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I guess you got a day of this shit so lets get stuck into it.

Cool, it’s pretty funny cause I have a few interviews today but I’m also like in New York working on the Spank Rock record right now.

For real, so your in the studio? Talk about multi tasking...

Yeah. (Laughs)

So both you and Dj Zegon have a bit of a skateboarding background, does this mean you’d go for a skate in between studio sessions?

I never really skated that much, in fact he was a much better skateboarder than me back in the day, but he doesn’t skate that much, like we’ll probably just push around, around the suburb a little bit you know. He used to live a few blocks from me when he was in L.A. and so he’d skate down to my place a lot.

And that would be about the extent of it.

Yeah we wouldn’t like session that much. I would go session occasionally with some friends.

With the new album that’s coming out you’ve introduced a real broad range of artists from varying genres. Was one of the goals to introduce some of these artists to a potentially new audience within hip-hop? Because a lot of people within the hip-hop community can be pretty narrow in terms with experimenting with new artists or musicians. Was it one of the unintended goals?

I mean it wasn’t really a goal but if it were something that’s a by-product of the record appealing to a lot of different people then I’d be really stoked. You know like, and vice versa you know like if people get introduced to, hip-hop fans get introduced to other kinds of artists, and that’s great and vice versa if other kinds of fans get introduced to hip-hop artists that’s amazing too you know. But definitely it was more about having a real open mind and bringing people together from different genres.

So was working with all those artists a logistical nightmare? Were there some battles of egos? And how did it work, were you working with them directly in the studio or were they just sending their shit in?

Well it was large logistically of course, I mean that’s part of the reason the record took 6 years to make. There wasn’t much of an ego clash and I think that’s because just the kind of artists we chose to work with because we’re fans of their music and you know our taste is not really about like ego and divas and superstars, they tended to all work really well together, we actually had everyone in the studio together as much as possible. It didn’t always work out but for the most part we would almost always record with you know the people when they were recording and when possible we’d get everyone on the song together in the same room too. And that was because we wanted to make sure that we had a consistent album that didn't just feel like a loose collection of songs and trying to bring people together in the studio, that was simply about wanting people to be able to bounce off of each other and vibe off of each other.

Was there some new musical relationships formed in bringing some of those people together? Do you think any of them will go away and maybe actually produce other joints together?

That would be awesome, I hope so, like definitely people we’re getting geeked on each other, people were really feeling each other.

Were there some surprises in that there were artists that were connecting for the first time that actually already kind of knew each others back catalogue, I mean like had Tom Waits heard of Kool Keith and vice versa?

Yeah definitely. I mean I’d say almost everyone had heard of each other and were fans of each other…

I guess like you said everyone that you got involved, you were getting involved because they had a true appreciation for the craft, so that usually means these people are aware of music outside of their own genre or their own sphere of talent so I guess that would of made that a lot easier yeah?

Oh yeah definitely, you know someone like David Byrne who has such a broad array of taste, he’s a huge fan of Brazil and Brazillian music and that has such a heavy influence on the record.

There is one comparison that I couldn’t help making as I started listening to the album and it’s one that I can imagine other people are going to use as a point of reference and it’s between this album and the work that Prince Paul and Dan The Automator did as Handsome Boy Modelling School. How do you feel about people maybe making that connection?

I feel fine about it you know. That’s like one of my favourite records from that era of music and I love Prince Paul and I love Dan The Automator, they both produce great stuff other than that and then they’re so conceptual also.

And do think it’s a fair comparison? Did you look at what those two artists had done with their albums (How’s Your Girl and White People) in consideration of making your own joint?

I mean you know we weren’t like comparing it going like ‘we wanna make an album like this’ but I think it’s a fair comparison in that, you know, it’s a producer album that has a strong concept behind it and works with a lot of different people, and ah you know I don’t hate on that comparison at all because I have lots of respect for those guys and I’m a fan of theirs.

Yeah sure.

Like that influenced us to want to make a record like that even though that was how many years ago?

It was a while ago now. One of the questions I had lined up here and you sort of answered prior was one about it being an album 6 years in the making, as I saw on one of your myspace pages that you had it racked up for a 2007 release so it’s been a real while in the works. Was that just simply the logistics of trying to make this kind of list of artists happen?

Yeah I mean it was a bunch of things, one thing was that it was often not our major priority like we were working on other projects and like I was producing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs record Z (Dj Zegon) was djing all over the world and we were doing various projects and it was kind of like a passion project that you know we’d make some money to put into it and spend a few months working on it then move away and it also of course had to do with the logistics of just like we’d wanna get somebody and sometimes it could take as much as you know six months to almost a year to actually end up in the studio with them. So it was definitely a logistical time constraint.

I feel you, being a side project you allowed yourself that luxury of time.

Yeah and I think that was actually really great. It was really great to be able to make a record where there was no deadline.

Yeah I can imagine!

It’s done when it’s done, it’s done when it’s created and not having to do the call where your like ‘well fuck we’ve got to get it done’, and going well you know ‘it’s fine, it’s finished now’ we had unlimited time to make the record exactly how we wanted to and I think we did make that record.

With a name like N.A.S.A. (North America South America) and the acronym that it stands for and taking into account the content of the anthem song (N.A.S.A. Anthem) and the content of a lot of the other tracks, like Money, would it be fair to say that you guys still believe in the power of music in bringing forth change in today’s society?

I mean yeah, I would hope that the record definitely has a certain, it has deeper meaning in that I think it’s kinda of about unity and people just being human beings and not being separated by divisions that are out there and that have been set for us. But to go as much as saying… I think that like probably every piece of art to some extent changes society in some way you know and if we can have a tiny smidgen of doing that then I will be happy you know.

To move onto that current clip for Money, which is a pretty wild ride, it’s also a pretty damning summation of how our current capitalist system works and it seems like its release is pretty timely. I mean were you waiting for economic collapse before you dropped that joint?

(Laughs) Nah (Laughs), we weren’t waiting for economic collapse man, I mean it’s like you know, it’s just you know the song that we made about something that we felt strongly about and it just coincided… it also happened to coincide with Shepards (Shepard Fairley, of Obey fame) work so well. He had just done an exhibition called the The Two Sides of Capitalism and the two just fit so well together and then it worked pretty timely coming out right around the economic collapse.

So what is the current mood in the States? I mean you’ve got a new president coming that everyone must be excited about, but at the same time all you hear about is economic doom and gloom and corrupt governors. So what’s the vibe?

I think, you know, despite all that people feel more optimistic then we’ve been in a long time. I certainly feel that in the first time in my life or at least the first time in a really long time I feel really proud to be an American and I feel like the worst of the times have passed and even though we’re in this really terrible depression, I feel hopeful because we have somebody that’s not corrupt in charge of our country and I feel like people have united around this man and there’s definitely a certain air of people feeling hopeful and unified like we made, we made this happen, we made a change happen so I feel it’s only uphill from here but of course I’m an eternal optimist.

Do you think people will stay up to the next challenge of putting someone like him in power which is keeping him accountable to some of the promises that he’s made. I mean that’s the really hard thing for a citizen to do, you know, like to maintain that vigilance on the politician that they’ve elected into power.

Yeah I mean, I would hope so. I think that people, I think the American people and the American press tend to hold our politicians accountable. Well I hope they hold him accountable and I hope that he comes through on the stuff that he talked about.

Yeah, it’ll be a time for no more rhetoric and time for…

For action!

Well it seems like he’s already doing it, he seemed more active over the last month or so than Bush in his last couple of months. Moving on though, it’s no real secret who your brother is (Spike Jonze) can we expect to see him directing the next clip or seeing him working with you guys on some sort of project around the release of the album?

You know I’m sure he’ll be involved, like he’s been involved with a few of the, a couple of the videos in terms of helping write them and I’m sure he’ll have some kind of involvement, he loves the record, he’s finishing his movie right now so he’s pretty busy, but I’m sure he’ll get in on some kind of creation with N.A.S.A.

Did he ever pop through the studio and check out what guys were doing?

Oh yeah of course, all the time, like the studio is like 5 minutes from his house so he was always coming by.

Cool. Now one of the big things about this album is how do you tour it? Is there any intention to tour it and if so how would bring the energy of all these artists to a live show without obviously having them there?

We’ll we’ve been touring already and it’s been really fun (Chewing)…

I’ll let you chew… (The entire interview Squeak E. Clean has been trying to finish of a caesar salad)

…Basically what we’ve decided to do was, we didn’t want to bring like one or two artists with us because we felt that would like kind of not be tied in with the concept of the record, so basically our show is like a two by four dj set me and Z (Dj Zegon) four turntables and all the stuff that we play is our original music, our remixes or peoples remixes of our stuff and then we also edit video to all the stuff we’re playing…

A la Dj Yoda styles.

Yeah yeah exactly and we control both the music and the video with our vinyl and then we also have so it’s like real crazy video screens, us playing all our stuff, it’s like a crazy party set basically and then we designed these costumes, we have like a cosmic crew of dancers. Martian booty girls, these crazy space alien monsters that we had made and there’s kind of like a cast, a rotating cast of dancers and the way we’re gonna do that is every city we’re just gonna get our friends or just people to dance in different cities and that’s gonna be really fun because it will be our friends up there and I’m sure we’ll meet a lot of great people like that and it also kinda ties into the N.A.S.A. concept as bringing people together from different places and I’m really looking forward to that.

To find out more about N.A.S.A check their new music clips, tour dates and extra ish check their myspace. Also make sure you check Squeak E. Cleans own personal blog where he and his friends basically post up about anything that grabs them.

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