Rick Whispers

“Awed By The Backdrop” ist gerade ein paar Wochen alt, da kündigt Rick Whispers mit “While You Slept” bereits sein drittes Album an. Was man sonst noch über den MC aus Albany (NY) wissen muss, lest ihr in diesem kurzen Interview.

You’re album “Awed By The Backdrop” is in stores now. Could just share some personal thoughts on the album?

“Awed..” is essentially a descriptive walk through my thought process around some better days in my life, as well as some events that changed me personally, relationships of all sorts being created and or destroyed in one way or another. It shows – in my opinion – a different road than my past work, and has a more listener friendly bounce to it than other projects I’ve been part of. “Awed…” is a full length record containing 17 brand new songs.

Where can people check out the snippets of “Awed By The Backdrop” and where is it available for purchase?

iTunes, tower records, myspace.com/houseofhearts, Rick whispers.com, napster and virtually any other digital download site imaginable, as well as cdbaby.com, www.rickwhispers.com and www.myspace.com/houseofhearts, the official Rick Whispers myspace page.

Do you think you achieved to perfect you’re style compared to the “House
Of Hearts LP”?

I wouldn’t say perfect my style, I would say, I simply chose a different mood for the record on the whole, they are two completely different times in my life and if I can’t continue to grow with my music I am defeating myself. The day I stop pushing/impressing myself I will become bored with rap and stop doing it all together. It’s all about growth with art, I believe the day you become unmotivated you dry up with creativity.

How did you hook up with the featured rappers and producers? Tell me about the recording process…

A lot of the beats for this record came from producers in my crew Pitch Control Music or from the Fingerprint-Records camp, who we’ve worked a lot with over the past five years. Most of the production came off in conversations as I’m friends with all the beat smiths on this one. The vocal collabs came off like this; I met Mac Lethal out at Scribble in 2004 and spoke with him after his set at the meet and greet, he was down to be on the record so it just happened rather naturally. “Bottles”, the song Mac and I did, is also available on his new CD “Love Potion Collection 2″ available at www.lethalville.com. L.I.F.E. Long and I met up at Scribble 2005 and had a lot of mutual friends through Stronghold as well as fallen angels. Shyste, Dez, and Awar are part of my immediate family Pitch Control Music and these collaborations happened very naturally and in my opinion compose the highlights of my record chemistry wise.

Your lyrics are very thoughtful. Do you consider yourself a melancholic person?

I don’t consider myself melancholic, I consider myself honest, everything that I write about is actually what I am thinking or feeling at that point in my life and conveyed either through a character in a song or directly talked about on my records.

Tell me about the worst and the best response you received on the album so far. Do you care about what the critics say?

I tend to not listen to critics either way, if people are genuinely appreciative of my songs, I show them nothing but the utmost respect back as well as being thankful for their support. Life is to short to write records for so and so, I make music for myself and if other people feel it and believe in my movement then that’s peace with me, if not it doesn’t matter. I often am not standing still long enough to let it effect me.

From you website I know that you’re into writing poetry and short stories. Tell me about the topics you expose.

Its more that, through writing poetry and short stories I’ve come up with concepts for songs before such as songs that touch on drug addiction, or rape, these are songs that sometimes are sprinkled with bits of reality I observe living my day to day life but masked over to create a general relation between the listener and the subject matter. I enjoy going to poetry readings, it’s a completely different environment all together and in my opinion more challenging than rapping on stage at any venue.

What’s happening next, do you already think about your next project?

I’ve just completed it during the completion of this interview actually, you are psychic I can tell. The new record is called “While You Slept” and is a nine song EP which is also for sale in the same locations as A.B.T.B. This record was written directly after “Awed…” and is the perfect partner to the album, because it shares some of the same thought processes I took constructing the songs for the LP.

Are you content with the way underground HipHop sounds like today?

To tell you the truth I don’t listen to much underground hip hop or hip hop in general, these days its more oldies records, metal bands like Iron Maiden, and things like Sick Of It All or Bury You Dead.

Don’t get me wrong on this one, but is there anything you would still like to improve about your own music?

Absolutely, I can continue to grow in all aspects of my music, in my opinion everyone can. I don’t mean this in a bad way like oh all music is substandard to me, these artists should be ashamed, but that each artist could tackle a new avenue with their approach to what they do myself included on a daily basis.

Tell me about the personal and musical goals you’ve set yourself for the next years…

They are one in the same and that is to reach a mass audience with my sound, to get my albums out to more people every day, this is my goal for my career and it will never be fulfilled completely because I can always get a CD to one more individual it’s a good goal in my opinion, it will keep me busy.

I think that’s it…

Check out my crew at myspace.com/pitchcontrolmusic. Thank you for having me. Be well!