Sulu & Excelsior's Steve "Sulu" Mallorca Talks Making-of The AntiMatter Suite & "Spacesuit" Music Video Premiere (The Witzard Interview)
"The AntiMatter Suite is a "photon torpedo" of creativity during these tumultuous times. While the songs come from the same quadrant as Eddie Romero, the urgency of how they materialized are, no question, a response to how a lot of folks are feeling these days. Leave it to Sulu to turn this energy into beautiful music that, not only moves the spirit, but the body. Although, there are a few more guest contributions to this chapter, what you hear is the artist's vision undiluted. Let's not downplay the fact that this ENTIRE work was written, produced, played, arranged, recorded, edited, and mixed by Sulu. Check out any of the BTS [behind-the-scenes] videos on YouTube for a glimpse of the process.
Early transmissions of the songs were already potent, when shared with The Bridge Crew. When Sulu sent me the demo and backstory for "Spacesuit," I was able to hear the scratches I wanted to add to the song very clearly. Tracking was finished in an hour or so with stems sent soon after. When I heard the mix a day or so later with cuts in place, I was amazed at how close it was to what I had imagined. When the conviction behind the music is powerful, it makes collaborating that much easier and the feeling is like smashing matter and anti-matter together to create the energy needed to go to warp speed."
- Foreword Penned By: DJ Mas (@musicbymas)
I. How long after your debut album, Eddie Romero, did you start conceptualizing and recording its follow-up, The AntiMatter Suite?
Steve "Sulu" Mallorca: The first song I wrote for The AntiMatter Suite was "You Don't Mind Me Sayin' That," which I, actually, started writing a few months after releasing Eddie Romero. It became a staple of our live performances pretty quickly. We even filmed a live performance of the song as one of our potential entries to the 2018 NPR Tiny Desk Contest (though, at the end of the day, I ended up choosing to enter our song "Up to You" to the contest.) After that taping, I started to write the remainder of the songs that became The AntiMatter Suite in Summer 2018. I usually, start out writing on the piano, then, building my beats to that and going from there. Some songs had final rhythm parts (bass, keys, and guitars) tracked by Winter 2018. By Spring 2019, I had most of the songs demoed out and started to track my final vocals and horn parts, though, there were some songs that I didn't start writing until Summer of 2019.
II. Thematically, how does The AntiMatter Suite relate to Eddie Romero... or are they two entirely separate album arcs/narratives?
Sulu: From the album covers to the lyrical style and music composition, there's, for sure, a consistent theme and feel to them. However, The AntiMatter Suite definitely has a different narrative from Eddie Romero; some of the more sociopolitically-centric themes that only appeared on two or three songs on Eddie Romero are, basically, the main theme of the entire AntiMatter Suite. Every song on The AntiMatter Suite was written after Tr*mp took Office and as the news and world got more and more surreal and chaotic, I couldn't help, but write about it, as my own way of processing how I felt. However, instead of writing an overtly "political" album, I wanted to do it more metaphorically and play off of old Soul/R&B lyrical traditions. For example, the track "Lady Libby" is written to play as an unrequited love song, but it's about when the Mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaaf, gave the warning to Oakland's undocumented immigrants about impending ICE Raids.
"My Own Volition" & "AntiMatter" play off of classic "your man's doing you wrong"-type lyrics, but [are] really about how so many people don't matter to this Administration, but still, so many people keep their love for this President and it's a bad, abusive relationship that folks just can't get out of. "Mad Dog Magic" is about Former Secretary of State James "Mad Dog" Mattis. Other songs aren't as specific about the politics and [are] more about mind state and general thoughts during crazy times. "How Can I Lose My Mind" is about trying to deal with the 24-hour news cycles. "Find Another" is my twist on Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin,'" where I muse about escaping this planet and finding another world with loved ones, but told with the Sulu & Excelsior twist of Star Trek and other Sci-Fi references. "You Don't Mind Me Sayin' That" [is] about keeping optimistic, when things get tough. "Spacesuit" is about my two sons and raising them during these times. I can go into even more specifics for all the songs... but that would be a Wu-Tang Manual-esque manuscript! (EDITOR'S NOTE: The Wu-Tang Manual was, actually, one of our primary inspirations behind this interview!)
III. What did you ask to show with the various BTS (Behind-The-Scenes) videos recently uploaded to YouTube? Will there be additional installment in this series, as well?
Sulu: Unlike the first album, I made a concerted effort to record more of the recording process of The AntiMatter Suite. While I wasn't able to get everything, I did get enough to get a feel for my recording style and how I played a bunch of different instruments. So far, I've cut two, one for each of the music videos I released. I've got a lot more footage for other songs, so I'll definitely be rolling those out.
IV. How did you come to meet and collaborate with Hiro-a-key, the lone guest on The AntiMatter Suite, who's featured on album stand-out, "Find Another?"
Sulu: Hiro-a-key is an incredible Hip-Hop/Soul artist based in Tokyo. He is a childhood friend of DJ Mas, the DJ for the live Sulu & Excelsior band, and, also, a key advisor behind-the-scenes for Sulu & Excelsior. I, actually, met Hiro about eight years ago, when he was one of the actors I directed for a commercial film project—and it was Mas, who casted Hiro for the part! Fast-forward to when we shot our first Tiny Desk Contest video in 2018 and Hiro, actually, helped out on the shoot as one of the location sound recordists. He was a blast to be around and he seemed to really dig the music, as well. Going into The AntiMatter Suite, we knew we wanted to keep strong ties with Japan, where we were able to release our first album on CD and vinyl in their major retailers. Mas mentioned the idea of, maybe, doing a duet with Hiro. After listening to Hiro's music, it became pretty apparent that "Find Another" would be a great fit and he just KILLED it on that recording. After a few emails back-and-forth, we were going to try to do it all remotely with Hiro recording in a studio in Japan, but, then, things got real when he, all of a sudden, said he'd be in NYC. Of course, we HAD to capitalize on that, so he spent the day at my studio, not only recording his vocals, but, also, shooting the music video. It was a great day!
V. There wee a companion short film created for The AntiMatter Suite's Release Party, as well, right? Do you plan to, for lack of a better term, chop up said film and release separate music videos for each track?
Sulu: Yeah, we screened The AntiMatter Suite "visual album" at the Album Release Party and it went over really well. And the intention after the Release Party was to release a bunch of the "visual album" as stand-alone videos. So, it was a ton of work up-front, between finishing up the album and, then, shooting and editing almost 30 minutes-worth of music videos! But, now, the content's all made and I can just release them piece-by-piece. At this point, I still have at least three more videos ready to go and a bunch of others than I can tweak to be stand-alone videos.
VI. So, can you tell us a bit about the "whole stripped down remix album" full of songs from both Sulu & Excelsior album recently added to your Bandcamp page? How did this idea come about?
Sulu: The stripped down idea, actually, first started when we released Eddie Romero in Japan digitally. To differentiate from the physical release, we put out a couple of Alternate Mixes of songs only on Japan's digital platforms. So, I've had some of these Alternate Mixes around for a while and recently, decided to make a whole bunch of them available on Bandcamp-only, as a bonus for purchasing The AntiMatter Suite. I totally get that most people will be listening to the album on Spotify or Apple Music and the like, but I did want to give a special reward or incentive to listen and purchase from Bandcamp, as it's my favorite platform for Indie artists (and it gives the biggest cut to the artist!)
VII. Who plays in the current live Sulu & Excelsior line-up and what is each player's role? Again, The AntiMatter Suite album is primarily just you, though, correct?
Sulu: Like Eddie Romero, I played all the instruments on The AntiMatter Suite, but I did manage to bring on some good friends from the live band on the recording this time. Adam Charity AKA AC AKA Twig recorded guitar on "You Don't Mind Me Sayin' That;" Masaki Yamagata AKA DJ Mas laid down scratches on "You Don't Mind Me Sayin' That," "AntiMatter," and "Spacesuit;" Joel Bernardo AKA Bernard O'Reily was gracious enough to lay down some Fonky-a$$ bass on "Mad Dog Magic," "You Don't Mind Me Sayin' That," and a particularly beautiful performance on his electric upright bass on "How Can I Lose My Mind."
The live band in the past year has manifested in a few different sized ensembles, from the Quartet formation featuring the aforementioned players, all the way to the Sulu & Excelsior Big Band featuring the Quartet players, plus, a horn section of: Sam "Hotel" Podell on tenor sax, "Moat Caitlin" Kopcik on alto saxophone/flute, Kenji "Ken The G" Naruishi on alto sax, and dual percussionists Paul "Cybernetiko" Martinez & DJ Boo Jenkins (who's, also, a ridiculously talented DJ and drummer!) We've, also, had guest performers, like DJ Un-G (from P.I.C.) JRae Charity (from Delusions of Grand Street & The Charitys,) and the one and only Cindy "Mrs. Sulu" Torres-Mallorca (who co-wrote Sulu & Excelsior's holiday song, "The Over Under.")
VIII. How did you come up with the concepts behind your "AntiMatter" & "Find Another" music videos released during this album cycle?
Sulu: The crazy thing is that I came up with those two videos, as well as five other videos for the visual album, all pretty much in the same span of time of late Summer into October 2019. Since my "day job" is being a film-maker, I'm always thinking up Sulu & Excelsior visual concepts that I can do with limited budgets, but still have a good amount of production value. In the case of "AntiMatter," I knew I wanted to have the feel of a house-party, but with a more cultural angle—combining the idea of the Harlem Jazz parlors (basically, Jazz clubs in people's apartments) with the family parties I grew up with—different generations of people eating, drinking, and dancing. For "Find Another," I had the visual idea for a while and played with it a few times and when I found out Hiro-a-key could be here in-person to record and film, I knew this visual idea would work with him and it would enable me to shoot things in a way that could make the most of my limited time with Hiro.
IX. Now that The AntiMatter Suite has been out in the ether for a few months, so what else do you have planned for the album roll-out? (ie: 7-inch singles, more music videos, live shows/streams, etc.)
Sulu: The initial plan was for a 7-inch, but given the uncertainty now, I have no idea when that will happen. I definitely will be releasing, at least, another three music videos, but I'm really leaning on doing more than that, if I can shoot more. And live shows, for sure—before NYC shut down, we had show shows coming up in May, one of which was a free outdoor NYC gig. So, that would've been great, but it was cancelled. So, now, I'm looking at doing, at least, one live-streamed show, most likely, solo Sulu, like this year's [NPR] Tiny Desk Contest entry video. I've been wanting to explore the idea of a solo show for a while, so this is probably the time to do it! We're, also, going to be messing with a couple of "quarantine" performances with, at least, the Quartet or Trio of players all playing from home.
X. What were some of your greatest sources of inspiration and influence (be they musical, personal, artistic, etc.) while recording The AntiMatter Suite?
Sulu: One of my biggest influences is the whole 90's Native Tongues crew—[A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul], Jungle Brothers—not only in their lyrical sensibilities, but, also, their mindset of experimentation and taking multiple genres of music and making them work together into their own thing. And that's kind of what happens when I'm writing, I'm making songs that are influenced from different genres that have been the soundtrack to my life, from my Dad listening to Nat King Cole & Johnny Mathis in the car; to me writing screenplays in film school to Al Green; to my high school friend giving me a dubbed cassette of The Beatles' White Album; to me playing trumpet in high school Jazz band and marveling at Arturo Sandoval on The Mambo Kings Soundtrack.
XI. Can you, please, tell us a bit about the image on The AntiMatter Suite album cover? Does it have any type of direct relationship to the Eddie Romero cover?
Sulu: The album cover of The AntiMatter Suite means a lot to me, just like the cover of Eddie Romero. Both are images that I grew up with, burned into my brain. On this album, it's, actually, a snap of my Mom & Dad, before they were married, before they were even dating. It was in, as my parents would call it, their "courting" stages. My Dad visited my Mom at her work in this picture and I love how you can see their body language in it. There's a progression from the Eddie Romero cover into this—on Eddie Romero's cover, my Dad is single and chilling with his boy (my Uncle Manny) listening to records. On The AntiMatter Suite cover, my Dad meets my Mom, who'd, eventually, be his life partner and they'd have a family and the whole nine. So, trying to show some sort of progression of life from album-to-album. Along those lines, I have some ideas of the next album cover...
XII. Through all of our previous interviews and conversations, I don't think I've ever asked this... but what's the current status of your OTHER band, P.I.C.?
Sulu: P.I.C. is, as I often describe, "The O.G. Mothership Band" for Sulu & Excelsior and we were, literally, kids when the original core members started the band. I was just 18! So, it's cool to go through as much as we did—four albums, one EP, and two song single release, a Comedy Central gig as Wanda Syke's House Band, and countless shows around the country—starting out as teenagers and coming out the other end grown a$$ adults and brothers through it all. Unfortunately, part of that growing up process is, eventually, making big life decisions that force moves [cross-country] or concentrate on other areas of our careers, but even through all of that, we managed to put out material, which I'm really proud of! Make no mistake about it, it definitely gets harder to keep working like that and the process starts to slow down. But we all still play, at least, one show a year and there are still songs that have to be recorded and, hopefully, we'll be doing that, since a bunch of our original core [members] are back on The East Coast and closer. The love for music is still there, as most members play in a multitude of other bands. And more importantly, we're all still really tight and hang out all the time, so it's really just a matter of when before a new release rolls around!