HokuPsychosister, the well-received debut album from Karate School Dropout, follows Arnold M’s work with the Blissters. He stopped by the chat with Preston Frazier about this new solo project, which the Chicago-based middle-school teacher has earlier described as “new wave, dreampop, techno and shoegaze.” HokuPsychosister is available now via Bandcamp, and is streaming on all media platforms including iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Tell us how you conceived the project? When did you start writing the songs?
ARNOLD M: My original band, the Blissters, were not active anymore. It had been seven or eight years since we played a live show, and four years since we recorded a song together as a band. At this point, we’re in our 40s and everyone had their own priorities going on. I felt alone and in a way, abandoned, but I felt like I needed to prove that I can do this on my own because I still had stories to tell. I still wanted and needed to be creative and write songs. Plus, the pandemic already hit and I just couldn’t sit in my house and grade papers for the rest of my life!
While sitting and pondering, I knew I could play and sing the majority of what was needed, except for the drums. I fortunately found an app that had a variety of drum machines, loops, synth riffs, electronica-type sounds, a pretty-much DIY for creating your own drum tracks and synth-sound bits. So, I wrote one song called “Fallacies” just to see what could come out of it. To my surprise, the end result of “Fallacies” was everything I envisioned! This little app I downloaded on my phone turned out to be a big motivator and influence for HokuPsychosister! I started writing the songs during the pandemic. I wrote “Fallacies” on August of 2020. A year later, August 2021, I finished the album. I guess the pandemic helped in that sense, weird enough to say.
PRESTON FRAZIER: The album is whimsical yet powerful and very catchy. How does it differ from your work in the Blissters?
ARNOLD M: Karate School Dropout differs because while in the Blissters, I felt that I really had to write for certain voices because I was told once that, “You should have the other singer sing more because her voice is way better and more appealing than yours.” HokuPsychosister is completely my voice, and I worked so hard to build my confidence with my singing and what I really wanted to express and sing about in my songwriting. I really had to overcome a lot of my musical insecurities, but I think it came out well and I got my point across this time around without anyone telling me that I shouldn’t sing that much on my own album. [Laughs.] I felt more liberated and less restricted while recording HokuPsychosister. Plus, the mood in the studio felt more joyous and fun.
PRESTON FRAZIER: How did you develop the tunes?
ARNOLD M: The tunes were developed in the most elementary way: An acoustic guitar, a Concertmate 460, which is a child’s keyboard that I stole from the music teacher at my old school, the voice-memos recorder on my iPhone, and a drum machine/synth app. First, I write the chord progressions or riffs for song ideas, mumble a melody with random gibberish lyrics, then I would add the drum machines from the app with a synth/electronic riff in whatever key I was writing in, and the drums and synth riffs would loop over and over and over again. It would drive me bloody mad at times. But I just sat there playing around with that app for hours, until I came up with something to my liking. But boy did that thing save my life with the writing and creative process. It really was the root of inspiration, musically.
PRESTON FRAZIER: You have a unique sense of humor, which is entrenched in the songs. Did you intend for the thread to carry through the album initially?
ARNOLD M: I love this question! My first intentions for this album was for it to sound like a flashback of cheesy new wave hits from the ’80s. I wanted to sound like Erasure, OMD, and Anything Box. “Fallacies” “FIVE” and “Middle-Aged” were what came out of that, but the stories behind the songs were about my best friends, my nieces and nephew, and a song about me getting old and what people would think about a 44-year-old guy trying to bite off the ’80s. It made me realize and reflect that I was writing about the people who are really important in my life, and issues that I could resolve by writing about it and it being therapeutic for me at the same time.
So I decided that this album will not be about cheesy love songs or cliche break up songs, but instead it will be about my friends, family, getting COVID, internal issues that I’ve been suppressing for years, a Japanese monster, and my three-legged dog. It’s literally the soundtrack of my life. With all that said, I also changed the sound direction and shifted towards icons like the Cure, New Order, the Rentals, Sonic Youth, the Breeders, ABBA, the Mamas and the Papas, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, James Iha, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Cocteau Twins.
PRESTON FRAZIER: How did producer Mike Hagler become involved with Karate School Dropout?
ARNOLD M: My beloved Mike Hagler! I met Mike over 15 years ago through a band called Loomis from Chicago. When I heard their album, I instantly knew that I needed to work with Mike Hagler. Once he produced the Blissters’ EP I Love New Wave in 2006/2007, I’ve worked with him ever since. I’ve always had that instant connection with Mike, and we’ve always worked well together. He knows my sound, my likes, my dislikes, his ear is impeccable, and he’s a good friend to me. Anytime I’ve text him and asked him to record, he always says yes – and he always gets back to me right away. So of course, the only person I can rely on to record, produce, engineer, mix and master this album was Mike Hagler. I love him so! You know, I had no idea that he worked on Wilco’s Summerteeth until a couple of months ago. [Laughs.]
PRESTON FRAZIER: I love the lyrics and the blend of keys and drums on “Middle-Aged.” What are your favorite songs on the album?
ARNOLD M: Thank you for the compliment on “Middle-Aged.” Mike and I really went back and forth on that song with the mixing. It came to the point where I was like, “Ugh, I don’t like this song anymore.” [Laughs.] But Mike worked his magic and our inputs finally came to an agreement. My favorite songs on the album currently are “Gamera,” “Virgil” and “Trois – because those three songs are all under three minutes. [Laughs.] I love short songs! But seriously, “Gamera” was a riff that I wrote when I was 17 years old. Hearing that riff become a full song 27 years later is just so cool to me. “Virgil” is a song about my dad which I would have never have thought that I would write about him, since he’s never been in my life. He died when I was six years old. I knew nothing about him other than stories my mom would tell me, but I thought it would be appropriate to have him on the album. And I finally love “Trois” because it’s a song about my dog. Like, duh!
PRESTON FRAZIER: What gear did you use to record HokuPsychosister?
ARNOLD M: For acoustic and electric guitars, I mainly used my Ibanez guitars. I also used a 12-string Gibson acoustic guitar that was given to my brother by our youth pastor, and then I took it and never gave it back. For bass, keys, and amps, I used all of Mike Hagler’s equipment. I only use Fender tube amps, though. Thanks, Mike! For drums, I used the drum machine app as the foundation of the sound and tempo, but then Mike would add drum fills, percussions, and other miscellaneous rhythms from old Blissters’ drum tracks. I absolutely love what he did with that. To me, it’s amazing.
PRESTON FRAZIER: What’s next in your musical journey?
ARNOLD M: Well, I partnered up with Tinderbox Music, and they will be promoting my album and sending it to radio stations across North America. I hope people enjoy it. So if you hear Karate School Dropout in a city near you, request it! In 2022, my goal is to come out with a new EP or maybe another album. I want to collaborate with my old bandmates, Scott and Marcus, and do one or two songs with them, and vocally have duets with my good friends Melissa and Molly. It’s tough doing this alone, but yet liberating. I do love collaborating and singing with my female counterparts. That’s one of my favorite things to do when I record.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Finally, what are your Top 5 favorite albums?
ARNOLD M: Oh my God, this question is always tough. OK, No. 1. Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins. No. 2. Return of the Rentals by the Rentals. No. 3. Pablo Honey by Radiohead. No. 4. Chain Gang of Love by the Raveonettes and No. 5. Spice World by the Spice Girls.
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