ArtOfficial's resident sax player Keith Cooper talks about playing live, his favorite music, and, of course, ferbies. To find out more about ArtOfficial, check out http://www.myspace.com/weareartofficial where you can find all of their tunes and purchase their Stranger EP.
Hector Mojena (H.M.): Who is in your band and how would you describe your sound?
Keith Cooper (Mr. C.): We've got Danny on keys, Ralf on bass, me on sax, Manny on drums. The Mc’s are Newsence and Afterlogic. We sound like a four piece jazz/funk quartet with two rappers. Some people say it sounds like old A Tribe Called Quest and The Roots, but with its own unique sound.
H.M.: How did you guys form? How did you settle on the sound you have now?
Mr. C.: The piano player had a gig on the beach. I live on the beach and none of the people that were supposed to play that night could make it, so he made a couple of phone calls and they called me to come. The bass player, he called him and we kind of met there and there were these two guys. These two guys that rapped were in the audience and they were friends of some of the guys that were there playing. After the first set, we took a break and we were talking to them and said,"Hey, you guys should come up and, I don't know, start rapping." They came up and they ended up staying for the whole second set which was like an hour and a half. Everyone after we were done playing was like, "Oh man, that sounded awesome. You guys should play together." Then I went to India for a month. When I got back, they still wanted to play.
H.M.: So it was sort of an accident?
Mr. C.: Pretty much, yeah. Well, we knew each other, but we didn't play together, we just have played in random places together.
H.M.: How long have you guys been playing live? Does ArtOfficial already have a regular crowd that comes to the shows?
Mr. C.: Yeah, there's definitely a crowd that comes. We play all the time. Every month at P.S. 14 in downtown we have a show called "State of the Art" and there's tons of people, its always jampacked. It's pretty cool. They have art and everything, music, a bunch of bands. I've met people randomly in the street and they're like, "Oh, you play for ArtOfficial, that's cool."
H.M.: So you're slightly famous?
Mr. C.: No.
Victor Goizueta (V.J.): What are your musical influences?
Mr. C.: Pretty much...that's a hard question to ask. I listen to everything. Some sax players: I love John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Kenny Garrett. Anything from classical music...I learned to play the saxophone in a church, a gospel church. The soul of music, I Iearned to feel music by playing in a church like that, if that makes sense. I love jazz and hip hop like early Outkast, Nas, and The Roots. I listen to all different styles of music, except country, it bothers me, but I listen to all different styles. I used to play in a ska band, a rock band, a hip hop band now, and I've played in a jazz band.
V.J.: How did you come up with ArtOfficial as a band name?
Mr. C.: Honestly, I didn't come up with it. One of the rappers, Newsense, came up with ArtOfficial. He saw it somewhere and he was talking to someone about art. He thought it was a cool name. It's spelled Art-official. I don't know, I'm not really sure. He just came up with it and I liked how it sounded.
H.M.: What is the songwriting process like? Does someone come up with a riff or a rap and bring that in to jam?
Mr. C.: Yeah, mainly everyone comes in and writes songs. Everyone plays their own part. It's to the point that when we get payed, at the end of the night, we split it six ways because we feel that everyone puts in their own part and there's not one person in the band that does more. I make up my own parts, the bass player makes up his own parts. When we practice, someone will maybe have a chord progression and we'll be like, "Yeah, that's cool but maybe, here, let's try this chord. Let's do this, let's experiment." Usually we agree on everything, no one ever really argues, which is nice.
H.M.: How has your first official release, the Stranger EP, been received by the fans?
Mr. C.: It's five songs. Everyone that I've given it to loves it, even older people: they love the jazzier aspect of it. But I love it, I listen to it all the time. I think it's great.
H.M.: Do you guys have any gigs coming up?
Mr. C.: Some of them are "over twenty one" gigs at bars and we play at P.S. 14 downtown. We're playing a couple of places on the beach like the The Purdy Lounge and The Jazid. I think we're getting an all ages gig at Sunset pretty soon. The website is artofficialmusic.net; we just released a music video...it's right on the website. [The link to their myspace is also on the site]
V.J.: Do you play any other instruments in the band?
H.M.: Yes, I do.I play the flute actually on one of the tracks, its a samba track, the second one on the album. I play a couple of different kinds of saxes. We're actually going to play this one classical [song], a Bach piece you've probably heard in commercials but me and the bass player are gonna play something in unison on the clarinet. So it should be cool.
V.J.: Okay, last question: What is your obsession with Ferbies?
Mr. C.: I have no response to that question.
H.M.: Are you sure about that?
Mr. C.: I think Victor's psycho.
V.J.: Put that in the newspaper!
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