Gefragt: Darwin Deez

Die Monate vergehen und mit einem Blick auf die Uhr fallen die Augen kreisförmig geplättet auf den Boden. Es ist schon fast November, doch wir beamen Euch mit unserer Zeitmaschine zurück auf das Melt! Festival. Dort führten wir ein Interview mit Darwin Deez, welches wir erst nach dem erscheinen seines neuen Albums “Double Down“ veröffentlichen durften. Nun ist die Zeit gekommen und wir wünschen euch einen imposanten Lesegenuss.

HDIYL: Are you addicted to anything?

Darwin Deez: Maybe to a game, it’s a little bit like “Magic the Gathering“. It’s called “Android Netrunner“.

HDIYL: Do you play it on your PC or is it a card game?

Darwin Deez: It’s a card game, but I play it on my PC.

HDIYL: What’s your favourite place in New York?

Darwin Deez: I’d like to go to the waterfront, in Williamsburg. There are rocks and you can look over Manhattan, and it’s nice, you can see the sunset. I call it the love rocks, because I don’t know how it’s called. People wrote on them and they put hearts on.

HDIYL: What was the dumbest question you’ve ever been asked in an interview?

Darwin Deez: Oh, I don’t know.

HDIYL: Besides this one?

Darwin Deez: Don’t the teachers say, there are no stupid questions, only something else that is stupid, but I don’t know what.

HDIYL: Maybe just stupid answers. What is your favourite book at the moment?

Darwin Deez: My favourite book today is actually by a German author, name of Heidegger “Being in Time“. I think it’s a cool book. I haven’t read it, I just think it is as cool as fuck and I also like another German author – Friedrich Nietzsche, I love his books, I love his ideas and I also love his poetry.

HDIYL: What have you read by Nietzsche?

Darwin Deez: Oh man, I read a lot of stuff. I read almost everything. People mostly simplifying Nietzsche into a few simple ideas, or few ideas that sort of stick out and they do stick out, the way he’s written them, but there is so much more to it than that, there is a whole genealogy thing, the whole existential thing. I really like existentialists basically, so I think Heidegger is cool, because just like Nietzsche, he is really interested in existential ideas.

HDIYL: So let’s start with a philosophical question. Do you think we have free will?

Darwin Deez: Yeah definitely. But the thing is that, I also believe in karma and faith, I think they are both true. The thing is that they appeared to be mutually exclusive. I think that’s a paradox, that’s a function of the limited point of view that we have as human beings and so it’s that certain things appear to contradict each other, but actually I think in reality somehow they don’t. But it’s only because of our point of view as embodied souls that it appears that our faith in our free will are opposites, they can’t both be, but you know I think paradoxes happen all the time and I think that’s just one of them. I think it’s evidence that, there is something going on that’s causing that paradox, that we don’t understand, cause I believe in both.

HDIYL: And what do you think makes you, you?

Darwin Deez: Alright well, there are sorts of ideas of how you are is based on what you choose to be, how you choose to spend your time and energy. I also believe more in like an Indian-Hindu idea reincarnation, who you are is partly determined by your previous lives. I believe that in a sense, at some point sometimes, your destiny is to be this and that, beggar and king, prince and pauper, every opposite. I think we are destined to every experience and so, there is certainly a external view and an internal view, and I think the internal view is something that just grows with you. And it’s also sort of hard to put a finger on, what it is, and I don’t know and I think at the same time, the eternal view is actually, it’s maybe the same as like, there is some level on which I think as a, not even as a species but as a collected life force all the planets and minerals and animals and everything, there is a unity there and I think that the truth self is part of that unity as the external self is not necessarily part of that.

HDIYL: Back to music, what do you find is the most annoying thing in the music industry ?

Darwin Deez: I really don’t like airports, don’t like planes, and don’t like waiting in airports but you know I’ve had this. I like German people a lot, I think there’s a stereotype of German engineering, which I think is actually really true, things are more efficient here, so when we landed at the airport today, our baggage claim was very close where the airplane was, I thought, that’s well designed, because we’re all going to wait for the last time. I like that so, I don’t know why I’m talking about that. What was the question ?

HDIYL: No the answer is fine, most annoying things in the music industry are airports. How does money relate to creativity?

Darwin Deez: There’s a real practical concern behind choosing to play music for your career, you know. It’s important to be able to provide for yourself. That you can – good for your parents, that they don’t have to worry about you anymore. That’s an important right of passage as a human being to go through, from the time when you’re about 18 or older. Whatever, it’s important for that reason to grow up. The thing is like, I love music this is all I really would like to be doing and it’s really scary to try and make it your livelihood financially. But I just think it’s so right, it feels so right to me, to be able to do this and it just feels like a blessing, but also at the same time it feels right, I don’t know. I feel like I deserve it, I feel like we all deserve this level of like, being interested in what you’re doing and interested in what pays your bills. I don’t know, I feel like I’m constantly encouraging friends of mine till I just pursue their dreams, cause that’s worked out so well for me.

HDIYL: Do you like social media tools?

Darwin Deez: It’s about 3 percent I like them.

HDIYL: And what about streaming offers like Spotify ?

Darwin Deez: Yeah Spotify is cool, but I’m just listening to it on YouTube with Ad-Blocker, that’s what I do. Do you have Ad-Blocker for chrome?

HDIYL: Yeah I’ve got an Ad-Blocker for safari.

Darwin Deez: But not as good as for chrome, you still have to wait for some videos sometimes, right? So check it out, it’s the new wave baby. Only way to live. I hate waiting for those things. Chrome Ad-Blocker you get to go, you don’t need Spotify as much, some things you can’t find you got to spotify it.

HDIYL: Thanks for the advertisement! So the last question, do you think it’s ok to ask artists political questions?

Darwin Deez: Yeah absolutely, like there’s certain forms of art that have always been deeply political. What about with hip hop? That hip hop has always been a political movement as much as it’s been about black people in America rising up, it’s part of the history of the country, there is a huge amount of politics to hip hop music. Where artists are doing hip hop music, it’s a world of difference, Eminem who grew up in Detroit will be different than someone in Australia, it’s really important because of the politics of hip hop you know, and Rock’n’Roll itself, John Lennon’s protest songs. There’s a huge overlap there, and the guitars felt like symbols, that’s there too. But yeah, the political system in America isn’t broken, it’s fixed, meaning that it’s completely broken. It’s designed to be broken at this point, it’s designed into a state of brokenness such that, it’s not able to correct itself, so absolutely you need voices who have generated a focus of power to influence that system. I’m personally not that interested in politics, more interested in spirituality, but it all goes together.

Darwin Deez new album :