Hella's Carson McWhirter discusses music, life, Nintendo and Zoroaster.

Experimental musician and Portland transplant Carson McWhirter would be a household name if your house was located between Sacramento and the fringe of existence. Having been a pivotal member of cult-favorite NES cover band The Advantage and perhaps more notably the collective form of math-rock outfit Hella, McWhirter's abstract approach to songwriting is punctuated with moments of monumental clarity. With an eclectic style and multi-instrumental proficiency, he can as easily perform ambient balladry and acoustic folk as he can keep up with drumming behemoth Zach Hill.

He recently gave us a little bit of his time to discuss everything from life and music to drugs and religion. We were really excited for the opportunity being that Hella's There's No 666 In Outer Space made our Top Albums of the 2000s list.

You've worked with some huge names, what's in store for the future? Can we expect an album, tour, side-project anytime soon?

Ha, huge names. That makes me wish that I had more friends with really long names like Philippus Theophrastus von Hohenheim. “Soon” would probably be the wrong word to use here. I don’t have any schedules or definitive plans currently. I have done a little recording and test recording recently for a couple of album projects. I typically spend lots of time on things (perhaps unnecessarily) and take epic breaks between project stages in order to gain perspective or to clear my mind of it.

I do want to tour a lot this year but I often become satisfied with playing guitar under the sun in the park or something, so touring seems like an awful lot of work. I have been talking to a friend of mine who might help me set up some shows in Asia. That would be awesome because I need to get out of this country for a little while. Shit is stagnant here. If a tour doesn’t fall in to place for me I’m thinking about backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail for a few months.

Do you think an Asian audience will have a greater appreciation for your music? What kinds of venues would you be playing?

Hmm, well I don't know anything about what the venues are like there. This is still sort of a pipe dream. I would be pretty darn nervous about playing shows in Asia - excited nervousness. For some reason I feel like playing in huge cities like Seoul or Tokyo ups the barre a little because it seems like they would have seen everything already. Maybe that view is more appropriate of Tokyo than Seoul, but I really don't know what to expect aside from the descriptions that various friends gave me.

So there's no burning desire or priority to release an album? Why not?

The most important aspect of music to me is just playing music. Making an album largely stresses me out. It's really difficult for me to put what I do under a microscope in that way. I wish that someone will just present me with a well packaged recording of all the best moments I've had of playing guitar in my room. That's where all the best versions happen and where I feel like I've really achieved something. Also, I don't have a really large back catalog of songs so it's kind of a struggle to choose what to work on in the studio and turn into more fully developed music.

On the other side of things, I do see the value of releasing a record. People that are interested in the few things that I have out there can get a little more of it. I can affect people. That seems really special. Yet, a lot of my music is so self centered these days and is not so universally valuable or relative to a wider range of experience. It's very narrow. Perhaps that's not for me to judge though.

McWhirter performs an acoustic version of his song "Watchers," courtesy TerrorEyes.TV

You've mentioned there was some difficulty with "666" and I think Zach mentioned that there were some problems with the tour. What made it such an obstacle?

You know, I can’t really put my finger on any one thing with confidence. I suppose there was just a lot of pressure and stress involved in the tour. There was a strange vibe for me. The whole time writing and recording and just hanging out as a band was great until we got out on the road and there was this extra responsibility to prove ourselves (Aaron, Josh, and I more specifically). Aaron got the worst of it. It was as if he was guilty – unless he was able to prove himself innocent – in the eyes of some of the more obnoxious and outspoken fans. That’s a lot of unnecessary pressure. I think we had all wished that we would’ve released that record under a different name so that it didn’t seem like such a drastic change for people. It was, in actuality, a different band with a different internal dynamic.

But, to be honest, the only true obstacle for me was myself. I was, and maybe still am, only a reluctant participant in professional music (meaning; utilizing a method of selling and promoting my creations). I felt an overwhelming pressure to become a sort of actor. It seemed that so long as people left the show feeling great, it didn’t matter how I felt. I did not feel like I was able to be honest or that people were, or are, even looking for honesty in the search of, and enjoyment of music. That’s sort of a double edged sword though. Should music be an honest representation of what is immediately observable or should it present a fictional landscape on which people can become their new experiences of themselves? It seems like most people accept the honesty of contrived performances. (I don’t use contrived in the derogatory sense, but to mean that some degree of action is preplanned).

In what way were fans of the duo Hella predispositioned against Hella the band?

It seemed like a few people had some really intense experiences with the music on the first couple Hella albums and couldn't snap out of it enough to see the good points in all the other Hella music. I'm sure there were different disappointments for different people, but in general it just seemed like there were a lot of people that just wanted to see things the way they wanted it. This happened to the point that they ended up insulting the people that they were there to support. It may have seemed that me and the other newer members were infiltrating the band in some way, without realizing or taking into consideration that we were all friends and had respect and admiration for each other for longer than Hella had existed.

What made you decide to not only collaborate, but also to tour?

There was a certain point early on in my musical career when everything felt kind of easy and destined. I never had to book shows because we were always offered shows. I was getting paid $200 to pack out a tiny coffee shop when I was 20 years old. That world didn't last long though. Everyone ran out of money quick it seemed. I never hear of that sort of treatment happening these days.

I've never really been a big player in the professional music world. I was in The Advantage and Hella because we were friends and we lived together and hung out together and we could all play music and talk about crazy shit. The Advantage had an in because Spencer and Zach wrote a couple of rad records and that gave each of them some clout for a bit. I just sort of ended up riding that wave. While I was there I did my share of work, but getting to that point was never my doing.

Did you ever feel out of your element?

At first when I was playing out and touring I felt sort of empowered. Everyone else was out of my element and I was hoping to show people something different. Now, I feel completely different. I don't know how to sell myself to people and I'm torn between that realization and the feeling that I absolutely need to sell myself to everyone, all the time.

I often have conversations with other musician friends of mine about the best ways to give a project momentum in the business. It's as if you need to break into a self-perpetuation cycle in order to get going. If you have a label or a popular album then you can more easily get a publicist and a booking agent, but how can you get a label if you don't have a popular album and how can your album become popular without a publicist. There is the old method of just being in an awesome band and touring around punk-style for a super long time in order to build up hype and then gradually getting better and better shows, but fuck if it isn't expensive to travel around these days. There is no better way to be successful than to be undeniably good at what you do. Although there are plenty of obstacles in the way of achieving that.

Who would you like to/who do you see yourself collaborating with in the future?

You know, there are a lot of people I would love to make music with, some of whom are completely out of my reach currently. I would love to improvise with Cecil Taylor and/or Han Bennink but the likelihood of that is slim.

However, unless they just fall in to place, collaborations don’t usually occur by my effort. I’ve always thought that Mick Barr, Zach Hill, and I could make some wicked music together. Ches Smith would be a fun drummer to play with because I love his grooves and his dynamic voicing.

I’m not an easy person to collaborate with; I’m guarded, particular, and prone to uncomfortable levels of anxiety.

McWhirter performs with Zach Hill in studio.

A lot of the work you do falls into the "math rock" subgenre. How do you feel about the label? How would you label or describe your own music?

I don’t really describe my own music very well. I think other people are better at that.

Although I do remember the numbers of repetitions of parts, I rarely count out time signatures any more. I never write music based on an attempt to make things complicated or off-time or whatever it seems like people think about in regards to the term math-rock. I’m usually trying to reach a point of physical and mental fluidity in conjunction with the mysteriously occurring decisions that I make along the way. I write so many different styles of music because I feel so many different styles of ways. I don’t often play the same set twice or in the same fashion so it’s hard for me to choose a label. My music is simply the byproduct of something else that I’m working on that no one (including myself) will ever have a complete grasp on – until after I die I suppose.

You're incredibly proficient with a number of instruments. How did you get to the level you're at, and what instrument do you feel most comfortable and expressive with?

Hmm, tough question. I don’t really trust my own impression of the path I took to get to this point. One thing that I can say with reluctant confidence is that I’ve always just bounced around from idea to idea, instrument to instrument, depending on whatever whim or fancy I happen to be riding at that time. This finicky quality has brought me to lots of different forms of expression. I don’t worship instruments and therefore I’m able disrespect them or forget about them entirely. Sometimes making music is something that happens in my head completely.

I’ve always felt that music would be limited if I were to painstakingly devote all my effort to one instrument or area of music. However, I can see the downside to this view. Because of my finicky, and sometimes flighty, approach to music I have never felt completely comfortable with any one instrument. I will only play guitar in certain situations, piano in others, and bass in others, etc. I use them each for something different.

Piano is an instrument that I’m much more expressive with in the moment, where guitar is something that I have involved in a slower path to expression. Guitar is often more thought out. I rarely write fully fleshed out songs on the piano. These roles shift at times though. Lately the majority of my practice time is spent improvising on the guitar as opposed to writing out songs. I rarely write songs any more in general. Songs usually come from manic episodes in which I write out a song mostly in one sitting, this only happens a few times throughout the year.

Are any of your contemporaries an influence on you?

Well, I respect more musicians than those I wish to collaborate with. Influence opens the flood gates. I’ll just list a few people that I respect, or that have influenced me in some way (ways that might be non-musical too), Mick Barr, Zach Hill, Jonathan Hischke, Seth Brown, John Niekrasz, Robby Moncrief, Teddy Briggs, Spencer Seim, Ben Milner, Andrew Joseph Weaver, Thomas Bonvalet, Ian Hill, Kenseth Thibideau, Rob Crow, Zac Nelson. I hate ending these kinds of lists because they truly continue on indefinitely. I know I’m going to forget someone that influenced me a lot or that I respect from the bottom of my heart.

As a musician in the digital age, how do you feel about piracy? Also -- vinyl or digital?

Well, I’m totally broke. That’s partly my fault for not releasing tons of albums. But, for instance, I haven’t seen a dime from that Hella album “666”. Could that be because of people downloading it instead of buying it? I can’t really be sure about that, but it seems likely.

The opposite side of that is that I download as my main method of acquiring music. I only buy vinyl. I didn’t own a working cd player of any kind for more than a year. The drive in my computer was busted and I don’t own a stereo that can play cds. I didn’t miss cds. I’m still annoyed that I own any at all. Although as a broke musician it’s much easier and cheaper to release a cd than vinyl in the quantity that it would take to make a little profit. However, if there was just a little bit more money to be had on tour I might actually be touring regularly. It’s almost too hard these days. Every time I consider going on tour I have to consider whether or not I can keep my room in my house.

Your music is pretty high-concept and experimental. What are some non-music influences on your work?

Through a natural attraction to spiritual music and culture I often return to studying spirituality. Most of what I do is related to this. It all ties in to my ongoing quest to understand myself and the predicament of life. I read a lot about this quest and practice various methods of being. I’m very interested in C.G. Jung’s ideas about psychology and spirituality. Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Zoroastrianism, and Sufism are all things that continually pop up. I can see myself reading about these topics for the rest of my life. It’s entirely fascinating to me how many different ways people have attempted to illustrate the human condition, and yet in-between the differences there are always similarities.

I’ve always been interested in studying in some way or another. Before I tried my first hallucinogens I read a lot about them and tried to have an idea of the affect they might have on me. But, it was the study that I did after I began experimenting that became more a part of me. Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary wrote things that sparked my mind and put a fire under my ass for a time. I’m still working through Wilson’s recommended reading. Everything from James Joyce, Ezra Pound, to Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley, and Alfred Korzybski. There are so many interesting ways of thinking and dealing with the mysteries that are abound.

I’d say I’m more easily excited about esoteric thinkers than I am about art or music separately. Ah, and then there’s neuroscience. I’m keeping my ears open for news about the neuroscience experiments that the Dali Lama is funding. Now we know that meditation can affect the physical structure of the brain, but it’ll be interesting to see how far this can go. Mind over matter is real, it’s just really really slow working.

I think it's pretty safe to say that experimental music and hallucinogenic experimentation go hand in hand. How specifically do psychedelics influence your creative process?

I've become more and more disillusioned about the mystical nature of hallucinogenic experience in the last few years, but I have had some experiences that will stick with me for quite a while. I have phases in which I smoke an awful lot of weed and write lots of music and learn new things about myself. My psychedelic phases are farther and fewer between. I used to get powerful visual stimulus from drugs that would totally change my artistic direction. Now, I think my interest in drugs is more emotional than aesthetic - well it always has been, but I'm paying attention to that solely these days. I only do psychedelics a few times a year I think - depending on your definition of psychedelic.

I just smoked Salvia again the other night. I was laying back on some pillows on the ground with my eyes closed because I wanted to meditate through the trip. Salvia always starts out with a drastic confusion of the sensory input. The music coming from my clock radio became a physical and colorful object that was holding on to my right side (the side the radio was on). If I didn't stay in my mind to a certain degree I probably would've tried to swat the music off of me (psychedelic freak out), but instead I was able to turn myself into a conscientious observer of my own experience. I then began to trip out on what it meant that an experience could be "mine" and not of someone else. I had the sensation that I was being controlled from behind my body and that what I normally experience of my world is more closely related to looking in the eyepiece of a video camera. I began to be able to step back out of my body to observe myself looking through my senses and then I had the eerie feeling of being around other people. The feeling that came next is hard to describe but essentially I caught a glimpse of an infinitely expansive tiered structure of experience (of all things, living and not). All experiences at one level are connected to nodes (which is just a wider degree of experience) of the next higher level and so on. Almost like an infinitely large card house structure, but of experiences and realities. My most narrow reality is controlled and determined by higher level realities that encompass all of the possible immediate realities. Ok, this is way tripped out I know, but it felt really great to be able to view my thoughts and sense input as just a piece of something more connected. I often lack that feeling in my day to day experience. I didn't write a song about it this time, but I've been inclined to after similar experiences in the past. This trip wasn't as musical as others I've had.

Although this trip sounds kind of intriguing, I want to warn people that haven't done this drug before that it's actually very intense and to be really smart about when and where to do this. Definitely read up on it before trying it. Not very many people enjoy this drug. I'm one of only a few people I've ever met that chooses to do this.

Speaking of influences -- what inspired you guys to cover NES game music?

For me, I got involved in that at a time when I wasn’t so much playing video games but was still close enough to them that they were fresh in my mind. I just started recognizing the music and imagining how rockin’ it would sound if a live band performed some if it. I wish new games would have music like the old ones again. I miss 8 bit.

Ha, as a side note I just got a DOS emulator for windows so that I can play this one older 16 bit computer game called Stellar Conquest III. No animation, no music. Pure space war strategy. Other than that I haven’t gotten into video games for a few years. Well, that’s not true either…when I was home for the holidays my family was getting sort of competitive over Mario Kart for Wii.

Any plans for an Advantage or Hella collective reunion?

No plans that I’m aware of, but there is occasional talk.