George Clanton’s 100% Electronica Universe, & Dream Collab With Nick Hexum In Self-titled LP
Interview by Alex Free
George Clanton, vaporware icon, has worked for years to construct his own zone. Starting as a label to house his own unique releases as a solo artist, the machine of 100% Electronica has become like its own private universe, an excitement-driven sphere of experimental projects that’s high-color, goofy, nonexclusive and lets anyone in.
Over the past two years it’s grown to include a diverse roster of electronic and experimental musicians, its own electric fashion label (check the shirts, they’re trippy and bring to mind the plasma lamps every 90s kid had in their homes), and a dream festival that had its inaugural year last year only to have its sophomore cut by coronavirus.
While the festival was cut short, George hasn’t stopped, and 100% Electronica now hosts a weekly Live Stream, and a VR 360 Live Stream experience called “Beyond The Virtual Utopia Experience,” the second installment of which aired July 11th. And George, forever busy boy, has found time in all of this to release his first collaboration record with none-other than his own childhood icon, 311’s Nick Hexum.
The summer album, full of tracks which George calls “cruising around with the top down,” off an album that “nobody asked for,” has a tracklist of lightweight, ambient and noisy bangers that are very much what the self titled LP announces itself to be: George Clanton and Nick Hexum. It’s an album that, in retrospect and post-listen, has no surprises, but a series of delights at every turn to be enjoyed on repeat.
Maybe best epitomized an early single off the record, ‘Topanga State of Mind,’ the vibe of both song and ep brings to mind the real life Topanga: a like-nothing-else mountain / beach town just outside of George’s now-home of Los Angeles. It’s a lush, breezy, easygoing record while maintaining an aura of being slightly mystified, hazy, and grown over. It sounds like nothing but the two of them, a perfect exemplum of George’s production and Nick’s signature guitar riffs and vocal hooks together.
Stream George Clanton and Nick Hexum here.
Find 100% Electronica swag & experiences here.
George and I, in the middle of crazy schedules and a chaotic world, over conference call, talk routines for staying sane during coronavirus, the universe of 100% Electronica, and collaborating with Nick Hexum for George Clanton and Nick Hexum.
Hi George, how are things?
Kind of crazy. A lot of cool stuff going on all at once. I’m kind of distracted, I haven’t even had my coffee today. I think that might be something I need to jumpstart my brian.
You’ve been quarantining in your house in LA. How has that been with releasing an album, and collaborating and finishing up this project with Nick Hexum?
I don’t know, it’s kind of making me go crazy, but at the same time I feel good when I’m busy, and so, you know, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m trying to do as much as possible, and I just kind of stay glued to the computer. I know that everybody’s sick of hearing about ‘people during coronavirus getting things done,’ but that’s been the way that I’m staying sane. I honestly think I was saved by the bell by my tour getting canceled, because I had all these things that I was working on that were just kind of falling apart, and I wasn’t going to have enough time to get them together before I was going on this really long tour with The Garden. And I was going to go directly from that into planning my festival, which had its inaugural year last year. With lockdown I’ve been able to take the time I was spending on concert projects and redirect it into the creative side, which has been good, though ideally I want to be able to do both.
So I was able to finally finish up the Nick Hexum album, I’m about halfway done with my solo album, and we’ve been getting a lot done with the record label [100% Electronica]. Two days ago we did the Virtual Utopia VR show that I’ve basically been working on the whole quarantine. In my mind it’s a whole bunch of things spinning.
Is that how you stay motivated?
It’s kind of easy to stay motivated since I own the label and the label is me, and it’s all just a DIY experience. When something is done I can just put it out the way that I want to immediately. We come up with a roll-out plan, but ultimately I’m in control. So I feel like I’m doing things, and getting a direct response to them after doing them.
I get a lot of joy out of entertaining people. And I feel like everything I’ve been doing lately has been constructed in such a way that they all tie together. We have a weekly Live Stream, and we bring artists on there, we make connections with them, we talk about what we’re doing and what releases we have, and it all ties together in this big web. We’ve been doing so much throughout the coronavirus, and I’m addicted to this cycle that we’re in of one thing pushing the next one into play.
The motivation I guess just comes from that: there’s a real big momentum right now with all the people who follow what I’m doing, and everybody’s really happy with us right now. I’m just in this real creative flow. It’s not always like that, so when it comes I just have to get as much done while I’m feeling creative and motivated and comfortable.
Yeah, that’s beautiful. Also, love the label. 100% Electronica. I’m sure ownership of that keeps you busy and firing on all cylinders. Especially because it’s interdisciplinary. It’s really inspirational, frankly, that you have so many things going on: fashion, and collaboration, and bringing in other artists, and your own solo work, all into this one unified space.
Thank you. It doesn’t feel like too long ago that there wasn’t too much to be proud of. Now that it’s taking such a big shape, I feel like I’m inspired by it. I’m just in awe of what’s going on. Now that the machine is moving, I feel like maybe this is what I’ve always wanted, and I don’t want to squander my chance.
You know the concept of the flow state? If you’re trying to do something just outside of your skill sets where it’s kind-of difficult, you operate at 100%. If you’re chasing something just outside of what you’re able to accomplish you can really push yourself. That’s why the Dance Dance Revolution is such an addictive game. If you just turn the difficultly up to right outside of what you can do, that’s when it’s the most fun. It’s not fun when it’s easy, or when it’s too hard. I just keep setting these goals that are right outside of what’s practical, and sometimes I miss and sometimes things happen. We didn’t know our Live Stream was going to be so fun, for instance, and now I don’t know how to live without it.
Can you tell me about the new album, George Clanton and Nick Hexum?
I actually made contact with Nick Hexum before I moved to LA, and we’ve been intermittently recording. I haven’t been able to work on making music like I used to until coronavirus, so [since lockdown started] I’ve been on this kind of push, and every moment that I get I’ve been hunkering down and working on this music with Nick. I’ll send him a little idea, and he’s got such a proven track record of writing hooks, 311-style hooks, he hits me back with a catchy hook and that inspires the rest of the song.
It’s a summer album, so even though we’re in lockdown I wanted to get it out this summer instead of working on it for another year. We’re not going to stop working together, but it just felt right to release it now.
It’s not an album that anybody asked for. It’s not an album anybody was expecting. Most of the people who follow along are expecting a George Clanton album, which is in the works, but this was something I really wanted to do. I get a lot of fulfillment from working with Nick. He’s been an idol of mine since childhood. It’s just been really easy, even though it’s taken so long. Every song that I’ve done in this time has come together really easily with Nick.
It’s definitely a good cruising album. I was listening to Topanga and Aurora Summer this morning and was thinking ‘this is perfect’ — it’s LA, it’s super hot, and it’s just wonderful.
When I close my eyes it’s definitely like cruising around with the top down.
Can you tell me more about collaborating with Nick, and the initial reach out process years ago?
I sent him something I was working on, which is what became Topanga. I sent him a minute long instrumental of that, and maybe two days later we’re driving and I get an email from Nick. No message, just the song, and it said ‘Topanga State of Mind.’ I started playing it, me and my now fiancé were driving around, and it’s my song, and his guitar signature comes in and I started freaking out. She had to swerve the car because I was screaming. I was just expecting guitar but then he started singing, and the verse that he sings is the same verse and same vocal take that ended up on the album. I started tearing up, it was just crazy. It was really overwhelming to hear his voice on my music..
I’ve been making music for such a long time without anybody really following me. Being successful is still a relatively new thing to me, I’m 32 years old and didn’t really sell many records until I was 30, and that’s when all this started. It was just really crazy to think that Nick Hexum of all people, someone who’s basically been a hero of mine since I was 7 or 8 years old, was singing on my song and it sounds so good. It was a real shocker, and it’s been like that the whole way through. That’s just the way that I feel about it.
That’s so dreamy. It’s a beautiful record. Congrats on it, and congrats on your engagement. So many positive things happening for you right now.
Yeah, as the world burns. It’s a real crazy time. It’s a volatile, volatile year. Some days you feel really good because there are still a lot of good things happening, and some days you feel really bad with the different weights of everything that’s going on.
I feel that, I think everyone does. Hopes for the future at this point—admittedly a strange time. Do you see more collaborations? Any dream collabs?
As far as dream collabs, it doesn’t get much better than Nick. Just kind of a crazy jackpot. I also really would like to work with Seal. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but my new album is really inspired by Seal, so that’s kind of a dream collab. There are some friends of mine I’m already working on things with. Collaborating with Nick has been something to really open me up to the idea that I can do these collaborations. I used to say ‘I can’t collab, it’s impossible.’ But now I’m in a new comfort zone, and that includes being able to collab with people.
I’m excited about that for sure, but I do think that I need to buckle down and work on the next George Clanton solo album. So that’s what I’m focusing on for the immediate future.