Welcome to 20 Minutes With. Presented by Music Photographer Anthony Washington and MetroMontage.com. 20 Minutes With features an interview with an artist in the music industry every month. This months edition of 20 Minutes With features an interview with Jonathan Bates.
Born in Venezuela, Jonathan Bates spent most of his childhood growing up in Miami, FL. The founder of the band Mellodrone and and the solo project Big Black Delta picked up a guitar during his early teens not knowing what the future had in store for him. At the age of 17, he was accepted into the prestigious Berkley School of Music at Boston College. At the age of 20, he left school and headed to L.A. to take a chance at the music industry.
I had the chance to talk with Jonathan last week by phone while he was on tour with his band Big Black Delta. He is definitely one of the most thought provoking musicians I have ever spoken with.
When did you realize that music was something that you could make a career out of?
When I got my first record deal with my first band Mellodrone. I was 22 or 23 years old. At that point, it was just something I did because I sucked at sports [laughs]. I had been playing guitar since I was about 15 and I moved out of my house at 17 and I’ve just been doing it since.
Your on tour now. Do you recall the first tour you were on?
The first tour I remember is opening up for Johnny Mar here in the states and in Europe. It was just me and a drummer. That was with my first band. I was twenty-four at the time.
You are known for not creating music “the right way”, is this something you have always done or was there a moment in your career that took you in that direction?
You know, all music is perfect. Anybody who has a lap top can pitch vocals, all beats are created perfectly, and it becomes invisible. The more in key something is it becomes invisible. Just like if you were standing against a grey wall wearing the exact same color suit all I would see is your head. I feel that a lot of really great music, especially older music, it’s human. It is slightly out of tune, it is slightly out of time. I don’t know, I can’t tell you specifically why it makes people feel better, but it stands out more. To me, the more perfect the music is the more invisible it becomes. I don’t want to make elevator music, I don’t want to make background music, I want to take you some where if I can, you know.
Take you some where. It is interesting that you say that because when I listen to your music it is very visual to me. How do you approach song creation?
I have synesthesia. Which means I see what I hear; I see colors and shapes. I’ve always had it so it’s just a very natural thing. It’s very visual. So if something doesn’t agree with me, I feel it. Like, I can taste bial in my mouth. I think I have been missed wired in my brain.
So, it is a very simple thing. I close my eyes and see burst of color and light. For example, if I look at a Mark Rothko painting, I can tell you exactly what it sounds like to me because certain keys and chords mean color to me. A is red, and green is for B, and blue is for E. It’s almost like cheating [laughs].
Are there artist outside of the music industry that have had an influence on your work?
Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter, I can go on for days and days…Picasso. Just like music, I don’t like very literal paintings. I don’t like real life paintings. I like more abstract works. Because when I do look at a Rothko painting, I hear…I literally hear it and it’s a lot of fun. And with food, like Indian food, because it has so many spices in it, I can hear how it taste.
What was the first music that really caught your attention as a child?
The first tape I ever had was Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I think everybody had that one. I think the next was Van Halen’s 5150 [laughs].
Big Black Delta’s latest single, ifuckingloveyou has 4 different remixes. Sei A, Jimmy Edgar, Throwing Snow, and N-Type & Surge each contributed a remix. How did that happen?
It was just a simple matter of presenting them the music and asking, “If you would like to do this, it would be my honor that you did”. So everybody that came back said they wanted to do it. That is all you can really do is present something to somebody. If you want to do it, do it. I don’t want people to do it just cause.
Tell me about your “favorite dinner table conversation, UFO folklore”, where does your interest in UFO folklore come from?
Well, it’s really simple. I think it’s the coolest shit to talk about. Think about if there are conscious beings who are million and million of years evolved beyond us. What is their thought process like? If you think about it, speaking the words we are using right now…they are very archaic and have a lot of room for error and misunderstandings.
What if I thought at a certain frequency and that frequency equaled an apple? There’s just no mistaking that. What if you can read somebody’s mind so you can’t lie? What would civilization be life if you can’t hide intention anymore? These kind of things inspire the fuck out of me because I feel as human beings we are just so slow to evolve or too busy fighting about Chick-Fil-A and know one gives a shit. Think about the idea that there are bigger fucking things then paying rent and getting laid. There are more inspiring things to think about.
As a musician, what do you feel is your greatest strength?
I can play most instruments so I know where everything should sit, at least in my opinion. I do a lot of producing…because of that you learn what not to play. This is one of the bigger lessons that most people miss. It’s just like, “I practiced guitar my whole life so let me throw it into this one fucking song”, and I’m like, “nah dude, you don’t even need to play guitar on this song”.
You seem to have a jazz mind. Learning what not to play is a big thing in Jazz. Are you a fan of jazz?
You know, all good art requires contrast. So whatever you have in the picture you have to have negative space. That is why the simplest music…you know the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Hip Hop, and all this stuff, there is so much air around it so you can appreciate the feelings that are there. It’s the same with a painting; it’s the same with food. Because I am sure you like Italian, and I am sure you like apple pie, and I’m sure you like sushi, but if I put it all together in a blender you’d fucking throw up, right [laughs]. You need space around anything, and it makes it easier. You don’t have to work as hard.
What do you like to do on your downtime?
Besides recording, I like reading a lot…mostly non-fiction. But then I read a lot of comics which is obviously fiction. In L.A., I like going to the shooting range. Archery, astrophysics, I don’t know, whatever you got [laughs]. I get bored pretty easily and I feel like that’s not something that should be allowed in this world today. There is so much cool shit out there. Personally, I feel if you’re bored that means you’re being lazy.
Where did the name Big Black Delta originate from?
Big Black Delta’s are the most famous reported UFO’s. That’s the one that you see the most in the skies. A lot of Ufologist believe it’s man made. It’s based off of technology that we either took, or it was given to us. I was watching a documentary, and Dan Akroyd was giving an interview about UFO’s. He was all frothing at the mouth, and he said “Big Black Delta”, in that Dan Akroyd voice, and I was like that’s it. That’s fucking it right there.
When I listen to your music, I hear a heavy 80’s influences.
Yeah. Growing up, the records that I heard…I really like bands like White Snake and shit like that. There are always trends in music…what is in and what’s not. Weather or not you have a chick singer, or somebody in the band with a tambourine, those things come and go. But a song that will help you work out, or a song that will get you through a break up, that’s what I am more interested in then trends.
My favorite thing to mess with right now is the snare drum of a song. If you think about it, a snare is the thing that is happening the most in a song, in any song, mostly. That is what’s happening every split second. So whatever you make that tone will dictate how people feel. So I detune my snares severally and immediately everybody goes it’s 80’s. If I were to change that snare sound, then you wouldn’t think 80’s. You know what I mean? It’s amazing to me. And it totally proved my theory which is…the one thing that nobody really thinks about, except for amazing producers, not me, is the snare tone that can really subconsciously dictate how somebody feels about something.
After the tour, what else is in store for Big Black Delta?
I’m always working on music because it’s my only currency. So yeah, I think were going to put out a record later this year and then tour on that. I like doing remixes and I like producing other people. So I just hope to keep at it as long as people give a shit and just get better at what it is I do.
More about Jonathan Bates and Big Black Delta can be found on his website, www.bigblackdelta.com.
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