Interview with Dealers of God

Junk Dealers: Again, thanks for being here. I must say, doing research, I had quite a good time navigating your site, dealersofgod.club. Who designed it? Was it a collaborative effort? Was someone in charge of that?

LIL’ MEATUS: I think. Yeah, it's been a very collaborative effort. We will put together all our ideas, and then we will. I mean, it's all, you know, has a lot of information about us, so we all kind of collaborate on that. That was a very collective group effort.

JD: I learned a lot of stuff reading that. It was a lot of text, but I did read through it all.

LM: Hell yeah, thank you.

[REMOVED AS PER INTERVIEWEE’S REQUEST. THANKS FOR YOUR COMPREHENSION.]

JD: Also, I was glad to read that John City was bailed out with Dealer's Choice funds, What was the story behind that?

JOHN CITY: [SPEAKS SWEDISH]

LM: Okay. I think I can kind of translate. So what happened with John City. It was a while ago that during Visions Of Fuel, there was a bit of a– I'm not really sure how much I'm allowed to say on this or anyone else in the group, please stop me if I'm stepping over it.

It's an ongoing case, so it's a little bit– you know, there's not a lot I can say, but basically that was an incident that happened with the distribution of Visions of Fuel. It was alleged in court that John City was distributing illegal materials [from] Europe to America and then back down to Australia through certain websites.

And this is all alleged but he was imprisoned for a few months. This was right before [Dealer's Choice] so a lot of John City's contributions on our last album were long distance. We couldn't get him but we were able to get him out just in time for a couple of shows down here in Australia.

We are glad to have him back, he's back up in Sweden now, but, we were just glad to, you know, have him down here for a time and glad that he is free from– you know, because, you don't want to be in American prison, especially in Florida, you know? Pretty rough.

JD: Yeah. Wow. That's a lot of info. Thanks for sharing all of that.

JD: You've constantly referred to this project as ambient crunk and we've heard past stuff some of you made, like Thick Dad, and there were some glimpses of that sound already there. When you initially started this, did you already have in mind what you wanted to sound like, or was it something that was built along the way?

DJ CHEESEWATER: In a way, I think that, of course, we evolved each song as it came along, but it was always sort of like a vision– a vision of fuel, you would say– for the first album where we didn't know what we wanted to sound like, but we knew what we wanted it to look like.

Like as: if this song was an object, it would be this ambient crunk. It’s glistening smooth, but yet extremely festering in other ways. And crunk. We knew it would have to be different from anything that we heard before, as well. And party music.

The sound was still very much built around the way we sort of record our music and practice for our gigs, which is, you know, in sort of long sessions, sometimes to multiple days, just getting ourselves to an absolutely unhinged place and seeing what happens and that also definitely shapes the sound, you know, the headspace and mentality that's going into the creation of this music.

JD: How is a Dealers of God track built up? Like, do you pass on an idea between all of you and add stuff to it, or how does that usually go?

FUELGOD: It's different every time. I mean, there are many songs that were created in a similar way, for example, a song like Back Through the East of Dealer's Choice started off with just like a loop and some strings and pianos that I had reversed. And, I think maybe put some drums to it, and I just send that to Cheesewater, Meatus and John City and they just turned it into something far beyond anything I would have imagined for it. And for me, it was just kind of like a nice sounding hip hop, kind of DOG sounding, but it became something, something more. I love it.

LM: There was a bit of a change between Visions of Fuel and Dealer’s Choice, you know, all the VOF stuff was just like freeform jams, recorded mostly live. Then Dealer's Choice was mostly just passing around beats.

A lot of the time we just have these massive long jam sessions where we'll just be freestyling, you know, going hard, just like, absolutely wrecked off of multiple different substances. And we'll just throw everything on the table and then just cut it down later. We'll just record hours and hours of material and then just cut it down.

JD: Would you say that you're like an intimate group?

FG: We're all pretty close. Like we're all friends outside of the Dealers project and we've all collaborated in other projects before. I would say it is very intimate and that is also an integral component or element to the music: our shared sense of humor and our shared experiences.

JD: This is a fragment of your Bandcamp description on Dealer’s Choice. I think this was like the one thing I read that made me want to listen to the album, which goes:

“THIS ISN'T IRONY RAP, THIS ISN'T MEME RAP, THIS IS FRIENDSHIP, THIS IS BURN CITY PSYCHEDELIA, THIS IS OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR LAUGHER, THIS IS OUR GRIEF, THIS IS OUR COMEDY, THIS IS OUR PAIN, THIS IS DEALERS OF FUCKING GOD”

I feel this is most definitely not a random sentiment placed there. I think there really is something about the album that does a really good job conveying that and yet it would be really easy to put it on that meme rap and irony rap box. What would you say distinguishes that from ambient crunk and what you are doing?

LM: Man, I'm so glad you said that because, that's the thing, right? The project isn't a joke. A lot of people think that we're putting it on, that this is all like some sort of big joke.

I was actually talking to FUELGOD about this a while back: people, when they discover something new, that is like nothing they've ever heard, their first instinct is to think that it's some sort of prank being played on them, like it's some sort of joke being played at their expense, when there's something so radical and so new, that they're listening to. And I think that's a very natural reaction.

We do involve a lot of comedy in our music, but that comedy is just like– our music is pure, unpretentious. We're just laying our hearts out on the records and whether that ends up being something funny, sad or beautiful, it's all just completely honest. No matter what we do, it's always honest. We never try to hide our feelings and that's difficult for some people to stomach, we're just really about it.

JD: On Rateyourmusic, and you've probably read this already, one of your collaborators, swanbird, wrote this in her review of your latest album:

“...any claims that the Dealers are merely performing a tongue-in-cheek façade of being actual drug users were not there, standing on a roundabout in the suburbs of Melbourne, moments before the strike of midnight on New Year's Day with the homie, Lil Meatus, queuing the pre-order of this album on Bandcamp for release on your own smartphone and holding it in front of their face so they could hit 'publish' as the year turned over, because they were on too much ketamine to figure out how to access that functionality on their own device.”

I'm not even going to ask if that happened. I think it's pretty specific. I mean, you could go into detail about that because it sounds like a really good story.

FG: There's not much to say. Shout out. Yeah. Shout out swanbird.

LM: Swanny-B. Swanny-B the G. Yeah no, she was helping me a lot. She's probably the only reason that that album actually got published. Like, right on new years, because I was struggling. I lost all motor function in my left hand. It was rough.

JD: Regarding that. So we have this, game called “We Ask the Dealers About Drugs and They Give Us Their Specialized Opinion On Them”. That's the name of the game and we think it explains itself. We have a list of illicit substances and can you just tell us about what you think of them or your experiences. Let's start with a contemporary classic. Fentanyl.

FG: John City, do you want to tell them about that?

JC: Yeah. [SPEAKS SWEDISH]

FG: There you go. Yeah. I'll just cap that up and say that I I don't think I've ever done that voluntarily. I think I may have done it accidentally, but that shit is terrible.

JD: Yeah, probably. So now, let's go with K, Ketamine in a minute. What do you think? About that. What are your thoughts on ketamine?

LM: Ugh, no thoughts on ketamine. I think ketamine influenced a lot of the last album, actually. I mean, all of that music is dissociative in its quality, but ketamine definitely shares a very special place in that, you know, just the energy and the feelings of that. It really does. I don't know. It occupies a very interesting kind of–

Sorry. John City, I think, is going to leave, so I'm just going to let John City say goodbye, and then...

JD: Oh, bummer, but we hope you're fine with that whole thing.

JC: Thanks for the interview and #freejohncity.

JD: Absolutely. Yes.

JC: Peace. Real one. Real one.

JD: We love you John, again, thanks for coming in.

JC: Ciao.

[JOHN CITY LEAVES THE CALL.]

JD: Okay. So now we go with... crack. Let's just go straight to crack.

CW: Never go straight to crack.

JD: True, yeah.

LM: No comment.

FG: Just maybe just some interesting information. Australia is so far from where you guys are in South America. That's why it's. Like it. It's actually so difficult to get the quantities of like coke over here that you'd need to make, like, a lot of, crack cocaine. So a lot of the time when Australians use the word crack, they're referring to, like, meth. That's just some info.

JD: Okay. But then what can you tell us about meth?

FG: Oh. Plenty. Plenty. Yeah. 10/10. No. Yeah. You know, the deal is we walk the line, you know, we walk through the valley of the shadow of death and, you know, put ourselves at great risk when we're making our music, you know, put our minds at great risk. But for that reason, you know, the only meth that we touch is alien. And I won't say much more than that.

LM: We have a lot of alien activity down here.

JD: Yeah, I mean, here in Mexico, we have a lot of, like small creatures, we call them chaneques. They're not mystical. They're real. They're my family. They're just... fucking hiding behind my fridge.

So now what are your thoughts on cough syrup?

CW: We love. I can't speak for all of us but me and Lil' Meatus have made entire albums on cough syrup. It's not always a positive experience, but it is completely and totally unique. And you will never get that bad experience from any combination of anything else. You genuinely feel like an alien and music sounds like– you'll create something, and you won't even have any idea what puzzle pieces you slap together. So you come back to it and everything and it's like you are hearing it for the first time, so it's pretty cool.

LM: So I just want to say the cough syrup that we're talking about is robitussin. We've done our rikodeine as well but [with] robi... you get the itches with it real bad. The whole body itches. It's pretty intense, but it's just something you gotta live with.

JD: This is, like, slightly a different question. I remember you once posted on your Instagram stories that you were selling a copy of your Dealer's Choice album that you used to do– I don't remember if it was speed or if it was coke.

LM: That was speed, yeah.

JD: What are your thoughts about speed? Because it seems like a big deal in the making of that album, right? Or was it?

LM: Yeah, it was. Dealer’s Choice, I think it was, our speediest album, Visions of Fuel, that was really like more of a depressing album. And then I feel like Dealer's Choice is a little bit more “uppers”. Yeah, it's interesting. It definitely fueled the last album for sure.

JD: Okay. Well to close off this game. Last but definitely not least...

[SIMON ANDERSSON JOINS THE CALL.]

LM: This is Simon.

JD: Hi, Simon! Yeah, we're about to close this game with last, but definitely not least. What are your thoughts on weed?

LM: Simon, do you want to, do you want to answer that one?

[SIMON ANDERSSON LEAVES THE CALL.]

JD: Oh. I wouldn't have the words either.

FG: I'll answer this one. I think the last two years ago, it definitely, definitely played a significant part in the creation of the music, not so much for Meatus, but definitely for Cheesewater and myself, it's for sure a big part of the creative process and also just a part of our lives for better or for worse, I suppose. I guess it could be worse. Could be on alien meth. You can never come back from that.

LM: Oh, that's the thing, I laid off the shit because I'm always on that speedy wave and, just say, mixing that with weed can really cook you up. But I still do it from time to time, you know but definitely for FUELGOD and Cheesewater, that is the fuel that sustains a lot of those sessions.

[SIMON ANDERSSON JOINS AGAIN.]

JD: Well, we have been speaking a lot about aliens and I wanted to ask about one of the two pieces of merch that you have released. And that's the DOG shirt, which I think captures the visual identity behind this project, in and of itself. Are there any inspirations behind the visual style? Is this like a Discord and Photoshop situation? Do you have something in mind when you're making those covers and those illustrations?

LM: Shout out, Carter [@carterds on instagram!], for that t-shirt design. I mean, we just sent him a bunch of different images outlining what we're about, then he put them all in that design and came out looking sick. I am really happy with that.

Yeah, I don't know. The visual style is a little “esoteric” kind of imagery. We were really into that. As dream-like surrealism for sure, mixed with Melbourne culture and Burn City culture. Our artwork is about the streets. I mean, a lot of us– I won't name names– but we write graffiti. That's definitely an influence in that. We get that kind of like raw, kind of edge to our stuff that is definitely a big influence.

A lot of it is really like visions we'll have in certain mind states, you know, on a trip and then we'll try to put them to paper and find all these deep internet imagery. Do you have anything to say on that, JASON 12 INCHEZ?

[SIMON SHOWS THE DOG SHIRT ON CAMERA.]

JD: I'm jealous.

SA: [Unintelligible.] (I really tried, I’m sorry, JASON 12 INCHEZ).

JD: I think it's safe to say that becoming part of Dismiss Yourself's lineup helped the album get some of its deserved traction. How did that come to be? And, like, do you think, like, any other label would have worked for you, like, outside of this one?

FG: There's probably some obscure label putting out noise music that would put out our shit, but, I think Sticky from Dismiss Yourself just believed in the sound of the music, the aesthetic and all of the other theatrics that we put into our music and we didn't expect a lot from it. I mean, we all love Dismiss Yourself and it is nuts that they even wanted to support us but I think the project has just really found its audience. And yeah, we hope that that's a relationship that we can continue going into the future, for sure.

LM: Shout-out Sticky.

JD: Shout out “Sticky Dismiss Yourself”, yes.

JD: You're doing live shows too. How has that experience been so far? Were there any difficulties in translating this for a live audience?

FG: Oh, yeah. It was absolutely like a challenge for us. The thing about the way we make this music is that we weren't necessarily thinking that it would ever be performed in any capacity but, you know, Meatus and Cheesewater just started going through the discography, taking it apart, and finding all of the moments that we thought could translate really well into a live setting. But we weren't necessarily sure what the instrumentation was going to look like going into it but it came quite naturally. We just figured out something that created enough engagement, but also enough freedom for us to do whatever we wanted.

With every show, the live audience interaction has just exceeded expectations and gone nuts. We've done everything we can to ensure that happens on our end too, you know, we have absolute pandemonium playing out. We have as many instruments as we can.

JD: What's the weirdest instrument you’d like to use?

FG: I feel like we already use some pretty weird instruments already. We've got an otamatone, which is like a Japanese, sound toy, I guess. You play it like a string instrument or something, it's just like a pitch slide that you can control. I think we've also used, the hulusi, which is like a Chinese woodwind instrument on some of the Visions of Fuel songs. I might be wrong about that, but, yeah, we try to incorporate a lot of that. A lot of synths. Also, flute. I play the flute so a lot of that wind here on the album isn’t a sample that's us.

JD: So, to close off this interview. Where are the Dealers heading after this? What are the plans now?

LM: Oh, we got a lot of things under wraps that we can't say too much about on the horizon. We're definitely quality over quantity– we're a quality-and-quantity-type group. Yeah. We're not releasing like– what was the gap between the last two albums like two years? So, you know, we're just trying to get more collaboration, more long albums, big albums. We're looking at getting orchestras involved in the next one. You know, we've got some even bigger collaborators, people who most would know– not naming names right now. But we've got a pretty big collaborators lineup.

CW: I mean, yeah, some associates. Let's just put it lightly. The inventor of ambient music's brother. His name starts with Roger and ends with, you know... Eno

JD: Oh yeah, what it was like collabing with Brian Eno?

LM: That's the thing, we probably won't be able to get anyone as big as Brian Eno again, because that was kind of just like a one-off thing in that we literally just convinced him to send some recordings, through a friend of a friend, so it wasn't really like a proper collaboration, like we went, you know, in the room with him, per se, for the whole recording. But, I mean, we'd love to work with him properly again. I mean, working with his raw material was incredible, you know, that really did enhance the album a lot. And having that name attached was obviously one of the reasons why the album popped up as much as it did, so we'd love to work with him again.

But yeah, the reason we met him is through Roger. So we came to work with Roger on the next album. It's going to be huge. Yeah. We got, we got like two different projects in the works coming up. We got like a 40–minute-long song on the next one and, the one up to that we can't really say much about, but it's going to be like nothing you ever heard. It's going to redefine music. We can assure you that it won't sound like anything that's ever existed. It's totally new.

JD: Honestly, I'm really excited. I'm going to be listening to that on day one. Can we expect that to come out on New Year's Eve?

LM: We'll see how hard we work.

JD: That's fine. Please take your time all the time you need.

CW: Yeah. We're always on that grind. We spent ages on every single song. I think that's the thing people don't realize too is the amount of absolute, like, microscopic levels of– it's like sometimes we have to like. We have like three or four occasions that we've just remade or something because it's just like, not right. We just disassemble it, reassemble it…shit is going to take a long time.