Aesop Rock - Turning the Fables

Could Aesop Rock be any more unpredictable?

Aesop Rock, occasionally known as Bazooka Tooth, self-proclaimed owner of “the grossest fangs in showbiz,” is recovering from oral surgery. “I actually still have stitches in my mouth, the whole nine,” he says. “I’ve also gotta record some vocals in the next day or two. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, but better to get it taken care of now than to have some sort of abscessed tooth emergency while I’m on the road.” Even with three extracted teeth and a supply of painkillers, he answers questions at a million miles an hour, just like one of his raps. On his fifth album, None Shall Pass, those raps are even further outside hip-hop orthodoxy, including a collaboration with indie singer/songwriter John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats and a track lamenting Pluto’s demotion from planet to dwarf planet. “I just thought it was a cool metaphor for underdogs,” he says. “When I read the news about Pluto, I knew it was gonna be involved in a song somehow. At the time I was like “I can do a whole EP based on this!” but that was taking it too far. That kind of thing, or even some of the other songs that are less autobiographical, is what really appeals to me at this point.”

In the time since 2003’s Bazooka Tooth, Aesop moved cross-country from New York to San Francisco and worked on non-album projects like the storybook-and-record package The Next Best Thing, a collaboration with artist Jeremy Fish, and a 45-minute instrumental commissioned by Nike titled All Day. Both influenced the direction of None Shall Pass, which integrates live instrumentation, something he’d experimented with on All Day. “These side projects are the perfect area to go about a song in a way you’ve never tried before, then run back to your home base and apply what you’ve learned. Or forget what you’ve learned, depending on how it panned out.

“Even some of the elements of The Next Best Thing, the storytelling type of stuff, third-person situations and really subtracting myself from the equation, that was something I wanted to have on this new record and make it less first-person or preachy,” Aesop explains. “I didn’t want it to be ‘this is why I’m cool; this is what my opinions on the world are.’ I’d rather try to create a setting or employ writing tools that apply to writing a book or a short story or a poem, and hope that people catch on. It’s weird to feel like you’re breaking some sort of rule, even when you’re not even doing anything that crazy.”

On moving to San Francisco after spending his entire life on the east coast, Aesop says, “I was almost too comfortable in New York. It’s definitely a culture shock, but probably one that I needed, to be honest. The cliche is kinda true that it’s a little slower-paced out here, people tend to be less intense right off the bat, which is somewhat refreshing. Ultimately it’s healthy, I think.” He swears that he and his wife will be back on the east coast at some point in the future. In the meantime, he admits, “I finally got to cut myself off a lot, which I’ve always kinda wanted to do. I was always the guy who was leaving the bar early anyway, I always went home and wrote or worked on music. Being married and being in a city where I know so few people has definitely opened doors as far as being self-sufficient and being on my own clock even moreso than I ever have. It’s allowed me this solitude that I’ve been wanting forever. Being married gives me an excuse to be like, “Oh, I’m staying in tonight.”

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