Deastro, a.k.a., Randy Chabot, released  Moondagger in June and it has been haunting my car stereo for months now. It’s 14 tracks are still mesmerizing me, along with the various remixes and releases I’ve collected since then by this prolific artist. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it, the single most intriguing element of Deastro’s music is the variety of sounds that he incorporates into a unified whole of incredible fantasy. As one London review noted, he has the “epic swagger of U2, the intimacy of Badly Drawn Boy, the bleepedy bleepness of Aphex Twin.” That made me smile even as I hate those name-dropping, all-to-easy reference points. But please do go check out what all the fuss is about for yourself. You can find Randy on MySpace, facebook and on these pages here, and here.

I had the opportunity to chat with Randy by phone on Thursday, in preparation for his new tour which starts here in Chicago this week. I’ve not done a phone-in for quite a while and thought to myself that it might be a bit boring and mundane. But oh no, my darlings! I have a hunch that no conversation with this man would ever be boring! I found him to be engaging, intelligent and very funny, in a dry sort of Midwestern way. He was everything that he appeared to be from videos and other interviews I had read: no pretenses, no persona, no withholding what inspires him or what his honest experiences have been. He was charming in every way.

I always try to get the toughest question out there at the start because you never know how long you might have with an artist. They might called away, or they might simply get sick of talking to a nosy blogger. So I explained this to him; it’s a bit awkward at this stage in the process but we muddled through.

“One of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you is that I’ve heard you describe how you feel you channel a kind of energy while onstage, how there exists a level of energy above and beyond the performer. And I’ve attempted to explain this to musicians myself and failed. But I think you might be able to help me out, if you would be so kind.” I go on a bit, (maybe a bit too long), about how performers and audiences feed off one another, there’s a give and take in the interaction. But at the heart of it all exists some current of intangible creativity that an artist is open to, that they make themselves open to somehow.

“Well yes”, he replies without hesitation, “it kind of takes away from the idea of individual genius really. But I feel like you don’t really make anything new actually, you just build on the bricks set by the artists before you. Which is not to say that you don’t work at it or accomplish anything, but more that the creativity is based on collaboration.”

And as I’m nodding my head in agreement (which of course he can’t see, I’m on the phone, duh!) he continues to talk about how you feel that creative energy which is larger than the individual and even as it’s surging through you at that moment onstage, you also feel such a connection with everyone around you, that the meaning of it all, the community of creativity is what is at the center of all art. We take a much needed breath here. This has started off on a heavy foot! My brain is racing with ideas, however we’ve not really warmed up to one another yet. But I’m wondering if this is why his work is in constant motion, a constant process of remixing both his own music and that of others who inspire him. I never quite understood the “remix” like this before and I really like this angle on it instead of the more commercial aspect of churning out a new product in order to gain some economic profit in an easier, faster way.

I ask him about his new record, I’ve heard that it’s mostly written if not already completed and there are rumors that it will be quite different from the fantastical, light and intricately created Moondagger.

“It’s darker in it’s message, a little more serious” he tells me.

“Serious in terms of it’s lyrics too?”

“Well..getting back to the beginning, classical ideas about beauty and stuff, calm,… beautiful art for a while” he says in a relaxed tone. He’s happy about this change, I can tell.

“So how many songs do you think you’ve got in the bag for this next record?”

“I don’t know. I never really know. I’m always writing songs. I wrote basically a full-length with the band this fall. And that’s done. I don’t know what to do with it, probably not do anything with it honestly, probably record it in my basement it as b-sides and release it. I’m putting out so much music this year I don’t want to overplay it. I’m kinda gonna take a break and I want to go back to studying other people’s music after this record is done.”

“You give a lot of music away on your blog.” (Did you know that Deastro has a blog, dear readers?)

“I’m really into making music on the spot. Sometimes I get a bunch of coffee and write a record in like two nights and see what happens, usually it’s really fun.”

“I love that you have a blog,” I tell him, “and some people know about it, but it doesn’t seem like lot of people know about it and folks make comments and you answer them. How cool is that!?!”

“Ha, thanks, well, yeah, I definitely want music to be more personal and I’m always gonna give away my more creative stuff.”

“I love digital media” he continues,  “but at the same time artists should be paid… music should and will get more local and I’m excited about that. It’s just evolving….Musicians have always been an instrument of accelerating culture and most of the musicians of this generation are good people.”

And we discuss the importance of community and how musicians are just part of a larger force of young people helping to bring communities together as they face hard times. The DIY attitude that began in the punk and indie scene prepared us for much of the community organizing that kids in their 20s are now doing in places like Detroit and Chicago and we agree that it’s cool to be involved in it.

I know that Randy has a commitment to his community. It’s something he’s talked openly about before. In his visual art he expresses his views on how society undermines communities. The album covers, and the cassette tape covers that you can see and purchase via his blog are beautiful collages and drawings that show loads of symbolism that simply scream out two words to me: social violence. There’s ragged points and sharp teeth and vicious monsters with gaping mouths, all poised to devour colorful, beautiful, serene nature and social order. Randy’s art is an obvious display of a battle between good and evil.

“A lot of my art is about suffering. I want it to look insane. I like throwing one or two words in monster text so you understand kind of where I’m coming from. A monster saying “feed me,” a super anorexic monster or a super obese monster to play on those themes of people who have too much and people who have too little…individualism to the extent that it’s not healthy, where it makes people feel isolated. Especially in capitalist society, that’s always in danger of happening because it’s kind of the goal. You have to be a shark. And I don’t want to be a shark.” Hunger Pains mp3

I couldn’t agree more, as any of you who know me could guess. And the more we talk the more I think he realizes what a kindred spirit I am.

“I definitely feel like my art symbolizes violence and how crazy evil itself is. That’s why I draw lots of teeth and so on.”

“So would you consider yourself a Socialist, philosophically or politically?” I ask.

“I would definitely consider myself politically to be a Socialist. I mean, laws are the bare minimum of what we should be doing. They’re the standards by which we live. If we have standards in our lives, in our society that doesn’t take into account countless people’s well-being and lives, then … those are our standards and the basic laws by which we live” he says.

Cities like Detroit, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the largest jobless rate increase from September 2008 (+8.4 percentage points) and an unemployment rate of 17.3 percent (that’s the highest ranked out of 49,  for metropolitan areas of 1 m. or more), are feeling the economic crunch hard and yet Randy is optimistic.

“People ask me all the time, what’s going on in Detroit? And I tell them, it’s good! People are getting closer to each other because things aren’t going very well. It should be like this anyway and for some reason when the superficials are taken away it gives a lot of people the time to search yourself and see what’s really important to me. And that’s what we’re seeing in Michigan. And a lot of people are moving into the city again. It’s right on the verge of something great. The only reason I have a social conscious is because of my friends in Detroit.”

Music and more than that, musicians, are a part of that force that brings people together. And yet, Randy is not just making music in his basement anymore, he’s now on a label, the wonderful Ghostly International. And I wonder how this move has affected him. Has it drawn him away from his community?

“How’s it being on a label now and not just working on your own, out of your basement any more?” I ask him.

“Jeff, the label manager, sometimes knows me better than I know myself, he’s very supportive. And before, when my bandmates weren’t always necessarily always supportive, weren’t always my friends, on my team, he was just really cool about that whole thing. Ghostly is just an amazing label. I’m really stoked to release this new record more than even Moondagger.“

Yeah, he said “stoked,” it’s a Michigan thing. I once loved a girl from Ann Arbor. She said “stoked” all the time. It still makes me smile. A lot.

But back to this new record:  “I heard the word analog being thrown around, what’s that about?” Honestly, I’m not even sure I know exactly what “analog” means, and I’m really hoping he will explain this to me because I didn’t look it up, m’dears. Bad Tart!! I do know enough to know that when he says oscillators he’s not talking digital anymore! I’m fascinated by this idea of oscillators. I had first heard mention of them in my interview with the Antlers, who had introduced me to Silver Apples, the first band to use proto-synthesizers made of oscillators. I was very excited to have a reference point at last!

“Oscillators? Like Silver Apples? You’re gonna make it yourself?!”

“Well, yeah it’s very much inspired by that guy (Simeon Coxe III). I’m gonna make it a bit more modernized” Randy replies. We agree that the music of the Silver Apples is still very good, very current for being now over 40 years old. “Yeah I saw them in Detroit on their reunion tour. And you should check out this German electronic group, Chandeliers as well, he runs this ambient noise label. They sound like reverbed-out 20s, ballroom radio, it’s really beautiful, really cool.”

I tell you, you just never know what you’ll learn from indie boys!

“I don’t wanna use the laptop anymore, I’m playing a lot more guitar …so we’re using oscillators, analog oscillators, to generate rhythms. We’re writing songs. The way we’re gonna flesh them out… I don’t know how they’re gonna happen until December when I put a band back together. My band broke up September, the guys just couldn’t do it anymore financially. And so I’ve got one guy touring with me now.”

I’m so glad he brought this up because I knew about the breakup but didn’t really know if he wanted to discuss it or really if there was any animosity surrounding this. It had really just happened and I hadn’t found any real information on it online. It’s the kind issue where unless you know the person, you don’t really want to pry. But then again, if someone wants to talk it over it’s part of the story that is important. My interviews tend to veer toward telling the story of a band or artist as they are right now in their history. That’s what I do. So capturing this moment in Deastro’s existence would necessarily include this story of how suddenly Randy found himself without a band just in time for CMJ, one of the biggest showcases for indie music in the US.

I ask him about his experience there; I’m curious about how he fit into the chaos of it all, the party madness and all the shows.

He tells me straight up, “The first night we had no monitors and one kid called it the worst thing he’d ever seen in his whole life. The second day we played on KEXP it sounded awesome and it was cool to hear the new songs for the first time and everyone in the studio really liked it. The third show, we were booked on a dance night and that would have worked with our old stuff but the new stuff  was definitely more industrial I think we scared a lot of people. And we played everything right.”

It just doesn’t get more honest than that. And as he’s talking, I’m interjecting sympathetic noises, as we women are wont to do, and you know, I get the feeling that it doesn’t even matter. Randy is just so ok with the whole experience and it simply was what it was and always will be what it is for him. And as he’s telling me more details about it, I can tell that he’s ready to move on to what’s next in the sense of moving forward and putting this behind him, and also in the sense of adventure to seeing what’s next. It’s always both for this guy. That’s what it feels like talking to Randy Chabot. He’s ok with the past and really excited to see the future.

“I broke my finger yesterday, so we’re not gonna be able to play any of it (the new stuff) on this tour. I fell down the stairs with a couch” he says with a rueful laugh.

“And what does that mean? No guitar, no keyboards?! What!?” I’m alarmed.

“It means I’m re-writing everything right now to be able to play with a physical handicap. So we have six days before we leave for tour and I’m not worrying about it…. No actually I am, I’m freaking out!” There’s lots more laughing on both sides of the line by now.

“But hey, your first show is Chicago, right? We’re really cool, we’re really forgiving, don’t worry about it!”

“It’ll probably sound better than it would cause now it gives me an excuse to sequence more and use more triggers cause now I literally have only one hand to play with. So it’s gonna be good, I’m actually kinda glad, it’s gonna open it up to use more electronic stuff which is what I wanted to do for this tour with Max Tundra, for just this tour, this tour only. Sometimes stuff happens to make you think outside the box. Hopefully this is it! People ask you what are you gonna do to make it good? And well, I don’t know. Well I’m gonna try really hard! I’m not gonna guarantee it!”

I joke that he’s not machine that we can put a penny in and get something out. He’s a human being! And I laugh. We’re a little giddy at this point in the conversation, about 40 minutes in and feeling comfortable talking to one another.

“I mean if you give me money, I probably will dance or something!”

I say, “oh! our dancing monkey!!”

“I’ll take that, I’m pretty poor” he says! “You need me to dance for you, I’ll dance for you.”

I tease him, “Ok, I’m gonna remember this, I’m gonna throw money on the stage in Chicago!”

“Ha, I’ve got a paypal account.” I can hear him smiling.

So folks, there you have it! Bring your dollar bills to Schubas on Thursday night. Let’s see what trouble we can get Deastro up to, eh?

Click on any of the pictures above and they will take you to the Ghostly International site where you can buy those albums.

You can purchase an exclusive Deastro  Live at Lime EP here which is only $3.96 and they also give you the option to join LimeWire for $9.99 and get 50 more songs. I dunno if that’s a great deal or not, I’m just sayin…

And scroll down after the video, (which I highly recommend watching, it’s what turned me onto Deastro in the first place), and you’ll find tour dates!

Tour Dates:

11.05 Chicago @ Schubas – Max Tundra HL

11.29 Vancouver @ Media Club – Deastro HL