Fabian Geyrhalter:
Welcome to the show, Cut.

Cut Chemist:
Hey, great to be here. Thank you very much for having me.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It's amazing to have you here. I heard Diplo introduce you as one of the biggest legends out there and one of his greatest inspirations when he did a guest mix for his BBC Radio One show. And he's not alone. Whenever I mention Cut Chemist, especially here in LA, 'legend' is usually the first word that comes out of people's mouths. So unbelievable to have you here. In your biography, it says, "Cut Chemist is one of the ableist solo turntableists on the globe." This passion of yours began very early on, around age 11. Take us back to that time in your life when you first discovered your fascination with music and records and hip hop.

Cut Chemist:
Yeah. Well, it's an interesting story to start. Let's see. I think when I was five years old, my parents presented me with a choice and it was between the Star Wars theme on 45 or the double gatefold album with the pretty
booklet of pictures from the movie. It wasn't hard to choose. I said, "I want that album." And so what I did was, since I love Star Wars, and I always wanted to go see it in the theater because it was the only way you could see it, an impossible amount of times. I want to go see it again right now. I'm like, "Let's get back in line. Let's see it again." As a five-year-old, it was a big deal. And so when I couldn't do that, I would listen to the album and imagine the movie as the music was playing. And so at that age, I started to visualize music and learn to see pictures as I was hearing music. And I never let go of that. And it was one of the things that as I make music as an adult, if I don't see imagery when I'm making music or listening to it, I tend to abandon it and move on to something else when I'm creating or listening to something.
So the idea of putting visuals to music is the thing that really kind of kept me in it and kept me loving it.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That's amazing. And I guess you're in the right place with Hollywood when it comes to soundtracks. You didn't do many soundtracks to or any, right?

Cut Chemist:
No. I've placed some things that I've done, but I've never scored a movie and I've never did the music. I was never a music supervisor.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Because there is a difference between you imagining a world as you create your own sound to seeing a world already that you create sound too. It's like a totally different kind of practice.

Cut Chemist:
That's a very interesting point. Making a movie to music would be more my jam

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Than...

Cut Chemist:
Making music to an already made picture. How

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Interesting.

Cut Chemist:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
How interesting. When you grew up and you had the Star Wars situation where you suddenly started having to get into music almost accidentally, was that one of the first records that you got?

Cut Chemist:
Yeah, I was. I mean, five years old's pretty young to be. Thinking about music is in terms of anything physical. Before that, it was probably listening to my parents' copies of The Carpenters or what ... My dad was big into Bob Dylan and stuff like that. So you'd always hear it in the house, but I never had anything of my own that I could hold that like, "This is mine," until that moment.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That's amazing. And then how did things progress? When did you start getting into records for real and music and you started playing with it and hip hop? I think that was when you were 10, 11, right? Super early on.

Cut Chemist:
11. Yeah. So going back further, but jumping not too far ahead after the Star Wars situation, I found myself at Music Plus on Vine Street. And this was probably around 1979, 1978, 79, around there. And I went into the movie soundtracks section because I love movies. And I noticed the James Bond section and I was like, "Oh, that's cool. I like that movie Moonraker because it's in space and it's kind of like Star Wars." So although I'm not finding that one, but let me pick out one of these other James Bond soundtracks and then I would come back and find another one and then another one. And so at nine years old, I was collecting these James Bond soundtracks just to collect them. I wasn't necessarily looking to listen to ... I mean, I was listening to them, but I wasn't familiar with those older movies, the Sean Connery ones, but I felt like I had to complete a collection.
I don't know why.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Interesting.

Cut Chemist:
But it was like collecting Star Wars cards. It was like, I have to have them all. And so when I noticed there was a series to this, I was like, "Ooh, I have to have every part of the series." And so I think that the fascination and obsession of collecting hit me at that moment at nine years old. So that's when my collecting mine started to blossom. I was also collecting music on K-Tel compilations because I wanted to be ... I think I wanted to secretly be like a radio DJ for my friends. So when we would walk home from school, I'd be like, "Hey, let's go listen to all the songs that are on the radio. I have the record." And so the easiest way to do that, to get more bang for your buck would be to buy these K-tel prompts, which had all the hits on one volume, and then you'd get another volume. And so I started to collect those, and that was 1980.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And then you ... It's actually really interesting because it's very similar for me. When I grew up in Vienna, Austria, I saw these Depeche Mode seven inch singles that were all in red. And back then, there wasn't very often that you had colored records. Today it's more a gimmick, but back then it was kind of rare. And I liked the red seven inches more than Depeche Mode. I'm like, "Wow, these are cool." And actually they have some of them coming out. And so I had to collect them all. So I had seven or eight of those seven inches. And then I started listening to the music later on and they became one of my favorite bands. And I've got, I don't know, 450 records of theirs now. But back then, that was exactly the same thing. It was for the reason of having the set and collecting something that you felt visually was really intriguing.
Cool. And then how did you start? I mean, you have the records, you want to set trends, you want to know what's new, right? You want to be the DJ per se, the radio DJ to tell your friends what's hip. How did you get into actually doing the work that you do today in your teenager years?

Cut Chemist:
Easy. Break dancing.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah, that's right. That was the way-

Cut Chemist:
The Olympics came to LA in 84, and it took me by storm because the Olympics is a big deal. I never thought I would have the chance to see such a thing, and it's coming to my city. And so the celebration around it in the city was palpable. And as a 12-year-old or 11-year-old, 11, 12, I was fascinated by gymnastics. My sister was studying to be a gymnast. And so I got to see it firsthand and was like, wow, this is cool. The first time I saw break dancing, I was like, holy shit, kids are doing Olympic stuff on the street. On cardboard. And so everybody seemed like a superhero to me because I was like, I thought you had to be trained in Nadia Comanich style and there are just some kids just like me on the street doing these Olympic style moves. And so I was fascinated with this thing.
And then when I learned it wasn't an isolated incident and it belonged to a broader culture that had other elements, DJing, graffiti, emceeing, I became more in love with this and fascinated by it and I wanted to be down. And so I was, what, 11, 12, 11 going on 12 in elementary school, so sixth grade. Before that, I was into BMX bikes, riding bikes with my friends. And then quickly, I'm buying a windbreaker and cardboard and-

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Spray paint.

Cut Chemist:
Spray paint. Yeah. And even a microphone.
So yeah, I think I tried my hand in every part of it. And me being good at drawing already, graffiti definitely spoke to me. And the fascination with people doing Olympic moves, I was like, I want to get down with that. That's just crazy. I'm seeing people spin on their head on the street. That is just wild stuff. And the more mainstream it got, I would see it on the news. I would see it in fast food commercials. I would see it in TV shows where it was dedicated to like, oh, the breakdance moment capitalizing on this fascination becoming mainstream. And every time I saw something like that, I was glued to the TV or the radio or seeing people live going out to places, like seeing LA Breakers at the LA Street scene. Life was like an episode of the TV show Fame. It really was.
People were dancing on the sidewalks. I'll never forget the moment when I was 12 years old, I was wearing my windbreaker. We were going to a burger joint in Hollywood and I was with my friend and I spot another kid, he spots me and he's wearing a windbreaker and he's got a boombox. And without saying anything, he plops his boombox down and we start break dancing

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Against each...

Cut Chemist:
...other right there in the parking

Fabian Geyrhalter:
...lot. Oh my God. Look, at this time I was a little boy, well, little boy, I was the same age as you were a couple years older in Austria and we were dreaming of this. We're like across the pond somewhere in the world, far, far away, people do this everywhere. And Fastest was so far removed and you were living that dream. I mean, that's amazing.

Cut Chemist:
Yeah. I mean, listen, I wasn't like great break dancer. I was horrible and for all I know that maybe this guy wasn't good either. But back then, he beat me, but it was just the, like you said, this romanticized version of life come true. All I wanted to do was get a Western double bacon cheeseburger. And then next thing you know, I'm like break dancing against this kid who has a dope ass mix on his boombox. The shit was crazy. And so anyway, I started buying rap records so that I could break dance to them. And then with the collection obsession that I've already developed buying the James Bond soundtracks, I went back to Music Plus, which was the closest record store outlet in Hollywood where I grew up. And back then rap releases were few and far between. You would go there and it'd be like, "Okay, Run DMC, great." And you could take chances on things and be happy. I rarely got a record I didn't like in the rap world, AJ Scratch by Kurtis Blow. I hear that on the radio all the time. Dope. All right, I got that one. And then again, there were breakdance compilations that I would buy, not because I knew what was on them, but because I was interested to learn the music that was on them, like maybe I can find out more music to buy the 12 inches to from this comp. And that's what I used those compilations for, was to learn things I didn't already know. And I found out a lot of stuff doing that. And then I would go after the 12 inches for the extended mix, the instrumental, the bonus beat, whatever. So yeah, that's how it started.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And not much has changed, right? When you think about it, it's like still the same kind of behavior in a way, where it's about crate digging. It's about finding something that then gets you into this rabbit hole of putting things together or layering things or doing the magic, the art and science that you do. That's so cool. And then fast forward in the mid '90s, you were a founding member of the highly influential hip hop collective Jurassic 5, right? Made the debut in 95 and then-

Cut Chemist:
Actually 94.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And then around the same time, a couple years later, like three, four years later, you also became a founding member of Ozomatle, where you helped shape the band sound for the first album.

Cut Chemist:
Actually, that was 95. It was O'Malley.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It's amazing. How does every source I have got it wrong? Because I didn't get it wrong ; )

Cut Chemist:
Well, I mean, they're both right because Jurassic 5 as a name, I guess, didn't get formed until 95, but we put out our first record under the two groups, Unity Committee and Rebels of Rhythm, Unified Revolution, which was then rereleased on a major, well, blunt records, which is more major than what we were doing, which was selling out the trunk of my Honda in 95. So they're both right. But I like to definitely state the first release, which I'm very proud of because it was the first time that I invested my money into my very own independent record. And that was exciting. I went down to the pressing plant, watched it being...

Fabian Geyrhalter:
...pressed on the belt. Oh, so cool.

Cut Chemist:
And they let me film that and getting it cut at Richard Simpson's and it was an amazing time.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And how many did you press? 300?

Cut Chemist:
500.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Are they still to be found on eBay?

Cut Chemist:
They're hard to get. I still have a few. I slang them every now and then, but we tried to get them to as many DJs as possible. I remember a friend of mine who was helping me, he was big supporter. His name was Rob One. He's no longer with us. Huge mentor for me, but he took the record and got it into the hands of somebody in London, like a big DJ. And then they played it on one of the DMC Championship videotapes.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
No way.

Cut Chemist:
And the one where they're showcasing Qbert and Mixmaster Mike, and I didn't know. And I remember buying the VHS because I'm into that kind of thing. And I hear them play the record and I'm like, "Holy Shit.This is incredible." My record's being played in London on a videotape that's being circulated amongst the entire worldwide DJ community." And so I later found out that my friend Rob One was like, "Yeah, I was responsible for that. " I was like, "You must have been because there's no other way that person would get it.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love those stories. That's amazing. And with Ozomatli, so there were a couple of singles, I think two of them, right? One of them was Cut Chemist Suit, which is obviously a complete classic by now. And so is the band's logo, by the way. Geez. Is that a great...

Cut Chemist:
Logo?

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh my God. Did you have your hands in that too with your art background or not?

Cut Chemist:
No, man. I wasn't the logo guy at all.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh, really?

Cut Chemist:
That's a completely different mind muscle.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah, that's my mind muscle. And I mean, that was just everywhere in LA, back in the late '90s, early 2000s, I mean, you saw it everywhere, pretty amazing.

Cut Chemist:
I remember when that logo was presented, I was like, "Holy shit, man. It's not getting better than that"

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It's just instant classic. You're like, yep, that's it.

Cut Chemist:
When there's symmetry and then you can read it upside down the same way as right side up, you're good.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
See, you are a logo guy deep inside of you. You are.

Cut Chemist:
I know there was a guy I went to school with who was one of the guys that went to Art Center. He was the logo guy. And so I bow down in the same room with him because he just did it so fast and the way his mind worked, the math that would be created, it was almost like autistic the way it went down. And I was like, "Man, you're the greatest." That being said, however, I did create my own logo. And it was very quick because somebody ... I think it was like Product Placement, DJ Shadow. He was like, "Oh, I'm going to put my logo on the flyer. Do you have a logo?" And I was like, "No."

Fabian Geyrhalter:
You have to for product placement, right? I mean, you...

Cut Chemist:
...have to have a logo. Yeah. I was like, "No, but I should have one. Let me think. Okay, hold on. Give me the napkin. Let's do this, that. Okay, how about that? " And then we were in the office of my graphic designer guy, who I said is incredible with logos, and he just was like, "Cool, I can clean this up, make it official, and we'll go to print." And that was it. So it was kind of an accident.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That's awesome. You and I graduated the same year we talked about this offline in 97, you from UCLA and me from Art Center up the street. You also had a couple of lings up at the art center. You went to a couple of classes, but it just occurred to me. So you were doing all of this Jurassic 5, Ozomatli, during college or at the very end of college, right? That's crazy.

Cut Chemist:
Absolutely. College. I tell you, man, I think about that, especially when I look at my old schedule book, which I've kept from those years, and I'm like, I don't know how I have the energy to go to school full-time, do solo DJing, like traveling, Jurassic 5, Ozomatli, all at the same time.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah. It's amazing what one can do at that age, right? Unbelievable.

Cut Chemist:
Yeah. I can't even do one of those things now. But yeah, I was very fortunate to have enough passion driving me to go in all those different directions because one of the things that I found that made my life interesting was I couldn't just be doing one thing that was the same thing. So if I was in a rap group, I would get burned out. I would need to be in a Latin group with live musicians, and then I would need to be my own kind of avant-garde performance DJ, and then I would need to do this and that. And that gave me the energy to do the other and vice versa. And I never got burnt out because I was always changing and it was always so stimulating as an artist to go back and forth to all these different projects.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Well, one of the only things that's a constant is your friendship with DJ Shadow and your collaboration over the years. I mean, that's something that just, because both of you brought your own DNAs into that, and that's why it kept going. And talking about those amazing early years, I mean, the Hollywood Bowl show, when the two of you ... You were the first headlining turntabists at the Hollywood Bowl, right?

Cut Chemist:
I believe so. Yeah.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I mean, how was that? I mean, for you, this must have been amazing, but was it also a turning point for the genre itself? I mean, it was a pretty big deal.

Cut Chemist:
It was huge. When we got approached to do it, we didn't have anything. We weren't going to create a third set of 45s. We had done Brainfreeze, we'd done product placement, and those were a year apart maybe, or two years apart. I can't remember. This one was seven years later or six years later. And so Joanna, who was booking the bull from LA Phil was like, "Hey, we have a cancellation of Jurassic five." They were going to headline, but they broke up. And I had already left the group at that point to pursue my own solo album stuff. And so I thought it was kind of coincidental that we got this slot to fill in for a cancellation of my group.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So serendipitous.

Cut Chemist:
So I was like, "Definitely, let me see if Shadow's down." I was like, "If he says no to this, I don't know, man." End the friendship immediately ; ) And so I think I texted him and I said, "I think we have an opportunity on the table here. Let me know what you think. Hollywood Bowl headlining." Because she wanted us to do Brainfreeze, so rekindle the Brainfreeze set for Hollywood Bowl. And Josh was like, "Yeah, definitely down, but I think we should create something new because we're not the type to do the same thing twice." And so we thought about it and given the fact that it is the Hollywood Bowl, we got this whole concept where DJing was going, it was getting more influencer based with computers and people like Lindsay Lohan DJing and stuff like that. So we created this concept where it was like everybody's invited to being a DJ, but there are certain things that are left for the OGs and that is 45s.
Nobody was doing 45 still, even at that point. I mean, certain people were, but not on this level. And so we built a concept of doing a very mainstream, huge venue worldwide notoriety. I mean, Christ, the Beatles- The Beatles, yeah.
You name it, Led Zeppelin. And so here we are. And so we want to really capitalize on a message that sets what we're doing apart from other DJs as far as medium and presentation. And so we even made an intro film for the audience that explained for the layman, because maybe they came to the show as a Hollywood Bowl subscriber and they don't know who we are.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Or a plus one.

Cut Chemist:
Josh was very smart. He kind of accounted for this percentage of an audience that isn't going to see us. They're just going to go there because they always go there to see stuff and explain exactly why what we're doing is special to us. And hopefully you'll be into it too kind of thing. And it worked out really well. It was a fantastic ... We wrote out the script and had a voiceover being done. It was a very big deal.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Is that video available on YouTube somewhere?

Cut Chemist:
It is. Hard sell intro maybe.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. We'll check it out.

Cut Chemist:
It's a lot of fun.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Well, talking about how you engage with fans and how you educate fans, and then we're going to jump into your record collection. But there's one special way in which you engage with your fans, which I find absolutely fascinating. I think it's super awesome. And I think our audience will love to hear about it. So for 500 bucks, up to two people, and I love that, up to two people, can get a candlelight set by Cut Chemist. So first, how do these go about? Is it at your guest's location? Is it in your studio? How does it work? This is so awesome.

Cut Chemist:
It's in my home studio. And for the first time ever, I did just accommodate four people, so I'm expanding.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Wow. You're going big from the Hollywood Bowl to four people.

Cut Chemist:
I know. Soon it'll be six.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Stop it. Stop it.

Cut Chemist:
So during the pandemic, I was asked to do a DJ set on Instagram Live. And I was like, well, I'm not one of these Twitch guys or anything like that, but I want to do something, but I want to do something special. And there was a time when I would listen to records by Candlelight just by myself, and I wanted to bring people into that. Since we're all stuck at home, I wanted to bring you into my home. And so I thought the best way to do that would be to do it by Candlelight on Instagram Live. So when I told her my concept, this woman, LABellatini is her name, she's a DJ. And so I was like, I want to light a candle and just play songs. And she was like, great. So I made it this world kind of Latin American psychedelic playlist by candlelight.
And she loved it. I loved it. I was like, I want to do this every week. So I ended up doing an episode every week on my Instagram and the copyright police got more stringent. And so they started taking them down. And then after the pandemic, my wife was like, "Yeah, we should do it here for people publicly, in reality, not on virtually,
But in real life." And so we tried it out and the first couple wasn't a couple, it was two guys that were buddies. And so I was like, oh, I kind of-

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Let's blow the candle out

Cut Chemist:
To a romantic kind of set. And they were like, "Don't worry about it. We're big fans. Whatever you do, it's fine. We're just psyched to be here." And so I played the set and then yeah, they've loved it because it's a surround sound thing. It's not just me playing by candlelight. You are in the middle of eight speakers. And so I'm choosing music that is very dynamic in the stereo imaging. So the playlist is very Carefully crafted as such. And so it is an experience. It's almost like a sonic, like a musical soundbath.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Right. I was just wondering that. And has anyone ever booked it solo?

Cut Chemist:
Good question.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It could be awkward.

Cut Chemist:
I do it for myself all the time.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah, sure.

Cut Chemist:
I mean, it takes a long time to tune the room, even though it's the same setup. I don't know what it is. It counts to moisture in the air or what, but it's different every time. Different enough to where I have to sit there and move things slightly, whatever. But I have, as of last year, started to do them publicly. So I did an 80 seat theater in Ojai. That was fantastic. It was one of my favorite things I've ever done in my life.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Will you do this again?

Cut Chemist:
Well, yeah. I plan on making it the main thing I want to do now.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Awesome.

Cut Chemist:
So it's tough. I've done one at Mojave Gold in the High Desert that was for 130 people. And so I'm going to do another one at the Venice Townhouse, Speakeasy on March 29th. And then I'm going to do another one in Memphis actually. A guy wants me to come out and do their listening room at Grand Central Station Hotel.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So cool. That is awesome.

Cut Chemist:
And then so it's one of those things where it's hard to sell it on promoters and agents because it's like you have to be there to experience it to know what it is I'm trying to describe. So selling it to people like, "Hey, I want to do this candlelight surround sound thing and it's seated." No, we want you to do a dance set. Why would we want you to do ...

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh, this is going to spread. I mean, once people experience this, this is very special and it's very in the moment too. Yeah.

Cut Chemist:
I mean, there's a lot of record talks and people sitting down and record listenings on hi-fi systems, but this is a niche within that niche where it's like there's a surround sound. And I'm sure even if somebody did a surround sound listening, which I'm sure they will, it won't be a curated listen with stereo image specific records like I have. So you're filtering in my taste, you're filtering in the sound, you're filtering in the candlelight ambiance. There's a lot of things you got to try to bite before you can kind of get to the center of this tootsy roll or pop, whatever you call it.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Really neat. Really, really neat. That's awesome. And I mean, I could talk to you for five more hours, but we have about 14 minutes left. So I'm going to jump into a super quick sprint through your record collection, which is just the most insane thing I've ever said because your record collection is exactly the opposite of something you can do a sprint through. But how big is your record collection? How many records do you own? Do you know?

Cut Chemist:
I think that the most common number thrown out is 30,000 by many people who collect on the level that I do, and they're not wrong. I mean, I think my collection has peaked at 30,000, maybe a little bit more, but also in the last six, seven years, I've been selling a lot. I realized that the space is finite. And as I acquire more records, I have to let things go. There's no way I can hoard and maintain the relationship with the records that I want to have, which is I want to hold the things I hold sacred. And if I keep hoarding, those things are going to get lost in the shuffle. And I may never enjoy music again on the level I want to in order to do things like this candle I said. I have to really pay attention to the records that I'm using, whether it's tools to make other music, whether it's playing a set that has a narrative, it's very important that I don't lose sight of the intimate relationship with the music.
And so that being said, I buy a lot of records. I take chances on records. There's things I'm not going to like. There's things that, not to say that they're not good, they just don't speak to me at that time. Have I gotten rid of records that I've regretted? Absolutely, because then somebody will play me something through their filters and it'll be something I got rid of. And I'll be like, "Wow, that's great. Damn, I used to have that.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Isn't that interesting? That happened to me a couple of times and I think it's so fascinating because you get rid of something and then 10 years later you're like, "I want that.

Cut Chemist:
Yeah, your tastes change, anything can happen, but that doesn't stop me. I was not letting things go because I'd be like, "Oh, maybe I'll be into this later." But you know what? If five years goes by and that's still the case, then you should get rid of it. A good friend of mine said the most profound thing to me as we were record shopping. He says, "The records know who they want to go home with."

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that.

Cut Chemist:
And it put all the pressure of like, "Oh, this guy might get something that I want and I might miss out. " And all the pressure you put on yourself like, "Oh, I got to get there first." It's like, no, the records know where they want to go home.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that.

Cut Chemist:
So just chill

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And- Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the ride, man. Exactly.

Cut Chemist:
And I've tested that theory out enough times to where this guy was right.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I'm a completist when it comes to two artists and I would never buy their stuff online. I'm a completist, but I want to find it. I want to have an Argentinian pressing when I go to Argentinia or find it somewhere in some weird backroom in Copenhagen. But I would never go online and buy the record from Argentinia depressing because then all you need is money. I mean, it's much more fun to actually find these things out in the wild. Sure. Absolutely. If you go through your collection, what do you think, all 30,000 plus, what do you think are the one artists that you have the most records of?

Cut Chemist:
Oh, that's an interesting question.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It might be a couple, right, where you think-

Cut Chemist:
Besides myself?

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Besides yourself. Yes. Good one. Good one.

Cut Chemist:
Geez, maybe Funkadelic. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, can I count Parliament and Funkadelic together because they're kind of the same group? I mean, there's a certain narrative of a group that I find interesting, and they're definitely one of them. I mean, from the first Funkadelic album on all the way to Uncle Jam Wants You, as music changes, George Clinton was a genius in always being ahead of the curve and creating, just from his artistic self, not really being pressured into doing anything that was going on. And I find that fascinating beyond it just being good music, just his nature of throwing up a middle finger to mainstream music and just doing it his way, I think is great. That being said, Sly also is the same to me. I have all of his records and I love his story arc from Whole New Thing all the way to, what, Back on Track, I think is the last record I own of his.
So Funkadelic, I think, has more albums than him, I mean, Parliament and Funkadelic, but Sly's up there, Hendrix is a big one for me. But again, he didn't put out as many because he died early. So Sly and George Clinton probably.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah. No, no, that's great. And which of your records do you, and this could totally be one of your own records, which one do you cherish the most? Which one do you have? Which is the closest to you where you say, "Hey, if there's a fire," which we are in LA, that's the one I would grab if you have to do that.

Cut Chemist:
So yeah, when we went through the wildfires, I reorganized my house to be in a priority bug out situation in case.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh, No way.

Cut Chemist:
Yeah, because we got pretty close. We got pre-evacuation orders and I just kind of stood there panicking like, "I don't know what to grab." And so I don't want that to happen again. So I've reorganized the deck and so I do have that, but it's a box of acetates, which are not really records, but one of ones. And it's everything from early rap unreleased stuff to a couple of my own. Those are the first to go. If we're talking about vinyl records that were released, what would I save? I think I would have to save the first Freestyle Fellowship album Test Pressing, which was huge inspiration for me artistically. It's a rap record that came out of LA in 1991, very independent, definitely inspired me to put out my own independent record. I thought you had to be signed to a label to put out records. And then when I saw that, I said, "Oh my God, I can do it too." Not only that, but it was totally forward thinking artistically and what you could do with rap music that changed my life forever. Very important record. It's called To Whom It May Concerned by the Freestyle Fellowship. And I got my friend Rob One's test pressing after he passed away and his girlfriend asked me to come over and take a look at the stuff. So yeah, there's a lot of layers to why that particular piece of vinyl in my collection means something. So that is the closest one to the door.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah. It's usually not the one that's the most expensive. It's the one that's so unique and that's so meaningful to you. I love those stories. When we think about top five albums of all time, and there might've already been one or two that you mentioned, but top five albums. And you're on the spot with that because I know you didn't see the notes upfront, so you're totally on the spot, five albums.

Cut Chemist:
It changes. It changes, but I'll give you the ones that don't seem to change. Axis: Bold As Love, Hendrix; Funkadelic Maggot Brain, Fungadelic first album, To Whom It May Concern, Freestyle Fellowship. That's four. Oh boy, what's this one? Oh, it's always that damn fifth one, isn't it?

Fabian Geyrhalter:
If I would ask you for six, you would already have five done. You know that's how it works.

Cut Chemist:
Oh, right. Cymande, first album.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Very cool. And what I love so much about your mixes is that if I'm in 60 minutes into listening of any of your mixes, I get hooked up with tens or hundreds of artists that are completely new to me. So I can't listen to your music while doing anything. I have to actually be completely alert and look at the songs and actually look them up. And then I go to SoundCloud or I go to Spotify and I look up these artists and these songs, and some of them have only a few hundred listens. Some of them have only a few thousand followers. And that to me is so special and that's so awesome. And that is such a big part of the art, right? The art of create digging and the art of finding something that other people might have not uncovered yet. Is there a specific record that in particular that you feel like you might want to share with people today that you're pretty certain they have never heard of that might expand their horizon? Out of 30,000, how hard could it be?

Cut Chemist:
Right. I think that people know a lot more than I think. I mean, we live in an iPod shuffle generation and I'm always impressed with how much variety of music people like younger kids have kicking around, but let me think.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It could also be a recent release.

Cut Chemist:
True. I think, and I'm going to be redundant here because I think that the Cymande Group is a gateway to music around the world. It was the first album that I heard where I felt like I was listening to many different cultures, African, Middle Eastern, even American pop, funk, soul, jazz. It's so tastefully blended together on this one album, I think because the makeup of the group are expats that lived in England, but from different parts of the world. And so they were bringing their musical heritage and influences in on this one project, and they did several records, but their first one in particular was such a mind blower to me, like every song, and that's hard to say. An album that has no skips in it
Where you listen to every song with intent, but particularly this song Dove, which is an instrumental on, is it the first song on side one or the first song on side two? I can't remember. But man, that takes you on a journey and it's instrumental. So I mean, imagine my visual impetus when listening to music. The visuals that were created in my head when listening to this instrumental song was pretty fantastic. So I can't stress this album enough. I mean, if you don't know this record, you have to know it. It will be your favorite record, I guarantee it.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I listened to it for the first time, I'm ashamed last night, because I heard you mention that record before, and it is absolutely amazing. And what occurred to me is that the first time that I heard the band was last year with their latest release, because they released an album last year. And I was like, I'm like mind blown that in 2025, I get to know a band like that, that has such a cult status and that has been around for so long. So yeah, like you said, you never know. You never know when people stumble upon something.

Cut Chemist:
Yeah. And a few years ago, some guy did a documentary on them based on the one song Bra, which became a hip hop classic somehow. And so their reacclaimed fame from when the doc came out, they said, "Well, why don't we just keep putting out albums?" And so they did because they were already touring their old material to support the documentary and the newfound glory of them, of the world finding out more about them. And so they just kept on making albums, which was great. And I was lucky enough to interview them just before the documentary.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh, no way.

Cut Chemist:
Which was a huge honor.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Was that for the documentary or was it for a different channel?

Cut Chemist:
God, I think it was for DubLab, which I maybe just happened to be around the same time. It was here in LA. They came and did a show at the Henry Fonda Theater, and that's when I interviewed them. And this was maybe, I don't know, seems like almost 10 years ago.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Boy, another show that I missed in my life, but that's the story of life. Hey, listen, I want to make sure you're not missing anything because we're on the hour and I promised you to keep it to exactly that as I always do. Listen, it was so awesome to have you here. Let's talk a little bit about what you're working on right now and what's next for you. What is cooking up? I think you're going to be at Vinyl Con, right? Are you going to sell records there?

Cut Chemist:
Planning on it. Yeah. I did the last one in LA and it was just so much fun. However, I feel a little bit of a FOMO because I was too busy manning the table that I didn't get a chance to go buy music. And I was seeing what people were pulling after the fact, and I was definitely jealous. So hopefully I can do a little bit of both. Maybe it won't be as big a stall, but yeah, I'll be in the house for sure.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I'll be there. I'll be there too. I'll be manning our Toneoptic table for the very first time at Vinyl Con. So you and I can both share our mysery of not catching any holy grails.

Cut Chemist:
Right.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
But providing others with joy, and that's important too. Is there any musical project you're working on currently?

Cut Chemist:
Sure, there are plenty. I'm working on a record with Charlie 2na from Jurassic 5. We've been the oldest friends. I've known him since 87, 88 probably. And so yeah, we're also writing a book together about our lives because we've been together through all these different projects and permutations throughout our career. Ozomatli, Jurassic 5, Unity Committee, solo projects. We've always been supporting one another. And so we thought it'd be good to do an album together. And so it's pretty much done. We're just getting it mastered and hopefully it'll be coming out on Westwood Records, which is a Canadian label manned by the funk contours.
And so that's recorded music. I would love to tell people that I have a subscription series on Bandcamp where you can subscribe and you basically get access to a lot of things from my record collection that I digitize and do mixes and put out rare things from cassettes and all the little things that I like to collect throughout my life. You will have access to a superior sounding copy because I remaster it myself and make it all pretty. And yeah, I have to digitize my record collection at some point so that I have easy access to it and the subscribers get first dibs.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Might as well share. Yeah. My partner in crime here at Toneoptic, he's part of your Bandcamp subscription and he very much enjoys it. So I'm fully aware of it and I hope a lot of people are going to jump onto it. Again, I think it's really awesome how close you are to your friends and what you do with them all the way to a candlelight set. It's really, really neat.

Cut Chemist:
It's one thing I've learned during the pandemic and also from the wildfires is community is everything and building community, don't really concern yourself with quantity of people, but quality and having a narrative that's something you can feel free to share, your love of something without thinking that somebody won't get it is very special.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot happened here in terms of community in LA in the last year. I felt a lot of that too. Big change, very positive in that sense. That's what happens sometimes, right? Hey, listen, Cut, thank you so much for spending almost a full hour with us today, sharing some of your collection and some of the stories. We really, really appreciate your time.

Cut Chemist:
Of course. My pleasure. Anytime.