Clarity in Ambiguity - A Discussion with Jonathan Snipes of Captain Ahab

Jonathan Snipes and Jim Merson comprise Captain Ahab, a electro-dance duo from Los Angeles, CA. I was introduced to their sound via Brian Miller of Foot Village, and was immediately impressed with the energy manifested in their recordings and live performances alike. Captain Ahab manage to strike a unique and intriguing blend between biting sarcasm and playful humor, irony and sexuality, and thought-proviking lyrical ambiguity and direct, hard-hitting beats, all with a heartfelt and occasionally intimidating energy that promises to stir the synapses. I spoke with Jonathan about his sonic endeavors with Captain Ahab - the results of our interactions are as follows:

[note: the following is a largely unedited transcript of a phone interview]

Jonathan G: So, first of all, I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to do the interview! I confess, I have only recently recome acquainted with Captain Ahab. I found out about you guys via Brian Miller of Foot Village, so, I first wanted to ask: do you have a close relationship with that band? Do you guys tour or work together at all?

Jonathan S (Captain Ahab): Well, Brian runs Deathbomb Arc, the record label that's released the majority of Captain Ahab records, and I record and produce on there as well. We have done one tour together, but we've been close friends for a long time.

J: You were friends, I take it, before the musical endeavors started up?

CA: Well, before Foot Village, anyway. I met Brian because he'd heard Captain Ahab and wanted me to contribute to a compilation he was doing.

J: So, would you consider yourself the principal member of Captain Ahab, or is there a pretty even distribution of labor between you and the other member?

CA: Well, I write all the music and perform all the music. Jim is the other member of Captain Ahab. His contribution is solely to the live shows, where he dances. So, I guess "Principal Member" is fair.

J: Alright. Well, let's see if I got this correct: I seem to remember reading on the Internet that when you met Jim, he was in attendance of some of your concerts, and you were impressed by his energy and then recruited him into the band. Is that right?

CA: Well, we were friends, because we going to college together. I didn't have a car, so he would give me rides to shows, and he would basically do what he does now in the audience during those shows. Then, we had a show in which, on the way there, I got really sick in the car, and I was vomiting, and I was like, "No, I don't think I can do this! I'm gonna just crouch behind the laptop and hide, and you, you run around and be the physical Me," and that's kinda how it started.

J: So, in terms of the recording and writing process, is it difficult to translate what you've written and composed into the live environment? What sort of challenges do you face when trying to convert things to a live format?

CA: Well, it's basically exactly the same - it's literally the same files, you know? It's really not that difficult, and not that different. I wouldn't say that I've run into challenges. Well, there are difficulties when I write something that I'm really proud of and really happy with and, then, I realize that it just doesn't work in a live environment at all, and it just doesn't have the necessary energy, or the complexities in the music don't really translate on a loud PA where you're just sorta smashing it, you know? Usually, I don't sit and rework things so that they work live - I just play them.



J: Is it pretty straightforward - will you just activate a button or a module, playing things pretty much automatically, or are there still plenty of parameters you can control during the live performance?

CA: Well, the thing about making this kind of music is that it's almost pointless to try to recreate the music live, because you're not making something that's intended for some sort of human interpretation beyond the writing. The writing and the recording process is the same. So, to bring a bunch of equipment to live shows in attempts to recreate it 100% would be kind of a flawed approach to dance music. I use software that I wrote in MAX/MSP - do you know it?

J: Yeah, I'm familiar with that.

CA: Ok, good. It is pretty rigid - I mean, basically, it just plays back pre-recorded loops and samples that I then sing over. However, I also have limited processing ability over that, and the ability to rearrange the sets and the songs as I go.

J: I wanted to ask you a quick question about the subject of interpretation. You had mentioned that there's not too much room for interpretation - you know, it's a pretty straightforward process, at least in terms of writing and recording - but I wrote to you via email a while ago about my reaction to the video for U Want Me, and when I first saw it, I felt as though it resonated within me, it seemed like a story I could relate to, and I formed my own face-value interpretations of it. Then, I started reading some of the comments on YouTube, and once I became more familiar with your music, I began wondering whether the song was sarcastic in tone, whether I might have misinterpreted it. Was it meant to be taken straightforward?



CA: I definitely do everything to be taken completely seriously. I think, in re: the ethos of our generation (namely, college age people, in the US, right now), that we've got a really refined sense of irony. I have noticed, while listening to records, that I will tend to listen to "bad" records more than the "good" records - and I'll laugh, and I would think them silly, but I would be having a lot of fun, and a lot more fun listening to sort of silly music than to serious music, if that makes sense. People always use the phrase "so bad, it's good," - it was like that, you know? But, I came to terms with this, and I sort of reached a point where I decided that it really didn't have any meaning, that something couldn't be so bad it's good: it's either bad, or it's good. You either enjoy it, and get something out of it, and it enriches your life as you consume it, or it doesn't. And, often, the things that I like and respond to and gravitate towards are very silly, but they're very heartfelt in their silliness. Sometimes, the artist is aware that they're silly, and sometimes, maybe, they're not. Maybe, sometimes, the reason I'm enjoying something is vastly different from the reason somebody made it. I guess Nine Inch Nails is a good example. I love Nine Inch Nails, but I also think [Lyricist/Composer Trent Reznor]'s one of the dumbest lyricists ever.

J: Yeah, I can relate there. I've been a big fan of Trent Reznor's for a long time, but I seem to remember from Pretty Hate Machine, there are lines like "I guess I'm not the only boy for you," or something like that, and every once in a while, there'll be these little lyrical "gems" that really don't convince me.

CA: Yeah, yeah... I mean, his lyrics are really juvenile and dumb and silly. But, it's a big part of the charm of the music, and part of why I like the band, too. I mean, obviously, it's the composition, the production and the songwriting that I really respond to, but, lyrically, there's something about that kind of sentiment and the really weird, clunky phrases that he comes up with that are a huge part of the charm of the music, and I realize that that's OK - that I can love and embrace this, and also think that it's kind of dumb and silly, without thinking any less of it. I think the cliche' is "to laugh AT something" versus "to laugh WITH something," but I find that kind of meaningless - the idea of laughing at something means you somehow dislike it, or degrade it, or don't think it's worthwhile? I think that's totally silly!



J: Well, I think it specifically implies scornful or disdaining laughter.

CA: Right, right. But if I'm scornful or disdainful of something, it's not when I'm laughing.

J: So, basically, if something enriches peoples' lives and creates joy, and if silliness is a mechanism by which that can happen, that's not something you object to at all.

CA: Right.

J: Is it instead something you try and cultivate - do you make a conscious effort to write songs with a silly edge to them?

CA: Yeah. It's a fine line to tread, right? Because you can be way over the top and do way too much, you know? And it becomes hollow and too jokey - your songs become novelty songs. The other band comparison would be to a band like Sparks - do you know them?

J: I'm not familiar with them.

CA: They're an old Southern California band that are mostly popular in England, and they're essentially a novelty song band. Each song is its own individual concept, and it's really goofy, and the concept is essentially explained in the title of the song. It's like a joke, or a play on words, or a pun, but they somehow then manage to write these really interesting and provoking songs around these sort of silly, simple ideas, and they somehow elevate the novelty song beyond a simple joke. There, you have something that's a great, serious song - well written, well recorded, well produced, with a lot of serious and interesting ideas in it - that is also fun, and comical, and silly, in a way. So, I respect them a lot for being able to do that.

J: And is that something you strive to incorporate in Captain Ahab songs as well?

CA: Well, yeah, a little bit. I think it's always most interesting when there's no clear message or interpretation. I think it's most interesting when the artist isn't trying to manipulate the audience into agreeing with him/her, or into getting one particular thing out of the art because, regardless of how much you try to spell out exactly what you want people to take from what you are doing, it will never work. It's never gonna be completely effective, simply because communication is difficult between people. It's impossible just to do that in conversation, almost, and to hope to achieve that with music is kind of laughable, honestly. So, instead of trying to communicate specific ideas, I'm a big fan of communicating a lot of contradictory, specific ideas, or to evoke - well, I don't want to use the word "general," or the word "vague," because you have to be very specific, right? You have to have very clear ideas that you can express elegantly and simply that then contradict each other, if that makes sense.



J: I think so. So, I take it, then, that you're not concerned with eliciting any one specific reaction from your audience.

CA: No.

J: But do you like to stimulate thought and debate? Would you prefer your listeners to take an active role in interpreting your music?

CA: Well, that's gonna happen regardless, right? I mean, hopefully, anyone who listens to anything interprets it themselves and has their own way of thinking about it. What I want is for people to listen to my music and develop opinions about it in the same way that I might listen to Nine Inch Nails and develop opinions about it: namely, regardless of the artist's intent. I had this realization in high school: specifically, I said, "to like Nine Inch Nails, I am going to have to ignore artist intent." There's a lot of other stuff that I like that I think is interesting art that I think is, maybe, in its message or in the intent of the creator, something I don't agree with at all. Maybe, for example, there might be political art that espouses views that I don't necessarily agree with, but I'll still think that it's interesting art. I think that's totally valuable, so I like putting people where the artist's intent is so clouded, so confused, so contradictory that they can't do anything by say "well, what do I think of this?" and like it for those reasons - but there's a very distinct difference between that and just being obtuse.

J: I see what you mean. Going back to the video for U Want Me: there were a lot of conflicting comments on the YouTube, differing opinions and whatnot - and I think a lot of people seemed to take it almost as a satire, because... if I remember correctly, there's a scene in there where an individual is writing a poem, or writing something down in a book, and it contains a phrase along the lines of "pwned by life -" is that a correct recollection?

CA: I believe it's "the hatred pwns me 4 ever"

J: Ah! Thank you for that correction! I remember from the comments that people seemed to be taking that as satire, as a joke, and, I'm wondering: do you ever get concerned - not that people will get the "wrong idea," but - I suppose I could phrase it this way - does it irk you when people miss the point, or when they skim over a message that you've been trying to convey?

CA: No, because, usually, I'm trying to do something that's so deliberately contradictory and confusing that there isn't one clear point, right? So, to me, it's really fascinating for me to see people react in different ways. The only times I get upset with interpretations of my work are when people decide that they're misogynistic or hateful - that actually does happen a bit.

J: So, how do you react to that, then?

CA: Well, I don't know... there's nothing I can do, you know? People are gonna react however they want to to what I do, and I just have to take a step back and say "wait a minute, am I being misogynistic, or is this person just dumb?" Usually, if I read in to what I've been doing, I've still been doing what I want to do, and I know that I shouldn't use peoples' comments to drive my creative process at all.



J: So, what does drive your creative process, then? What's the fuel that encourages you to make music, and that keeps you going?

CA: I don't know - I just kinda always do it. Right now, I'm really lucky in that my official job still involves writing music. I've been writing a lot of music for TV, and, doing that kind of work professionally, I've kind of realized that if I wasn't doing that, if I had to have a job unrelated to music, I'd still be writing music. I've just kind of always been doing it - I can't really help myself!

J: It's a wonderful affliction to have.

CA: Yeah, it's good - it's great! It can be very expensive, though, when you're making electronic music. There are a lot of toys that are easy to get sucked in to, distracted by, etc. But, I was a music listener before I made or played music. I didn't really take a lot of music lessons as a kid - I listened to a lot of different music, and I've always obsessively listened to a lot of different music, like, constantly. I have an enormous record collection - I can't really help myself. And I think that's a big part of it, too. A lot of music could be thought of as critical theory of, like, critical theory about music, and it's so much a product of things that I listen to. I've called it "mashups without samples" before, too: I'm taking this kind of lyric over this kind of beat, and then this kind of chord progression, and that's sometimes how I write songs. I'll say, like, I want to write a sort of spacey 50s Beach Boys sort of Doo-Wop thing, but with Miami Bass beats and like Avril Lavigne guitars - that's what I want to do, and so it's really original in that way - I'm not necessarily sitting, doodling away at the piano and coming up with song ideas. It's a little more calculated than that. But it's all definitely informed by what I listen to, and what I consume constantly.

J: Do you collaborate regularly with other musicians?

CA: No, not very much - certainly not in the way you would think of collaboration, like, I never write music with people. I've been using the services of more and more acoustic musicians for the TV work, but I don't really write songs with others at all - I don't do that very well.

J: Do you think that you wouldn't function well, or it wouldn't be a good creative environment for you to be in a band-type situation?

CA: I don't know how that would work, exactly, because I don't really play music in the way that people play music. I program, and I sequence, and I sit in the studio and I record, and once I'm done recording something, then the ability to play it essentially vanishes. And, so, I've never really been in a band - I've never played a traditional musical instrument, you know, in front of people, so I don't quite know how that would work. I mean, I've definitely jammed out with friends, but never for any serious reasons.



J: How about your vocal work? Do you have a training routine that comes along with that? Have you had any lessons, or are you entirely self-taught?

CA: I did take vocal lessons when I was much younger, but I haven't for a long time, and I don't know how much of that really stuck with me. I certainly don't have any "technique."

J: Well, I don't know about that. I think that, even despite not having had a regimented technique implanted in to you by some other institution, you must have begun to develop your own technique, and your own way of going about things, over time. Would you agree with that?

CA: Perhaps sometimes. In this case I'm not totally sure, but there are definitely things that have stuck with me, despite the fact that I don't do warm-ups - and, if I ever had it, I've lost the vocabulary to talk about singing, like with another singer, you know?

J: Yeah, I know what you mean. Okay, I wanted to backtrack a little bit. I had a friend who was asking me about your origins - why you selected Captain Ahab as a name - and she was wondering if it was taken directly from the Moby Dick character, or if you were aware of the biblical importance that the name may have had. What was your reason for choosing that name?

CA: Well, there is a King Ahab in the bible, but, honestly, as to my reasons for choosing that name... I was pretty young, whenever it was I first heard the artist Moby and his "Everything is Wrong" album, which is still a pretty big influence on me. I really don't like anything else he's ever done, but that album - there's something about the freneticism, and it's totally weird for techno, because it's songs, yes, but not only is it songs, it's static piano trance that turns into speed metal, that then snaps into some weird lo-fi thing with a sample over it. I mean, it's really all over the place - that album's pretty crazy. So, I got really into that, and he named himself Moby because he's Herman Melville's great-great-nephew or something - I don't remember exactly what the relation was, but he's related to Melville, and I thought, well, being 13 or however old I was when that album came out, I thought it would be really funny if there was a band called Captain Ahab. I just kind of sat on it, and when I started making music on my computer and put it on MP3.com in the late nineties, I chose that as my name, and it just kind of stuck. I tell people that it's from a desire to hunt and kill Moby, but that's kind of silly, too. It's really just kind of a catchy name - that's really the reason why it stuck, honestly. There have been times where I've thought to change it, but not anymore.



J: Now, have you actually had any interaction with Moby - do you guys get along?

CA: Nope! Never met him.

J: If you were to meet him, do you think you'd be on a friendly basis with him?

CA: You know, I loved that album, I don't care much for the rest of his stuff, but I think he's one of the most interesting people to read interviews with.

J: Why's that?

CA: I remember around the time that Play came out, when that first song got huge for him, I read this interview where he was talking about this game that he and his friends played. They were, all of a sudden, getting invited to all of these really huge celebrity parties, and so they invented this game where they would walk around in these parties in these really tight packs, so that it was hard to move around between people - and they would just unzip their pants and let their dicks hang out. No one would notice, because they were so tightly packed together, and they would then compete to see who was the more famous person that they could touch with their dicks without them knowing.

J: [Laughter] That's amazing!

CA: Yeah, so Moby seems like a pretty cool guy, via interviews and whatnot, but I don't foresee any sonic collaboration, that'd be terrible. I think he was a part of that whole "What's Going On" cover that came out after 9/11, when they had the world celebrity benefit.

J: A cover of the Marvin Gaye song?

CA: Yeah, yeah.

J: Well, I haven't heard this, but if it's that appalling...

CA: Oh, dear... like, Fred Durst, and Gwen Stefani got involved... an all star lineup...

J: Holy shit, that sounds painful. Thanks for the heads up.



J: Alright, I have a couple more questions here, if you still have time.

CA: Yeah, sure!

J: First of all, most of the Captain Ahab songs I've heard thus far seem to have something of an overt sexual theme, albeit with a jagged edge, at least from my interpretation. I wonder, why does sexuality appeal to you as subject matter? Do you make a conscious effort to write about sexuality in particular, or does that just sort of come out naturally?

CA: Well, as I sort of said before, I view this as critical theory about music a lot of the time, and so much of the lyrical content in dance music and in pop music is about sex, you know? I never write lyrics from any kind of personal place. I don't write about things that have happened to me. I don't write about my own feelings or situations or anything like that. I write lyrics in the same way that I choose specific drum sounds. Like, I pick content and ideas in the same way that I'm picking the rest of the timbres that go into my songs. So, to me, it just seems obvious: if you're gonna make electro and drum n bass and gabber and jumpstyle, and you're gonna write lyrics, they should be about sex. I just try to take them further than they should go.

J: In terms of live performances and live crowds, I take it that you'd prefer it for people to be up and moving and dancing along with the music. Does it bother you if people just stand there and listen, and have you had to deal with unresponsive crowds before?

CA: It doesn't bother me. Honestly, I don't really dance at shows. I guess I used to more, but getting older and having done so many shows, you just kind of get tired, and I want to just listen to the music. So, I respect peoples' decisions, to dance or to not dance, you know? I want to create an environment in which you can do both. Jim might have a different answer, because he's actively trying to force people to move, you know? But, definitely, when we tour, and we're not in comfortable places with audiences that know us, we definitely have to say "Hey, I think tonight's the night that people are gonna watch, so we should do more stuff with each other on stage," as opposed to Jim just running around and riling up the crowd, cause that could kinda fall flat, it could get killed, or something. The idea is to have something that you can kind of change depending on the circumstances.



J: I definitely appreciate that. It's difficult to account in advance for how people are going to respond, so having things be dynamic and flexible has its advantages for sure.

CA: Yeah, I mean, it's easy to say, as an artist, like, "Oh, I don't care if people like what I do or not" - and I don't - but I want to make sure that my method of delivery isn't undermining why I'm trying to get people to like it, you know? If people don't like it, then they just don't like it, and that's a fact. But, since I don't necessarily like dancing at shows, I don't get offended if people don't want to dance. If people, like, attacked me and forced me to dance at a show, that would turn me off from liking it - that would be a stumbling block between be and getting to the content. So we try to be respectful of that. Jim might have a completely different answer - I don't know what he does at shows, most of the time...I think he's being respectful!

J: Well, I don't know! I did some research about the band before calling you up and I read a few interviews and show reviews, and I get the impression that audience members tend to view Captain Ahab shows as abrasive - well, maybe not abrasive, but definitely in-your-face, and dangerously energetic. I mean, the reviews I read were very positive, but they were also kind of surprised at how much, erm... the extent to which balls were applied to faces through the course of the evening, is the best way I can describe it.

CA: [Laughter] Yeah, it's definitely aggressive! It's loud, it's fast, it's in your face, but I still think we try to leave the choice up to the audience as to whether they are actively participating in the chaos, or whether they're just an observer.

J: You do seem to have a pretty substantial following. I understand you guys have a fan club?

CA: Yes, yes we do.

J: What prompted the decision to start that up?

CA: I think it was Brian Miller's idea, actually. We thought it would be funny, you know - bands needs to have fan clubs. We thought it'd be a good way to mail a bunch of shit to people.

J: How's that been working out for you - have you gotten a good response?

CA: Yeah, a really great response! We're woefully behind in our mailing of course, but other than that, it's a great thing!

J: Cool! Alright, I guess that wraps it up. My final question is for any fans who may be reading this: what future endeavors are coming up at the end of the tunnel? Do you have any imminent releases, any tours or shows coming up that people should know about?

CA: Well, we're just about done with our next album, which is called The End of Irony, which will be on Deathbomb Arc in the US and Cock Rock Disco in Europe, and, I believe, Dual Plover in Australia, and I have a 12' coming out on Needs More Ram records from Vancouver, and I guess that's about it!

Check out some amazing live footage from a captain ahab show below, then head over to the Captain Ahab MySpace and show some love!