/ Dylan Reznick: I wouldn’t really have words to define it. There is too much there to describe other than it is FRIENDZONE. We were making art & expressing ourselves. Doing things we liked and actively avoiding tacky things like dubstep bass etc. we had no commercial ambition to be mainstream or anything So thats why our aesthetic is the way it is. But i can not sum it up with a couple words like “vaporwave with trap beats” or whatever haha.
/ Dylan Reznick: We drew on MANY influences. We were growing up in the era where Napster and p2p music sharing was brand new. We were both obsessed with music and downloaded thousands of albums from many genres Some key influences for us would be probably My Bloody Valentine, Squadda B’s production (see the songs “Fuck The World”, “Legion of Doom”, “World Domination” by Main Attrakionz). James was a huge fan of The Smiths, The Cure and video game music ofc. I think the album covers he made were very influenced by album covers by The Smiths, We were also really influenced by the Bangs & Works compilations released by Planet Mu especially DJ Nate. This had a big impact on the way we program our drums especially the 808 rimshot sounds Also we were both huge fans of golden era 90s hip hop of course. Both of us had Juicy by Notorious BIG as the #1 most played song our iTunes, Really love ATLiens by Outkast.
Oh im forgetting some really important ones actually, James was really into a few specific artists when we started… College (later used in Drive movie), M83s debut album and FUTURECOP! You can definitely hear the influence these had on what James was doing as LVC for me OTOH, I think a really key influence for me is an album called Einstein On The Beach (1993) by Philip Glass… i was really into lots of music like that in high school and I think you can hear it especially in my solo music. With the really detailed & dense pattern based style. And also really important to me was Pictureplane and Crystal Castles… before them i had no interest in making computer based music. I only cared about being in bands & playing instruments. But when I saw Pictureplane and heard his album Dark Rift (and CC’s first two albums) it made me realize that I could actually be making cooler and more artistic music with a computer than with a band This is just a small sampling of the stuff we liked, i could go on much longer but this seems like enough haha.Omg i forgot about Lil B hes probably the most important! He showed me how to be brave, I saw Pretty Boy Remix and I learned I can do anything i dream of We never contemplated that we might make rap beats until we got into Lil B.
/ Dylan Reznick: On the surface it seems rather dull atm, especially compared to what was going on in early 2010s with rap renaissance inspired by Lil B. But recently i started looking deeper and I realized that there is a lot of cool music that has been happening, i just was not paying attention.. zoomers have this whole new style inspired most directly by Yung Lean and Bladee, and in a bigger picture way very influenced by Lil B, Ocean Gang (the psychedelic and dissonant super-based flows), and FRIENDZONE production.
I have gotten really into Bladee recently, I love his music. At first I didn’t really get it but at some point it just clicked. Specifically, when I watched the videos “Obedient” and “She’s Always Dancing”. I love those tracks I think its really super cool how much Ocean Gang has influenced the current generation of rappers. I remember when Ocean Gang Or Drown came out, everyone my age hated it but all the high school kids were going crazy for it. Which was so interesting, because the music is like extremely avant garde lol but now it has become a mainstream style for zoomers. And of course I am super honored to have influenced so many artists in that generation. I only recently realized just how much they have been affected by and care about our music. It makes me really so happy to see that. There are some younger producers like Misogi and E Death who are very massive FZ superfans, and the music they are making based on our influence is absolutely fantastic. I have made good friends with both of them recently and I was really shocked when I found out how much they knew about FZ music. They know every song, every sample. Their whole outlook on music is deeply affected by us. When I first really internalized this I actually cried, i had never felt so appreciated before. I want to tour and play shows with them. Also wanna say that now that I understand better what zoomer rap is all about I am super excited to start producing for rappers again. Most rappers right now grew up listening to FZ beats and work with producers who are influenced by FZ… so it will be very easy for me to collab with them i think. Back in the day it was hard to find a rapper who can go over a FRIENDZONE beat, mostly only Main Attrakionz could do that. Most of the new gen rappers nowadays OTOH could probably rap on a FZ beat as second nature, for them our beats are normal./ Dylan Reznick: No actually. Every song on Kuchibiru Network 3 is an original song made specifically for that comp. We had a really tight knit community going on at that time with the cloud rap scene. Everyone in that community knew each other. And they had all heard what we did with the first two Kuchibiru Network tapes and were very excited to get involved in it. They all understood the aesthetic of it perfectly and sent us incredible tracks for it. All of us understood that Kuchibiru Network 3 was going to be a significant work of art and acted accordingly.
/ Dylan Reznick: Hard to choose a favorite, so many tracks on that are so good! I really love Keyboard Kid’s track "W1+chBlVd3", thats the first that comes to mind. "Star of Heaven" by Finally Boys another major highlight, those guys have been our really close friends since childhood, they are basically like the band version of what FRIENDZONE does.. they compose songs in a rock-like format with the same elements "F" by 100… 100 is another childhood friend, a guy named Dom who was super close with James. He super killed it on his track.
The song "Nothing Really Happens" Scum Angel is actually Kreayshawn. She couldnt use her normal name due to contract with her label, "Not Luv", freakin gorgeous track.. it was so cool to have DJ Kenn who works with Chief Keef’s crew on it too!! Memorial, our collab with LWH, has a special place in my heart.. he passed away not long after that. It is haunting to listen to now a bit. Uptowngregg works extensively with Lil B, his track "Green Ova Lyfe" was perfectly sculpted for Kuchibiru Network aesthetic. "Do Or Die", one of our coolest songs, haha i've named nearly every track now. Whole tape is great, Kuchibiru Network 2 is also really amazing if u havent heard that. KN2 has the rap versions of NEAR and CHANGE from COLLECTION I. They are instrumentals of those KN2 tracks, We have a really interesting song on it DB that i made with my friend Brent from our hometown. Pretty different from our other songs, unique."Can’t Go Wrong" is one James made with his friend Gummybear from the witchhouse scene. That is one of my favorite compositions by James, really iconic. “Stratus” is an amazing performance by MAz and Shady Blaze over one of the most transcendent beats ever made by Uyama Hiroto from his album A Son Of The Sun which is absolutely another very major influence for FRIENDZONE, i forgot to mention earlier.
Magic is one of our craziest tracks. I forgot it existed until couple months ago Misogi was telling me it was one of his favorite FZ songs. He even says that song has a cult following all on its own, wonder if thats true.
/ Dylan Reznick: Most recently I played the remake of Resident Evil 4, that was pretty good. Best games I have played in last few years are Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red or whatever theyre called make such immense and artfully done games its crazy. I’m not super duper deep into games like James was, i actually kinda view them as a vice.. like if i play games too long i feel like i have a problem lol. But I do play them. Death Stranding was very good too.
/ Dylan Reznick: Extremely charismatic, charming, intelligent, really good and interesting taste in art.. very kind (except when he wasnt sometimes…), funny. Pretty much everyone liked to be around him and looked up to him as an authoritative figure on what kind of art is cool… it was pretty interesting how he was able to do that, because most things he liked were normally considered nerdy and lame but when he talked about them all of a sudden these dorky things seemed so cool and amazing.
- RIP James. The fact that people can leave a legacy artistically its beautiful to me.
/ Dylan Reznick: Me too, it is really beautiful.
/ Dylan Reznick: I have not announced a date yet because i am not 100% finished yet and i dont want to release it prematurely or miss the date.. but my goal is to have it finished by the first and release it in the month of october, im not sure exactly which day, so pretty soon. Tracklist is finished, i just need to finish off a couple mixes and master it. but COLLECTION III vinyl goes on sale for preorder on Sept 29th at this link.
/ LISTEN TO KUCHIBIRU NETWORK 2 by FRIENDZONE /
/ PRE ORDER COLLECTION III VINYL HERE /
- i'm grateful for that, im sure imma enjoy every single track.