USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker)
February 4th, 2010 - Written by Lili
Recently, on January 24th, I had a chance to sit down with Ashley and Jay, otherwise known as Human Kebab, of Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker, a band with quite an interesting and fresh sound who is touring with illscarlett. After much debating, we settled to do the interview in their van because they said they would be too loud in a café. The Ontario-based band, also known as USS, discussed about the band’s history to their philosophies, to their opinion on the revolution in the music industry and even blenders? And they were right; they would’ve been pretty loud in the café because of their laughter.
CONFRONT: So is this your first time in Montreal?
HUMAN KEBAB: No, actually Ash and I have both been here separately on our own a million times but this is the second time that we’ve played Montreal.
CONFRONT: And how was the last time?
HUMAN KEBAB: It was amazing, it was house party-themed with Smirnoff at Club 1234 and we were the opening act so it was pretty exciting.
CONFRONT: That’s pretty cool! And how has this tour been going so far? You’ve been on tour for quite a while now.
ASH: It’s wonderful. For the first time ever, we got to ride on a tour bus and it was like gypsies living like kings, that’s how I would describe the tour bus experience for us. And yeah it’s just been wonderful; the longest that we’ve played consecutively ever.
HUMAN KEBAB: And in very strange places as well and a lot of places we’ve never been to. And we’ve just made so many new friends and fans and connections. The illscarlett boys have been most gracious with us every night and we’ve gotten lots of exposure and we’ve just been going at it with our hearts.
CONFRONT: That’s one great thing about going on tour with a relatively known band; you can get so much exposure from it and gather a lot of new fans as well. Now could you tell me a little bit about USS? Let’s start with your name; it’s quite an original name you’ve got there.
ASH: The band name, USS otherwise known as Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker, just came from my love of words and my love of the way words sound, independent of what they mean but also simultaneously in the way the sound and what they mean are in alignment with each other. So ubiquitous synergy seeker sounds to me like what it means so it’s just like this complete package. So yeah, it’s basically just all about teamwork, you know, all about harmony, all about just thinking good thoughts and saying good words and performing good deeds. Just think good thoughts say good words and perform good deeds and just live a simple life. That’s what really changed things for us. So basically, ubiquitous synergy seeker just sums up a lot of our personal philosophy in life in terms of our ambition.
CONFRONT: That actually made me think about this one quote that I read on your site: “We want everyone to have a crush on life.”
ASH: Yeah!!
CONFRONT: So that kind of explains it right?
ASH: Absolutely! Well it’s just so exhilarating when it’s clicking right? And I mean, I walked down sixteen floors of stairs the other day and it was the most stairs I’d walked down consecutively in a long time. And it was an amazing parallel because I thought about how much harder it is to run back up sixteen flights of stairs.
HUMAN KEBAB: I love that analogy by the way.
ASH: So it’s actually really funny because it actually…it takes very little effort to be depressed and it takes a lot of effort to get yourself out. So that idea of having a crush on life is our way of saying, in our own respective means, you know I went to meditation centers and he went to pipeline in Alberta, and in our own way, in kind of solitude and away from the world, you’re able to just let things sort themselves out. And when they do that, the whole world just becomes this magical place where you don’t use words like you’re “bored” and you don’t complain about stuff and you don’t hate on people and there’s just this beautiful experience that you can have. And the greatest thing that we wish through everything that we do with this band is just that we can lead by the clarity of our example, which is one another, one of our core philosophies which is to say “we hope that you can have a crush on life too, vicarious through us.”
There was a short deviation from the interview here because Ash was texting someone trying to get a blender.
CONFRONT: Why do you need a blender so badly?
HUMAN KEBAB: We have a blender that we use in our last song and make a smoothie. And Ash actually throws the fruit in. He nonchalantly tosses the fruit into the blender.
ASH: Actually no one really understands why we’re doing that. But I’m not going to tell you so we’ll keep it a mystery
HUMAN KEBAB: I love that, you should! You gotta keep some things to yourself! So actually, historically in our band, a lot of our stuff gets stolen off stage and I don’t even want to say that there is any malicious intent in the theft of it but some people just want a part of the show. Like, I’ve had my hat stolen, two of my needles stolen, some records, we’ve got our cardboard cut-out stolen, Ash’s blender…yeah, it’s just ridiculous but it’s just funny that Ash is, mid-interview, texting because we need a blender.
CONFRONT: That’s pretty bad though, stuff getting stolen! But actually, I read that you put on quite a show, why do you, for example, decide to throw fruit into a blender in the middle of your show?
ASH: Well the origins of that experience were that because we’re dudes with entertainment aspirations, through comedy, you know, I was in theater and Jay was into comedy and we both got into music…different capacities. But in the meantime, you still got to earn a living right? So just doing manual labor jobs you can come and go from and I was coming home from roofing and I love making smoothies but I didn’t have time after work and I had a show so I just brought my blender and all the stuff and I just went right into the show. So I decided, completely unrelated, that I really wanted a smoothie. I can be a bit stubborn but I’m ultimately very open-minded. I’m the most open-minded idealist that you ever met. But I’m also the most introverted extrovert you’ve never met.
CONFRONT: Introverted extrovert…
ASH: That you never met.
CONFRONT: That I never met…ok! I think we’ll just leave it at that or I have a feeling this will go on and on and I still won’t understand!
*laughs*
ASH: I love it!
CONFRONT: Now, tell me a little USS history, how did you guys start, what pushed you into this?
HUMAN KEBAB: We worked at a golf course in Markham, Ontario called Angus Glen and the first time I met Ash, he was doing a one-armed push-up and he didn’t even look me in the eye so I thought “Wow, this guy’s pretty random!” *laugh* But um, no! We were just coincidentally working there at the same time…
ASH: I had just dropped out of school and he had just graduated so it was hilarious.
HUMAN KEBAB: But neither one of us had jobs so we worked at Angus Glen. And yeah, we kind of had heard of each other through the grapevine, we had mutual friends. I heard that Ash was a singer/songwriter and had a band. He had heard that I was a crazy DJ guy and I would put on rap shows and whatnot. And then we evolved in our friendship and I guess we just sort of realized that we should probably start creating together. Ash came to me and he said he wanted to created dream, surf, drum and bass with our song Cloud Boy off Questamation was basically the first song he ever brought to my attention.
CONFRONT: Really?
HUMAN KEBAB: And he actually played the drums [he imitated the beat vocally] because at the time, my little brother and his best friends had a drum kit in the basement so he was actually able to physically show me and then we proceeded to try and make beats…
ASH: Extremely minimal. Making beats were like [vocal imitation of a simple beat].
CONFRONT: Well it has to start somewhere right?
ASH: Well it was so funny because our first show was in this dingy top floor of a bar in his hometown and we ran it off an iPod and it was hilarious. And then the next show, we were opening for Final Fantasy in Peterborough so it was a hilarious thing where our second show was this enormous quantum from our first show. So that’s why we like to think what we’re all about is: we just make these quantums. We kind of just go dormant for a bit and then we just…
CONFRONT: Pop back out?
ASH: Yeah, just kind of explode back out like a Technicolor bean stock.
*laugh*
ASH: And we love to laugh! More than anything on earth.
CONFRONT: Well laughing is good for you!
ASH: Very much so!
CONFRONT: Now, could you tell me about your sound? It’s so diverse; I couldn’t put it into one category at all so I was wondering how you guys would describe yourselves?
HUMAN KEBAB: Jungle pop.
ASH: Jungle pop, science rock…
HUMAN KEBAB: Science and art funkle!
ASH: Drum and strum…the easiest description would be to imagine what it would be like if Nirvana played unplugged at a rave. My motivation in 1999 when I really got into jungle music and drum and bass music was to make pop rave. Just take all the elements of a rave, and then you take the drugs away, so you just have the lights, sound and bass especially, the vibe, the randomness, decorations and just anything’s possible. And it’s almost just like a playground for adults, because adults need to play too.
CONFRONT: Of course!
ASH: Kids spend most of their time playing; adults forget how to play sometimes but the amazing thing is that all these ideas funnel themselves into this rave idea of taking the best things about pop music, which me and him both absolutely love because it’s accessible, you know?
CONFRONT: It is…
ASH: It just allows you to get your ideas out to as many people as possible.
CONFRONT: Yeah, you can reach out to so many!
ASH: Yeah! So something like all the elements of rave music and pop music is something that has been hinted at but ultimately, I feel like we’re in another…in quantum territory again, in terms of now that we’ve recorded an EP and an album, played, you know, a couple hundred shows, all across Canada to different kinds of people and different kinds of audiences in random places, the vision just gets clearer. And it’s all just channeling into something, like, it’s really exciting!
CONFRONT: That must feel great! You mentioned your CD. It was released in March last year; how was the response?
HUMAN KEBAB: Are you talking from a purely critical perspective? Or from a fan perspective?
CONFRONT: Any perspective!
HUMAN KEBAB: Excellently well-received! Especially from those that purchased it, people who buy it at our merch booth at shows, to iTunes. The reception was wonderful! It actually clocked in and started at #12 on iTunes, which is incredibly exciting considering it’s on our record label that we started with no marketing plan or advertising or anything. I mean, we just go on shows and radio airplays but it was extremely well-received.
ASH: Our album art won a big uh…what’s the magazine it won for?
HUMAN KEBAB: Applied Arts Magazine.
ASH: The amazing story behind that is that was the company that I was working at when I met Jay. And the machines that make those, they only make them as maps, they never made an album cover out of them before; it’s the only place that makes those. And I was working on that assembly line when I wrote three of the songs on the album so there’s an incredible irony and a full circle to us releasing this album and then being awarded this. We also submitted for album art for the Juno Awards. For best new artist and stuff as well so we’re just waiting to hear back on that and it’s really exciting.
HUMAN KEBAB: There were the critiques too. But I mean, there was Alan Cross, a big champion of ours, and he was all over it and that meant the world to us because we have an immense amount of respect for him and what he’s done for just music in general, but more specifically for Canadian rock and roll. But yeah, we received some harsh critiques from various independent media newspapers online and stuff but I think…First of all, you can have your opinion on any form of art and tell the world your opinion, I mean that’s the point of journalism right?
CONFRONT: Yeah, exactly.
HUMAN KEBAB: But I think that in some cases, just the press that I saw, it’s really easy to just sit in an office and listen to somebody’s music and not really understand the whole point of it. We find that when people actually come and check us out, meet us, talk to us, just like for the music, listen to it and just see the whole package, it becomes clearer what we’re trying to do and that we know what our purpose is. We’re not afraid to wear our hearts on our sleeves and just be honest and be truthful in how we perform and how we record and create and everything. You don’t sit around and contemplate what’s going to be cool, it’s like it all comes from a raw place. Like, Ash and I cry to each other sometimes.
CONFRONT: Aw really?
HUMAN KEBAB: Like, who does that? Honest people.
[Their tour manager, Wendy, added something about the album and how it’s selling all over the world.]
CONFRONT: That’s actually what’s great about the internet now because you can get your music to just about anywhere.
ASH: Yeah! Like we actually sold our album inside in whales! Like actually set up the merch booth inside a whale!
HUMAN KEBAB: Oh I knew you were going there. That’s so dumb!
ASH: Sorry, I tell bad jokes all the time.
*laugh*
CONFRONT: So I was going to say that you’re part of the newer generation of musicians, who have to deal with the internet and everything with music downloading. And so do you think that’s a positive or a negative addition in the music industry?
HUMAN KEBAB: I think it’s all positive. With the advent of all social networking, anyone can instantly show the world what they create. And I mean, with downloading, more specifically, it happens so you know, get over it. It’s fine. If anything, it just…it will show in the end, ultimately, it is survival of the fittest like anything in life. There’s a good chance you can fail but you took the chance in the first place and the rest of it is all hard work. Like, do you notice nowadays how many bands are touring?
CONFRONT: Yeah, lots of bands tour, even smaller ones.
HUMAN KEBAB: And do you notice how old bands go back out on the road? Because they can’t depend on the old channels that have historically been a part of the conventional mainstream music industry. Nowadays, it’s like, you have to play all the shows, have all the merchandise, be accessible to the fans; you have to communicate with them and keep everybody locked in because there’s just so much out there.
CONFRONT: It kind of just…evolved.
HUMAN KEBAB: Yeah and it literally becomes a survival of the fittest, considering how much you want to put in.
CONFRONT: That’s true! And I mean, people are always complaining about downloading but sometimes, people just want to check a band out and if they end up liking it, they’ll go see the band at shows and spend all their money there instead!
HUMAN KEBAB: Well we’ve been highly successful with sales, just based on the fact that people want to support us because they’d feel bad downloading.
CONFRONT: Yeah! That too.
ASH: It works the same way with how Hollywood was complaining about movie downloading. They started to figure out that if they just released 3D movies, they could make a profit and now, they’re not complaining anymore because they’re making money again. So as soon as record labels figure out how to make money again, everyone will stop complaining and figure out it’s ultimately ok.
CONFRONT: Well I think the record labels don’t realize yet how keep up with all that.
HUMAN KEBAB: Well I don’t think they don’t realized it, it just happens o fast, like I mean, downloading happened so quickly.
ASH: And well also though, it’s a whole industry, it takes time for things to shift. It’s got roots, heavy, heavy roots
HUMAN KEBAB: There’s a resistance to change only because people have been so used to it for so long and that’s ok.
CONFRONT: Well yeah, it’s normal.
HUMAN KEBAB: The one perspective that really sucks, yes, and it has uprooted a lot of people’s lives all around the world but at the same time you know, it just happens.
CONFRONT: They just need to innovate. Now, what are your plans for the rest of 2010?
ASH: Uh…There’s not enough recycled paper in the world to write them on.
CONFRONT: Ok well is there one big thing in 2010 that you’d like to announce?
HUMAN KEBAB: We’re going on another west-Canadian run, which is excellent. Tons of new music. Uh…possibly a fall album release, who knows?
CONFRONT: Really?
HUMAN KEBAB: Well we don’t really know, we’re just working towards that,
CONFRONT: I see, pretty cool! So now, I’ll ask you to each draw something that represents you and you can explain to me afterwards.
ASH: It’s a field goal kicking itself because I like to have a beer and an apple at the same time. Basically, I believe in simultaneous opposites, which is essentially the middle path, in an odd way.
HUMAN KEBAB: Me with an RPG rocket-propelled-grenade. Because although I have a small frame and don’t really consider myself physically strong, I feel like I have the whole world in front of me. And that anything is possible against all odds and in the face of sometimes vicious adversity, I will prevail.
ASH: And the rocket launcher analogy makes anything possible because you can pretty much do anything in the world if you’re holding a rocket launcher.
CONFRONT: Well, thank you for your time, it was a pleasure!
HUMAN KEBAB: Thank you!
That concluded our chat and later, they put on quite an energy-filled set, including the smoothie-making at the end. They really know how to put on a show, but you’ll have to see for yourself next time they tour near you!
You can check out USS on their MySpace (http://myspace.com/ubiquitoussynergyseeker) or on their official site (http://www.ubiquitoussynergyseeker.com/)
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