Maszer is a psychedelic rock trio from Seattle made up of drummer Joey Braley, Katie Blackstock on vocals along with David Rapaport. Recently SCAD Radio had the pleasure of catching up with founding member, co-vocalist and lead guitarist David Rapaport, otherwise known as STITCX.

10/19/16

OLIVIA For someone who doesn’t know about Maszer, who are you guys? What are you guys about? How would you describe yourself?

DAVID We are a band from the west coast, Seattle, we are lived there. I left for Los Angeles so we go back and forth between there and Seattle. The drummer and I, Jojo, have been together in other bands for seven years. Two years ago we started another project, and we invited Katie to join us and that’s how Maszer was born.

CHRISTINE What is your creative process like? How do you go about writing new songs?

DAVID That’s a good question. Writing is something that is hard to predict and hard to force – to make it good. It has to come to you. I spend a lot of time just looking for the song, and I am fortunate to come up with a lot. Usually, I have the idea and show it to the guys and we all get together and that’s sort of how it works. I play an instrument called a “Buitar” – a half bass half guitar. It started the band with Jojo on drums and Millie on percussion and Katie does the drums and vocals. It’s a lot of drums.

OLIVIA Yeah, so you would say that it is a really collaborative process between all of you. That’s great! Going onto your new record, Dreamsz, what was the hardest song to write on it? And Why?

DAVID Hardest song to write?

OLIVIA Yeah, that can be in terms of just writing it or making sure it sounds good. Anything like that.

CHRISTINE Yeah, like concept, too.

DAVID This whole record I recorded mixtapes to sell. The writing like I

said earlier is part of flow; but, when it comes to the producing of the song, that’s a whole different story. California Sees You was kind of difficult to mix – I have no idea why. But it really is, the creative part is fun. You get really excited when new songs come to you and you play them, and the process of making that song can take 5 minutes or 2 days to write and to produce a song it could take months or years and it really is a long and sometimes daunting process. Most songs don’t even work, like you work and you work and it never happens. But, all of the songs on the EP I am pretty happy about. Yeah, California Sees You is the one I seem to remember struggling the most with.

CHRISTINE OK, so, out of your record, Dreamsz, what is your favorite song? And What is your favorite song to play live?

DAVID The answer for both would be Roar. The reason for that being is really being a Seattle band we like the really heavy, gritty music. It’s always more fun to play it and be loud and get crazy. And that song has all of those elements. We know that as musicians we want to write all kinds of songs. I think that’s why that song is kind of called the “bonus song” because it’s supposed to be a part of the release. It wasn’t mellow but just that heavy version of everything.

CHRISTINE Absolutely!

OLIVIA Yeah! So, going off of that, uh, so someone who has never attended a Maszer show what is it like? Like what is the atmosphere like?

DAVID It’s fun! Like I said, it’s the two or three drummers so that the beat is really big and powerful and both Katie and I do the vocals. I think to take the audience on a little journey, a really beautiful and crazy journey, and we have been doing it for so many years it’s kind of easy for us to switch gears and I think the audience really loves that. We also bring the west and the east and the sounds that I bring from my hometown, Tel Aviv, speak a little Hebrew and that kind of thing. So it’s quite an experience.

OLIVIA Yeah, since you are from the west do you find that the west fans tend to react a little differently from the people on the east side or is it

relatively the same?

DAVID Talking about the west and the east of the U.S.?

OLIVIA Yeah! [laughs]

DAVID Uh, I was born in Israel and I came to the U.S. without knowing as much. So I went to New York City and started touring around and I’d seen the U.S. and I really got to like a lot of it. And I found out that the West coast was my favorite and the Midwest for music sort of that whole area, people are into rock and recording music. I guess what worked for Georgia, for Atlanta we just got to Atlanta – we just got to the U.S. and we didn’t have a show in Atlanta so we got to the masquerade and we didn’t know how big it was we just walked in and were like “Hey! We want to play here!” and the booker asked us how much we wanted to get paid and we said, “We don’t care! We just want to play!” and he was like, “No, really, how much do you want to get paid?” and he was like “Ok, I’ll give you $50 bucks on Thursday.” And he ended up giving us $60 bucks. That was amazing. That was just when we started – that was like our first show out of New York City.

CHRISTINE So, for the next question, have you always been interested in music? Did you know it was something you wanted to pursue since you like started hearing music?

DAVID I clearly remember a moment when I was about 17 or 18 I remember that moment when I knew – I just decided that I was going to be a musician no matter what. I was just dedicated and I knew that was my calling. There was some stuff happening when I was a kid or teenager that led to it. It’s just something that is fairly useful. It was for me to write. And 20 years later, still at it.

OLIVIA Yeah, so if you could collaborate with any artist or band – alive or dead – who would it be and why?

DAVID Or dead? Oh, you got me.

CHRISTINE & OLIVIA [laughs]

DAVID Well, there’s definitely some dead people I’ll play with when I’m dead. Namely, I don’t know, Jimmi Hendrix, David Bowie, and Jim Morrison – that’d be fun. We toured with Black Sabbath when we were with Reignwolf, so that was really fun! That’s the thing with touring and being a musician, you never know what is going to happen. Our manager told me we were doing an arena tour with Black Sabbath and I told him “You’re crazy!” I never thought that would happen!

OLIVIA Yeah.

DAVID Yeah, so that’s a piece of advice for some musicians out there. We worked hard at it; anything could happen. It’s up to you, but that’s an option. Dreams happen. Believe it could happen and make it happen.

CHRISTINE So, off of that question, if you were stuck on a desert island and could only listen to 3 artists or bands, who would they be?

DAVID First of all, can I bring a guitar with me? Then, I would have an endless amount of songs.

OLIVIA You could make one out of some driftwood or coconuts or something.

DAVID So I would take some Thom Yorke with me for sure. Um, who else? Or something like classical stuff, definitely like Pink Floyd. Ah! This is hard. It hard to choose just a couple more.

OLIVIA If you can’t think of any, it’s fine. I think we got the gist of what you like.

DAVID It’s hard because I’m on an island! I’m going to have to start a fire. How the hell am I going to do that?

CHRISTINE & OLIVIA [laughs]

DAVID Maybe I’ll take the Melvins. And I’ll take Nirvana cause I’m on an island.

OLIVIA Gotta feel that angst, yeah.

DAVID Whatever I’m going to take I’m going to get tired of, so, might as well.

OLIVIA We’ll allow it! And then, I guess for our last question for somebody who hasn’t listened to you guys, what is the one song that you would like recommend of yours that would be a great first impression of what Maszer actually is?

DAVID AH, anothere tough question.

OLIVIA [laughs] We are just hitting ya!

DAVID Yeah we are a very diverse band. Really from the get go. We recorded a song in the studio that will be out in the next few days.

OLIVIA Yeah, we will be sure to check it out!

DAVID Yeah! There’s a song there that’s in Hebrew – completely. And that’s the one I’d choose and say, “Hey, check that one out.”

CHRISTINE [laughs] Absolutely!

DAVID It’ll be out on YouTube the next few days.

OLIVIA Yeah! So, thank you so much we enjoyed listening and talking with you. We also appreciate your advide considering we are an art school and there are a lot of kids who are trying to start out with their music careers. So your advice is really nice and we appreciate that.

DAVID Yeah, it really is what it is. When I came to the U.S. – I had no idea, you know, I was a musician, and I just came to check out the scene and things happened. So, yeah, just do the best you can be smart and educated about it. Music is not an easy profession to say the least. But, thank you guys! Yeah, I mean you are in Savannah, right?

OLIVIA Yeah! Savannah, Georgia!

DAVID Yeah, yeah! Just the other day I got a call for the Stopover

festival? Isn’t that the one it is?

CHRISTINE Yeah it is!

DAVID That’s the one. I was like “Wow! Savannah, that’s far!” But, I want to make it happen.

OLIVIA You should, it’s great.

DAVID Yeah, I’m pretty sure we will come and visit you or hopefully in 2017.

CHRISTINE That would be incredible!

DAVID Yeah, maybe we will hang there.

OLIVIA Yeah, we are all chill.

DAVID Yeah, keep in touch on FaceBook – it’s Maszer Band, and I’ll give you out my personal one too and maybe get some backstage passes.

OLIVIA That’s very gracious, thank you!

DAVID Well, yeah, you’re with the crew

OLIVIA [laughs] We appreciate that. Alright, have a great rest of your day.

CHRISTINE Thank you so much for your time. It was a pleasure talking with you. Bye!

Check out Maszers new Dreamsz EP! and Follow them on Facebook @MASZERband