On a cold, snowy day, RAD got to hang out with Mark Griffin, a.k.a. MC 900 Foot Jesus, in the huge bus where they travelled in comfort. We offered to take him out to dinner and show him the local sites, but he doesn't like to eat before a show. Instead, he took some time out of his trumpet practice to talk with us. Mark is an articulate, intelligent musician who spoke with a slight Texas drawl.

RAD

So you're from Dallas, Texas?

Mark

Yeah, not originally, I've been there since 1979.

RAD

How do you like Texas?

Mark

It's nice, you know, it's too hot, but it's a cheap place to live, and it's like, got, you know, even Dallas, the music scene there has gotten a lot better. When I first moved there, it was all just like bad fusion bands and a bunch of like bad white blues players. Now it's like, over the last...since the middle `80s, it started to develop a really good club scene and a lot of bands and stuff there so even the music scene is pretty enjoyable really now. I mean it's a total Republican stronghold. Dallas is a big, very conservative city, and that's not exactly my cup ofnd that's not exactly my cup of tea, but it has its good points.

RAD

How do you feel about Ann Richards being ousted out of office by a Bush nonetheless?

Mark

Yeah, well we'll see, I don't know. I feel guilty because I wasn't there to vote, I would've voted for her.

RAD

Was it that close, do you know?

Mark

No, I don't think it was that close. I always feel bad if I don't vote anyway.

RAD

Well, that's really good. I haven't voted in a couple of years.

Mark

Well, when I'm on tour it gets kind of spotty, but we were out on the road. I forgot about dealing with an absentee ballot and stuff like that. So I missed my chance.

RAD

So do you live in Texas still?

Mark

Yeah, but I've been thinking about moving out of there but I haven't...

RAD

You don't know where? You don't want to move to like, L.A. or anything?

Mark

Well, I might do that, I don't know. I mean, it's like I grew up as an army brat and we moved around a lot as a kid. So I've lived in one place for fifteen years, it really was sort of a novelty to me. But now, I feel like I'm almost ready for a change of scenery so that's why I've been thinking about moving.

RAD

I was listening to your first album today, Hell with the Lid Off. How dothe Lid Off. How do you think you've changed since that point in time?

Mark

It's pretty dramatic from that album to this album [One Step Ahead of the Spider] because that album was done just, like, basically with me working on a beat box and a sequencer and a sampler so I pretty much put it all together in my bedroom. Now, we've got to the point where there's a lot of stuff on this album, it's this big 8-piece band, recording live in the studio and it's a lot more varied musical sounds. It doesn't nearly rely as much on sampling. There's only actually one sample from a record on this whole new album. I did use my sampler a lot but it was mostly like sampling myself or that guy that just walked by is my saxophone player, I sampled some stuff that he did. One time, I had like some videotape that I had taken when were on tour in Europe, with him like standing out on a sidewalk in front of a club playing his sax, and I sampled a few notes off of that and that became like this little sax part in this tune called "Buried at Sea." So it's like I'm using it, but it's mostly on, it's not like...I'm just not sampling records anymore. And the first album was just full of samples from records of various times.

RAD

I was looking at the lyrics on the fax American sent me, and it was really interesting because I interesting because I was reading the different lyrics. Like, "If I Only Had a Brain," it all sounds so happy, like the music sounds upbeat. But if you really look at the words, they're a little dark.

Mark

Yeah, well, that tune is more, I see it as more sarcastic than dark, but there are other tunes that are even more so like that, like that tune which is going to be the next single, "But If You Go," sounds like this little light, sort of, halfway Afro samba type of thing with its nice little melodic chorus. Then you have to listen to it a couple of times before you get what's really going on. I like that type of contrast, I like something that, you know, as you live with it for awhile you discover that maybe it's not about what you thought it was about or you discover things about it that you didn't notice the first few times around. To me, that's what makes good music.

RAD

So are you trying to get away from the image, I know that a lot of people think you're just a rapper...

Mark

Mostly more people that just didn't, maybe just haven't really heard that much or something like that. Obviously, with a stage name like MC this or that people are just going to make that assumption right out of the gate, but I think that, maybe not so much on the first album but definitely on the last albumon the last album if you listen to it all the way through, you discover that I'm not really a rap artist.

RAD

What kind of music have you listened to that's influenced your music?

Mark

Well, a lot of jazz stuff is what's been going through my head lately, older jazz stuff like Miles, Weather Report, and Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, and stylistically, a lot of the tunes on the current album began from those types of sounds, instrumentally and also just type of riffs that we'd be playing. I listen to a lot of different types of stuff, I do listen to a lot of rap music, I listen to a lot of classical, not a helluva a lot but certain types of classical stuff I listen to a lot, and whatever else catches my ear really. I worked in a record store, too, actually I worked in this little indie store for about eight years and so it's like I got into a lot of really different types of music that I've started listening to. Any given day, there's liable to be some wierd thing on my turntable.

RAD

That's cool, at least you're like, more well rounded musically,...

Mark

The fact that I do listen to a lot of different things as opposed to just one type of music maybe that's a heavy influence on the type of thing that I do. There's all these different styles kind of thrown together and if thrown together and it's because I listen to a lot of different things as opposed to somebody, like say, in the jazz community who's strictly into jazz or somebody who's into the rap community who's strictly into rap, just listens to that type of music and their albums sound that way through and through. But I don't, I like to just throw everything into this sort of stew and see what happens.

RAD

I heard you got a B.M. in Music. Did you end up getting your master's degree in music theory?

Mark

No, I worked like a year towards it and then I stopped.

RAD

Do you think you'll ever go back to it?

Mark

Yeah, in fact I was talking to my sister last night, and she's going to graduate school right now, and I was telling her that at some point I might, we're talking about it. I might do it. I would only do it just for my own entertainment really 'cause I really liked, I was going for a master's in theory and that's what I really like, music theory or music history. I don't really want to teach college, but I really enjoyed some of the classes I was taking along those lines and I kind of wouldn't mind going back and doing a little more of that. But I don't know even when I would have the chance to do that. I'm always like so busy so if I start to get not busy, then it would probably be a gowould probably be a good time to do it, to think about other career choices, too.

RAD

If there was one thing you could tell people, people you would consider were your fans, what would you tell them?

Mark

I don't know....Congratulations on your intelligence and your good taste.

If MC 900 Foot Jesus comes to your town, don't miss the show. The eight piece band is amazing. The drummer was out of control, and his green dreds were eyecatching. But you've got to see this talented group! Mark on trumpet and the sax player are a combination not to be missed. Look for the newest single, and grab a copy of One Step Ahead of the Spider while you can. It's the thinking person's album.