SCUM sits down with ROX-TV to discuss his new projects and musical roots

 

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview with ROX-TV. I really appreciate it brother.

I believe that the present is always important, but even more than that, is how we get where we are. Can you tell the readers at ROX-TV how it all got started? And by that I mean your love for the music. What was the thing that started that fire inside of you? How old where you when music started to really play a major part in your life?

I’ve always depended on music to get me through hard times and as a kid I was pretty antisocial and dealt with a lot of issues which only got worse when I had to move to a new country, learn a new language, and leave my friends n family behind so violent metal music was my therapy. Slayer, Death, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse were my go to’s.

I even played in a grind core band while in high school but wasn’t very good at it to be honest. We did a few tapes and then I discovered Body Count which introduced me to the crossover of rap n metal and from there Esham that showed me that you can do rap but the subject matters can be as wicked and brutal as with metal.

By then my English got better so I was able to write rhymes tho they were pretty caveman’ish and quickly found my calling becoming a rabid listener of all forms of horrorcore and violent rap while writing my own. In 1999 we made our first rap recording and here we are 22 years later lol.

How old were you when you moved to Denver from Moscow Russia? What was the impact of the move on you as a person (or even as an artist)?

I was 14 when I came to Denver to stay. It was a new world. New language. New culture. New faces. It was rough at first but then I adopted and learned to love my new home and the opportunities this country granted me.

Can you tell the readers a little bit about your earliest music, back in the mid-nineties?  

We did 3 tapes with Down Syndrome which was a side project of 3 different bands and also worked on 1 other project with my roommate and homie which never got finished but was a death/black metal experiment.

I’m from the nineties and there are things about the underground that I miss personally. Probably the biggest thing was that so much of the underground was taking place at Record Shops, Meet and Greets, CD Signings, and Concerts. I really do miss the days of artists handing out flyers and getting out in the world to meet and find fans. In your opinion Scum, was it better in 1990’s as opposed to 2020  as far as the music industry is concerned?

I’m with you…I guess I’d live a mix of both to be honest. Mom n Pops record stores, the art of collage when making your own flyers at Kinkos (I don’t even know if there is a Kinkos anymore) the forums and Myspace eras…fans driving for hours to see an artist they like at a fest of some kind cause no one outside of PSY and Tech were yet touring…all that was great but now we are able to reach our fans worldwide with a single post rather then shipping flyers all over and hoping they actually get handed out and making mix tapes, real tapes to push your demos in concert lines.

Its nice to get millions of plays on streaming platforms but now there’s oversaturation, algorithms that require thousands of dollars for your post to reach your followers or your videos to be seen, a lot of bullshit. Just evolution of the game I guess. The following got much bigger globally but the meccas of underground in this country are all in the decline. Its not better or worse in my opinion. Just different.

Sounds like you got a lot of new projects coming down the line for your fans and the underground. Can you tell me a little about “Grey Skiez” and the Dying World Chroniclez?

Grey Skiez is the first of the 3 solo albums I am planning on releasing this year under the Dying World Chroniclez series with either another trilogy to follow or additional chapters planned that will tie it all together…it will all make sense with time!

 

The 2nd Chapter is planned by summertime…not an exact date but I definitely plan on dropping the next installment no later then end of August and am currently working on 2 and 3 at the same time. 

Sounds like a party was going down at the Roxy Theatre. I wish I was a little closer to you brother. What went down at the Roxy?

It was just a nice get-together with our fans that we hadn’t been able to see much of, lots of LSP music, drinks with homies and catching up…we got an actual release show on 3/20 along with the release of Hex Rated’s industrial trap experimental project.

What does the future look like for Scum?

I take things 1 day at a time…we got 4 shows in TX next weekend, the release party in Denver, a few other spot shows I’m working on. Trying to wrap up next Dying World Chroniclez installment and hoping to pull of a tour even if its a shorter one, its been too long.

I am sticking to weekly Patreon entertainment for our ride or dies which I do every Wednesday, working on a few music videos and a few side projects that will soon be revealed on top of all the solo material. We got 3 LSP releases dropping 3 weeks apart over the next couple months…just staying busy and trying to keep the LSP family entertained during these shitty times. Thanks for reaching out for this interview and doing your part to keep this underground scene alive!

 

ROX-TV would like to thank Scum for taking the time to do an interview with us. 

 

Signing off,

 

Mike Shepard 

ROX-TV Head Writer

shepard2909@hotmail.com

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