MC Lars
by John B. Moore

It’s not hard to imagine MC Lars, one of nerdcore’s most famous ambassadors, lip syncing to Weird Al songs as a youngster.

It was a bit of idol worship then, when the twenty-something rapper found himself recording with the accordion-totting parody king last year. Weird Al is just one of well over a dozen or so guests who stopped by to share the mic with MC Lars for his latest This Gigantic Robot Kills.

The record, his ninth if you throw in the numerous EPs he’s released, is exactly what people have come to expect from the California born and bred MC: witty swipes at celebrity, hipsters and trends.

MC Lars (born Andrew Robert Nielsen), spoke with INsite recently about the European fans, his new album and the chances that he may someday record with Raffi.

How was SXSW this year? Was this your first time performing there?
This year SXSW was really exciting. In a turbulent time for the economy and independent music scene, it was great to see so many amazing and talented performers sticking to their guns and putting on great shows. I met some of my favorite rappers and did two showcases with my friends in the nerdcore hip-hop scene. It was my fourth time attending the festival and my third time performing at it. My favorite acts this year were Forrest Day, Sage Francis, MC Frontalot, Jesse Dangerously and 3OH!3. What a line up!

You're about to head to England for a tour. Have you found that audiences in Europe are act any different than US audiences?
European audiences react quite differently. I studied at Oxford as a sophomore at Stanford and met a lot of people in the local indie rock scene. It was at this time that electronic hip-hop like the Streets and Dizzee Rascal and I was doing electro hip-hop stuff around this time, so what I was doing kind of caught on with the local scene there. Since then, I've toured Europe over 10 times, and because England is so much smaller than the US, word gets around more quickly. Fans their embrace the American bands and it's an awesome time. Hip-hop and punk were born in the U.S. but England made them both a little fresher and stranger.

Can you explain the story behind your new album's title, This Gigantic Robot Kills?
Wesley Willis was an outsider artist from Chicago who suffered from schizophrenia. He used his music as a way to deal with his mental and emotional stress and drew amazing pictures of the Chicago skyline from memory. When I met him at CMJ in 2000, I gave him two copies of my burnt CDs and he was encouraging about the stuff I was doing on my own. He told me his next record was going to be called "This Gigantic Robot Kills," and remembered me when I saw him a few years later in San Francisco. He died shortly thereafter and this album is a tribute to him. It was a challenge navigating between different labels and managers in creating this record, funding most of the production on my own with different producers across the country. The Gigantic Robot is both the music industry and my music - so let's give props to ironic conundrums.

I love the song "Hipster Girl." Were you thinking of anyone in particular when you wrote it?
Thanks dude. The girl on the track was the ex-girlfriend of a singer from a popular Long Island indie rock band. She was a good friend of mine, but the song isn't necessarily about her. I lived in Williamsburg for a year and wrote the song about the crews of people who hung out at McCarren Park Pool for the free shows and PBRs. Brooklyn is the nexus of hipster girl - and the girls there are fantastic and beautiful, but often hilarious parodies of themselves. The character on that track is an amalgam and the concept is a tribute to Zappa's "Valley Girl."

Growing up did you tend to listen to more hip hop or punk? How about now?
Growing up I was a "Weird Al"/Nirvana/Marilyn Manson/Nine Inch Nails mainstream 90s rock guy. I got into the Offspring and saw a show they did in Santa Cruz where Jello Biafra came out and sang some Dead Kennedys songs with them. That was when I was in 8th grade, and around this time I was learning guitar so I started a punk band. I learned how to record on a four-track and then started doing beat-making stuff on my computer with Rebirth and Cubase - my punk band was doing shows on the Monterey Peninsula, and as a joke, I'd open for them with my laptop, a la Atom & His Package. When I got to college, KZSU (my college's station) had the oldest hip-hop show on the West Coast, the Drum. They had a gigantic wall of hip-hop vinyl and I'd spend the weekends studying and listening to the old-school jams. That's when I realized that hip-hop and punk were pretty similar and it would be my job to connect them. Nowadays I listen to mainly indie hip-hop but love it when dudes like P.O.S. fuse everything.

Can you tell me about some of the guests you had on this new record?
"Weird Al" Yankovich has always been a huge inspiration to be and he hit me up in 2006 because he'd heard about me. He played accordion on my song "True Player for Real" and one of the highlights of the recording process was being on the phone with him as he played different triads on his accordion and asked me how he wanted me to have him play them. To think that "Weird Al" was looking to me for music direction was a highlight of my career! Pierre from Simple Plan and Gabe from Cobra Starship were friends I made playing shows in the UK. Suburban Legends and the Aquabats were ska friends of mine I toured with in the U.S., and I wrote the title track with my friend Joe from Patent Pending. Wheatus and I became friends with through Bowling for Soup, and I'd been fans of them since I was in high school. The hip-hop guests are friends from the "nerdcore scene", except for K.Flay, who I went to college with and was the subject of a love song on the Graduate. She helped me craft some of my rhymes and beats. Mike Kennedy from Vision of Disorder was my roommate in Brooklyn. Yes, this album has more guests than a Dre record - but it was fun conducting an e-mail orchestra of parts.

Anyone you've always wanted to record with?
I'd die a happy man if KRS-One would collab with me. That would be incredible. I met Jello Biafra at a Leftover Crack show and would love to work with him too - homeboy's insane and brilliant. Del tha Funkee Homosapien and I met on the set of some commercials we did for G4 and have been talking about hooking some stuff up. I'm also doing a whole concept record with my boy Jesse Dangerously... and YTCracker and I always have hot stuff brewing. I'm working on a children's record too, so if Raffi wanted to sing a hook, that would be bananas (as in banana phones).

You started your own label, Horris records, awhile ago. Ever thought about signing other bands?
I'm signed to Crappy Records, which is an imprint under Oglio, and funded a lot of the production for TGRK under Horris. Crappy Records is Jaret from Bowling for Soup's new label, and they have been doing great stuff for me. They are good friends of mine who have taken me out on many tours. Horris is my production company, and of course I still want to hook up my friends and get them distribution, but in the meantime I'm proud to be part of the Crappy family, even though the music we put out is the antithesis of the name.

Listening to anything interesting lately?
Q-Tip's new record flipped my wig, Amadou & Mariam are a fantastic "world music" act, and 3OH!3 rocked the hell out of everyone in the indie/hip-hop/electro/Warped Tour community. Jesse Dangerously's albums are fantastic. Aesias Finale are an ill production team out of Alabama who rock and have been making hot beats for me.

Have you set up summer tour plans yet?
I'm doing a two month US tour with K.Flay and YTCracker and some shows with Jesse Dangerously. I'll probably head back to the UK after that and then start to work on the new record. My homeboy MC Chris and I are touring together later this year too - he's hilarious and the kids freaking love him.

Anything else you want to add?
Jello Biafra said "Don't hate the media, become the media". That's the key to what I'm doing - don't consume, create. Sure Myspace is littered with ways to "promote yourself" but spend the time making music, not networking with bands that spend more time networking than creating. The new single "Guitar Hero Hero" is a cry to kids to unplug their video games and start real bands and play real shows. Consumption is not creation! Make a difference, the time is now, and never in the history of music has the DIY approach paid off so richly.