Adam BernardHow does a group go from penning an ode to a porn star to making the claim their the latest album is “from a Christian’s point of view?” Was it a born again moment for the Foreign Legion duo of Prozack Turner (pictured on handlebars) and Mark Stretch, or an internet marketing ploy? We caught up with both men to find out. We also learned what you should never call their hometown of Oakland, why it’s taken them three years to release something new, and what Mark Stretch has a license to do that most of us would get in trouble for.
Adam Bernard: It’s been a minute since you guys have released a Foreign Legion project. What’s been going on since the release of The Secret Knock EP in 2008?
Mark Stretch: I’ve been busy because I’ve been teaching hang gliding lessons and starting that company is really what’s taken up all the time for me personally.
Prozack Turner: He hasn’t even gotten off the ground yet. They’re still tying to get a hang glider large enough.
MS: We did take the wing from a 747, but I couldn’t quite get that fast enough.
AB: Wouldn’t that be kind of heavy?
MS: I eat lunches that are heavier than that!
PT: You know what happened, I was living in LA and I moved back here (to Oakland) in late ’08. I opened a bar up in downtown Oakland and it was like a full time gig. I was there seven days a week, 12 hours a day, for like a year and a half, so we got literally nothing done during that time. That ended in January so we have a lot more time.
AB: Did it end well, or did it end because you had to shoot a bunch of people.
PT: I can’t legally tell you. {*laughs*} Nah, I’m happy and I think my business partner’s happy, as well, and it’s most important that everybody left and got what they wanted, so that’s cool.
AB: On the Hunger Strike website you describe the new album, Night Moves
PT: I have never seen that. {*Turning to Mark Stretch*} Did you write that?
MS: Yeah, I wrote that. As a Muslim dude I had to go and look at the things that we’d written, because we really did put a lot of heart and time and emotion into the record and I thought that putting it “from a Christian’s point of view” would let people would know that the album is a lot more safe for younger children than the previous ones.
AB: Than the one that had a door knocker covering a vagina on the cover.
MS: Yes!
PT: Yeah, I’d never seen that, Adam. I’m always on the Fader website. I don’t really pay attention to ours, clearly.
AB: So you could get hacked and you wouldn’t know about it for about a month.
PT: Yeah. I didn’t even know we had a website, quite honestly, this is the first I’ve heard of it.
AB: Your Google hits are going to get really interesting from that album description.
MS: I hope so. That’s the point.
PT: We’re gonna all these gospel fans. We’re gonna start touring the Bible belt now. We’re like “why do all these people want to see us in Memphis?”
AB: Good luck opening for Creed.
MS: And EC Talk.
AB: For people who may not be as familiar with your work, describe Night Moves
MS: The album is a real portrait of where we’ve been up until this point. It’s standing back and looking at the music industry in general, as well as our place in it. Really looking at it and realizing that it’s all kind of funny. It’s nowhere near as dire, or as deep, as people try to make it out to be. It’s just like make good music, have some fun, and every once in a while drink and hang out with your friends.
PT: Being an underground rapper nowadays is like being a pro wrestler if you took the business out of it and you were just doing pro wrestling for the love of it, for the love of the sunset flip off the top rope. We just like making music, so it’s never that deep to us. There’s not some big statement, or the bitterness, the bullshit, but there is that hint of reality that the music business is nonexistent these days.
AB: With the business aspect of it being nonexistent are you happy that this is something you can do on the side, and for enjoyment, or would you rather have it be a full time business?
PT: I would rather have it be a full time business, but I wish I could breathe underwater, too. We’ve done it for 12 years now and it has so many ups and downs and I want consistency in my life. I’m tired of the actual struggle, waiting for something to happen, because it is happening, it has happened, it’s life and there is no plateau. You don’t get to a place where it’s like “I’m here, I made it.” There are a lot of people out there who would look at a lot of the successes and experiences that we’ve had and think it’s real successful. It’s all about your definition of success and what you’re happy with. People always want more. It’s gross. Why do you always need more and more? These few thousand fans that we have worldwide, which isn’t that much, but they want to hear it and that’s such an awesome gift to even have that many people paying attention to your stupid art. Think of the guy hanging watercolors down at the local coffee shop and he can’t even sell a painting. Nobody cares. There are so many artist that are struggling a lot more than I or Stretch have that I’m just happy to be putting out music and having people listen and book us for shows and enjoy our videos. It’s a great time.
MS: The reality of it is hip-hop, from what I see, is probably the most volatile music genre of them all. It’s the only one where you can be hot this month and next month you’re on a milk carton. Going into that knowing that, that’s fine. I’ll take the longevity. We may never fill a coliseum. I don’t know.
PT: We won’t. We absolutely won’t.
MS: But when we do a live celebrity death match I guarantee we’ll fill a coliseum.
PT: Yeah, but all the people will be made out of clay.
MS: That’s beside the point. As long as we get the door. The bottom line is we enjoy making it and the fact that people care enough to say “hey will you come out to wherever and rock,” that’s a huge compliment and to me that feels kind of like success. I’d like it if success felt a little more like paying my rent on time every month, but that’s something else. You make those sacrifices for what you love doing.
AB: That’s just success for the landlord.
MS: Yeah.
AB: Prozack, you mentioned wanting consistency. I know you’re consistent in one way because you’re married, and have been for quite a while, so is it safe to say you’re no longer writing ballads to Adriana Sage?
PT: Not necessarily.
MS: No.
PT: It’s funny, that’s how I knew my wife and I were gonna work out because she really respects the art aspect and she’s a grown woman and has her own life and her own career. I’ve dated women in the past where you write a love song, and it’s hip-hop so I might say something a little inappropriate about a one night stand, just being clever, or making a party anthem, you date some insecure girl and they get their feelings hurt, but it’s like it’s all just songs. We’re writing songs, we’re telling stories. James Taylor’s wife probably doesn’t yell at him if he writes a song about falling in love with some new girl. That’s what I do, so no, not really, it hasn’t stopped the pen stroke one bit.
AB: Other than you guys, what’s going on in your neck of the woods?
PT: Our city’s really blossoming quite nicely right now as far as the night life and investments in the city and new businesses opening and a lot of people moving over here from San Francisco. On that tip the city’s a really great place to be right now.
AB: What are three things everyone needs to know about Oaktown? I still refer to it the way MC Hammer did.
MS: The first is you don’t call it Oaktown. It’s The Town.
PT: It’s the second most diverse city in the United States next to Long Beach, CA. There’s a lot of awesome food here. A lot of beautiful people here. And you can buy weed legally.
AB: Prozack, can we talk about the fact that on Facebook you list Three’s Company as your favorite show? Are you rockin it Jack Tripper style?
PT: Yeah dude. Always. I’m a little bit country and a little bit rock n roll, but I’m also a little bit Joyce DeWitt as well as a little Suzanne Somers. Salt and pepper. It doesn’t matter, I’ll take either one of em. I used to like Veronica in the old Archie comics. I’ve always had a thing for the brunettes
AB: If each of you were to pretend to be gay in order to live with two women, who would those women be?
MS: That’s a good fucking question. That might be the question of the year.
PT: At this point in my life, realistically I would probably like it to be maybe Kim Kardashian and Scarlett Johansson. Kind of a mix of a slutty girl with an undercover slutty girl. But in real life I would probably end up living with my wife and my mother.
MS: I would probably, somewhere between Annette Schwarz and Asa Akira. I would definitely go that route. I would probably end up living with my two dogs, though, which will both be females, and that will be as good as it gets.
AB: The good news is you can call them bitches cuz you’ll be correct.
MS: I’ll be correct and I’m six foot five and Black. It’s expected. It’s on the backside of my license next to the donor sticker, “allowed to call women bitches.”