PEANUT BUTTER WOLF INTERVIEW (AT THE POOL)

my name is

peanut

butter

wolf

i really liked the music probably good its funny this is for cartoons i was watching cartoons and i remember there was a marvin gaye song and they played it every morning before the cartoons animated and I just fell in love with that song. I didn't really know anything about popular music or anything like that at the time, but that really got me started and then when I was in second grade, I had a teacher who introduced me to a lot of soul funk music. I know this is like before hip-hop without hanging out with myself much, but from there I really got into soulful music, I think, and I started buying hip-hop records when I was nine, so it's been a long way for I, the musician, I guess it started with a drum machine, you know, in the old days of hip-hop, everyone used drum machines, it was before there was sampling or anything, so I just I was programming rhythms into the drum machine.

Little Boss Doctor Rhythm That was when I was 14, so one of my friends asked to borrow a drum machine from his son and he was like, yeah, I want to be a rapper, you know? Then this, uh, really cool guy came by and he wanted me to do it. make his beats and I always wanted to make music somehow, I mean even before that when I was 12 I was pretending to be a radio DJ, you know my friend and I had this countdown of the top 100 of our favorite songs of that year. You know, we had hundreds of records, I mean, even at that age, every weekend we bought records, we used our lunch money to buy records, instead, that's why I'm so skinny, I never ate, I always bought records. oh really.

As if it were strange, I always never had much confidence in anything I did other than music with music. I thought yeah, I'm the man, I always will, you know? And I tried to convince my family and everyone and my mom, her dad was a musician, you know, he fought his whole life, he carried coolers during the day and then he played in the clubs at night and she grew up seeing the problems that he had and You know she was afraid that I would go through the same thing. way, but she always knew how important music was to me so I still supported it and you know, my parents just told me to at least get your college degree and I remember my dad saying there's only one Michael Jackson, you know, be careful and I was like, well, dad, I love Michael Jackson, but I don't want to be Michael Jackson.

I mean, there's room for everyone, you don't have to be like living on Neverland Ranch, you know, having made it, quote, unquote, and being successful. I always knew from a very young age that my vocation was music, there is no plan b. I decided to start my own label in the early '90s. In fact, I put out a record in 1990 called You Can't Swing This and we made 500 copies. I felt like yeah, you know I made a record, that's my goal in life, now I can die and you know, that's it, but you know, I mean, after it came out, we didn't really have any distribution, we didn't know about the record. .

Stores like relationships with all that, you know, we didn't have any publicists or anything like that, but that was in San Jose, California, and there was no music industry there, you know, in San Jose, so from from there I guess that's when I really knew it and I started Stone's Throw several years later, but you know, I was always doing stuff for other labels and somehow I found myself doing more work a lot of times, you know, like promoting myself or promoting my own albums and that's it. Actually, as an artist, that is very important, regardless of what label you are on, you know that you have to get out there before a stone's throw.

I was in a group with an MC named Charisma and he passed away, you know, at a very young age of 20. years and that really affected my life completely, I mean, you know, besides being my musical partner, he was my best friend, you know, he's pretty good at spending all day, every day, together, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And he hit me hard, you know, I guess. When I started my label I wanted the name to have some meaning to it, but still be broad enough to the point that it meant almost nothing, but just a stone's throw away it was something that my mom was asking for charisma or we were asking her for charisma. asking. she where this I don't even know what it was we were just asking her how to get somewhere and she says oh that's just a stone's throw away and it's like a saying that you read in textbooks but you never actually hear anyone say and We just thought it was funny, we thought it was ridiculous like my name and that always stuck in my mind, you know, charisma and I always made jokes about mom, I mean, charisma went as far as my mom leaving the greeting. on your cell phone. phone like you know my mom's voice that's right, you get to Charisma's cell phone, she leaves a message and I said: mom, why did you do that?

You know, but we always wanted to try to outdo each other with mom jokes and stuff even. although you know we loved each other's moms a lot, no pun intended, which I want to put just a stone's throw away, that's really the hardest question I get asked because I don't know, I know what I like, it's really easy. but I don't know how to describe it because if you listen to the stuff that's just a stone's throw away, there's so many different styles of music, you know we have stuff like Baron Zen, which is more, I don't know, stuff that sounds like '80s new wave. you know, and then you have crazy libraries, all different, I mean, it's pretty much like 10 artists in itself, you know, it has the dj rolls, which is more electronic music and it has hip hop and jazz, and I have a favorite too . type of music um, yeah, my a cappella singing is usually like, you know, my top 10 songs of all time are really like if I sang Motley Crue, I would definitely be up there, um, this guy, Bruce Hack, you know, I sing their music too, um, yeah, no.

I don't know, I'm just a great singer, one of my biggest influences is Madlib. You know, he's an artist I work with and when I heard his music, I was instantly changed. I mean, when I met him, he really had already been. making music for about 10 years and when I met him I knew my focus was going to change to promoting him instead of promoting myself, even though I'm a big self-promoter, but he's the man, influences wise I'd say that's Number one, I mean, I have a lot of influences over the years. Otis is ready, you know, my uncle showed me his music when I was a kid.

I was really into that, um, a lot of funk and soul like that guy's Bar K cameo. of things that, uh, this early '80s slave group that was very important to me back then, but I love all the different things, I love the limited public image, you know, I like a lot of post punk things, I like 60 psychedelic things, this guy, Bruce. hack, I was mentioning it before, but he makes electronic music for children and it's very different from anything you know, you know he really was a pioneer back then, so so far I've had a lot of great musical moments for me, one of the first.

I was meeting someone, you know, like he was to me, he was one of my favorites growing up and I was filming his video for Step into a world and I remember after I finished the video I had my record, I had the record of charisma, this was the first stone's throw release like stones throw 0-0-1, you know, 12-inch single and we were at this music convention and I walked up to their DJ and I said, "You gotta play this album, you know this was after the charisma." passed away and charisma was also a big krs-1 fan so uh kenny kenny parker that's chaos the dj's name and he looked at me and sized me up and said "I'm going to play this" so I He played on the headphones and he was like, "Okay, okay, that's like playing, so he put them over the speakers and then ks1 turned around and said, what is this?

You know it was all over the top and stuff." stuff, so I was like, yeah, what's up? That was a good one for me, you know, meeting Stevie Wonder was really, you know, it was really cool because we made an album of all the Stevie Wonder covers with Madlib doing his music and I got the chance to meet Stevie Wonder, I kind of did. I continued. to harass him, I actually followed him to the bathroom and crossed the line. I never should have done it, but his manager was there. You know, Stevie Wonder was literally at the urinal peeing and I walked up to his manager and she was.

Like yeah, I want to talk to Stevie like we did with this album of his music and I want him to listen to it and his manager said, oh well, this isn't the time or place for this and what do you say about that? I mean, he's totally Well, you know, so I thought, well, let me get an address from Stevie so I can send it to him and Stevie overheard our conversation and pulled his manager aside and said no, I want to talk to him right now, so that was the most stressful experience, like you had 30 seconds to give Stevie Wonder your spiel about how you know you made a record of his music, but he was really great.

You know, when I shook his hand, it was like shaking a win. You know? It was really strange when it came to my DJ sets nowadays when I only used vinyl, you know, I had to have everything figured out in advance and it was difficult in a way that you can show up at a venue and the audience likes something totally different. than you think it would be, you know? So lately I've been using computer integration a lot in my DJ sets and you basically have like I have 6000 songs at my fingertips now, you know, whereas before I had 50. 50 records and a back problem, you know, so now a lot more of it is freestyle, it depends on tonight, the show I'm doing, I'm only going to spin for 25 minutes, so I want to make sure every minute is, you know? thought and stuff, so I have things planned, but when I'm DJing two hour and three hour sets, then no, it's all freestyle, yeah, I never want to know how much money I've spent on records because that would be horrible, you know, I buy records all the time and I actually broke up with a girlfriend because of it, she never understood that, but because of buying records, yeah, well, it's hard, if you know, I mean, if you're not really passionate. about music it's hard to understand why someone would come back from Japan with such a big box, you know, and I spent over a thousand dollars or whatever, I don't know, but she picked me up at the airport and she was heartbroken.

Are you acting like you'll never be able to buy a house? But for me records are my home. I mean, that's what has gotten me to where I am today. I listen to music all the time. I mean Mad lib. You know he listens to music 24/7. He's always buying new records and he does it because he likes music, not to try to keep up with anyone or anything, it's just a genuine love for music. The best thing about being a DJ musician. music world I make my own schedules, I would say that's one of the best things, you know, I can sleep when I want and um, yeah, I've got it made, man, no, no, really the best thing for me is music.

I really feel a lot about the music that I'm involved in and you know I love sharing it with the world, that's why I got into this in the first place and I feel like I'm doing it, you know, for the people I love. to start a label or really be a musician, be a singer, rapper, producer, I would say don't do it unless you really like music because it's one of the hardest industries to be in and you know. You always feel underappreciated and you're like, oh, you know, it's hard, I mean, there's not a lot of stability in it, you know, I mean, I've been very fortunate.

I'm not complaining about where I am personally, but about seeing a lot of myself. friends and a lot of my talented friends too, you know that hasn't happened to them yet and I would say if you can't do anything else, if you know what music is, then follow it, that's what I did.