Interview: ROYCE “The
Tuff Love Of Royce” An Interview
with ROYCE: Justus Roe / DJ White Lightning and Jamie from Royce ( Sept 2006 ) Interview
by Todd E. Jones aka The New Jeru Poet toddejones@yahoo.com
Music is one of the most commanding and
influential forms of love. In every metropolitan area, love comes in a
myriad of forms. For the Chicago band, Royce, bittersweet love has
prevailed throughout the many years. They have a love for Chicago. They
have a love for each other. Most of all, they have a tough love for
music. Do not confuse Royce with Detroit emcee, Royce Da 5’9”. The
Chicago band, Royce is actually a complete group that creates more than
just hip-hop music. Jamie Clemmons handles the vocals and guitars.
Conor Klaus keeps the rhythm with the drums. Two of the members inhabit
one human body. Justus Roe (bass player) is also known as DJ White
Lightning, creator of the beats.
Signed to the hip-hop label Galapagos
4, Royce offers more than “hip-hop” music. Although they create thick
grooves and rhythms for emcees, their influences of European disco and
indie rock shine through their music. “Subtleties Of The Game”
(released on Galapagos 4) was Royce’s debut album. Although a majority
of the album consisted of instrumentals, Jamie did provide his melodic
vocals along with the emcee, Qwel. Recently, Royce released their 2006
sophomore album, “Tuff Love” on Galapagos 4. Their musical maturity is
undeniable due to the various themes and styles. Vocally, more
Galapagos 4 emcees contribute to the album. Mestizo & Offwhyte
rhyme on “Ebbs and Flows”. Robust adds a verse on the song, “Girls on
Bikes” (an ode to women who ride their bicycles). Dreas is featured on
“Ocean Summer Mist”. The album’s most brilliant track, “City Heat”
features Qwel and Meaty Ogre on the microphone.
Royce is one of those rare, real indie
bands. They are not constricted to an image or a fleeting trend. They
are not a get rich quick scheme or an activist slogan on a t-shirt.
They are not a gimmicky rock/hip-hop band. Instead, Royce consists of
simply middle-class musicians from Chicago, who create thick grooves
with some hip-hop and dance music.
TODD
E. JONES:
“What goes on?” JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING:
“Last night, we opened for Kool Keith. I’m hurting right now, but it
was really cool to hang out with him for the brief time we did. He was
touring the new Dr. Octagon CD. He was real cool. He’s a freak, man.
What goes on? I’m working actually. If I told you where I was working,
you wouldn’t believe me. I’ve got the best city job in Chicago. I’m
sitting in a trailer, in a park, in air conditioning.” TODD E. JONES:
“You’re a park ranger?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Nah, I work for the city of
Chicago, for this program. I sit in a trailer all day for the summer. I
pass out government lunches to kids. That’s how I can afford to do
Royce.”
TODD
E. JONES: “The new Royce album, ‘Tuff Love’ was just released. Tell us
about it.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Basically, we did an album before
that called ‘Subtleties Of The Game’. That was our little debut. It was
kind of awkward because we are on Galapagos 4, which is a label with
mainly hip-hop and we’re a live band. We were tough in the waters. It
did pretty well. We got a good response. We toured that a little bit
and we were just playing shows with all of the Galapagos 4 people. We
thought we should do an album together and started to collaborate with
the people there. We were getting out little electro-psychedelic pop
thing in and combining them with the beats. We were getting into this
new hip-hop pop, I guess.” TODD E. JONES: “How was this album
different from your debut album?"
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “There were a couple of songs done in
Portuguese and Italian. On this album, our songs are in English. On
this one, we have four or five duos from Galapagos 4. They either
contribute beats or rhyming. I actually got Qwel to sing instead of
rap. That was pretty cool. That was different.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What was the recording process like for the new album? How
was it different from other times?" JAMIE: “‘Tuff Love’ was the first
album we recorded at the Gentriphied Studio, which in itself, was a big
change for us. The concept of the album also went through a number of
changes, leaving behind some of the more light-hearted songs that were
recorded in favor of a more somber, even dark feel that I still feel
represents the experience of growing up in Chicago accurately. A lot of
heart and soul went into making ‘Tuff Love’, making it reflect our
youth, heartbreak through a full flavored sonic experience.” TODD E. JONES: “I love the song,
‘Vladimir’.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Yeah, it’s our ode to European
discotheque.”
TODD
E. JONES: “The song actually reminds me of Trisomie 21. Did you ever
hear of them?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Oh, yeah. I think so.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What inspired the song, ‘Vladimir’?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “For doing live shows, that was one of
the easiest pre-set sounds on Micro Chord. It just sounded like every
bad disco in Europe that we went to. We wanted to tweak it to make it
good and add live Chicago house style disco music over it.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What is the meaning behind the title, ‘Tuff Love’?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “‘Tuff Love’ is that neighborhood
mentality. There’s a history. People were harsh on you but that was
because they were someone you love. We all grew up in Chicago. It’s
kind of like reminiscing of growing up in Chicago, but also the longer
perspective of how the city is going, and how most of the country is
going. The gentrification! America, the superpower is taking over the
world. Things that you thought would be forever are wiped out. Me and
the lead singer grew up in this one neighborhood. Both of our families
got financially forced out of it. The rent and taxes and all of that
sh*t. We kept on moving further and further away from, at the time, was
a beautiful environment to grow up in. We kept on thinking, ‘Why is
that gone? Why aren’t we living on the block we grew up on with the
families we grew up around?’ Now, we drive past the streets and there
are these million dollar mansions. You can’t even touch it. There’s a
lot to do with that. That’s just a middle class blanket. Think of that
on a grander scale in Chicago with people who have no control over how
their lives are dictated by the city. That’s the tough love, the
toughness dictated by the neighborhood. That situation and that
pressure.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Do you think that the middle class is dissolving?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “I don’t know. I don’t think it is
dissolving, but it is definitely reached a point where we have to
choose a side. You either have to be working in the financial industry
to live in Chicago or you will be further out. There was this big
flight to Chicago and it is re-landing now. All of these people are
coming back into the city, pushing the local yokels out.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What's the meaning behind the name, DJ White Lighting?" JAMIE: “It's Native American. It
means, he who gives alligators back rubs.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “DJ-ing many house parties growing up,
I would go from hip-hop into funk into disco into house and at the peak
of the house portion. When the entire party would be in the zone, I
would drastically blend in classic rock hits as in Steely Dan, or the
Cars or Fleetwood Mac. Hence forth, I was dubbed White Lightning. It
may have also been my affinity for big bear malt liquor. Who knows?”
TODD
E. JONES: “What is the main thing that every good DJ needs?” JAMIE: “Good records.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “A reason to make people celebrate.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Favorite song on the ‘Tuff Love’?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “I think the one of the ones I listen
to most is ‘Vladimir’. That’s up there. I also like ‘Milwaukee’. It was
my favorite one to work on and the most lasting one. It’s tough to say.”
TODD
E. JONES: “On the new album, which song took you the longest to do from
conception to completion? Why?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “‘Milwaukee’ took a really long time.
I felt like Brian Wilson long to get it done.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What is the meaning behind the name Royce?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Well, the band grew up together. We
were always friends. I got a bass and the drummer, Conor Klaus looked
in a local paper for a drum set. He went and bought the cheapest drum
kit possible, which was a Royce kit. We got to f*cking around. When it
got time to figuring out a name, I was like, ‘It says Royce on the kit
already. It will save us some time.’ As a joke, we called the band
Royce and it just kind of stuck. It was a high school move. We were
going to call it Nakatomi Plaza or Die Hard.”
TODD
E. JONES: “How did you meet everyone in the group and decide to form
Royce? Was there a philosophy behind the group?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Me and the lead singer grew up
together. The band and I all went to the same high school. That’s
basically when we came together and started doing music. I was already
into music. I was way into recording”
TODD
E. JONES: “How have your parents influenced your music?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “My dad was kind of a rock star in the
70’s a little bit. His story is real interesting. He was in a band, The
Messengers, which was going to be the first white band signed to
Motown. He was so young and he needed his parents to sign the contract.
My grandfather read over it and he was like, ‘No. We’re not going to
sign this’. It was basically a raw deal. My dad went from that. He did
an album in L.A. on Asylum. This was before it became Elektra/Asylum.
He played with a lot of people. He moved to Chicago, did a couple
projects. He’s basically a singer/songwriter. He does music a little
bit. It’s pretty crazy. He was always ahead of the game. He was trading
in all of his instruments and analog stuff to go digital, before anyone
went digital. He had one of the first digital converters. There were
always drum machines around. That’s how I started doing music. I
definitely got my hands on drum machines pretty early in life. He was
always pushing me to do live music too.” TODD E. JONES: “Do you have a
favorite instrument?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Not really. I love playing the bass,
but I like to play a little bit of everything, definitely. I’m playing
more guitar these days. I do like the MPC.”
TODD
E. JONES: “When creating a track, do you have a set theme or idea first
or the music first?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “It will usually come out of us just
trying different rhythms.” TODD E. JONES: “So, the music of
Royce is based on improvisation?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Yeah. We’ll come up with a little
hook here and there. We’ll overwork it and reform it so many times that
we will come up with different sections and grooves. I bought this
cheap Hammond organ and a lot of the tracks, like the backing tracks,
came from that.”
TODD
E. JONES: “On the song, ‘Power, Money And Influence’ from Guru’s
‘Version 7.0: The Street Scriptures’ album, Talib Kweli remarks that
Pro-Tools made producers lazy. Do you agree?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Yeah, I abstain from Pro-Tools. I
don’t use it ever. It’s kind of changed now, but I don’t know. For a
while, I’ve worked with many engineers. Did you ever hear a really
great record that you want to hear forever that was done on Pro-Tools?
A lot of people will say, ‘No.’ If you ask someone their favorite rap
album or rock album or whatever, the album was usually done on some
really simple equipment and done on tape. That forces you to look at it
in a different way. Pro-Tools is like cut and paste. You can do great
things. I’ve heard great things from that style of recording, but
there’s something about analog that forces decision making.”
TODD
E. JONES: “There have been actual scientific experiments between the
analog and digital recording.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Oh yeah! In digital recording, you
lose a lot of the frequencies. For digital, it’s not the same thing.
It’s not the same warmth. There is something to be said for digital
recording. You can do a lot of cool shit. It’s making it acceptable.
I’m waiting for people to do something really cool with it.” TODD E. JONES: “Who are some artists
or producers you would like to collaborate with in the future?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Geez. I don’t even know. I want to
work with The Zombies. I’d love to do a beat for MF Doom some day. I
want to work with Stereolab!”
TODD
E. JONES: “I also love the collaboration between Common and Stereolab
called, ‘New Wave’.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Yeah. Awesome! That guy’s the sh*t.
I’d love to get in their studio for the day.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Galapagos 4 is mainly a hip-hop label. Royce has hip-hop
roots, but there is a strong electronic and pop element. How has this
been an obstacle?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “It hasn’t been an obstacle at all.
It’s been a great vehicle to get us out to the world. Especially, the
Galapagos 4 fan base is pretty open to everything out. I don’t think
they are pigeonholed into just hip-hop. Occasionally, we’ll do hip-hop
shows where people don’t know Galapagos 4. They don’t know how to react
to us. They think that they are going to a hip-hop show and it is
implied, but when they get something different, it’s kind of hard to
accept it right away. If you go to a total Galapagos 4 show which
includes all of the DJ’s and different groups, it will all make sense.
Then, they will be like, ‘Oh! I get it!’ Then, they can recognize that
Royce is doing fresh music.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Many hip-hop groups, like Atmosphere, are working with live
bands on stage.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “There’s something about the energy of
actually doing something live on stage. The emotion that it brings out?
An iPod can’t hold that. Although an iPod can do great things.”
TODD
E. JONES: “How did you get the deal with Galapagos 4?” JAMIE: “Did you ever see ‘The
Muppets Take Manhattan’? It was kind of like that. Just a lot of
persistence, Tombstone pizzas, and falafel. Also, we raced Huffys
together, which led to a deep bond never to be broken.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Threatening phone calls, creditors,
repo men, and everyone pulling together to make it happen.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What are some major misconceptions do you think people have
of you?" JAMIE: “That I can dunk.
Sure, I look like I should be able to stuff a fool 180 degrees from the
base line, but I prefer to pop the 3 point.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “That I like hip hop- when it is
clearly rap that moves me.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Has having white people in the group been an obstacle in
hip-hop?" JAMIE: “No. Hip Hop isn't
about being a particular race."
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Not in hip hop, but there have been a
few rap crowds that were tough to win over.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Who are your biggest influences?" JAMIE: “Nick Spizzirri, our newest
member. He's got that wild style."
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Early Chicago house DJ's, Prince
Paul, Kool Keith, T-Rex, Brian Wilson, Brian Eno, acid house and
acid, Tropicalia Records, Zombies, Steve Albini, Medusas and Club Neo
in Chicago, Yaz, Pet Shop Boys, Caetano Veloso, Marcos Valle, Vincent
Gallo, Ween, and my dad.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What are some of your favorite films?" JAMIE: “‘Donny Darko’, ‘Pee Wee's
Big Adventure’, ‘Predator’, ‘Enter the Dragon’, ‘Amadeus’, ‘Amelie’,
and anything with Clint Eastwood.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “‘The Big Lebowski’.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Where were you on the September 11th terrorist attack? How
did you handle it?" JAMIE: “I was working at a
bookstore. At first, it wasn't clear what had happened although I was
sent home, which was nice. I had made it to my friend’s house and
was on the couch with a Old Style in hand when the buildings fell. It
was surreal. I had only a month or two. Prior, I worked for a brokerage
company that had asked me to do some training at the Towers. Instead of
accepting their requests, I quit. Had I accepted, I'd have been in the
towers. Instead, I was on my buddy's couch, drinking a frosty one.
Surreal"
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Downtown Chicago. I made sure my mom
was on her way out of downtown, went down to the lake, estimated the
distance of the John Hancock building falling to the beach, and walked
to the far north side to a friends coffee shop. I got drunk and met up
with some people. In backyard, later that night, I watched the F-14s
make square grids above Chicago. I talked to my cousin, who months
earlier, had signed up for the national guard. He was called up
immediately. He was then shortly sent to Iraq. He has returned and
re-upped. I feel guilty that I had the time and the means to even work
on music and not be in the army myself. Then, the next day, we threw a
post-terrorist attack party in a friend’s high rise to get people
together and overcome the paranoia. I also remember making a point to
get out our multiple friends of Muslim heritage there to help combat
against the pressure they were feeling. I also remember DJ-ing, having
one of those religious DJ-ing sessions, mixing in Lil Louis French
Kiss, seeing how it was a longer 12", and deciding to go to the
bathroom while it was playing. Being in the bathroom, I heard some one
take the needle off. Then, I remember belligerently slapping my homie,
Jash One, who did the Royce album cover, in the face and sort of
wrestling / boxing.”
TODD
E. JONES: “These days, what is a typical day like for you?" JAMIE: “There is no typical day
for me, each day is absurd."
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Record music till I’m too tired then
read Harry Potter, obsessively check e-mail, watch and constantly check
the BBC news, make lists of projects, and try to set up bocce
ball tournaments.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Are you in a romantic relationship these days? Has touring,
recording, and the lifestyle affected relationships?" JAMIE: “I'm a very loving person.
‘Tuff Love’ explains quite a bit actually."
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Yes, no. Although Heather B is, I
think, did, with hanging out at hip hop shows.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Do you think success and credibility are mutually exclusive?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I
guess my expectations are a little lower.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What LPs have you been listening to in the last 3 days?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Well, in the last few days, I did
just get a f*cking iPod. For some reason, all the music that I got is
shuffling between 50 Cent and Joy Division. It goes from The Smiths,
Joy Division, and New Order to 50 Cent and Count Bassie and MF Doom.
Then, there’s a little bit of Elliot Smith too.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Ah! Joy Division! Ian Curtis! ’24 Hour Party People’ is an
incredible movie.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Yeah, I love that movie.” TODD E. JONES: “Did you ever go to
Wax Trax Records in Chicago?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “I used to go to Wax Trax all the time
when I was little. It was the sh*t. It was one of the funniest places
to go.
TODD
E. JONES: “What is your favorite part of your live show?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Being able to do the sign of the
devil to the hip-hop crowd to get them into it. For me, that’s it.
Also, when it is clicking and everything is sounding right. I like when
you have a good atmosphere and the crowd is sounding hype. I like it
when I’m hitting it hard and syncing up with the whole group.”
TODD
E. JONES: “How has Royce evolved?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “We were very jammy, not like a jam
band, but we would just try to improvise live house music for hours.
That’s all we would do. We were basically an instrumental band at
first. Our first couple of shows were all instrumental. Then, Jamie,
the lead singer, actually tried to sing more and write more songs. We
went from just jamming to actual songwriting. That’s not an easy thing
to do. Well, it’s evolving towards that more. We’re also spending more
time in the studio and learning how to record.” TODD E. JONES: “Word association.
When I say a name of a name, you say the first word that pops into your
head. So, if I said, ‘Flava Flav', you may say ‘Clock’, ‘Crack’, or
‘The Surreal Life’. Okay?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Okay. Do it slow.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Happy Mondays.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Ecstasy.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Dead Prez.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “George Washington.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Public Enemy.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Sonic Youth.” TODD E. JONES: “Joy Division.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “That snare sound they got.”
TODD
E. JONES: “My Bloody Valentine.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Elliot Smith slowly stabbing himself
to death.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Cee-Lo.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Success.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Curtis Mayfield.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Chicago.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Atmosphere.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Our buddies to the Northwest.”
TODD
E. JONES: “The Roots.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Yes.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Phife Dawg.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “1992.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Mayor Daley.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “My boss’s husband.”
TODD
E. JONES: “George Bush.”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING “Mr. Blank. A waste of time.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What is the biggest lesson you have learned in your career
so far?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “It’s good to be nice, but it’s nice
to be good.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What is it about girls on bikes?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “I don’t know. You know what it is? It
was me and Mestizo and Jaime from Royce walking around in Zurich. We
were in the Red Light District. We were flabbergasted about the amount
of beautiful girls riding their bikes around the city. We concluded
that the bikes and a steady diet of yogurt made those girls so extra
fresh. Every time a girl rides past me on a bike, I can’t do anything
but watch that sh*t. If I didn’t, humans wouldn’t be on earth. It’s
evolution.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What’s the best thing about living in Chicago?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “It’s affordable and an insane amount
of good food.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What’s the worst thing about living in Chicago?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Heroin. Crack?”
TODD
E. JONES: “Have you done heroin?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “No. I abstain. Me and a couple of
good friends did a no shoot and no sniff pact. They all fell off. I’m
not going to get tattoos either. No tattoos. No shoot. No sniff. I
don’t smoke anymore. I do drink like a maniac.”
TODD
E. JONES: “How do you balance the band with a job? Especially with
touring?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “I save those vacation days. I make it
count when I can. I have a pretty amazing job that lets me go.
Everybody in Royce is in that same boat. We have our day gig. We have
our night gig. When it is time, we call people. It’s going to happen.
When it comes, we’ll do it. So, I’m not going out a lot. I’m staying in
the studio.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Have some people mistake Royce the band for Royce Da 5’9”?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Yeah. We got a couple of calls.
People are like, ‘Hey! Your sound check starts in an hour! Where are
you?’ Honestly, besides it being his real name, I think our band had
the name ‘Royce’ labeled before him. I don’t know. That’s just me. He’s
awesome! He’s the sh*t. It hasn’t been a horrible conflict yet. People
know the difference.”
TODD
E. JONES: “When you die, would you like to be buried or cremated?" JAMIE: “Just throw my body into
ditch outside DeKalb. No need for theatrics. I suppose, if something
must go down, I'd prefer a Viking funeral on Lake Michigan."
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “I plan on multiplying. But if death
gets me, I think I would like to be chopped up and have all of the
major pieces sent around the world to someday be reformed like Voltron.” TODD E. JONES: “What would you want
on your epitaph?" JAMIE: “‘No, you da man’."
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “‘www.roycelove.com’. Maybe, on the
back corner, ‘http://www.myspace.com/royce’ or ‘myspace.com/djwl’. ‘If
loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be white. Free album at
djwhitelightning.net or djwhitelightning.org’.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Any collaborations fans should look out for?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “I, as DJ White Lightning, am working
with this young rapper named, Skech 185. He’s slaying people right now.
He’s in his battle stage. We’re working on a couple of albums together.
Royce? We’re going to try and do a whole album ourselves. We are going
to try and do some production for Qwazaar and Typical Cats, and some
other people from Galapagos 4. Keep it in the family.”
TODD
E. JONES: “What’s next?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “This ‘Tuff Love’ thing. Somebody at
Macintosh must have loved us because they picked our album to be the
single of the week for iTunes. That sparked me to push it hard. I’ve
been doing that since. We’re trying to set up tours. We’re definitely
trying to go to Europe. Then, we are working on different Galapagos 4
tours for the Midwest.”
TODD
E. JONES: “Final words?”
JUSTUS ROE / DJ WHITE LIGHTNING: “Word! Much love to everybody! Keep
supporting independent good music.”
Interview: ROYCE