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You can choose to have one -- and only one -- super power. Other than gaining that power, you remain exactly the same as you are now. What super power would you pick, and why?
Caleb Mueller: I'd probably go with the power to not sleep. That un-used fraction of the day that I spend dreaming about falling off telephone poles could be put to much better use. Plus, if I were fighting an evil villain superhero, I could hide somewhere until he fell asleep, and then I could defeat him.
We've all heard variations on the phrase "there are two kinds of people in the world... Those who (do or think something) and those who (do or think something else)". What are the two kinds of people in the world for you?
Caleb Mueller: The kind of people that believe that everything can be simplified down to two categories, and the kind that don't.
If money/ambition/significant others/et cetera were all non-issues, where would you choose to live and why?
Caleb Mueller: I liked living in Vancouver, and so that would probably be where I'd go. It's always the perfect temperature there, they've got great record stores and restaurants, and there's an ocean right next door. Of course, that's not an exciting answer. My exciting answer would be that I'd like to live on the Planet Xenar, with my house perched on the edge of a cliff so I can see the Wog-Ranes wade through the Nuzits while all ten suns set.
You've been given the money and resources to produce a movie biography of the most significant, influential person in your life. Who's it about, what's the story, and who plays the central character?
Caleb Mueller: Well, this is a little off-topic, but right now they've got this thing running on Canadian television where they're telling people to vote for The Greatest Canadian of All Time. This seems to me to be the stupidest thing I've heard since the US called bombing and occupying Iraq a defensive measure. It just seems pathetic that we have to go through and pick the "greatest", like a sad attempt to stoke patriotism artificially. What happens next, the rest of the world picks theirs, and then we have a showdown and pick the Greatest Human of All Time? Yech. Anyway, I don't know who I'd pick or who'd play them. Probably my parents or my wife or something.
Summarize your driving ability in 25 words or less.
Caleb Mueller: The driving ability I possess is like a rain forest full of eagles. My driving prowess is second only to my natural talent for constructing analogies.
What is the function of your music in a capitalist society?
Caleb Mueller: Let's take "capitalist" out of the question, because it complicates things too much, and I ain't much good with them hard stuffs. The problem is that too much of today's music is under-thought artistically and over-thought commercially. There just seems to be an overall lull in conscious, original music, especially in the public forum. Overproduction and oversynthesis, the repeated marketing of rehashed "retro" culture, product tie-ins, image consulting, artistic laziness and the lack of creativity, the continued stream of tepid love/dating songs, centralized monopolies running the entire show...it's bad enough in generalities, never mind the ugly specifics. So swinging all the way back to answering the question, the music I put together is meant to be a small voice of dissent to the wasteland of modern commercial music. In addition to deconstructing life through life and found sound, my intention is also to provide a critique of the Creeds, the Jay-Zs and the Paul Oakenfolds that overrun this world. Or, in condensed form, "Me hate radio. Me make different things."
You've just entered a contest in which the prize is an MP3 player loaded with the complete, exhaustive recorded output of any artist you choose. You win. Who do you choose?
Caleb Mueller: My gut reaction is either Bob Dylan or Miles Davis, because a) I like them b) I don't own many of their albums, and c) they've both done so much work, and so the contest people would have to give me a player with a lot of space, instead of one of those cheap little 32MB things. But then again, both Bob and Miles are from an age where songs were put together to form a larger album, rather than being the independent snippets of music that MP3s make them. It almost seems sad to disassemble their songs that way. But hey, free MP3 player, so I'm not complaining.
What are you carrying on your person -- in your pockets, purse, et cetera -- right now?
Caleb Mueller: I always carry my wallet with me, left front pocket. It has a zipper that goes around it to keep the change in, and it's been through the wash about five times. It has three public library cards in it from Vancouver (BC), Canandaigua (NY), and Elmira (ON). There's also a laundry-ravaged inkjet picture of my wife permanently stuck in one of the plastic card flaps. The bottom of the billfold has a big hole in it that leaks pennies whenever I open it.
You're on tour, you're in an unfamiliar city, you haven't eaten in 24 hours, and due to some poor financial decisions, you have only a single unit of the local currency -- one dollar, one pound, or thereabouts. What do you eat?
Caleb Mueller: Something filling, I guess. I could buy a lot of cheap gum and swallow it all. Or get a bag of marshmallows. And there are those little packets of flavored wheat kernels; those fill you up for a while.
What was the last song you danced to? Who, if anyone, did you dance with?
Caleb Mueller: "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds, on my wedding day with my wife. Awwwwww.
When did you last make a mountain out of a molehill?
Caleb Mueller: During my freshman year in college in my "Introduction to Dirt and Digging" class. I got a C-, with marks docked for a dull peak and neglecting to remove the mole before starting.
Apart from cheeseburgers, what is the cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast?
Caleb Mueller: What do you mean, "apart from cheeseburgers"? That sounds like terrorist talk to me...
Everyone can do at least a couple of decent imitations -- of celebrities, maybe, or associates, friends and family. Who can you "do"?
Caleb Mueller: I'm pretty good at Kermit the Frog (and by extension Ernie as well). Sometimes a pretty good Christopher Walken. And the guy who does the Lakota commercials, and your standard Mennonite accent. And Falsetto Man. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
What was the last book you read and hated? Why did you hate it?
Caleb Mueller: During my last year in high school, we were thrust into the leprous gaw of Canadian literature. Everyone in class had to pick from a very limited selection of books from a cardboard box, which we were then supposed to read and enjoy and appreciate our heritage. The jewel I was punished with was The Stone Diaries by someone unimportant, and it was full of the same recycled themes that fill every other Canadian woman's masterpiece: the displaced, sensitive woman who was raised on the hearty land coming to terms with change and aging through predictable contemplation and reflection. Endless self-conscious rambling about the inconsequential, thin plotlines, broad characters, and all set in that perpetual Great Depression that Canadian writers can't seem to move past. Horrible book.
What is your favorite Meg Ryan movie?
Caleb Mueller: The one where she plays that pretty middle-aged woman who looks young for her age, who overcomes all the problems and falls in love with the sensitive, handsome guy. That one was great.
What is your favorite "comfort food" when you're on tour?
Caleb Mueller: I love burgers. More specifically, I love Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers and McDonald's Big Macs.
Aliens have just landed, and you get to select the Earth's goodwill ambassador. Who do you pick, and why?
Caleb Mueller: It makes perfect sense, having an obscure experimental electronic quasi-musician determine the fate of the earth. So I'd probably think it through: the ambassador would have to be cordial, intelligent, interpersonal, and able to speak alien languages. And I'd start thinking through possibilities -- "Noam Chomsky? He'd be good, he's a linguist. Of course, I don't know any other linguists; he may be a really bad linguist. And what if the aliens are radical right-wingers and he ticks them off?" And so my ideas would get progressively less helpful ("Anne Heche? Ernest Borgnine? Rush Limbaugh?") and I would get bored and put off making a decision, and we would be doomed, and the aliens would kill us.
You wake up one morning and discover that you have dolphin telepathy. What do you do with it?
Caleb Mueller: Well, if it were the same day that the aliens attacked, I could gather the dolphins together from every corner of the globe to one place, like New York City or Los Angeles. That way, there'd be a good chance they'd make a movie out of it. I'm not sure what I'd do after I summoned all the dolphins. I mean, what can dolphins do anyway? If we're lucky, the aliens might self-destruct when they see dolphins, or when they hear the dolphins squeak. In that case, the coasts of New York City or Los Angeles are saved!
You've just been hit in the face with a large chocolate cream pie. How do you react?
Caleb Mueller: I anticipate their intent, and preemptively unload an entire round of ammunition from my automatic assault rifle into them. Then I hack up the body and sell it to my friends. I'm a strong leader that way.
Assuming that you must choose one, which would you rather listen to for an hour: Christian rock, mainstream country or Jessica Simpson?
Caleb Mueller: Well, let's do this by the process of elimination: Jessica Simpson, out. Mainstream country? No, although if we could include mainstream country from maybe 30 years ago, we'd have a deal. And Christian rock? Well, most of Christian rock is just regular radio rock with a vaguely spiritual connotation occasionally tossed in for posterity, and I hate radio rock. But I do like Switchfoot. I'm sure that with a bit of digging, I could put together an hour of listenable music. There's gotta be something there.
What's the deal with those damn raccoons?
Caleb Mueller: I just don't know, it must just be an engrained stupidity. Always rooting around in garbage bins looking for foul morsels of food, running amok and devastating the general population, slowly eating away at years of progress, manipulating news coverage to support their tax cuts and wars that benefit the extremely wealthy while oppressing the remainder of the population... no, wait. I'm thinking of Republicans. Raccoons are the cute furry things with lone ranger masks. My mistake.
Where do you think Osama Bin Laden is hiding and what would it take to get him to come out?
Caleb Mueller: I think Osama's a smart guy, and so he probably figured that since everyone knows him because of his beard, he should shave it off. Then he probably bleached his skin to make it whiter, took language classes, bought a grey suit and a blue tie, and flew to the US under a fake name. Then, in order to continue pushing his violent, extremist world vision while exploiting a popular religion as a cover, he became President. It sounds far fetched, but then again, I've never seen them in the same room together.
What would you consider to be the worst fate imaginable for your music, and which contemporary artist would you most wish this terrible end upon?
Caleb Mueller: There are many frightening fates for CDs -- Diet Pepsi ads, Sting covers, those "Best-of" collections in Wal-Mart for three bucks, floor tiles, shoulder pads, etcetera. But the worst of all would have to be infomercial background music. To have your music reduced to a backdrop for an anti-cellulite cream is one of the saddest things that could happen to an artist. But today's innovation is tomorrow's dead horse. I'd like to wish this terrible end on Justin Timberlake, but he'd like it, which is the whole problem. Instead, we'd have to punish him by making him watch the news, or lock him in a room without a mirror.
Which reality TV game show could you see yourself as a winning contestant on? Explain.
Caleb Mueller: I'm so sick of reality TV. TV in general is bad, but reality TV makes my eyes twist. How "real" can you be with a camera trained on you non-stop? And how "real" are the outlandish situations that people are placed in? How often do you find yourself trapped on an island, forced to play games against other people for food? Bah. So I really couldn't see myself winning on any of those shows. I'm not the type.
What is the strangest thing you've ever had for breakfast?
Caleb Mueller: Once I had breakfast where everything was green, from the orange juice to the eggs to the pancakes. The things themselves weren't strange, but they were strange colors. Does that count?
Which non-music related product (i.e. -- no instruments, microphones, etcetera) would you most like to be a celebrity spokesperson for?
Caleb Mueller: I guess the first step would be to become a celebrity. After that, it would have to be ethical, and I would have to like it. Maybe the Salvation Army, non-profit retailers of affordably priced groovy clothing, with proceeds going to charity. I've found many a classic t-shirt there.
If you had an army of super-intelligent lab mice to do your bidding, what evil deeds would you have them do?
Caleb Mueller: Why should the mice do evil things? They could do nice things, like clean the house, or bite people who commit crimes. And if they're really really intelligent, maybe they could hook up with those dolphins and defeat those damn aliens.
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Bio Excerpt:
More than music, Decomposure creates a sonic deconstruction of the art process, addressing the contrast of the often laborious, quiet and painstaking process of art creation to the perceived emotional tone of its end result. The structure of the sound itself studies the relationship of percussion to music and silence.
-- George Zahora
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