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Two or three years ago, you had a couple false starts with some studio guys for mixing the album, and then you decided to do all the mixing yourself. So you did ultimately get that whole chapter behind you? You’ve got the songs that could become the double album all mixed? But those are all laid out and mixed? The Pop Culture Suicides’ songs vary so much from one to the other. It has to be incredibly hard to put a cohesive track list together, especially for an EP. Did you have to rework the track list when you split up the double album into EPs? So you didn’t track it for the EPs at all? You didn’t do this final mixing process until relatively recently. Does that mean that the versions that are ready to go on the EPs are totally different from the ones that are on MySpace now? In the lyrics to most of your songs and on the old pleistoscene.com, you talk a lot about your worldview and your views on mortality. To start with, is it fair to say that you don’t necessarily believe in an afterlife or reincarnation? A lot of people go through life while looking at their feet and never realizing their own mortality. Even when someone does realize that death is inevitable, it’s hard to come to grips with that. People typically either despair, or they try to distract themselves with daily life and pretend that the problem isn’t there. You seem to be the opposite of that. You’re very in touch with your mortality. So your vivid awareness of mortality isn’t really a monkey on your back? SPECIAL THANKS TO: Zim Zum for taking the time to sit down and answer phoenix5807's questions. Thank you to phoenix5807 for conducting this interview with Zim Zum for ZZIV!
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Every now and then, I’ll listen to someone else’s opinion. Sometimes it’s cool. Sometimes it works. I could give a fuck what people think, but someone said, “This guy is available and he really wants to do something, and I think it he could be cool.” I’ve got a lot of friends that are very well known at what they do, but they’re my friends and I never think about what they do. I’ve got tons of friends who are in bands, and I’ve never seen the band. It’s not that kind of a thing. We’re just friends, and it’s never anything business-y. I had a friend who said this guy would be perfect, that he’d just done all these things, and that I could get something out there from a different angle. Sometimes, I’ll give it a try and see how it goes. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it just doesn’t work because it’s not only from a different angle, it’s just from a different universe and a different industry. You know, it’s actually from an industry, and I don’t really write music or record music or release music or play music live from a product point of view. It’s just not my thing, and I guess I took some shit for it. Maybe it’s why there hasn’t been a CD released yet. Underneath it all, I’m sure there are some issues that I could probably work out with some therapy or something, but I don’t know. I would just give it all away. Maybe I will. Music has never been something that I’ve considered anything less than completely personal and a part of me, the same as saying something to somebody that you’re really close to. It’s something personal. It just so happens that I have this strange life cycle that’s very exposed. I probably sound like a broken record with this, but I’ve always just looked at it the same as I did when I was a kid. I would write some music and put it on a cassette tape and give it to a friend. They’d listen to it in the car and they’d say, “I listen to this in my car all the time. If you’ve got more, let me have it.” That’s all it was about, and I still look at it the same way as that, but it’s always bordering on going completely public – releasing some full-on albums, doing some full-on videos, full-on tours. It’s always straddling the line of becoming something else. Something evolved. Something that will ultimately put and end to it.
There are six EPs now. There is so much more music than I thought. Technically, there are four in a series and then two more in the sequel.
Yeah, everything’s laid out and mixed, and it’s actually ordered from start to finish. If played by themselves, some of the EPs may come off a little weird because it’s like watching a half hour of a movie. I’ve always said that there is a double album and it’s got to come out as a double album. The times dictate that I need to break it down into these smaller pieces –EPs with five songs each, and some alternate versions with 6 songs. But it is complete. It’s just sort of sitting. You can hear quite a bit of the first four EPs live. We’re not playing all of the songs, but pretty close to four EPs’ worth depending on what our set list is.
Splitting it into EPs, I literally just went five songs at a time and sliced it.
No, it was tracked as an entire piece and then just split in four. The first one ends where it does because it’s five songs in. So it’s just three To-Be-Continued’s.
No, they’re pretty close. I don’t know how many people have really noticed, but some songs that were originally released on the MySpace page have popped up later in their final versions. Every now and then, someone will say, “There’s something that was slightly different here.” That’s because it’s the final version. There was a little bit of a tweak here and there. I’m also not against leaving some of the songs. I’m not someone who thinks you’ve got to take the stuff to this mixer guy and have him do this, and then this mastering guy and have them do that. Personally, as a listener, I would like to keep it as close as I can to the way it actually happened, and I think it probably comes from being a huge, huge fan of Iggy and The Stooges. You can’t help but listen to that raw power and feel exactly what’s going down in the second. If it sounds raw or loud, it’s because I’m the king of having ridiculously loud mixes. For some people, it’s too loud. For me, I prefer to have the volume in the car around level three and have it be ridiculous so that if I really like the song and I’m going a little bit louder, I have a couple extra levels to work with. For some people, it’s a little too much. I’m not going to change the way I do it, though.
That’s not actually true. I have had quite a few instances of déjà vu where I have vividly seen things that are happening. I’ve seen them before, down to the details. There are also very specific things about my character and the things that I like that seem to come from a completely different time period… oddly enough, very Victorian. I just can’t explain where it comes from because it’s not part of my childhood. It’s not a product of my environment. It’s not how I grew up. So I’m not exactly sure what some things are all about. Still, I’m not one to get caught up in what’s going to happen then and forget about what’s happening right now. A spiritual kind of guy? Yeah. I spent about 90 percent of my education in private Lutheran schools, so there was a sense of conformity. Religion by way of fear. That’s always there. “Hell is the worst thing you can imagine.”
I think it’s fairly clear in the songs that there’s a little bit of a death obsession. I’m not comfortable with it, but it’s something that’s always been there for me. When I was a kid, my grandmother was part of the VFW and American Legion, so there were a lot of aging war veterans around, a lot of funerals, and a lot of very specific and very respectful ceremony. When I was a kid, babysitters weren’t easy to come by, so I was taken to every single one of these things; I saw it over and over and over and over again. It was always there, and there’s no doubt whatsoever that it plays a big part in who I am now. There’s just a weird aura about death and people not being there. It’s gone; it’s never going to be that way again. I have a hard time with death.
I like the life that I have even though I’m scared to death, as I guess anyone is, with how frail it is. I have seen it, felt it, lived it, and I like it. I don’t like the death aspect of it. I enjoy life. I think it’s fantastic. I love the life that I have, and I think that’s why I move as fast through the things that I do and why I hold on as tightly as I do to some things.
I appreciate being a musician. When I was a kid, some things sucked (I guess no more than anyone else) – divorced parents and everything that comes with that. Absentee parents; it’s kind of a cliché. I guess I was part of the trailblazer generation for dysfunctional families. But having seen it and having lived it, I understood that nothing is forever. In the worst part of my childhood, I was going alone and thinking, “God, if I could just be like this person, everything will be fine.” I can remember at one point it was Eddie Van Halen. Later in life, after all the Manson stuff and all the attention during, after, and even now, I had the realization that in the worst possible moments of my life, the things I wished for actually happened, which is bizarre. It’s totally crazy. I don’t think I’m any different than anybody else. I don’t know if it’s luck or it’s what I had to go through to get to a certain point. I had a really good person that gave me insight into things that were bigger than what I should wear, how I should look, how I need to fit in, or what my place is in this world. It’s never as simple as all that. Some people make it that way. For me, I’m just trying to squeeze as much as I can out of what I’ve got. If I do anything less, then it’s just going to feel like I’ve wasted time. Sometimes, I do feel like that. Being a guitar player since I was 13 years old and still playing guitar now, sitting here, talking… there’s a show tonight… it’s so fucking bizarre.
No, I think I’ve come to terms with it. I know there are certain things that are going to happen. I have no idea how to deal with that when they do happen. Some of these things have already happened. I don’t know if I’ve dealt with it. Maybe I did the right thing in that situation and it’s alright. Maybe I’m in complete denial. I don’t know. Does anybody really know? I just try to have some understanding, but I don’t think anybody really can. I don’t know what happens, but if there is an option, I know exactly what I’m going for when it does happen. So I guess in that aspect, I may be more prepared than some people. Some people may be looking for a certain thing. I’m just looking for an opportunity. If there is that opportunity that comes after this, I’m ready for that opportunity the same as I was ready for the opportunity in this life. I guess I can’t look at it any other way. Maybe I’m completely crazy for looking at it as an opportunity, but what can I do about it? When it happens, it happens. I should at least be prepared for it the same as I would be for anything else now. When the opportunity arose in this lifetime, I was fully prepared; I was fully deserved of what I got for being prepared, so if that opportunity arises in the next life, I will be fully prepared. So we’ll see what happens.