Seige from AKP speaks out...
Half these guys doing this shit these days
make me sick. I won't mention them unless
you mention them first. It's just dumb. You
know what it is? There are all these guys
incorporating rap into the heavier sound,
right? But most of these guys would have
said five years ago that rap is fuckin' easy:
Rat, bat, cat, I can do that shit. It's a fuckin'
joke, 'cause now they are doing that shit. It
can be a cool fusion if it sounds tight, but
they don't know how to go about it. If they try
to be serious, they feel like they're trying to
act like something they're are not. So, they
do it all stupid and shit to try to get away
with it, like they rhyme in stupid voices or
use a stupid cadence (delivery). Or, they put
tons of effects on their voice.
They make the music heavy but, meanwhile,
vocally they come off like a bunch of idiots
that don't know what the fuck they're doing.
They say if we are going to do this, let's just
try to make it sound like a fun record and it
just winds up sounding corny and happy
time. Such is the solid rap-rock Italian
attitude of Seige and Geano, masterminds
behind the North Jersey collective known as
AKP, a gang that begins with two, expands
to three with performing vocalist Don Black,
and then explodes to an army of seven on
the live stage, the focal point at which this
gets all too alive. Given the number of
hard-ass New York City hardcore bands,
these guys have bravely backed up Murphy's
Law, Dog-Eat-Dog, Downset, Madball, as
well as KRS-ONE and Mobb Deep. So you
know you're getting pure dope. It's been a
strange ride.
Seige and Geano actually predicting rock-rap
hybrid's ascendance to power through their
early work fully nine years ago, winding their
way to triumphant shows with just turntables
and mics to the aforementioned terror patrol
of the magnificent seven, making full-on-rap
singles and EPs along the way, and always
going independent by choice arriving now at a
thick layered crank bomb of a record called
All Kinds of Problems.
Toiling for years to perfect their sound, AKP
have become mad scientists at their chosen
trade. Whether you simply dig the large
beats, the Jersey rhymes, or the churn of the
band's power chords, those who look deeper
will find studio wizardry nutty beyond all
reason. Seige lifts the hood and gives us a
look inside. On the track "Wrong Time,"
there is a breakdown where there are two
sets of scratching. So there's one melody
being cut up, and then there's another
melody being scratched over it along with the
drum track and bass line. I've never heard no
shit like that before and, plus, it works. So
what the fuck.
There's a lot of guitar and vocal tracks too.
"Confusion" was over 120 tracks total put into
48 tracks. There are a lot of layers for that
song there. Some of this stuff we would play
and then some of the stuff we would play and
sample, sample our own shit, ya know. We
would play it, then sample it, then effect and
EQ it or some shit we'd just play then just
loop it straight. "Respect" was about 71
tracks just going back and forth. That's what I
mean. A lot of engineers we worked with
didn't know what the fuck we were talking
about. Along the way we were working with
guys arranging and in pre-production and
they would tell us, "You can't do that! That's
not right. That's not the right way to do this."
We were like, "Fuckin' asshole, we didn't ask
you." Then they would get all jerked off, so
we'd part ways. We just wanted to know from
them if shit was offbeat or out of key. That's
it! We didn't want to hear you couldn't use
that guitar riff over that drum pattern.
So by the time the record was practically
done, we went through a bunch of different
guys. There was only one guy we found who
could help us with our vision. His name is
Larry Philabaum, and once we got with him,
we remixed practically the whole record over
and we're glad we did. This idea of a vision
was as crucial within the lyrical presentation
as it was throughout the band's infinitive, but
effortless studio magic. These guys are like a
combination of Korn, Beastie Boys, and
Rage Against the Machine. AKP: All Kinds of
Problems. That is the key concept.
But, Geano and Seige also want you to
make your own solutions. In a strong way,
their record forces you down that path of
reckoning. Lyrically, looking at the record
overall, it is a description of the name itself,
All Kinds of Problems. Each song deals with
that concept or issue in one way or anther in
some capacity. Some songs are a series of
problems. "By All Means" says no matter
what I'm gonna get through this, no matter
what obstacles are thrown my way. Whatever
I've got to do is going to get done.
Then there are songs like "Addiction" where
there are problems that last a lifetime, things
you can't get out of where you're always
getting pulled or drawn back into and must
deal with. There's drug problems, gambling
problems, sex problems, and stalkers. There
are lifestyles that you have to learn to leave
where they are and not become outweighed
by that Addiction. Our Addiction is getting
these thoughts out of our heads and feelings
out of our hearts in the form of this music.
We're gonna rip shows no matter what, no
matter where there are, no matter how we do
it. Like the song "Never Say Never," we will
never give up, and when people listen to the
record, they should get the same message,
that they should never give up. Don't quit on
yourself. It's easy to quit, but it is hard to
maintain a level of dedication, especially if
the odds are stacked against you.
Then there's "Hardlines." I mean, come on.
We know how shady this music business is,
there is always somebody trying to take
something from you. How many bad hands
have you been dealt? How much do you have
to deal with? You have to be tough in certain
situations to look through it and find a way
past it.
Then there's songs like "4Get It" when you
just don't give a fuck. You don't want any
help. You just want to be fucked up, go nuts
and wild out. We released that song as an
independent single in 1998, pressed up vinyl,
the whole nine. Seige got a rhyme in there
that goes, "It's a family thing, our thing, and
no one else's. I bend for no one and take
from the selfish." DJ C-Minus from Power 106
in L.A. who DJs at all the Korn shows and
produced all the interlude beats for the first
Family Values live CD. He asked us if he
could sample "It's a Family Thing" for the
intro on the CD. We said, "Go fuck yourself.
Nah, I'm only kidding." We said yeah and he
is doing a remix for us in return. He's a cool
muthafucker. Big-UP to C-Minus.
Then there's the band's striking 'Scales of
Justice' logo. On the left side the judge's
gavel slams down, on the side greased with
money, sending the clock (accused and
doing time) behind bars upward. Money
talks, as we all saw with OJ, in a society
plagued with... All Kinds of Problems.
"I think people will really be able to get into
this record because every song has it's own
life," continues Seige. "It's different, it's
diverse. The one thing that Geano and me
didn't want was for you to put on this album
and have it all sound the same. That's why
the shit we meshed together comes from a
wide range of influences that made us the
way we are musically. You know, people
have been overlooking New York and New
Jersey for years. In terms of rock bands,
everybody big is from somewhere else. We're
just one of those bands who has been
fighting for the last nine years to get where
we want to go. That is why this album has so
much feeling."
But Seige can't stress enough that AKP has
two faces, two sides of the scale to present
to the public perhaps not ready for their
forceful views and grooves. "With the record
you get this almost industrial, looped-up
crunchy sound, and when you see us live it's
like BOOM in your face live and fuckin' raw,
ya know?" We say some serious shit on this
record, but we aren't preaching or jamming'
anything down anybody's throat. We're here
to do what we do. Metallica said: "We're
gonna play longer, louder, and more
aggressive than anybody." That's what we
want to do. We just want to fuckin' explode
everything that's been building inside of us
when we get to the stage.
We fused rap and metal and got back to our
original formula because we love playing live.
"Seriously, everytime we ever did a show with
a live band, it turned crazy," Geano reflects
(seeing the value of a full band onslaught). "It
was just a fuckin' explosion." We were loyal
for a long time to the old way. We used to do
all our shows with a DJ, but sometimes we
go to our friends shows and in the middle of
their set, they would pull us onstage and
start playing some heavy groove shit and
we'd start rhyming, and the fuckin' place
would go nuts. So, we figured we should do
this for ourselves.
We wanted to put the attitude of metal music
and the attitude of rap music together. We
like rap because of the attitude. Because
rappers speak from the truth of what they feel
or see, here we are in this rap group, three
guys rhyming with a DJ and we are doing
shows with Murphy's Law, Downset, and
Madball, and we always felt our writing and
our concepts had a lot in common with both
the rap crowds and the hardcore crowds.
But, when we were doing this with just a DJ,
we always felt that we had way more energy
than the music had to offer comin' off vinyl.
Ya know, live now, it's just......alive.
