When we asked Astrophagus about the type of music they did guitarist, pianist, vocalist, Jason Cain had a complicated reply.

"What do we do? Half the time I'm not really sure what it is we do. We certainly have no preconceived notions of where we want to go sonically, and as such we wind up with numerous influences seeping into the music. Of course sometimes that can be confusing for the listener, and so far it seems really troublesome from a marketing standpoint, having no real genre," says Cain. "But if music was just about marketing then it would never progress anywhere. I was talking with my friend Matt Fox of the band Born In The Flood about this just yesterday, and he said something that I found fascinating and true; that many successful bands are really just mobile tee shirt shops. We have no desire to be that, and thus we really have no desire to focus ourselves into a tidy, marketable package."

He then says if he had to define it he would say it was varying degrees of rock, electronica, americana, pop, goth, and dance. Which basically means you are going to have to figure it out for yourself.

Cain was kind enough to talk a little gear with Gearwire.

You say you pride yourself on minimalism with regard to gear; how does this work?

Pride really isn't the word. We just have learned to desire simplicity. Funny enough, this project began as a completely experimental one. We had an array of things all plugged into a mixer and it was called the VLA, short for the Very Large Array. We had this old iMac (blueberry color, very classy) a handful of record players, a hand sampler Boss 202 Dr. Sample, an old Yamaha keyboard that my brother and I got for Xmas one year, and then we'd layer the guitars live instruments over it. We had color coded index cards that represented each a certain part of the array (particular sample, record, etc) and when practicing we'd arrange them all over the wall of my apartment and try them out in different ways.

And then they started turning into these actual songs with structures and lyrics and so forth. So, eventually we started playing out... and after the first few shows decided it was a complete nightmare... too much shit to plug in really. Plus in those earlier days we were generally drunk and rowdy and some stuff got broken, or just grossly misused, or forgotten at the club. So we pared it down to just the iMac running Reason. This was still a nightmare in its own right, because after a time of having the computer sitting around in smoke filled clubs it started to just f--k up left and right. Nothing is more engaging than watching some guy try to constantly reboot his computer, its like hanging out in some sort of goddamn tech support department. So we scrapped the computer and replaced it with... musicians! Who also break down every now and then, but it's easier to get 'em slapped into shape. I think that was a rather long winded way of saying we keep our setup simple to adhere to Murphy's Law.

You say you are traditional in your set up? Describe "traditional"?

You describe traditional. My brother Josh wrote that and I really don't know what it means. We play instruments I guess. We use electronics but have no quantization going on, because our drummer Dave thinks its unfair to play with a member that has no feelings and doesn't listen. Not traditional like Greensleeves. Now, On to the nontraditional.

Tell me about your Roland Drum sampler--which model is it? Why do you use it? What features appeal to you? Are there any problems with it?

It is a Roland SPD-S. I think that David our drummer likes it a fair share, and even in the studio we use it totally naturally (recording the audio, not using it as a midi controller) so it can lend a more organic feel to the electronic percussion sound. Most people just play loops off it or background sounds but Dave uses it as a kit, or in conjunction with the kit. You can hear this on the songs Pigeondust and Square Part of Houses off our last record Casualite Of course if you buy one I'd suggest dumping every stock sound off it and making your own.

Coincidentally, Dave just got this really nifty digital recorder made by Zoom and we're going to use it in the near future to get some more strange noises for the Drumotron. Maybe use some day care noises or some such nonsense.

Tell me about why you use the Korg MS2000BR?

I really like this instrument, I wish sometimes it was mine to play instead of guitar and vocals! Josh really has a knack for knob tweaking and the Korg is great for that. I suppose you could probably tweak it to sound pretty close to most any real instrument but Josh really isn't into that, he prefers to find sounds that in no way emulate real instruments. You can get some really great f----d up sounds out of that Korg, its a cool instrument.

Astrophagus are in the studio now finishing their second full-length record which they hope will be out in September.