Zac Hutton & George Vasilopoulos – My Uncle The Wolf – Interview Exclusive 

Written by Johnny H
Tuesday, 23 November 2010 05:00

“Banned from Brooklyn.” So proclaims the My Uncle The Wolf website with all the sincerity you would expect from a band who admit to doing everything ‘on purpose’.  Uber Rock first got to hear from Zac Hutton lead singer of My Uncle The Wolf following Nev Brooks’ review of the band’s ‘Flush’ album way back in June of this year, and we’ve kept in touch ever since.  ‘Flush’ you see is an album you need your brain switched on for when you listen to its’ fourteen tracks of introspective acid drenched rock.  The My Uncle The Wolf experience being one your senses will never forgive you for.

 

When Zac offered us the chance to glimpse inside the world of My Uncle The Wolf recently I literally bit his hand off for the chance to see what makes such an innovative creative force tick.  So ladies and gentlemen of the Uber Rock world please put your brains into the “on” position and welcome Zac Hutton (singer) and George Vasilopoulos (guitarist) from My Uncle The Wolf

 

 

Hi guys, firstly many thanks for taking the time to talk with us at Uber Rock.  My Uncle The Wolf are going to be something of a totally new entity to a lot of our Uber Rock readers tell us a bit about the band’s history.

 

ZH: The band started in my living room in 2005. George and myself played in a couple of previous bands and decided to start our own thing by our rules. We had no drummer or bass player, no studio, a couple of pieces of equipment and just our plans. From the get go we knew anything we did would be always driven by the fact that we wanted to be darker than any of the others band that we knew around us.

 

GV: My Uncle The Wolf has always been Zac and myself, with a revolving lineup and an evolving sound. It always returns to the idea of anything goes. That’s been our cardinal rule since day 1. With that in mind, we’ve recorded our first album and EP in Louisiana and our most recent record ‘Flush’ in our quiet little hometown: New York City.

 

 

And what exactly is a ‘dynamic pulse groove’?

 

ZH: DPG as I like to call it, is our calling card. ‘Flush’ was based in DPG. Every song had three major ingredients: the pulse is the heartbeat of the song, the dynamic is the mind and the groove is the reaction set by the overall movement of sound.

 

GV: Dynamic Pulse Groove is our three-point inspection for what we do. The way we see it is if it’s dynamic, has a pulse, and grooves it has all it needs.

 

Your latest album ‘Flush’ released on Cargo here in the UK managed to confuse the fuck out of our specialist reviewer of what we like to call “difficult albums.”  How would you describe the album?

 

ZH: I think ‘Flush’ is a real escape from what I call modern rock nowadays. That’s the best way to describe it. We wrote and recorded it basically because we were just fed up with many things. The mission we set out for ourselves was to be as over the top and in your face as possible. If I were to drop dead this very moment, ‘Flush’ would be my crowning achievement by far.

 

GV: The record is extremely dark, but not without our fucked up New York humor. We take our music extremely seriously…but in no way are we “Woe is me.”

 

‘Flush’ was written and recorded as one movement of music, originally bounced as a single 55-minute file. It can be confusing and difficult, but there are vivid moments of clarity. ‘Flush’ is a fucked up record, but there is always a payoff if you remain patient and listen.

 

It was our first time recording in our element. We recorded in Treefort Studios in Brooklyn. Easily the best studio I’ve been in for creating vibes and experimenting, and it just happened to be few blocks from my high school. The mixing was done in SMT Studios in the city. SMT is one of the few places that live up to the expectations of being a studio in Manhattan. We were comfortable, and the ease in which we achieved what we wanted with ‘Flush’ shows how great those studios are.

 

‘Flush’ is dark, heavy, a little crazy, intense, chill and funny all at the same time. More than anything it’s uncompromising. ‘Flush’ doesn’t always give the listener what they expect, but it invites them to play along. That’s what I love about it.

 

The one thing you need to know about ‘Flush’ when you’re listening, is it’s all on purpose.

 

So how does My Uncle The Wolf react to the press you get, be it good, bad, or indifferent as in our case?

 

ZH: I’ve learned not to read stuff as much. Music is beautiful because you can choose to be anything you want to be. The people who criticize it are usually ones who can’t do it. The one thing I do find very funny however is when a critic tries very hard to pigeon hole us to a few different bands or genres. When we were done with ‘Flush’ we were laughing to one another basically saying “let’s see them try to make this shit out to be something else, good luck with that.” Mission accomplished.

 

GV: All bullshit aside, I am 100% content with ‘Flush’. In my eyes, I achieved what I sought after, and I couldn’t be happier. There is nothing that can change that.

 

It’s all about perception. Take for example, the Uber Rock review. I can fill you in that I’m not really inspired by the bands Mr. Brooks compared us to.

 

There’s definitely a subtle blues undertone running throughout your music (and especially on your last self titled album) that I think is sort of like what Hendrix and Sabbath both did with the genre historically. It really is a primal sound.  What do you think of that?

 

ZH: Thank you. We’ve always been into the blues side of famous rock bands such as The Doors, Zeppelin and Floyd. It’s in our DNA.

 

GV: Yeah, thanks. Music should be primal. Underneath all the layering that is a big part of My Uncle The Wolf’s recorded sound, a lot of it Zac and I dicking around with our version of the blues; his a little bit more primal, mine a bit more refined.

 

The nastiness of the blues is what we’ve always wanted My Uncle The Wolf to have. “Hey Lady, You Have a Snake In Your Garden” has a very naughty blues feel. Fucked up, but between the lines.

 

 

Saying that though your sound is also pretty damn unique, what influences My Uncle the Wolf?

 

ZH: Our surroundings. People are shocked that we’re still going, like they expected us to give up and fail. We went to New Orleans and learned lots of different things about music but what we did on this last album was stay home and rediscovered what it is to be a New Yorker. We are what we are. This is where we come from. That melting pot of sorts is all over the record.

 

GV: Agreed, I think life and the experiences we’ve shared as a band and people are our biggest influences. Refusal to submit is also another one that is very obvious to me when I listen to it.

 

We don’t play what people call punk rock, but we hold that sentiment of doing things our way on our own terms to heart. That’s where the attitude of My Uncle The Wolf comes from.

 

So was using Shane Stoneback to produce the new album a way of ensuring that these influences weren’t just lost within an over the top typical Metal production?

 

GV:  No we were pretty sure ourselves that no matter what we did not want that kind of production. Having said that we were extremely luck to have both Shane Stoneback and Brian Herman produce ‘Flush’. They understood what we wanted ‘Flush’ to be, and we trusted them enough not to get in their way.

 

It’s all about blending colors. The songs from ‘Flush’ come from Zac and I. The sound of ‘Flush’ is the agreement between Shane, Brian, Zac and myself that we were going to make something special and unique. Treefort and SMT studios were the practical realizations of the whole melting pot.

 

ZH: We honestly used Shane because we had no one we trusted to record our album the way we wanted to until we found Shane. We are not interested at all in metal production. It sounds like recycled Pro Tools all the time.

 

He worked with Vampire Weekend and Perry Farrell previously hasn’t he? That’s a pretty eclectic mix to bring to a rock band.

 

ZH: He’s worked with a lot of people…Sleigh Bells, MIA but he knows rock music very well. He understood our vision from the get go and he really was the third member of the band when we recorded with him. We respected the fact that he would record any kind of artist. That’s what it’s all about. You learn so many more things about yourself meeting someone that driven by the art.

GV: Both guys would bring up in a very nonchalant way that with Bon Jovi or George Clinton this was done, or with Dead Prez or fucking ‘N Sync that was done. Honestly, it was the most refreshing thing.

 

On the live front you must be a pretty intense experience…. I notice you toured Europe with Ministry on their final tour, what was that like for you guys?

 

ZH: It was incredible. Besides White Zombie and NIN, Ministry was one of the first bands I could call my own when I was a kid. They took us under their wing and basically took care of us on the road. We learned a lot of things about ourselves and our band on that tour. It’s a very important part of our history.

 

GV: The Ministry tour was every bit as awesome at it sounded like it would be, and for that reason I can’t go into any further without….

 

And what are your future touring plans in support of ‘Flush’?

 

ZH: Well if our label would have us over there, we’d do it again but who knows what’s gonna happen. If we have to do it ourselves, we will. We’d absolutely love to play the UK first and foremost. That is the main goal. We’ve never played there.

 

GV: Live ‘Flush’ is something very different from the record. Very dangerous, in your face. There’s really an army feel to it, and the guys who we are playing with us now are the shit. Matt Gelbs on bass has been a close friend of the wolf for a long time, and Ryan Lerette is ‘das wonder-kid” who was an engineer on the record. I can’t wait for us to get over to the UK, that’s the plan. I think a lot of confusion about My Uncle The Wolf is settled live.

 

 

I notice that the Vinyl format appears to be very important to My Uncle The Wolf…Why is that?

 

ZH: It’s what Cargo does honestly. I think listening to certain records on vinyl gives you a much better view on what the band is sonically trying to do. It obviously brings back a feeling for certain people also. It’s great having a recording out on vinyl but that’s what our label specializes in.

 

GV: Vinyl is the true music as a meditation format. You throw it on, and you listen…..flip and continue. It requires concentration……. All other forms of digesting music create an itchy trigger finger. There’s something special about the hypnosis created by the spinning vinyl on the player.

 

 

We love Vinyl here at Uber Rock and it’s always great to hear why people hold this essential format so close to their hearts.

 

ZH: We got some. If you need, let me know.

 

GV: Vinyl is the true medium.

 

I’m not going to pretend that it’s been easy finding stuff out about you guys on the Internet (even finding group pictures is very difficult), so let’s have a classic piece of trivia or an exclusive that no one else knows about you guys.

 

ZH: When we first started playing out the only clubs that would have us were Goth clubs.

 

GV: Goth clubs in New York City on their weekly fetish night to be exact.

 

Finally just to finish off I’d like to get inside your musical minds by asking you to take the Uber Rock random music test where if we were to do the random first five tracks on your I Pods/I Phones MP3 players right now what would come up?

 

GV:

1-      King Tubby and The Soul Syndicate – “Great Stone”

2-      John Lennon- “Instant Karma!”

3-      Mos Def – “Umi Says (Live)”

4-      Blur – “Ambulance”

5-      My Uncle The Wolf – “Belly of The Night” (no joke)

 

ZH:

1-      Billie Holiday – “Strange Fruit”

2-      Death From Above 1979- “Romantic Rights”

3-      The Who – “Time Is Passing”

4-      David Bowie – “John, I’m Only Dancing (I’m Only Dancing)”

5-      Jay-Z – “Storm”

 

And with that we’d like to once again thank you for taking the time to speak with us at Uber Rock we’ll hopefully catch up with you sometime soon over here in the UK, so until then we wish you and the gang every success with ‘Flush’.

 

GV and ZH; Cheers John and thanks again.

 

If you want to know more about the enigmatic My Uncle The Wolf then pop along to their website http://myunclethewolf.tumblr.com/ for what can only be described as “an engaging media experience jammed pack full of interesting shit.”