PAUL WALL

After coming alive nationally in 2005, rapper Paul Wall took advantage of that recognition and branched out into collaborations with artists from all over. That brought him back and forth from California for a couple of years, an exchange that opened his eyes to some developing health issues. On New Year’s Day in 2010, he emerged from the hospital having had gastric sleeve surgery, and has been vocal about how right his decision proved to be.

You’ve been really open about your surgery. Did you experience some fans connecting with you on that? Some people who got inspired to go the same route?

Yeah, definitely. Fans and also other entertainers, too. For me, the reason I wanted to be so open about it was because of all the… the way it was perceived, to get surgery like that, as being vain. And for me, it wasn’t for that purpose solely. You know, part of it is I wanna look good, but it wasn’t like I’m getting’ a thousand plastic surgeries on my face and you walk around looking like a fish. For me, I’m trying to save my life here, but at the same time better my life and feel good about myself. Anytime I see people who have the surgery, they’re always real quiet about it or kinda seem ashamed of it. And they don’t want people to know. But I feel completely the opposite. I’m proud that I got the surgery. If you see how I look before and how I look now, I look like a million bucks. That’s how I’m feelin’, too. So I’m proud that I got the surgery because of the results of how I feel as a person but also, I would hope to inspire somebody else to know that there’s another side to it. It’s not just the embarrassed, the shamed side people get, because people will be like “oh, he got surgery—that don’t count.” Not talking about me, but talking about people that had surgery like that. There’s always something negative that goes along with it, but me, I want to portray it in a positive light, to let people know that you can have surgery, too. I wanted to make a change, and I was doing everything in my power to try to lose weight, but where I was at it was… if I wouldn’t have had the surgery by now, I would have probably been another hundred pounds heavier. Just ’cuz the lifestyle I was livin’, and even though I made dramatic lifestyle changes, I wasn’t losing any weight. So, I don’t know, I just wanted people to know there’s more to it than that. There’s another side to it. You know, I don’t feel like there’s nothin’ wrong with getting’ the surgery. I was 320 pounds!

All that sneaking up on you before you’re even 30.

Hell yeah! Gettin’ on planes feelin’ dizzy, performin’, feelin’ like I’m about to pass out. You know, as I’m performing, praying, “Man, I hope I don’t pass out because I’m gonna be so embarrassed if I fall down on stage.” If it wasn’t for my homeboy motivating me to do it… he was tellin’ me “Man, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that surgery. Don’t be thinkin’ you should be embarrassed by that.” If it wasn’t for him encouraging me to do it, then I probably wouldn’ta did it, and I might not be here! And everybody woulda been talkin’ about me: “Aw, man, Paul shoulda… man, he was too big… why didn’t he get surgery?” That’s bullshit. They don’t say that ’til you die.

 Look at Big Moe.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly, man. Exactly.

But you’re not the only one, and we look at people like Slim Thug, he’s also trimmed up, and then Killa Kyleon – do you feel like it’s an overall thing, do you feel like there’s kind of a movement towards a health consciousness in rap music or in Houston in particular?

I think, yeah, definitely, and some of that comes from watchin’ our heroes fall. First from DJ Screw, and Pimp C, and then Big Moe, and all of them are health-related. Drug kinda-related.

Lifestyle-related.

Yeah, just lifestyle-related. I was living that same lifestyle that they’re livin’, even though some of us might be doin’ the drugs a little more than others, some of us might be eatin’ unhealthily a little more than others, some of us might be exercising a little less than others, but we’re all livin’ the same lifestyle, and it’s just – it has an effect on you, where any of us are vulnerable to that, and you don’t realize it until it’s too late. Or until it’s damn near too late.

And then it’s a real uphill climb. 

Yeah, exactly, man, and part of – you know, when you get your health together, a lot of it has to do with momentum, the momentum you have with it. And if you feel like the battle is lost already, and you don’t have any hope for it, it just makes it that much tougher to overcome.

paulwallbaby.com

Interview by Lance Scott Walker
Photography by Peter Beste

two star symphony

L-R: Margaret Hullum Lejeune, Debra Brown, Jerry Ochoa, Jo Bird

Local string quartet Two Star Symphony, which consists of Jo Bird (viola), Jerry Ochoa (violin), Margaret Lejeune (cello) and Debra Brown (violin), have a lot going on in 2012, their 10th year as a band. They recently completed a score for local filmmaker Mel House (with plans for another), next month they’ll make their 3rd straight appearance at SXSW and they’re planning a tour for this summer. Debra Brown talks 2012 and a bit of their process.

When Two Star Symphony is scoring something, do you practice together in the studio?
We have a projector, and we just project it on the wall in front of us and watch it over and over and over again.

So you don’t really discuss what you’ll do, you just let it kind of come out, kind of flow?
Well, sometimes … or if we’ve written something and one of us is questioning it … we’ll stop and be like ‘is that really the feeling of what’s happening?’

What happens if you’re scoring something like Harold Lloyd and you start laughing while you’re playing?
We love that. We’re kind of known as a little macabre or dark by some people, but there’s always humor in our music as well. Our main composer is our cellist – most music starts from the cello or the viola, like the lower ends come up with a lot of the bass lines, and then we write on top of that. But her dream from a little kid was writing cartoon music for spooky stories, so that’s basically what we’re doing.

How about when you score a dance piece?
We still watch everything, luckily. Dancers were in the studio as they’re choreographing the pieces, so sometimes, just like with the Fat Tony project, which I really like, sometimes they’ll ask us to play a piece that they’ve heard before, and we’ll play section by section, and they’ll stop us as they’re choreographing. And then other times, we’ll see the movement, and we have to write on the spot to the movement as it’s happening. But so far, with us scoring new films instead of old silent films, we score by the scene, which is a little bizarre, because there’s no pretext for what’s happening. [In Psychic Experiment], we score a scene where this man is walking into his apartment, and there’re clothes strung about, and you can tell he’s concerned about why there’re clothes everywhere … he’s saying this girl’s name over and over again, he’s following the clothing down to the bathroom, and there’s a girl and a boy in the bathtub together and it’s full of blood, and they’re making out. And obviously, the guy that’s standing there, it’s his girlfriend in the bathtub, but then you find out through the scene that it’s her brother that she’s in the bathtub with, making out. And she’s like ‘isn’t this how you always pictured it?’ or something, and then their flesh starts melting together, and then their heads explode, and that’s the end of the scene.

And you’re like ‘oh! I’ve got the perfect idea for what this sounds like!’ Speaking of the collaboration with Fat Tony last year – any more plans for that sort of thing?
I really love hip-hop music. Three out of the four of us really enjoy hip-hop music. Our violist is more metal and punk rock, but she did enjoy the project as well. I hope that some more will come from it. We actually got to meet – we’ve been a big fan of Devin the Dude for a long time and we were playing at a festival in Bergen, Norway, and Devin was playing around the corner and our cellist talked our way into a sold-out show by saying we were from Houston, and through everything getting lost in translation, they thought that we were friends of Devin The Dude because we were from Houston, so they let us in! Then, a good friend of mine, Matt Sonzala, was his DJ for the night … so we got to hang out. We haven’t gotten to collaborate with Devin the Dude, but we’re kind of stalking him.

Get him one of your tattoos.
We’re pretty sure we’re the only string quartet that has matching tattoos, and that now has 26 fans with our tattoo on their bodies (laughs).

That was for your Titus Andronicus record release last year, right? That all happened on that night?
No, I think maybe 15 people happened on that night?

That’s a lot of people to get a tattoo of your band.
Yeah! There were still people signed up, but we ran out of time that night, actually. There was a mother and daughter – a 17-year-old with her mother, who was like ‘okay, we’ll get it.’ It was her mother’s first tattoo, and then she agreed to let her 17-year-old daughter get her a tattoo also!

Two Star Symphony performs at Leon’s Lounge
(1006 McGowen) on February 28, from 8-10pm.

hollywood floss

You have a band [The Fabulous Pinecones] that you play with sometimes when you play live. Do you get to do a lot of practicing with them?
I use the band for more festival environments and high-profile shows. I’m always preparing two different sets. I have a DJ set and then I have the band set, so if it’s like Summerfest or ACL, I’m gonna bring out the band and practice on what we need to do and have extra songs just in case the crowd’s not feeling the direction we’re going in at that moment. We try to mix it up with blends and mashups of like The White Stripes or Green Day or Weezer… you know, just to have fun with those types of festivals that allow for that audience. For the DJ set, which are more kind of like the cool people who really just go to shows to be on the scene – they’re not really there for the music – we have the songs that appeal to that audience as well.

Do you feel like you’ve got a different energy when you play with a band versus playing with a DJ?
Nah, not at all! You would think so because live energy also brings just that different level of energy, but I mean, I still do push-ups and I’m still on the floor with the DJ, I’m still trying to jump on something, I’m trying to crowd surf in a mosh pit. For me, I don’t have a drop-off. It’s just… what do you prefer? It’s hard at small venues to get the band to sound as good as the big venues, so it’s kind of like… I don’t wanna bring out this band and then no one can hear the words or the music the way it’s supposed to be heard. But it’s like… go to the DJ set and have the same energy, it’s not a drum or anything else. It’s just already mixed music.

Do you find your rhythmic sensibilities of the way you rap changes at all when you’re playing with a band and you’ve got that natural shift in the tempo rather than having it locked in like a record?
Right, of course, as you know, when the drummer’s off or the drummer goes slower than what the record is played, because the way they quantize and everything’s ready to go, you have to make up for that. So if the drummer’s off, you can’t just stop and yell at ’em, or he can’t yell at you. You just have to adjust. There’s been a lot of times when people thought that was just supposed to go like that, but… it really wasn’t supposed to go like that, we have to adjust on the fly.

Those are the things that make
you better, too.
Because you prepare for that. Whatever’s thrown your way, you gotta be good. You gotta be professional enough to handle that.

You’ve gotten some buzz over the last year and a half, with the blogs writing about you, XXL and The Source… how do you keep your head straight? Because it seems like you have. You’re working as hard now as before you got any attention.
I think it’s seeing my older cousins lose focus. I don’t know if it was 2000 or 2001, but my older cousins were on a small label called Unified Entertainment, and I saw them get to that radio status, and then once they got on the radio, just on the radio in Houston, they stopped working. They would go to the clubs and they would sit in the trailer and I remember back then it was The Roxy or Coco Loco, and they would stay in the van. Fans were trying for autographs and I was like ‘man, what are you guys doing? You’re blowing your opportunity.’ I mean, not knowing it, I’m just there, observing it, but looking back I’m like ‘man, y’all really blew an opportunity.’ I mean, looking back now, XXL is nothing compared to the radio. I gotta keep going until I can do this for a living. I still have a day job, so I have to make sure I’m doing everything in my power to make this happen for me and my team, so I’m doing it for a living. When I see XXL… most people think ‘ah, I made it.’ You haven’t made anything.

You have to work 10 times harder because now if you put out a song and it’s wack: ‘why did he deserve XXL?’ So you have to work harder in this day and age. Someone’s always around the corner to take your spot. You can take my spot, but I’m just gonna be right there battling for it. I’m not just gonna hand it off.
Do you have a day job that provides a nice balance, where you can write a bit while there?
Not really! I mean, I’m a school teacher by day, so not really. I’m dealing with kids from 9-5. They really test your limit, and you know, maybe on my off period – maybe – but that’s just 40 minutes. Maybe get an idea, or surf the net to do something, but, no, it’s a 40-hour job and then I come and have to really get into that zone, so I have to work that much harder.

What age kids do you teach?
7th and 8th, Special Education and middle school.

It’s amazing you find any time
to write at all.
It’s crazy, but when you get off, after they give you the run and they wear you down, it’s like ‘okay, this is more of a reason why I want to do music full time!’

What’s your New Year’s resolution?
I’m gonna put out some mixtapes, and then I’m gonna put out an album in the summer. My birthday is August 4th, so I wanna put out an album in the summer. It’ll be just under a year for a new album, so I’ll put out a new album on my birthday. Other than that, I’m gonna put out some mixtapes and then go to South by Southwest. So I wanna make sure that I’m doing videos and I’m doing music every month to get to the fans, whether it’s a 5-track mixtape or videos to accompany those…

I wanna get more involved with my videos and more music to the fans.

By Lance Scott Walker
Photography Anthony Rathbun