MUSIC INTERVIEW: KING FANTASTIC

Falling Upwards – How Killer Reese One & Troublemaker Focused Failure to Create Success

Hailing from the beaches of Los Angeles, MC Killer Reese One and Producer Troublemaker first met on a random night at The Roxy. They became King Fantastic -- the originators of westcoastsynthesizerbeachbumgangstermusic and co-creators of one of the most-viewed music videos of the past few years, the NSFW-Kristina-Rose-star-turn-classic “Who? Where? What?” The master mashers of electro and hip hop recently sat down with Buzzine's Stefan Goldby in our west side backyard bar to tell us how beaches, beats, rhymes, finger snaps, and gun claps came together to help them find a way to convert past failures and potential disasters into the best days of their lives.

 

Stefan Goldby: Let’s begin at the beginning. I understand you guys first met while sharing the bill whole performing with different artists at a show here in LA at The Roxy?

 

Troublemaker: Correct.

 

SG: It couldn’t have been the most immediate, off-the-top-of-your-head thing for the two of you that night to say, “Yeah, we should be in a band together.” What happened?

 

T: [Laughs]

 

Killer Reese One: He f***in’ stalked me!

 

T: We didn’t even meet the night we did a show together: We were on the same bill, but we didn’t even actually meet… I had done a remix for this group called Peter, Bjorn & John which I put a couple different local rappers on it, and then they wanted to do a show with everybody, so they invited all their friends that were rappers, and we had a bunch of different groups on the bill, and one of the groups was Reese’s group, Bleu Collar. So just like every other LA show, there was way too many rappers on the bill, and there was one that was really dope, and that was Reese…

 

KRO: That’s f***ing me, motherf***er! [Laughs]

 

T: That was this guy. And I didn’t stay for the whole show, but when I left, I basically asked all my friends if anybody knew Reese, and it took about six months, but my old roommate happened to be out one night and texted me: He was like, “I think this is Reese standing next to me.” [Laughs] And I texted him back and I was like, “Get his phone number, asshole!”

 

KRO: [Laughs] Yeah.

 

T: So I called him the next day and we met up, and I played him a bunch of tracks, and…

 

KRO: …it was good money. I went in the house, literally, and I told my son’s mom. I went in the house and I told her, “This is either the moment where I’m f***in’ completely trippin’ and selling out like doing some weird s***, or this is about the best s*** I’ve done that I’m about to do.” And then, obviously, it’s the best s*** I’ve done…

 

T: Obviously.

 

KRO: [Laughs] So that’s how that came about. I had no concept of anything he was doing: It was just the beats were dope to me.

 

T: And I had swore I was never going to work with a rapper again either, because it’s an ‘interesting’ relationship always, between the rapper and the producer, but we managed to make it work.

 

KRO: Yeah, I am not a hassle and he is not a hassle. We both share the same grumpy old man quirks, so it’s a very streamlined process. There’s no bulls*** in the studio. You don’t go to the studio to dick around all day. Because we do one and done. There’s never more than one song done a day. I don’t even think we sit in the studio for more than two or three hours, ever.

 

SG: You had both made music before you met, with Rad Omen and Bleu Collar – you’d been around the block a couple of times. How did that end up helping for King Fantastic? What was the stuff that you already got out of the way, that you could just start beyond from day one on this project?

 

KRO: For me: complete failure. Like, Bleu Collar… we were super dope, and people who were less than us got hits; it was failure. So for me, I was just gonna go balls-out with the King Fantastic project because I had already did what I considered the dope-est s*** possible to do, and it didn’t work, so people were obviously morons. It’s not me, it’s them! So that helped me. With this s***, I was just like, “Whatever”. It’s balls to the walls. We’re gonna do what we feel like doing. [To Troublemaker] I told you that. Remember when I was like, “I like the beats, but I’m gonna keep it all the way gangsta”?

 

T: Yeah, and I said, “Go ahead.”

 

KRO: Yeah, he said, “That’s what you’re here for,” so that’s what helped me with that… you might as well make music that you like that’s dope, because you’re gonna fail anyway…

 

T: [Laughs] We’re all failures!

 

KRO: We’re failing now. [Laughs] We’re in the midst of failing.

 

SG: Your music and lyrics can often seem like two giant middle fingers to the music industry…

 

T: [Laughs] Because we’re failures!

 

SG: …and now it all makes sense.

 

T: See? [Laughs]

 

SG: What went wrong in the world of music, and what are you guys doing to put it right?

 

T: Oh man. Everything’s gone wrong? In the world?

 

KRO: Everything.

 

T: We’re just a little bit older and a little bit wiser, and we just do it our way with no care really, because…f*** ‘em.

 

KRO: It doesn’t matter. It’s like some sort of metaphysical algorithm. I haven’t figured it out yet. So it doesn’t matter. You might as well just do what you’re gonna do. You’ll get on or you’re not gonna get on. There’s people out there who are super poppin’ that are super garbage. So do what you’re gonna do.

 

T: Do you want to sound like everybody else? That’s their thing. I always wanted to sound different than everybody else, even if it’s a little bit ahead of the curve and it doesn’t come around for you on the front end. People always know. So when we got together, it just worked. We only planned to do one song, and then one song began three and three became five and five became ten, and two weeks later we had an album, and here we are today. It’s been a year and a half maybe, since we started working on music. So keep going!

 

KRO: No, actually I think we’re coming on our two-year anniversary, dude, of meeting… did you buy me something?

 

T: No. I thought you were buying me something.

 

KRO: Well you let me keep some of that money from this month, so that was kind of like an anniversary there. Thanks, babe! [Laughs]

 

T: I was going to get you a ring, but that was actually cheaper, so it’s cool. I lucked out on that one.

 

KRO: You did. I did too.

 

T: Thanks for reminding me of our anniversary. [Laughs] I have it in my calendar, but my computer broke.

 

KRO: Mine too. [Laughs]

 

SG: After getting together two years ago, last year you released the Finger Snaps and Gun Claps album, and even now, a year later still, there’s a certain video from that album that a thousand people go to watch every single day. What do you remember about the making of the “Why? Where? What?” video, now that is something that has catapulted you guys into the consciousness of a million music fans (and counting)?

 

KRO: Failure!

 

T: [Laughs]

 

KRO: A perfect example of another failure. Laura Prepon was supposed to be in that video. I wrote a different treatment – same concept, but Laura Prepon was supposed to be…

 

T: …she was the housewife, not the maid.

 

KRO: Yeah, there was going to be this whole s***… Failure: Lack of proper planning and something happened on her side. She got yanked. We fixed s*** on our end - that’s how we roll. He knew somebody, and we got Kristina [Rose], and then bam, bam. So instead of Laura Prepon, which would have still been a dope video, now we got a porn star smashing s***, so it worked out. That worked out of a failure and out of Kristina stepping up and tweaking the thing…

 

T: There was no call for nudity in his original treatment, nor the one where she actually was in it – it just happened. She went all out, and she’s dope.

 

KRO: She is dope. She is a motherf***in’ porn star, though, so it wasn’t hard to get her up out of them clothes. But she killed the video. It was awesome – short notice. That’s a million on Vimeo. I’m gonna always say that. I’m gonna always add that little caveat. That’s a million on Vimeo. Not just scattered around YouTube. We can’t even count our YouTube plays because they keep taking it down. But it says 1M on Vimeo. It did say 1000k for a while, but now it says 1M, and you’d be hard-pressed to find any video on Vimeo that says 1M. Because we’re f***in’ failures. Do you see what I’m saying?

 

SG: It’s almost insane, the quality and number of videos that you guys have made. Every couple of months, there’s a great new King Fantastic video. There have aways been music videos, but for a purely independent artist to be able to make this amount of great music videos to go along with their music is a new thing to me… but why was it such a big deal for you?

 

KRO: I was not going to be outdone by the Rad Omen video. I’m a video guy. After college and some other time, in one space of my life, I was in art school to do video and things like that, so I was into that already. But when I came in to this situation, they had the “Rad Anthem” video, and it was a super dope video, and I won’t accept, like “Your other group is gonna have a s***ty video?” So at that point, it became a part of our whole thing. If you’re gonna do it, do it super clean, do it super crispy. Try to be better than everybody else. I think we both come from those eras. Busta Rhymes’ videos used to be crazy.

 

T: Yeah, Hype Williams was dope.

 

KRO: Yeah, and videos were a big deal. Now some videos just look like extended photo shoots, which is fine. But unless there are, like some other videos which you have in your catalog… I don’t know… Now I’m just over here on my own. [Laughs] Whatever, man. It is no way possible to not sound like a fool in an interview. No way possible.

 

T: When your stuff is so good, it’s hard to be humble… [Laughs] No, we make good videos. Once again, we’re a little bit older, so we actually grew up in the era when there were music videos on television, and we were wowed. People used to make really dope videos, and now the good and the bad is any asshole with a camera can make a video, but at the same time, only a really smart, talented, successful asshole can make a really awesome video, and we are smart and talented assholes, and we know a lot of smart and talented assholes, and we come together to make really good videos. And he’s got great ideas… It just works.

 

KRO: My think tank is a motherf***er. It is not to be played with. [Laughs]

 

T: And the people we work with on the videos – Nick and f***in’ Randal Kirk and Andrew, and everybody that works with us – it’s like a mutual respect and trust…

 

KRO: Bitch Poison…

 

T: Let’s not forget the almighty, mighty Bitch Poison. And they’re fun. When you go all out, it makes it a lot more fun. There’s a rush to it. And then when you actually have it and people really like it, it’s also a really good feeling, so you want to keep on doing that.

 

SG: The latest video came out this week and is a little more low key – it shows you in your natural habitat at the beach…When people think of the west side of LA, while there is definitely an association with music, stretching back to The Doors, but hip-hop isn’t the first kind of music that comes to mind. Is the beach an inspiration? Is it a big part of your music, or is it just where you live?

 

KRO: No, it’s everything. It’s the whole thing. Yes. The beach is everything I am. That west of Lincoln thing – that’s my s***. My family is from Compton: everybody is from Campanella Park, except my dad, and a couple people from the west side, but everybody else is from Campanella Park. Compton: 148th. But we moved to Venice when I was 12 going on 13, and those things mixing together – yeah, it’s everything.

 

It’s what puts that smug wit on the s***. Like I’m a gangster from Compton, but I went to a private school for a good portion of time and s***. So I’m kind of a smug jerk. Every time I’m locked up, most of my bulls*** that I get into comes from me being like a bougie nigger and talking out of my ass, and my mouth gets me into some bulls***, but it’s because I’m from the west side too. This is my house, and I’m very proud of it. I love that place. And that video was one of those extended photo shoots. [Laughs] That was basically a commercial for King Fantastic hoodies, because that’s not a King Fantastic song. So it’s like one of those Reese songs, random, floating in the world…

 

T: Reese rapping.

 

KRO: Yeah, but it’s a King Fantastic commercial, if that makes any damn sense.

 

T: Strong marketing and promotions. Very strong. We’re good.

 

KRO: Yes! [Laughs]

 

SG: So, the west side gave you a velvet glove to put on over your fist?

 

KRO: Exactly. You can’t brutalize everybody; it gave me the ability to run the mental gambit too. White boys sometimes…you slap the s*** out of them and you’ll get punished harder for slapping the s*** out of a black person, so you have to learn how to whip a white boy’s ass in his brain sometimes. So I learned that when I was growing up, so I got to mix all this s*** together. I’m a motherf***er. I’m the whole pyramid. [Laughs] But all my baseball s***… like who I am…I’m a beach bum guy.

 

I’m a gangsta nigga, but I’m a beach bum kind of human being. I want my son to be a professional beach volleyball player or something, and basically live off of whatever money we make doing this. Because he’s hot. He’s really hot. I have a very good-looking kid.

 

T: He’s gonna be a beast.

 

KRO: Yeah, he is. Oh, he’s so sexy. [Laughs]

 

SG: As much as you’d love to keep talking about how sexy your son is, maybe we should talk a little more about music…

 

KRO: He is music!

 

SG: Because music is life?

 

KRO: No, it’s not. Well, I guess in some senses… It’s not these days. Music is a disco ball these days.

 

SG: Let’s keep that ball spinning and get back to the music: The one thing you can’t ever do-over is a debut album – so what in hindsight about Finga Snaps are you happiest with?

 

T: All of it. It’s dope. It’s a good piece of work. And hopefully, knock on wood, it hasn’t seen its end. Just like you were saying about the video still has a thousand people checking it out every day, people hit us up that they just heard our record for the first time. So one of the joys of being independent is it’s a longer journey, but it’s also super rewarding, and that’s the best thing about that record – it attracts so many people that, to this day, they hit us up, and hopefully we’ll get to put it out…you know it’s never been out on CD. It’s been for free of the Internet or on iTunes, so hopefully it will be in stores or we’ll repackage it with all our videos and do something cool.

 

KRO: It has legs. We still haven’t even put out the “Bonfire Sessions” video.

 

T: Yeah, that’s almost done.

 

KRO: I think that only 5% of the people who are going to hear that album have heard that album. That’s how I feel about it. And that’s what’s good about it is that you hear it and it rarely gets shat on. It does get hard. I’m super-duper critical of myself, and I wasn’t even gonna do music anymore, so I wouldn’t put out anything that was less than, and song for song, I’ll stack it against anybody’s s***. Anybody whose album came out that year – let’s sit down and let’s f***in’ match the songs and let’s see what’s up. I think we win. I will always feel like that. I was talking that reckless s*** early on – that I thought we had the best album of that year.

 

SG: And that album is up on your website right now for free. As independent artists you can do that. You can say, ”Music is pretty much free for everybody at this point. Here it is. Get it direct from us.” But then you’ve been able to drop single tracks, like “Choke”. You’ve been able to drop remixes. You’re able to drop Death of Summer as an EP this year. For as much as that debut album still stands up and is still fresh to somebody who hears for the first time today, where are you guys now musically, compared to where you were a year ago for the album?

 

T: I think our sound is still…I don’t want to say the same in that we’re monotonous, but we’re still doing the same s***. The one thing, I guess, is Reese says a lot by saying a little, and therefore I have to do the same with the music, and we’re on a constant evolution of that. Finger Snaps and Gun Claps was us meeting and figuring that out and putting together the puzzle, and the puzzle working, and since then we’ve tried some other things. Death of Summer, we went really hard, and our next record, which we’ve started to work on, will be like a culmination of all that stuff, and new stuff as well. We’re not gonna abandon any sound… I was going to say we’re like The Beatles… I’m sorry: I totally apologize to all The Beatles. [Laughs]

 

KRO: F*** The Beatles! [Laughs]

 

T: But we can go down different paths, depending on where we are, because we are independent, if we’re pissed and we’re depressed and we’re in a dark mood, you get Death of Summer, and if we don’t give a f*** and we’re happy at the beach, you get Finger Snaps and Gun Claps.

 

KRO: You get “Choke” if we run into one of our drug addict artist friends… Like he said, with Finger Snaps, we saw that it worked there, and I think every time now we’re trying to just see how far we can go with this. Now we see that we can really do it. The people will come with us. We are lower on the totem pole because we’re independent, as far as our scope. But we can dictate the pace.

 

We’re not confined by having to sound like anybody or pull anybody. Because common knowledge would say, “Make yourself accessible to kids”, or something like that. But I say that’s an insult to kids. Keep pushing the pace - You tell them what’s okay to do, what’s supposed to sound correct, and they’ll come with you. And now, because we’re independent, we can just mash. If we wake up one day with an idea, it can happen. That video you saw that I put out the other day, I shot it last week.

 

T: He just wakes up and he’s like, “I’m gonna make a video today.” [Laughs]

 

KRO: Yeah, same with the “Bassnectar” video. I woke up one morning and I was like, “I’m gonna make a video for ‘Bassnectar’ today… for ‘Bass Head’”, and he said, “Yeah.” And then me and my homegirl – my ex-girlfriend from college – she shot it on one of these [points to Buzzine’s DSLR camera] or something like that. So it’s fun. The appreciation we get when we do something like that…it’s good to be a part of. It’s all good.

 

T: And as we continue to work, it’s going bigger.

 

KRO: We’re Nike, okay? We’re gonna go against conventional wisdom in the beginning for the f***ing huge payout on the back end, like f***ing Phil Knight. [Laughs] Okay? We are Nike. These will sell… for $180. They made the world buy $180 tennis shoes…

 

SG: And they made people beg to buy them…

 

KRO: …line up to buy that s***. I love it: It’s my favorite s*** ever. I love Nike. It’s so American. I love it. That attitude is American: Nikes and Chevys, baby. [Laughs] It’s all good.

 

SG: For you, a side of mythology is also all good when served up with your music: a little bit of myth-making, a little bit larger-than-life. Your videos have predominantly gone down that route: How far would you like to go to confirm or deny that you live that kind of lifestyle - what has been the best rockstar moment for King Fantastic so far?

 

KRO: Wow, you just jumped right into my head! I don’t know…

 

T: …yeah, yours is good: Thank me, but his is the best. Are you gonna say that s*** on camera?

 

KRO: Hell yeah I am. You’re goddamn right. Mine was beginning to… socialize with the Playmate of the Year. That’s rare. There are Playmates, and then there are Playmates of the Year. So that was one, but other than that, dude. I’m f***in’ an old man: I don’t do anything. Those videos are snapshots of what used to happen. Like how s*** used to go. The guns… I still have those around, just in case the government gets out of control or something like that. I mean out of control as it pertains to me and they want to bring that s*** to my front door. They’re already out of control: Just don’t bring that s*** to my house. Keep that s*** off the beach and we’ll be fine. [Laughs] But not really rockstar stories, man. I used to be, though. I used to be. [Laughs].

 

King Fantastic’s debut album, ‘Finger Snaps & Gun Claps,’ and latest EP, ‘Death of Summer,’ are both available now directly from the artist.