Interview with Maxim

Check out an interview I did with Maxim over on their website http://www.maxim.co.uk/features/interviews/28216/the_petebox.html

THE PeTEBOX

Beatboxing, music making, singer songwriting man of amazement!

You may have already seen THE PeTEBOX on t'internets with his cover of 'Where Is My Mind' by The Pixies. If you haven't, you'll be thanking us later! Meet the man behind the beats!

By Tom Perkins

March 2012

MAXIM: Tell us a bit about yourself sir!
THE PETEBOX: My name's THePETEBOX, I'm a human beatbox and musician, and I create music mainly using sounds from my mouth, with a collection of loop pedals and effects boxes, which enable me to record sounds and basically build up tracks live to make full sounding songs.
MAXIM: That's the idea behind your album isn't it? Recording each song in one go?
PETEBOX: Well, there's never really been a beatboxing album that's fully hit home with beatbox fans. I'm not saying anything about the musical content or anything, but any albums that have been released by respected beatboxers haven't really gone down with the beatbox fans, because generally the process of making them kind of detaches people from what they normally respond to in beatboxing. They might have cut up their own sounds and programmed them in in the studios, so the overall reason to create a song is there but it just kind of loses the beatbox element. I just thought that I'm inclined to create music in more song format as opposed to programming beats, I'd rather go verse, chorus, verse, sing over the top, stuff like that. I kind of stumbled upon the idea for the album after I made the video for my 'Where is my Mind?' cover by The Pixies, it was just me with my guitar and a loop pedal and it went down really well! So I figured this must be the way to present a beatbox album; a live studio album. Traditional studio set up and environment, but created, performed, mixed, effects added and recorded live all while being filmed for YouTube.
MAXIM: So it's a one take album is what you're saying!
PETEBOX: Absoloutely, and having the video aspect means people can see exactly what I'm doing, they can see when a beatbox loop is going on or if I'm sampling my voice once or over dubbing myself, it's all so people can visualise it and see just what I'm doing and when I'm doing it.
MAXIM: Interaction, that's what we like to see. On the subject of 'Where is my Mind?' were you surprised with just how popular that's been?
PETEBOX: Yeah! Previous to that my highest viewed video was something like 30,000 and it had been up for 3 or 4 years. I got Simon Ellis (director) to film it, with my main thing being that everything was going to be in HD. Had to look great... Simon is not the kind of guy that would just set up a camera, it's all filmed beautifully. I made sure it sounded good so I knew it was a good piece of content, but I genuinely didn't expect the reaction it got. I recently looked at the stats on the video, on the first day it hit 4,000 views which was pretty good going for me! Next day it was 110,000 views, the day after it was 150,000 views in a day... I was ill in bed and my hotmail just filled up with notifications from YouTube and I ended up having to turn them off! Just watched it go viral from there really... it was very heart warming to see all the people posting it on their blogs and telling their friends about it.
MAXIM: The Pixies quite liked it, they linked out to it didn't they?
PETEBOX: Yeah they put it on their website. That was amazing. For me, Nirvana and The Pixies, they're the reason I'm creating music now. So to do a cover of one of your lifelong favourites then have them actually see it AND like it... crazy.
MAXIM: As you mention in the description box of your Pixies cover, you used to be in a band called Swimming. Would you like to talk about them?
PETEBOX: I'm still in the band! We're still going! I play drums for them, we're a bit of an electronic rocky pop type outfit, we just released our second album through Tummy Touch Records and we're about to go on tour in Europe so yeah, totally active! I do like to reference the band as it's just as big a part of my life, just as much as the beatboxing is, so I just wanted to change some of the words in the song to give a nod to them.
MAXIM: Sounds cool! All your pedals and that look might confusing. Have you ever totally fucked up either live or recorded, and did you manage to style it out?
PETEBOX: As soon as you start using a loop pedal your stress levels during shows goes up by at least a million, because if you fuck up, everytime that loop comes round it's like a big hand that slaps you in the face. Could be anything from being slightly out of time, out of pitch, a bit of feedback looping through, anything. Happened to me the other day when I was doing my MGMT cover, the monitors weren't very good and there was no clarity in the top end whatsoever. I'd messed up the high line, and I'm playing along thinking "I can't properly hear this...". Luckily my brother was there taking pictures, so when he gave me a funny look I just sorta went "this sounds shit doesn't it?". It's down to me to make sure I'm going to nail it, and I have to nail it everytime. It sounds quite relentless but once you've practiced enough it just becomes muscle memory, because the process is mechanically what goes where and when. I'm surrounded by samplers, loopers and effects boxes, along with my guitar and singing... I imagine it's quite like doing a dance routine, you just gotta do it enough times so that extra cognitive process isn't there!
MAXIM: We'll leave it to you. You also appear to have had some pretty interesting haircuts over time, what's been your favourite, and who in your opinion has the best hair ever?
PETEBOX: It's weird, because I don't really think about it. My hair isn't really at the forefront of my mind... all it was I used to have longer hair, and then one day I shaved it off. But I didn't wanna just have a completely shaved head so I had a mohican, then I got rid of that and just had two small lines of hair running over my head... it was just dead easy. I only had to shave it once a week to keep it looking the way I wanted it. Then the band started to get a bit more exposure and I felt like I needed to soften up a bit, as I looked like the odd, aggressive one out. Now it's just morphed into it's current state of shaved at the sides and long on the top. As for coolest hair in the world? Let's go with Astro Boy!
MAXIM: What did you do before becoming THePETEBOX? You weren't a hitman or anything were you?
PETEBOX: I used to work in CentreParcs fixing bikes, all the while I was school and uni, I'd be there every weekend fixing the bikes. I started doing beatboxing then realised I could do youth workshops, which paid pretty well. I enjoyed the youthwork, it was pretty interesting, and a nice stepping stone on my way to becoming "an artist" or whatever. We'd make songs and meet kids that were dead good, or weren't that good and then got better. I never feel comfortable though, I'm not like 'Yeah! I'm doing well!' because there's always so much more to do, but for the first time six months ago where I'd just done a string of festivals and wicked gigs around the world and I just thought to myself "I might actually be a professional beatboxer now!". So I'd say the last couple of years I've been a beatboxer, but before then was the workshops and fixing bikes!
MAXIM: We touched briefly on your musical influences, do you have any others? Who are your beatboxing influences?
PETEBOX: I was really into Queen and Beach Boys as a younger kid, then straight into Nirvana after someone gave me Nevermind. It made me feel as if I totally got it, and got me to pick up a guitar and start getting bang into rock music and guitar bands. Then when one of my mates got a flat, they all hung out mixing old school drum and bass, and that was the first time I was turned on to electronically made music. One day someone handed me a CD of Rahzel when he did 'If Your Mother Only Knew' and that was it, then I was into beatboxing, I poured over anything by him and Killa Kela. Listen to it, copy it, meet beatboxers and ask them loads of questions about how they do this and how they do that... so yeah, that was how I learned to beatbox!
MAXIM: How are you finding peoples' reactions to your videos? YouTube can be a scary place sometimes, especially when it comes to grammar.
PETEBOX: Yeah, it's daunting! I put that Pixies video out and it viral, massive, but I'd actually made three videos that day. I just thought "Oh shit..." because now, all of a sudden, it matters what I put up next! I didn't wanna just make a series of videos for YouTube, so that's how I came up with the concept for the album. I didn't wanna just be a covers guy, and I'd be stupid to bring out an album of original stuff, so I just halved it, half mine, half covers. I went through the whole process of making it and it was quite involved, and I'm hoping that it was the right thing to do just to step things up a notch. It's come out great, all the videos look nice and it sounds good. Simon's had a big hand in making everything come out as nicely as it is, and I've ended up with this product where I'm thinking "It should be alright!", but still when it comes to actually uploading it you worry about how many views it'll get, whether it'll get slated, that kind of thing. The first track (Kids), has been a bit of a slow burner, just over the last two weeks the views have gone through the roof. I'm very surprised with the results, but I'm also really happy with the feedback for my own tracks. People are starting to anticipate my next releases which is nice!
MAXIM: Ok, enough lovey dovey stuff. If you could remove one person from the planet, who would it be and why?
PETEBOX: I dunno... it's not really something I'd normally think about. It'd have to be a jokey one really wouldn't it?! All the popular bad guys of the minute are dead! Umm... all other beatboxers, so then everyone can think I made this up! I dunno man, I'm gonna have to lame out on that one. Cause and effect...
MAXIM: Fair enough. If you could bring someone back, who would it be and why?
PETEBOX: I would've loved to have heard what Kurt Cobain would be up to now. He was, unfortunately, already dead by the time I got into Nirvana, and just hearing the post In Utereo stuff... it was getting wicked. He was only 21 years old when he wrote Nevermind!
MAXIM: I think that's something we'd all be curious to hear. What are your plans for the immediate future?
PETEBOX: Release my album, Future Loops, about to go on tour for a month around Europe with my band Swimming, then just loads and loads of shows. We're building shows around the album release, and I've already booked a screening for it. I won't be performing, it'll just be the videos playing out.
MAXIM: We want front row seats. Make it happen. Do you have a favourite quote or phrase?
PETEBOX: Haha, yes, it's from Harry Potter, when Harry is looking into the mirror to see his deepest desires, stuff that'll never happen and that, then Dumbledore says "Harry, it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live". If there's something you wanna change and you know you can't, you shouldn't sit around wishing, you've just gotta let it go.
We like THE PeTEBOX we do. Keep up to date with him on his website, Twitter and Facebook. His album Future Loops is out 11th April 2012. Check out his tour dates in the image gallery!