Exclusive interview with Far East Movement (continued from MCSS Magazine)

DJ MrV: Right in front of me is Kev Nish. ­
Kev Nish: What’s up? Thanks for having me, 1^st time in Montreal we are very, very grateful.

DJ MrV: It’s an honor and pleasure to tell you the truth. Hats off to you guys for “Like a G6” #1 on the billboard and well deserved!
Kev Nish: Thank you so much. You know when we first made “Girls on the Dance Floor” which is another song about how to party and put it online you would nev in a million years that1) it [“Like a G6”] is going to be played on the radio, 2) we would shoot a music video for it, and 3) it will be on the billboard charts. So we are grateful for all of it and a lot of it has to do with the DJs. Thank you so much to the DJs and all the people that like to sip on sizzurp, you know what I’m saying? So we appreciate it. We didn’t really expect it be #1 on the radio.

DJ MrV: How does mom and dad feel?
Kev Nish: At first they thought we were crazy, but now I think they are a little bit more supportive. We actually got a recent platinum plaque from our record label CherryTree Interscope and we all kind of told our parents we would give it to them and I think it made them happy.

DJ MrV: When you first signed with CherryTree Interscope did you have any idea that this was about to happen to you?
Kev Nish: No, I mean we’ve always wanted to get CherryTree Interscope especially because we used to intern there and we would go: “OMG, that’s Will I Am”. So now that we are artists under the record label and be able to walk to let’s say Martin Kierszenbaum’s office is surreal to us. We are just so grateful to be there and we just want to work hard because everything has been a blessing.

DJ MrV: If I told you 5 years ago that in 2010 you will be signed to a major label and crack the billboard #1 spot with the track. What would you have told me?
Kev Nish: I’d probably say you are delusional. And we would be delusional if we actually believe that, but in a way we are kind of delusional because people would be like: “You are in the wrong business” or “Music is a hard thing to get into” or “ Oh? You rap? I don’t think that’s a good market to be in” and every day we would just push ourselves and not listen to what ever other people had to say and kind of do what we’d like to say “geek out” as ourselves. By “geeking out” as ourselves, it kind of allowed us to go into a lane that we felt was somewhat of our own. We appreciate when we see people receiving that well and we are kind of honoured that they want to hear our music.

DJ MrV: You won’t believe [even if I told you] that I came back from the future though?
Kev Nish: Nope

DJ MrV: I know you guys get this all the time, but when did the Far*East Movement get it started in the game?
Kev Nish: At first we would all link up in downtown L.A. at parking lots or at attics of an old house where we would hook up an old school desktop computers, the size of a house, with a big monitor from RadioShack and we would record songs and put it online. One of the first song that we did was called Far*East Movement, it was a song about an international perspective on L.A. about the generation of kids that lived in all kinds of music, it was multicultural. That song kind of became our name and from then we kind of went to all the open mics in downtown L.A. We went hard and as far as going to all the underground clubs, all the dance clubs, reggae clubs, you name it, just to get our name and music out there. We were able to meet DJs and meet people and it wasn’t until 2007 that we got our first song on the radio. That was life changing for us, it really showed people that we were serious and it opened the doors to our first major record deal with CherryTree Interscope.

The song that really took off was “Girls on the Dance Floor” which was featured in America’s best dance crew and CSI Miami. Martin Kierzenbaum who was the head of CherryTree records took notice, called us and signed us after that song.

DJ MrV: From what I have heard one of the early projects you guys had was to own and operate a record store is that true?
Kev Nish: Well, we actually worked at a record store [owned by] our friend DJ Quickie. He owns a company called DJ City and that’s where we did a lot of our researches. When you start records you know which records is moving and you go: “Oh, club music is cracking” and this was in 2003 and 2004. Right off the bat, it really shaped how we see music as we were so close to the DJs. And you know DJ Ahn used to shop there, all the DJs from all the top radio stations and all the DJs worldwide would all shop there and it really gave us perspective on music and where we wanted to take off with music.

DJ MrV: You guys also used to go by the name of MC anonymous, how long did you carry that for?
Kev Nish: A month, literally a month till we recorded the song “Far*East Movement” and we realized you can’t be anonymous and that the Far*East Movement song represents everything we are about and our life style that’s gotta be our name.

DJ MrV: We noted that because of internet and YouTube, the L.A. Asian hiphop scene has become really big thanks to you guys, Dumbfoundead, Shin-B and etc, but before you guys stepped on the scene was it already big?
Kev Nish: There were people out there like Lyrics Born, whom we were fans of. There was the Divisionaries, the Mountain Brothers, the Blue Scholars, there [were] pockets of people representing us hard and getting recognized by really incredible people. Lyrics Born was recognized by everybody and those were the people we looked up to and to the day we still do. So there was a scene, but I don’t think any of those people that we named off ever set out to do Asian American music or Asian things, they just made music off of how they grew up. [Lyrics] Born grown up in the bay area, so his music is very representative of the Bay Area. That’s like Far*East Movement, which is representative of downtown L.A., you know? Club scene, party scene, that was representative of our lifestyle more than any race. I think that’s where people, when they just come off the train on how they grew up and what’s real to how they live, I think it translates.

DJ MrV: Can any of you guys actually dance like MJ?
Kev Nish: We can get a little moon walk on and you know of course do the crotch grab and that’s about it other than that we leave it to Quest crew or Jabbawockeez.

DJ MrV: Now the significance of the space helmets what’s that?
Kev Nish: We got that idea at one of our shows when people didn’t know what to expect of us. Like what’s Far*East Movement? Like A G6? What’s a G6? So what we did was we brought the space helmets to let people know that you are about to do something that you really need to think outside of the box. When we walk on stage with space helmets, we automatically get “What is that?” and we let them know that we are trying to do something different, something we like to say is out of this world or whatever but either way let people come into the show with an open mind.

DJ MrV: A lot of people are fascinated by your style of fashion, what do you call that?
Kev Nish: Gentlemen party or free wired, when we used to go to clubs or whatever, worst thing is to walk up into a club and you can’t get in. So we wanted to class it up a little bit, and we were able to get into any club and the ladies loved it and it is the gentlemen party style and in the morning when we wake up to do interviews, we used to manage ourselves at that time, we would do our own interviews and meetings with different companies like McDonalds, we wanted to look presentable. So it plays both roles as a party life style, business and of course just all around animal. When we got the shades on, a lot of people are like: “Why you go the shades on? Why you covering your eyes?” and [it’s because] sometimes we don’t sleep for 3 days and we don’t wear makeup, so shades are a perfect way, you can’t tell when we are drunk or slizzard and you can’t tell when we are sleeping.

DJ MrV: Free wired FM clothing line? Yes or No?
Kev Nish: Maybe one day we could do a cool collaboration with the right brand. That would be cool.

DJ MrV: I’ve had the opportunity to interview Carl Choi, your ex manager. He has nothing but love for you guys, and if there is one most important thing you learned under Carl’s watch what was it?
Kev Nish: That’s hard to say. He really taught us how to manage ourselves. We had to be self proficient as a crew.

DJ MrV: You worked with your buddies Jin and Justin Lin and now that you are with major label now, can long time fans still expect to see this?
Kev Nish: We actually talked to Justin Lin by email not long ago, and we will actually do something together which will focus main stream eyes on the upcoming film makers. Any chances we have to work with anyone form our past we would love to, because we love to stay close to our community. The ones that are down to get with us, we are down to ride too.

DJ MrV: Was it hard for you to leave your colleagues and cast?
Kev Nish: That was a mutual decision and we didn’t see eye to eye business wise so we parted ways.

DJ MrV: Can you name me top 5 that have influenced Far East Movement as we see them today?
Kev Nish: Eminem, Stephan, Michael Jackson, and tied between Nirvana and Guns and Roses.

DJ MrV: For the longest time many of your Asian fellow artists have been closed doors by many record labels and the excuse they get is that they are unmarketable. But today as we speak, there are 2 Asian decent acts monopolizing the billboard and that would be you and Bruno mars. Do you think this is power to convince that we are marketable? Or do you think we are going to be considered business risks as a way to decline?
It’s hard to say, when we got signed the Asian thing never came out, but they were more interested in our music and how we lived. And that was portrayed in our music video for “Like a G6”, where we showed the liquor store that we went to and the Korean BBQ and we just kept it real and at least from what we see that’s what people really want. They want you to “geek out” and be yourselves.

DJ MrV: How is the relationship between yourselves and Bruno Mars?
Kev Nish: It’s amazing. We are definitely going to work on more music in the future. He was a big part of our “Free Wired” album.

About the Author

He Lu

MCSS VP IT and Design, manages the MCSS Website.