Every time I hear more of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, the more I'm convinced he's going to be a Big Thing. Of course, he may be already, with the first great kids-hop album Easy set for re-rerelease this summer and appearances at Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits Festival lined up for later this year. In this interview, you get a sense of both the studied and self-examined approach he's taken to understanding his particular path as well as the positivity and enthusiasm that has taken him pretty far down that path to Big Thing-ness already.
Read on for details on how he got to recording music for kids, the occasional difficulty of writing rhymes for kids, and how he knew his daughter Saki was ready for the big time. (Oh, and if you're thinking you've already got Easy and you don't need the re-release, read on...)
Zooglobble: What music did you listen to growing up?
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo: I remember my first tape, a dubbed copy of Beastie Boys License to Ill. It now blows my mind to go back and listen to that album and get the nostalgia echoes from songs that I listened to as a youth without even slightly understanding them. Now I get all the slang and references, everything. But I still remember trying to figure out what "I fly a fat burger when I'm way out west" meant on a 4th grade field trip. And Brass Monkey sounded like a cartoon character. Nope, not at all!
How did you decide being a touring musician was what you wanted to do with your life?
I started with the touring part before the musician part. I grew up in a culture-starved small town in Indiana, and blew that popsicle stand real early. By the time I was 18, I had already taken Greyhound and Amtrak everywhere from New Olreans to Cali to Mexico. After that, I spent a while hitchiking, trainhopping and backpacking all across America. My musical side started with a drum I carried with me, and eventually myself and a friend started freestyle rhyming over the beats we made. By the way, that friend is DJ Mr. Strange a.k.a. ADAM STRANGE, the DJ for 23 Skidoo and my rhyming partner for over 13 years. So, we attracted more weirdos and started busking (street performing) which eventually turned into a hip hop/funk band called GFE. As seasoned travelers, it was no question we would take the show on the road, and we began touring before we hardly even had a set put together. Now it's just in the blood, can't wait to take it international!
What (besides having a child) made you want to record a kids' album?Interview: Secret Agent 23 Skidoo
Every time I hear more of Secret Agent 23 Skidoo, the more I'm convinced he's going to be a Big Thing. Of course, he may be already, with the first great kids-hop album Easy set for re-rerelease this summer and appearances at Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits Festival lined up for later this year. In this interview, you get a sense of both the studied and self-examined approach he's taken to understanding his particular path as well as the positivity and enthusiasm that has taken him pretty far down that path to Big Thing-ness already.
Read on for details on how he got to recording music for kids, the occasional difficulty of writing rhymes for kids, and how he knew his daughter Saki was ready for the big time. (Oh, and if you're thinking you've already got Easy and you don't need the re-release, read on...)
Zooglobble: What music did you listen to growing up?
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo: I remember my first tape, a dubbed copy of Beastie Boys License to Ill. It now blows my mind to go back and listen to that album and get the nostalgia echoes from songs that I listened to as a youth without even slightly understanding them. Now I get all the slang and references, everything. But I still remember trying to figure out what "I fly a fat burger when I'm way out west" meant on a 4th grade field trip. And Brass Monkey sounded like a cartoon character. Nope, not at all!
How did you decide being a touring musician was what you wanted to do with your life?
I started with the touring part before the musician part. I grew up in a culture-starved small town in Indiana, and blew that popsicle stand real early. By the time I was 18, I had already taken Greyhound and Amtrak everywhere from New Olreans to Cali to Mexico. After that, I spent a while hitchiking, trainhopping and backpacking all across America. My musical side started with a drum I carried with me, and eventually myself and a friend started freestyle rhyming over the beats we made. By the way, that friend is DJ Mr. Strange a.k.a. ADAM STRANGE, the DJ for 23 Skidoo and my rhyming partner for over 13 years. So, we attracted more weirdos and started busking (street performing) which eventually turned into a hip hop/funk band called GFE. As seasoned travelers, it was no question we would take the show on the road, and we began touring before we hardly even had a set put together. Now it's just in the blood, can't wait to take it international!
What (besides having a child) made you want to record a kids' album?
The next entry in a series of posts from this weekend's 
