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For over 25 years, legendary hip-hop duo Atmosphere has been making socially conscious music that continuously evolves to reflect and comment on our world today. On May 5th, 2023, they will release their latest album, So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously. I recently had a chance to sit down and speak with Ant from Atmosphere. We discussed the new album, his creative process, and his favorite album to listen to on vinyl.
Here's my interview with Ant from Atmosphere. You have a new album that dropped in May 5th with the amazingly awesome title of So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously. The new record has been described as fumbling into consciousness. Can you kind of talk about what your approach was to writing and recording this new album?
Okay, so being the producer and making the music part of this, it's more like a, I'm thinking about it from a, and I've produced all the album for 25 years or so. So now it's basically, what have we done? What are some of our core sounds? What can we kind of do different?
How can we, you know, it's more like that. That's kind of, that's at least where I start off at. And I've tried to start off every record that way. I know the average person tries to see there's another average record, but I really have tried to make them specific for that time, you know?
So that was my main approach going in. And so I knew, I knew I wanted to begin optimistic sounding, but and dark. And we hadn't done that before, necessarily. And when we're live, we don't necessarily do that either.
So I knew that much. And as far as the word go, he'll have to take full responsibility for all that. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's amazing the melodies that you're really able to create on this record.
You guys just dropped this absolutely beautiful single called Bigger Pictures. And I just want to talk to you about the melody of that song, because you have some guitar work that is just absolutely stunning on it. Can you kind of share kind of what your inspiration for the music and the melody for that song was? So what I do is I start off by making just sketch beats, basically.
And it's just whatever I'm into at that moment. And every single day, I start off just turning on equipment, you know? So I just have to get started. And there's days I just don't want to.
You know, I just be lazy. But if I just go push myself to turn everything on and just start something, something will happen. And that song or that music part, I just would loop it up something. I messed around with it a little bit, I remember.
And I took it to my musician friend in the Bay Area. Yeah, G Coop and Graham Richards. And they start playing to it, playing around it, and coming up with different parts. I'm a big fan of slide guitar, so I always push for slide guitar.
And Graham is an excellent player of any instrument, but he played the slide guitar in there. But the way it was played when we were doing the session was just kind of randomly throughout the song. And I knew, I was like, oh, part somewhere. I was like, okay, I'm going to be able to make that slide guitar the song.
You know? So when it came time to arranging, I knew to put that in the full track, you know? Yeah. I don't know if I totally answered the question, but that kind of, you know, And as that went on, and when the arrangement process went on probably a year later, before I even showed the plug, I arranged it in a very, tried to make it very cinematic, you know?
And so, and then we talked about the song, and we came up with, we kind of looked at the concept together, and obviously we just took the board to a whole other area. And then, yeah. Cinematic is a great way to describe that song, because it does have that cinematic flavor to it and everything. No, that's incredible.
Now, there's this gentleness on the musical end of the first two singles for this new record that's coming out May 5th. So many other realities exist simultaneously. But there's also kind of this, like, tension. And you mentioned it earlier, you wanted to find that, like, balance between, like, the darkness and optimism and things like that.
When you're creating the music and things like that, how do you try and balance those two opposite emotions and feelings and everything? You know, I think sometimes when you're making music, what you are just comes out. And there's almost nothing you can do about it. So, on this album, those two songs in specific kind of just have that kind of sound.
Because there's other things on the album that are completely more dark. And it's not totally intentional, you know what I mean? It's like, at least for me, I have to, I just, I'm just going. And when it's all done, I'm like, oh, okay.
No matter how I do it, whether I'm just handling stuff, I'm playing my own stuff, or my musician friends are playing my own stuff, or if I'm hiring random people. It's, they all kind of sound just like, what, what it's supposed to be, you know? Like it's meant to be. It's a weird thing.
No, no, no. It makes complete sense. It's almost like you're, the music is coming out as an extension of you, of who you are as a person. So you're just following, like, a natural flow to it then.
Yeah. And sometimes, you know, there's a lot of things that you make, because, you know, you only hear a certain percentage of any artist's material. Probably usually a very small amount of anybody's material. And the things I leave out, that I don't put out, for, it could be a bunch of different reasons.
It just might not be that good, or I might be just totally uncomfortable or something, you know? And some pieces of music just lay around for years until they find it's home, you know? So it could be kind of a magical thing. Yeah, it is.
Well, I mean, that's the joys of creating music, is it's that whole magical process that you participate in every day when you wake up and you start creating in that. And it's crazy to say that Atmosphere, I mean, you guys have been around over 25 years now. The first record came out, I think it was 1997. You've always been on the road.
You've lived on the road. You've, you know, seen the end of the late 90s. You've seen all the 2000s. As a band, as a duo, as musicians, as artists, you've seen a lot.
How has the experiences that you've had being as a member of Atmosphere, how has that gone back to influence your music? Oh, man. In every way. So when I first, like, when we first started working together, I had a, you know, I was on one way of thinking about music.
I mean, I was 20, in 95, we started working together, I was 25 years old, so I was thinking of the world in a whole different way. And music was definitely more, still more of an identity as far as things have to sound a certain way only. You know, I had a very narrow look at how I should make music. And I stuck with that rule for a long time.
Some of those rules have held on a lot harder than they should. But regardless, and as I've gone along, and the things I've seen inspire him, and other artists I've worked with, this changes how I started incorporating other things, you know, or even other emotions, you know. WXEV is a college radio station. How has college radio, like, what's your view of college radio?
How has it impacted or has it impacted Atmosphere's career and everything? And do you have any advice for any of the student broadcasters, podcasters out there? Any words of wisdom that you'd like to partake and share with them? To answer your first part of your question, yes, I believe college radio was everything to us when we first started out.
If I'm not mistaken, especially at first, college was the only thing that was playing our record, you know. So, of course, I had a big, big help in getting plugged out in the first half of his touring career, which is what built what we are. So, yeah, I think it was a tremendous help. And I would, you know, I would hope that that's continuing for other artists to this day, you know, especially very independent.
But the world is completely different than in 1997 and early 2000s, obviously. So, yeah, as far as advice on anybody, my biggest advice for anybody doing creative stuff is just follow your parts. Don't get distracted by what you think success is and what others think success is. Believe in you and do what you enjoy and fulfill you.
But when it's all said and done, that will fall, that will matter. I don't care how much money, I don't care how many friends you have, when it's all said and done, how you feel about what you do is an important thing. That's great advice. Final question I have for Ant from Atmosphere.
And, again, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk to me today. The new record is called So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously. It's out on May 5th. At the end of April, Ant, there's two really big events.
On April 22nd, we have, of course, Record Store Day. And then College Radio and a bunch of commercial stations are coming together to do this event called Vinyl Thon, where they're going 48 hours playing vinyl records and celebrating, you know, vinyl and radio and, you know, the two really cool meetings coming together. Do you have any albums that you want to suggest to people that if you're going to listen to them on vinyl, like these are like your top picks of albums that you have to listen to on vinyl? Oh, man, there's so many things.
But on vinyl in specific, you know, anything can go. But I'll mention, I'm just looking at the circuit right now, Randy Lewis and Sun Goddess. I'll say that. Oh, that's an excellent choice.
Yeah, that's an amazing record. So, yeah, that would be my pick. That's awesome. And then why do you think vinyl has made such a resurgence over the last few years?
Oh, that's a great question. I have no idea, really. It's like, I do love it, though. I've been collecting since 1982.
I was 12 years old and maybe 13 years old, especially if I started to buy my own stuff. And so my collection now is insane. It's like this is an issue. And there was that few, you know, there's probably a decade or so where nobody was interested in vinyl and they weren't even printing any of it, really, except for HIPAA.
And now that everything's back coming around, I'm amazed by it. And I love it. I think it's awesome. And I have no idea.
Maybe there's something about the idea of having it in your hand and being part of you. It's just more than just some throwaway thing on your phone or something. Or you're just passing through TV. Maybe there's something about, and I guess I'm just looking at myself, just having it in my hand and the ownership of it and the relationship to it.
And it can never be taken from you. It's funny, like about a couple, two months back, I hadn't heard The Chronic in a long time. Dr. Dre's The Chronic.
And I was like, oh, you know, I'm just going to check it out. And I just wanted to make it nice and easy. So I tried to pull it up on my phone. I couldn't.
I was like, oh, my gosh. I just, no weird. I couldn't take that. No, that's an excellent point in everything.
I didn't even know it was gone from streaming sites. That's terrible. It's such a good album. Yeah, yeah.
Apparently it's back now. But it was gone. It sounded like it was gone for like a year or so. Wow.
Yeah, yeah. Well, Ant, thank you so much. This was a great conversation. Again, the new album is coming out May 5th.
It's called So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously. Ant, thank you again. Appreciate it, my man. Appreciate it.
And that was my interview with Ant from Atmosphere. The new album, So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously, drops on May 5th, 2023. I'm Peter Creighton, and thanks for listening. Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast.
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