Wiretap: On the Phone with Adam Forkner.

First ever phone interview!
Adam Forkner, currently of White Rainbow and Purple & Green, and I chatted on the phone last week about all the important things in life: Paul Allen, and Pauly Shore, and basketball. What else could there possibly be to talk about?
Adam and I spoke before he made his way from Portland to Seattle earlier this month to perform for Cairo's EXPO fest, which was fucking AWESOME. (Props to Marius for "bringing the party" with his strobe light app.)
Thanks to Adam for coming up here, for the last-minute phone interview, and especially for the enormous, rubbery, scented...member... that you brought along from Portland.

ANYWAY.
This is what the show looked like:


"this song is like a caterpillar"










And this what we said:

What is something that makes you never want to live in seattle?

 Oh god. Where do I start. I don’t know. Starbucks! I’ll just say starbucks. Also, the EMP. Paul Allen--he seems to have really ruined downtown. Alice in Chains. They’re from Tacoma, though, I know. Man, Baby Gap. People in turtlenecks. There are no turtle necks in Portland! Unless they’re from Seattle.

This is your second Cairo festival this year. Do have any expectations are you looking forward to something in particular? 
Yeah you know, I pop in, I pop out. That’s my thing. I’m looking forward to playing in the small room. Its such a special little room. It’s always so nice there, so cozy. You can get crunk and sweaty. Im not going to wear my stupid Columbia red jacket again. Last time I wore it and Ian was wearing the same one. Not again.

What was it like running into Pauly Shore during an interview? (Was that staged?)

No man, that was not staged! A film crew followed us around LA on the Atlas Sound/White Rainbow tour in 2008, and it was our day off. We were in Chinatown, shopping and going to galleries. The film crew wanted to do an interview, and we were just sitting ducks answering music questions. Anyway, the guy filming saw Pauly Shore and was totally starstruck, and got him to come over. I looked it up later on, and there are videos of him heckling people on that same day. He had that same dumb do-rag on. I guess hes doing internet comedy now.

You have done a lot of collaborative projects. What do you like about collaborations versus solo projects? 

With collaborations you get to leave your ego aside. You get to just dedicate yourself to a musical idea without having to have ownership, like, everyone in the collaboration gets to ease off their ego a bit. Solo is all about yourself and your music. When I do solo stuff its almost like a musical diary for me. I’ve been a musician my whole life. 

What instruments do you play?

I played the trumpet from fifth grade to college, but then quickly to drum machines and the synthesizer. 

Do you have a style icon?

A style icon? Oh geez, yeah probably. FUCK! YEAH! George Clinton? FUCK! I don’t know, I don’t have any money, haha. I like hyphy and hip hop fashion, and put it into my very-poor-person/noise-guy clothes. But I’m getting old now, so I just like t-shirts. I love Uniqlo, haha. Man, I went to Uniqlo in Japan and I wore all men’s size large. Makes me feel good.

Tell me about the name “White Rainbow".

Oh, that was many years ago, like 2003. I liked that it made no sense. It negates itself. White is all the colors, and so is a rainbow.  At the time it represented the feeling of everything—the whole spectrum of light. But now I don’t fucking know. Sometimes I go by Dr. Pizza. White Rainbow just seems hella serious. And I'm not a very serious person, even though I take music seriously.

Someone that you would really like to collaborate with?

Dam Funk comes to mind, I would love to learn what he knows about synthesized funk. Dane Funk is an ambassador to the R&B funk path of synth. Much respect to that guy.

What three people would you invite to dinner?
Haha. Dinner? Like, eating and talking? Oh shit. Fuck. Dinner party! Those are fun! George Clinton. Because he would just be funny. Oh, and Larry David and JB Smooth. I feel like that would be a wonderful dinner. Lots of laughs. 



Looking for a little Christmas gift for yourself? Saunter on over to our blog to listen to Adam's special mixtape JUST FOR CAIRO! AHH!

STILL not enough?? Click here!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Liv