LIGHTSPEED CHAMPION
The SiS Interview by Eavvon O'Neal

Unique artists are a dime-a-dozen. And while every musician has their own special quality, it’s getting harder and harder to discern divergencies and overemphasized idiosyncrasies to find purity. This Holy Grail is sometimes sitting right in front of us, like a lackluster goblet sitting amongst a band of shiny, brash singers. This is the case with Devonte Hynes, more commonly known as Lighspeed Champion, whom once sat amongst the members of Test Icicles, and now has moved out to develop his music in a way that comes from an imagination that is both picturesque and divergent from all of the other matchless acts of our time.

SIS: How is the response to your work in the UK different in the US?

Devonte Hynes : I don’t know, it’s weird. No one came to shows when we were in the US before, and now I’m finding out that the shows are sold out. People would be coming up and saying they saw shows we would play in Liverpool but it would be one or two people. It would just be crazy. But the past couple of shows I would show up and there would be lots of people and I just can’t understand why. It is like “I don’t live here,” and people don’t have to be told to show up, they are just into it.

SIS:  There is some mention of racial tension in your songs, most notably "Nigger Eyes." What is the reference to?

DH:  What I meant is that, especially where I live in London, rude boys or just other black kids are just staring, and it’s a horrible feeling. Even across age barriers I just get these looks, I mean, you seem like you understand what I’m saying it’s just that there was no other way for me to explain that.

SIS: What is the best way to deal with this tension?

DH:  Stay indoors

SIS: The term bipster is said to be used to describe Black people who listen to indie rock. You could very well fit into this category, what do you think about this classification?

DH:I think it’s weird. I think it’s … weird. I don’t know what it means. I mean hipster in itself is so vague, let alone a race specific term in relation to it. I used to make this joke that applies. A black person in some hip world would usually have to be an ironic hip-hop version of themselves to be seen as cool so other white kids who wanted to ironically like hip-hop would like them. I don’t know. I make this joke about how one of the reasons I wasn’t looking forward to SXSW is because I figure it being like this. That every night it was going to be this 20-piece band with Megaphones or something, and everyone is like “Wow, it’s amazing. The next big thing!” and then I go on with an acoustic and a violinist and everyone is just like “Wha?” Then afterwards is an ironic hip hop band [laughs] and taking that back to the blipster thing. I really hate ironic hip-hop, or hipster-hop. I don’t get it. The only way you can dance to it is by doing fake, over the top moves. I don’t want to point anyone out, but the worst thing about it is that its usually not that band’s fault, it’s a label who presents them, or the crowd who is attracted to their music. I wish I could remember their names, but like there were A&R dudes who were saying they were the next big thing, and I was like “Oh really, what ‘80s band do they sample?” and they said The Cure. I was like, “that wasn’t supposed to get a real answer!” It was just bright shoes and bad rapping, and kids in the back saying, “Oh this is sick.” I’m really derailing off the topic, but that world is becoming almost a parody of what hip hop is and that creates the blipster.

SIS:  This album is very different from the work you did with Test Icicles. Is this the music you always felt you wanted to play, or are you just distancing yourself from your former band?

DH: Not at all. I don’t even really like acoustic. I do it because I'm forced to play acoustic. I like playing with a full band in England, but money wise, we can’t bring the band over. I don’t even use acoustic live back home, and in the record there is no moment that is just acoustic. I don’t write songs in that nature; I don’t write them thinking what I have to use, I just write them and fill in whatever I need. There isn’t one type of music I just want to do. Everything I do, I want to do at that point, but every album is a photograph, this album is a photograph of a couple years ago but sometimes stuff comes and goes in between that no one ever sees and if people want to put it out, then by all means. That’s what happened with this. That’s what’s interesting about listening now -- for the first time in my life people actually want to hear this, and I'm under pressure when I write, and I'm writing with the mindset that people actually are going to hear this. I’m interested to see how these new pieces come out. If I knew I was going to be doing an album, this would have been a different album. Like when I know the songs aren’t as good, even though I’m really, really trying.

SIS: Building off of that, after the jovial existence of Test Icicles, there was this feel that it was, I don't want to say kitsch, but almost an intentionally cheeky vibe. You now are expressing yourself in very creative ways. What things help to influence this?

DH: It’s just all me, everything I do is me being me. It’s weird, my friendswho have seen the stuff in between and during know that it isn’t anything weird. I forget that people really don’t see the transition, and I really do forget that. So on the outside you can see it being different, it’s me, I don’t know why. I’ve seen things that I wrote in the past recently, and some of it is even the same but it wanders.

SIS:  When you were first developing the concept for this album, what ideas did you have in its formation?

DH: This French composer Alain Goraguer did the soundtrack to Fantastic Planet (Planet of Savages), which I think is the highest form of music, it’s untouchable. That, and Jacques Thollot. Those guys, how they use orchestration, it was a beautiful form. It wasn’t just good music with orchestration on top, and I wanted that for my music. I wanted to make music that was orchestrated well, instead of having someone say “Oh that has strings on top,” I wanted people to listen and not even notice, I didn’t want anything to seem unnecessary. I also listened to a lot of 2 Pac. I wrote all the lyrics before I knew the album was going to be done, so then I went back over it so I could present it to people and have it be a lot tighter. I’m trying to work on annunciation of words and rhythm patterns and phrasing, and how to get lyrics to stick, and a few rappers do that so that they have lyrics that you can remember. They have lines that you can say to someone and you know who that is, or know the song. There is a lot of commercial hip hop that you don’t remember any of, so I’ve tried to focus on that. There is also this mid ‘90s band called Archers of Loaf and some post grunge and also Sloan. It’s weird. Like maybe closer to now, within the past year, I’ve listened to things that are closer to my end product. I’ve still never heard, actually no, I’ve listened to one song, but I never listened to Bob Dylan in my life. It wasn’t intentional. And I listened to Neil Young, but I’ve never gotten deep into it, and when I listen to things, I need to be obsessed. But I have listened to a lot of them now, that’s what usually happens. People will come up to us and say “Oh you really sound like blah-ba-blah ba blah,” and then I’ll check it out.

SIS:  What is Falling off The Lavender Bridge referencing or about?

DH: There is this song called “Lavender” which if I had put it on the album, it would have made things more clear [laughs]. Basically, I’ve always had trouble sleeping, and my mom gave me a stuffed frog stuffed with lavender. And I would have this dream that there would be this bridge, and if I crossed it, I would have a successful nights sleep, so yea...

SIS:  Are the themes from you music reminiscent of what your Lightspeed Champion comic was about?

DH: Yeah, this strip called The Lavender Bridge. I wrote the majority of it before I started the album, and it has the lyrical duality with the music. I never put them together it just came out thought based. I was going to put it out in a huge book, but now I'm going to serialize it. I’ve had meetings with publishers who want to put it out as a graphic novel so that is cool, but they wanted to do it at the time when I literally just decided to put it out in strip form. And I wanted the first issue to come out in May before I kick off my UK tour, but depending on how it works out with the publishers, it may come out in 2009. So we’ll see.

SIS: What do you want your listeners to take away from your work?

DH:  I don’t know. It would be great if it didn’t make them sick.