Our interview with Lang Vo

There are musicians, artists if you will, that pay exorbitant amounts of money to invade the inboxes of America. I mean, U2 date raped our iPhones, sonically speaking. There they were and us not remembering shit!

And then there are those artists that you never hear. Talented individuals making quality music heard by almost no one. We are tempted in this information age to ignore what is not presented to us on a silver Nick Cave-embossed platter.

I'll give you, in looking for music like you look for hole-in-the-wall taco stands, 90% of what we come across is boring or bad. Very bad. But when you find that one!

Like Gollum, we likes our music raw and wriggling. And the fat hobbit ruins it for us.

I "met" Lang Vo on Twitter, basically. Organically. Through friends, mutual acquaintaces. He, an avid reader of Syffal, also apparently made beats. I didn't hear any of these beats for a long, long time. Lang eventually shared the beginnings of his new EP with me on the low. I was blown away at the production. To make a long story short, shit bumped. Nasty!

It's that moment in the car when the bass hits for the first time and you look down from the road like, uh-oh, this is that SHIT!

After entertaining ourselves, tweet after well-crafted tweet, and after getting to listen to his record, I realized that Lang Vo is a mother fucking beast. He'll tell you he's an asshole. You'll think he's adorable.

His new EP, Lang Vo Is Just An Asshole is out now via Bandcamp and iTunes. It features contributions from our own Alaska, and myself, along with Elsphinx and Kwamizzle, Beats and Blood, and Randon Bowerman. It's seven songs of bumps and raps that stands up to any of ours or yours.

But I'm just happy my family keeps getting bigger and better!

OUR INTERVIEW WITH LANG MOTHER FUCKING VO STARTS NOW

Syffal: Describe your music career as a pair of boobs (examples: perky, the cup runneth over, betty white). If you find this question sexist, describe your music career as a pair of testicles (examples: taught, nubile, robust, touching the toilet water). If you find this question disgusting, describe your music career as a breakfast cereal (examples: Captain Crunch, Wheaties, Rice Krispies, Grape Nuts) and then take a long look at yourself in the mirror and ask, why am I such a pussy?

Lang Vo: I'm the type of person who is compelled to answer all of these. Boobs: 13 year old Alyssa Milano if she died at 13. The boobs were growing and she was going to be hot but died instead. Balls: vasectomy. Cereal: generic Cocoa Puffs. When I look in the mirror I ask myself to quit eating so much.

Syffal: So do you like iced tea or are you the kind of person I don't like?

Lang Vo: You hate me.

Syffal: We just went from BFF to BEEF! Why can't dads be cool?

Lang Vo: Because we don't get enough sleep and we are grumpy. We drive minivans now too. Also we have bellies and drink ice coffee with a straw.

Syffal: Don't forget the fact that half the chromosomes of a real person shot out of our dicks and now they are constantly plotting to take our crowns. And we just keep feeding and wiping them like the servants we really are.

You make beats. You, sir, go hard, as they say. How long ago did you decide that you couldn't play any other instruments and start sampling shit?

Lang Vo: My parents had a band. They had a house full of instruments of every kind. They bought me a Yamaha electric guitar when I was in 8th grade. I started to learn to play it but one day I was playing my mom's keyboard. It was an ASR-10. I figured out it could loop. And that was that.

Syffal: I don't believe you. If you could go on tour with any musician who would it be? Why?

Lang Vo: Hahaha...Other than my real friends? These days: Run the Jewels. I had a buddy (Amaze 88) go on tour with them and they seemed super nice when I met up with them in Austin. And they fucking rocked that show.

Also DC Talk.

My friend was in a band called Dead Poetic. He said the singer banged groupies and snorted coke. I found this refreshing to hear.

Syffal: I love you.

What's the funniest place you've ever played a show?

Lang Vo: Battle of the Bands in the Oregon District in Dayton, Ohio. My friends and I entered and we were like 17, maybe 18. We had a 3 piece drum kit and a bass guitar and me. We were going to start with a cover of, "Back in Black."

It went like this:

tsk tsk tsk dun da da dun BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
and we had to leave the stage.

Syffal: I wish there was some kind of footage of this glory. When was the last time somebody called you an asshole to your face?

Lang Vo: This happens daily.

For being an asshole

Syffal: A question I'd only ask a true asshole: Did you ever used to bump Miami bass tapes?

Lang Vo: Yes! I had, Bass, the Final Frontier…haha!

My step brother had a Chevette with a 15 where the spare tire was suppose to be and like two tweeters and a tape deck. All you could hear was eye twitching ticks and from 30 ft away it sounded like low, grumbling farts.

Syffal: I FUCKING KNEW IT! My hearing hasn't ever really recovered from those days, bro. But my asshole only grows.

Tell us about the projects you've been involved with that would make us think you're actually Curtis Armstrong trying to outrun the role of a lifetime.

Lang Vo: I almost got to work on a track with Camu Tao once. He picked his nose at some point. R.I.P. He was a solid dude in the few short times I got to hang out with him.

I got to open for S.A. Smash a few times. But I was nervous and ended up looking like the drunk asian nerd on the tricycle instead of the legend that was Booger.

Syffal: Tell us about the projects you've been involved with that would make us think you're all Cumberpatchy and cool.

Lang Vo: I'm doing a project with Alaska (Syffal co-founder and card-carrying member of the Atom's Fam/Hangar 18/Def Jux) at the moment. And with Kwamizzle. Both stellar humans.

I have some beats of mine being used on a guy named Alim's next album.

I also have been told a beat of mine will be used on the new Kool and Kass album.

I'm putting another single out with my friend Clint Watson which is the cat's meow. It's like a folk electronic thing but it doesn't sound as douchey as I'm trying to describe it…haha!

Syffal: Describe the new record.

Lang Vo: Making the album helped me fight depression through a really shitty year.

Syffal: How did it help you fight depression?

Lang Vo: It gave me a place to vent, a place where I could express how I feel without making the people around depressed by telling them.

People see me as super happy. And are baffled because the music is usually sad and angry…haha!

Syffal: I actually get that all the time too…like, can you make some happy shit now? And I'm like, "yeah i'm gonna go kill myself first, ok?"

Lang Vo: Hahahah exactly! In order to be happy, the shitty feelings have to go somewhere. You can't swallow that shit like a porn star forever without fighting or destroying many, many inanimate objects.

Syffal: Ain't no cell phone safe!

*hurls cellphone at the wall*

There I feel a lot better.

Dry wall and I haven't been the best of friends, bro. But honestly once I got divorced, almost all of that shit subsided. So you would say making music is a necessity for you? Like a NEED?

Lang Vo: I have too. My wife now is awesome though. But divorce and then dealing with my ex during a custody fight. It fucked our world up. Money and stress and time. It drained our souls.

That shit had to go somewhere.

The album is basically how my life affected everyone who is close to me.

I guess to sum it up: "It's not, Hey, Fuck you! You're stupid! Look at me! I'm an asshole!" It's, "Hey, I'm sorry, fuck! I know. I'm an asshole."