S.F.: It was only six months ago that Superluminal Pachyderm released its debut album. And now you have a new album just released in July called Oddities. You've been hard at work.
K.R.: I kind of got tired of cooking boxes of spaghetti every night and walking it down to the swingset to see what would happen. So I've had more time than I usually do. I also got a new computer, so I sat down and had some fun and didn't have to worry about vacuuming and making ham and cheese hoagies and shopping for washing machines. There was one day when I took a stick of butter and put it on the top of a sliding board to see what would happen. Then I remembered that I was supposed to sing something and I quickly went home so that I wouldn't forget, but I forgot about the butter and when I went back to the sliding board a month later, it wasn't there anymore. I don't know what happened.
S.F.: How has the media's response been to Oddities?
K.R.: Usually everybody tells me it is strange, so I guess that means it was successful unless it wasn't.
S.F.: Is there a central theme to the album?
K.R.: It's about things that are odd. Bags of pens are odd. Soliloquys are odd. Oddities are odd. The dinosaurs were odd, but I think some of them could have been not odd, but I wasn't there so I could be wrong. I'm wondering why they didn't send a space shuttle up to take care of that asteroid or comet thing that landed in the Yucatan. Of course, I don't think they called that the Yucatan because they didn't speak Mayan, or was it Aztec or Italian? I don't know what they called it back then, but my best guess is it ended in "saurus." It's like all these names that end in "son," like mine, but they ended all theirs with "saurus." I mean, how does that come to be?
S.F.: I have to admit that I found everything on Oddities a bit odd, not necessarily musically, but lyrically. Where do you get your ideas for these songs from?
K.R.: If you keep your inputs open for input, like eyes and ears and noses, let it sink in and put your brain on some kind of stirring mode. Then you have these concepts sitting next to each other that normally would not be represented in reality... well, what you and I would perceive as reality if we did not focus on the underlying quantum world. I take two, or three, or even twenty of these juxtaposed ideas and seal them into a musical structure. On the surface they may not make a lot of sense, but when you incorporate the entire universe and the probabilities of all things happening at any given time, the songs begin to make incredible sense. It becomes very clear, like pants on the moon.
S.F.: Wouldn't it be easier to write a song about one particular topic, like happiness, sadness, birds, or whatever?
K.R.: That doesn't make any sense to me at all. It's like going to a water fountain and using your nose to drink. I mean you could use it to clean out your nose, but it wouldn't be useful for drinking. It's like eating with a fork. What's the point?
S.F.: What is "Cliff of Cotton" about?
K.R.: It is about my thoughts on pillows.
S.F.: But I can't make out any of the words. There is all this popping and distorted screaming.
K.R.: Exactly. Don't you agree with my thoughts on pillows?
S.F.: I usually think of sleeping and something soft and comfortable.
K.R.: I think of screaming and popping. Sometimes drooling, but I didn't explore that aspect of pillows.
S.F.: Does "Idiot!" have anything to do with your first group, The Idiots?
K.R.: Except for the line "a train strange enough to eat bowls," it has nothing to do with The Idiots.
S.F.: What does that line have to do with The Idiots?
K.R.: When I was in the middle of banging on a sheet of aluminum I thought about eating a bowl and then I thought about why trains have so many wheels. They're not like buses at all.
S.F.: How did "Potholes and Peas" come about?
K.R.: My friend Earl asked me if I could write a song called "Potholes and Peas." So I did this. Earl often went to the supermarket and always grabbed a cart, even if it was for a few things. One day he bought toothpaste and tea. So I took this concept and added peas to the cart and a pothole in aisle 9.
S.F.: "Ghonk" is an interesting piece of music. How did this song come to be?
K.R.: Well, I had this idea of things happening in multiples of twos. Not everything in nature works in twos, sometimes other numbers appear, but I was more intrigued by subatomic particles having matter and antimatter components. So I thought of all the kinds of things that come in multiples of twos. You have things like salami and sinking cheese holes and hampers and dots and carbon dioxide. Then what would we do with all this "two-ness?" Send it off to a confusion bridge to see if we could get things in threes or fives or something else. I thought we could get bippitybops out of the mix. I mean, what if the universe wasn't just matter and antimatter, but matter, another kind of matter, and a third matter and when they interact strange things happen. Like apple juice forming a ring around Neptune and diaper clouds and marmalade mops. But instead of this happening, the universe became a fascist dictatorship telling us that we can only do what it wants us to do. The universe can keep its pants from falling down and will be a firewall and will feed us Cheerios. But something in the equations can prevent this from happening to the universe. This is where the Ghonks come in. But when they come in and cause things to neutralize and become equivalent so that there is balance, we don't notice and open our inner brains to solar winds and we question whether we can get along with peas and hydrogen. But amidst this confusion, a few smartypants realize the "two-ness" still happens. And we are reminded of stinky fleabags and pipperpops and deodorant and the "two-ness" of these things. As a reprise, the Ghonks are brought back into the song for the sinking of the foundation. It makes me think a lot, but I sometimes forget.
S.F.: What are your future plans for the Superluminal Pachyderm?
K.R.: I have plans for a concept album about all the insane things there are about stuff. I want to do some more experimenting with longer songs giving them more room for development and I want to eat more cheese than I did last year.
S.F.: Thanks for such an insightful interview into your life and project. I wish you the best in your future pursuits.
K.R.: Thanks for the pickles.