the writing process for ‘The Quilt’ what inspired you the most?

Disashi: Um… I mean I feel… I could give the lame answer…

(both laugh)

Disashi: So I mean, you know, life and love inspired me the most personally obviously…

CONFRONT: But was it different than the first album?

Disashi: Well yes and no. The first album was kind of like, we were really learning about the industry. I mean, Gym Class Heroes has had several independent releases before, but that was the first time that we were really working with producers in the studio, helping with our song writing, giving us ideas so… We were learning a lot about the ins and outs of musical production. But this time around we knew we had a better idea of what we wanted it to sound like so, you know, this time on this album I think our personalities come through a lot more as individuals and as musicians. Our musical personalities are better represented.

CONFRONT: Great! So I read that you guys like the Arctic Monkeys a lot…

Disashi: Yeah!

CONFRONT: So do you see yourselves collaborating with them one day?

Disashi: Yeah! We actually considered getting them on this album, but it didn’t end up happening in the end. But we’re definitely hoping to work with them. I mean, these guys are huge! It’d be great to work with them sometime. But again, we’re pretty much opened to work with anybody! (laughs) As we’ve kind of showed on this album so…

CONFRONT: How did the show go today? You guys just played earlier right?

Disashi: Great! Yeah great!

CONFRONT: How was the crowd and everything?

Disashi: The crowd was cool. I find that the Canadian crowd is like, you know, very chill compared to the other crowds that we play for, but at the same time still responsive. When we got on stage like in Detroit for example, the kids were like: “AHH!!” going crazy and all and then we played yesterday and today and the kids were kind of like: “Chill, chill…”; but then when we told them to jump, they still jump like nuts you know. I think it’s just a different mindset.

CONFRONT: That’s great! So where are you playing next?

Disashi: (thinking hard)

CONFRONT: (laughing) Not sure… It’s hard to keep track on this tour!

Disashi: (laughs) Yeah! All I know is that we’re about halfway through.

CONFRONT: Yeah, but it’s going well so far, you guys are not too tired?

Disashi: No… The first time… I remember this venue, because when we did this tour two years ago, we were in a bus, but we were still loading all of our equipment. And I remember that we had to carry all of our stuff. We were basically down the hill, so we had to climb up a hill, then go all the way across this, you know and we needed to do that every single day basically and it was way, way, hotter than this every day too so… Now we’re fortunate enough you know, we have two buses; we have a awesome crew that helps us out so…

CONFRONT: Yeah, so it’s easier to focus…

Disashi: Yeah, we can’t really complain. We recently… The only complaint I had was that the catering line is so long!

CONFRONT: Really?

Disashi: So long!

CONFRONT: So long to eat!

Disashi: Yeah! And it’s so hot out and then yesterday, Travis comes back to me and it turns out Shelley at catering loves us so she’s going to have our diner delivered every single day! (laughs)

CONFRONT: (laughs) Awesome!

Disashi: I was like: “Are you serious right now?” So I can’t complain about anything at this point.

CONFRONT: That’s great! Well have a good rest of the tour, can’t wait to hear the new album!

Disashi: Thank you, thank you for the interview!

CONFRONT: Thank you!

As I was running around doing interviews all day and by the time I caught up with Disashi GCH had already performed, I unfortunately didn’t get the chance to watch the show. But I could definitely hear them from the press tent and know they rocked out the crowd as much as Disashi had just told me. I hope to catch them soon on another of their tours in the following year.

For more on Gym Class Heroes, visit:
http://www.gymclassheroes.com/

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