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Dec 09, 2010 Artist Surveys 2010 By Under the Radar Staff

For Under the Radar’s 8th annual Artist Survey we emailed some of our favorite artists a few questions relating to 2010. Pick up a copy of Under the Radar’s Year End issue for interviews with: The Antlers, Bon Iver, Caribou, Club 8, Delphic, Rose Elinor Dougall, Gayngs, Hot Chip, Lost in the Trees, Love is All, The Love Language, Mogwai, of Montreal, Okkervil River, Yoko Ono, Owen Pallett, Plants and Animals, Mark Ronson, Superchunk, Tame Impala, Vampire Weekend, Sharon Van Etten, and Vivian Girls. Here’s a survey from Jake Duzsik & John Famiglietti of HEALTH.

Top 10 Albums of 2010

1. Crystal Castles: Crystal Castles (Ii)

2. Gold Panda: Lucky Shiner

3. Captain Ahab: The End of Irony

4. Balam Acab: See Birds EP

5. Salem: King Night

6. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti: Before Today

7. oOoOO: oOoOO EP

8. White Ring: Black Earth That Made Me EP

9. Various Artists: Ragga Ragga Ragga 2010

10. Yeasayer: Odd Blood

What was the highlight of 2010 for either you personally or for the band?

Jake Duzsik: Probably playing Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona again. Best festival on Earth.

John Famiglietti: Primavera, Melt!, Roskilde.

What was the low point of 2010 for you?

Jake: RIGHT NOW… seriously.

John: Getting arrested at Medieval Times.

What are your hopes and plans for 2011?

Jake: I want us to write a great third record.

What are your thoughts on President Obama’s job performance in the last year? Has your optimism, if you were an Obama supporter, waned?

John: Hey man, he’s trying. No, but I wasn’t unrealistically optimistic about it ever.

What are your thoughts on the Tea Party movement?

Jake: Fuck those guys.

With the Internet making every artist’s music potentially available to a wide audience, is it now easier to find listeners or more difficult because you have to compete with so many other musicians?

Jake: It’s a lot easier for us to make fans. It’s fucking impossible to sell records.

John: It’s easier to find listeners, however the blurring effect of so much media, not just music, has kinda dulled how we enjoy entertainment. Eat too much candy, you get sick.

Who would you rather listen to—a totally original musician whose compositions are groundbreaking but difficult to listen to or a musician whose songs are immediately enjoyable but derivative? Why?

Jake: Depends entirely on my mood. But most of the time if I am going to listen to something immediately enjoyable I would rather it be classic rock or pop, not some bullshit rehash.

John: Depends, is the original guy shitty?

In the race to find new bands, are too many unworthy bands being hyped up by music blogs and websites? How are music fans supposed to filter through all these new bands being hyped?

John: Whatever, dude.

If your house was on fire, what would you grab as you were running out?

Jake: My laptop and my Silvertone acoustic guitar.

John: Laptop, fuck all that other shit.

If you could relive one day of your life, which would it be?

Jake: The day I killed my first hooker. That opened a whole can of worms.

John: Man I’m gonna have so many regrets that I picked that day and not the other day, I’d prefer to just skip it.

What’s the strangest fan encounter you’ve ever had?

Jake: Sexual encounter? All of them.

John: I don’t wanna talk about it.

Do you have any recurring dreams or nightmares?

Jake: Post apocalyptic wasteland dreams.

John: Me in and around manmade bodies of water (pools, jacuzzis) with many sea creatures, predominately sea mammals (though I get jellyfish and prehistoric mollusks often). Especially dolphins and sea lions. If I get lucky and lucid, I fuck the dolphins.

Who was your first love and do you still keep in touch with them?

Jake: Gillian, we met in college. And no, I do not keep in touch with her.

John: Valerie. It’s pretty awesome to have sex with the first person you had sex with years later and show ‘em how good you got at it.

Is there anything that most people are able to do that you can’t (such as drive a car, swim, ride a bike)?

Jake: I can’t whistle, and it fucking bums me out.

John: I can’t dive.

Have you ever been starstruck when meeting another musician? If so, by who?

John: I’m generally uncomfortable every time I meet another musician.

What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you?

John: Butt beads.

What’s the most embarrassing thing to happen to you in the last year?

John: Butt beads.

What or whom do you miss most when you’re touring?

John: Mexican food.

Jake: A reason to live.

When you think of the future, what scares you most?

Jake: Artistic mediocrity, physical infirmity, and loneliness.

What was the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician? What was the moment you realized that you were a musician?

John: Never had a moment. Both ways.

What moment made you maddest in 2010?

John: Getting arrested at Medieval Times.

If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring musician, what would it be? What was the best piece of advice that you’ve ever gotten?

John: Start now. Immediately.

What was the first movie you saw in the theater as a child and do you still enjoy it now?

John: The Land Before Time, haven’t seen it since, because I don’t wanna cry again.

In 2010, what was the best movie you saw, book you read, comic book you read, video game you played, and/or TV show you watched?

Movie: Aardvark

Book: Sex at Dawn

Video Game: Dragon Age

TV Show: Eastbound and Down

Do you have any other thoughts about the current state of the world or the state of the music industry?

John: We’re fucked. In both instances technology is our only hope.

(www.healthnoise.com)