The Michael James Tapscott Interview
Michael James Tapscott is an Bay Area-based musician and songwriter. Since 2004 he has been recording and performing under the names Odawas; More Animals of the Arctic; Royal Geography Society; China the band; Pacific Walker and his own name.
When and where were born? What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin to fall in love with music? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up?
I’m from the southern suburbs of Chicago, a child of the 80s. Something in the vortex of a Steven Spielberg movie and The Virgin Suicides. Barbecues, brand names, prosperity theology. Really it was idyllic and any whiff of darkness, or the occult was likely in my imagination. Seeing Les Miserables in a downtown Chicago theater with my parents in the late 80s opened my mind to the powerful combination of music and epic narrative. Not particularly. There was a piano nobody ever played and about 10 albums and a hi-fi that didn’t work.
What would you do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your first concert? When did you realize you wanted to spend your time pursuing music and art?
Very typical American suburb stuff, baseball, catching frogs in creeks, Michael Jordan, McDonalds, making fake cigarettes out of rolled up post-it notes. When I was little, I wanted to read all the books that had won the Caldecott Award, something about that medallion on the cover… It was when I fell in love with the critically approved canon. This has led to decades of oppressive consumption, research, spreadsheets, and list making. I went to see Cher with my dad on the opening night of the World Music Theater in Tinley Park, IL on June 2nd, 1990. It was awkward. I dropped out of college sophomore year after 5 major shifts and a serious problem with depression and nerves. It was time to make changes.
Over the years you’ve participated in groups such as China The Band, MAOTA and Odawas. Can you tell me about those first two and how they initially came to be? How did you initially meet your bandmates and when and where did you guys first get together to jam?
China the Band came to be when I met Jeff Moller during a long weekend recording session for a Donovan Quinn album around 8-10 years ago. Neither of us had a lot to do. At that point Odawas was over, but we had been playing with drummer Raphi Gottesman, who is the best and has been with me for every project for the last 10 plus years.
What was the overall vision and approach for the group’s music in those early days? Jumping to Odawas, you guys met and formed in early 2000’s Indiana. Tell me about how this band initially formed and how you guys met each other.
We had a typical country rock via California obsession that is à la mode. Isaac Edwards and I were intrepid reporters and dead-eye critics at the Indiana Daily Student. This is the student newspaper of Indiana University. Our editor told me that Isaac was the best writer on the paper, and I was like, “excuse me, I’m standing right here.” Instead of making him my nemesis, I decided to use the old Michael Jordan method and befriend the guy. The first night we hung out, I played him some demos I had made and he was really into it. Like, really into it. I think we were drunk, but Isaac more than followed through.
The band released its debut album “The Aether Eater” back in 2005. Tell me about writing and recording that record and how the deal with Jagjaguwar came about. The band released its anticipated follow up a couple years later in 2007 entitled “Raven and the White Night”. How did you guys want to approach this album that differs from the band’s debut record?
We had met a guy named Brad Cash who owned a studio in Bloomington, Indiana and were basically given unlimited time and unlimited access to studio tools we had no business messing around with. The whole thing was a vague experiment. Like a stoned ape who was given a copy of Dante’s Inferno and watched Aguirre, The Wrath of God all day. By 2007, we actually wrote some songs instead of just making loose sound experiments. I had made an AOR solo album as More Animals of the Arctic and become obsessed with the story of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, quit smoking weed and got married. I was supposedly a grown up. Meanwhile, Isaac Edwards and Brad Cash finished the album without me in our old rented house out in the country in Elletsville, Indiana. Part of the roof was missing and the cats all had some weird skin problems.
The band released its third and final record on Jagjaguwar in ‘09 called “The Blue Depths”. Tell me about this record and how much the band had changed and shifted before relocating to Chicago just a couple years later. What eventually happened to the outfit in the years to come?
There are people out there who remember The Blue Depths fondly. I know because I hear from them every 3 years, or so. I thought the album would be bigger than it turned out to be. Another artist on the label, as my mother pointed out to me, was winning Grammy’s. In truth, we never tried hard enough. We never had a good live show, mainly because it wasn’t where our interest lay. We wanted to make records that made sense to people our age 40 years into the future. Albums that Light in the Attic would reissue while we were in witness protection. I think we succeeded at that at least once, if not a few times.
I’d like to jump ahead to your solo career that includes albums such as “Sunny CA and The Depths", which I understand are both soundtracks, correct? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
In the time since Odawas dissolved, I’ve worked on two soundtracks, numerous solo recordings and collaborations, the China the band stuff and even an Odawas reunion of sorts with a new ambient project called Pacific Walker. I long for the day when it feels like I’ve said enough and achieved my artistic goals, but like a drunk who’s never hit bottom, or a card counter who’s never busted out, the impetus for change has never come. And so, I will continue to try and find the perfect song and combination of tracks. Check out The Beasts of History on Royal Oakie Records and Tapes!
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