Dr Zoltan

The anonymity of the Internet can allow people to “hide” behind false personas: most of us know about sock puppets, astroturfing, FBI agents posing as 12 year old girls. But, aside from Alternate Reality Gaming enthusiasts, many don’t consider the artistic possibilities presented by this forum. You can take a stance, even extreme ones you wouldn’t want to hold every day. You can create a face to make a point. Some people call it performance art, others will likely call it pretentious bullshit, and many others, baffled and confused as they are by most everything they encounter, will simply make a bunch of poorly conceived YouTube comments.

Q: (Nate Sampsel) What is the Dr. Zoltan project? Where does this project come from and where do you see it going?

A: Dr. Zoltan Øbelisk is an expanded container to express my music, video, and writing projects. For 15 years, I was calling myself Sir Millard Mulch, and I eventually grew out of it. The character was too intertwined with my personal life, and it got to be messy. Too many kids were thinking it was 100% real. As it started to succeed conceptually and monetarily I realized it was a flawed vehicle. I was faced with the choice of either sticking with it and being locked into something I wasn’t satisfied with, or starting from scratch with a new concept and trying to get it right. A lot of people thought I was crazy for changing the name just as it started to catch on, and Mulch had just started making me a noticeable amount of money to pay my bills. It would mean there would probably be a loss of momentum and a lot of people would lose interest.

I was working on the Sir Millard Mulch documentary, and when we got the basic edit done it really freaked me out. I decided to go to some counseling to figure out why it was that I was doing what I was doing. I was about to turn 30. I felt I was in danger of really sabotaging a good thing, and maybe walking away from Mulch was one more way of screwing up on purpose. The biggest thing I realized from those sessions is what my creativity was motivated by: wanting revenge for being taken out of gifted classes when I started 6th grade. A friend of mine suggested that maybe I can still be creative without hating everything around me — so much of what I did was based on anger and frustration. I decided to test that hypothesis, so I took some time away from my creativity and went back to my Graphic Design job.

I decided that in order to really get to the next phase and grow, I would have to move away from my home town in Florida. And I also decided that if I didn’t move without planning it, I’d never actually do it. So I called my friend Chris Higgins in Portland, OR and asked him if I can come out there and stay in his extra room. He said yes. I cashed in an IRA (just less than $2000) and within probably ten days I got in a car with a few things with William Maier, and drove across the country. I left everything else in Florida, sitting right where it was. By the time I got to Los Angeles, I had already changed my mind and decided that if I am going to move, I may as well go all the way and go up against L.A. We visited Portland briefly, then I drove in a rental car back to Los Angeles and rented a room in a house. I put my sleeping bag on top of a mattress and that was my new home. Someone donated a bicycle to me so I could get around. I had my laptop, Ibanez bass, a small suitcase, and a plastic bin of MutantMall stock. I used the plastic bin as my desk. No job, no car. No idea what I was going to do.

After moving to Los Angeles, and being confused and depressed for about 7 months, I finally decided on what type of place Dr. Zoltan was going to come from, and how that would work within my own psychology. Dr. Zoltan is my way of expressing ideas that would be considered unacceptable in every day life. He’s a myth, a symbol, an archetype, a role-playing character, an alter-ego that can safely say anything I want to say. Los Angeles is a big influence on that. Half the people here are imprisoned in lower-class “I spend my whole $100 paycheck on the newest cellphone accessories and ring tones” mentality, and half are living in a fantasy world and pretending to be superhero versions of themselves, complete with outrageous costumes. The blatant hegemony upsets me on a daily basis, because I ride the bus with poor people and work with rich people. I get to see how both cultures exist in separate worlds, how differently they are trained to think, and how the system is rigged to keep them each in their own orbits: Financial Inertia.

Q: What sort of equipment are you using in your production of the record? (Amps, guitars, basses, digital recording/production software, a bit about the Drumkit From Hell, blah blah)

A: As always, I have a very inexpensive and efficient setup. It consists of my Macbook, Cubase 3.0, Melodyne, a Firewire Soloist, and Drumkit From Hell, which sits on an external hard drive. I am using the same monitor speakers that I have used since late 1999. Drumkit From Hell is definitely the most interesting element of it all. I really love it, because it captures all of the nuance of a real drummer. I am supposed to be listed on their website as an artist for them, but I never did get listed on there. Not sure what the problem is. As far as my guitar, I am borrowing one of those really flat Ibanez guitars from a friend, and using my 6-string Ibanez bass. I play the guitar through my same old Digitech GNX2 and the bass through my DI pre-amp. Both with plectrums. Yellow ones.

Q: Was there some specific event or series of events that lead you to take a break from making music as Sir Millard Mulch?

A: Overall, I got really bored with music, even though it was really the first thing I excelled at. After I finished How To Sell… I started getting really interested in everything else but music. Writing, video, marketing. From all directions, I get people telling me I need to just get back to focusing on the music. The problem is, I had been writing the same ridiculous music for ten years and no one cared. I survived a great deal of failure and criticism to make it as far as I did. Every time someone would hear my music, they would shake their head and say, “Well, it’s too bad that the average person will never understand what you are doing.”

I lived in a small town in Florida and had this dream of someday supporting myself from my creations. Out of nowhere, it happened, and that really confused me, because I didn’t believe it. I had been convinced for so long by everyone around me that it would never happen, that when it did, I thought I must be delusional. All of those people couldn’t be wrong, could they? When people started really wanting music, all I wanted was revenge for them ignoring me for so long. It’s too easy for music to make people feel good, and that’s the last thing I want my music to do. When I go to a typical concert I am really frustrated with how passive the entire exchange between audience and performer is. Song, applause, song, applause, buy merch. Too predictable. I’m not here to make everyone feel better, I’m here to make them uncomfortable, because I am uncomfortable. So yeah, I find the other mediums are often better suited for communicating my message.

Q: Can you tell me a bit about the Sir Millard Mulch project?

A: Sir Millard Mulch was half alter-ego and half pseudonym, and I used that name since I was about 15 or so.

Q: What was it like arranging the music of Prokofiev? How is this performed and recorded on your record? Did you play all of the instruments yourself?

A: The most interesting thing I noticed about the Prokofiev piece was how similar it was to the structure of System of a Down, which is my favorite band lately. I played all the guitar and bass, sequences the piano, synths, and drums. I recorded it all in one measure chunks. Start, stop, start stop. It took hours just to get through each guitar track. Geometrically fascinating.

Q: What did you listen to when you were a kid? What sort of music initially inspired you to become involved with this whole ill-fated music industry thing?

A: I grew up listening to weird Disney records when I was very little, and John Williams Star Wars soundtracks. I remember these strange educational vinyl records, and I’d be left alone in a room with these things all day long. Particularly I remember this red vinyl record that came with a book, explaining cavemen and how they advanced in their civilization. When I was about 12 or 13, along came Steve Vai. I saw him playing on the David Lee Roth “Just Like Paradise” video and I was immediately hooked. I was taking trumpet lessons around that time, and I’d go into the music store and see rows of these electric guitars, and wonder how Steve Vai made them make those outer space noises. It sounded like aliens and robots to me. But I’d walk up to the electric guitars that were hanging on the wall, and they’d just go “plunk!” After several years of doing nothing but practicing, I got into Primus, Mr. Bungle, Victims Family, Nomeansno, Ween, and Negativland. Later on there was Pantera and Devin Townsend. And of course, Dave Weckl, Dennis Chambers, Vinnie Colaiuta, Morgan Agren, and Virgil Donati. I love drum solos.

Q: You mentioned being inspired by the music of Steve Vai… What was it like for you having lunch with him? Didn’t you audition at one point for Steve’s band?

A: Steve Vai is the biggest inspiration behind my involvement in music. The album Passion & Warfare is still sacred to me. I only listen to it a few times a year so I won’t wear it out. I still don’t hear anyone, including Steve, doing anything that matches it. When I finally got to have lunch with Steve, upon moving to Los Angeles, it was like meeting up with an old friend or long-lost father or big brother. Not sure how to explain it, but he was very warm. I wanted to get any and all advice from him that I could. I hit him with endless questions. He really showed a lot of respect for me as a creator, and showed that he really was a fan of my work. He was very sincere and thoughtful. When I finally got to audition for his band, it was a disaster. I instantly turned into the most amateur session musician imaginable. It really proved how far removed I am from playing the part of a musical soldier. I was never meant for that, and for me, it was good to finally be rejected from that possible fantasy world. It proved to me what I should be focusing on, which is my own creations. I realized how following someone else’s vision, including Steve’s, is not why I am here, and I had to be be rejected so that I’d have no other option.

Q: What is the “Echelon” program? How do you intend on using it to destroy what remains of the music industry?

A: ECHELON is a combination download service, fan club, and direct patronage system. I see it as a natural evolution of the music industry. It solves a whole lot of problems, and so far, I have made almost 4x as much money through that channel vs. physical merchandise sales in the same period of time. I have been running both of them in parallel and it is obvious that ECHELON is dominating, and that is where I am going to continue to focus my energy. There’s no reason to be scared of this new technology.

Q: The imagery and the ideas you convey through the Dr. Zoltan persona could be construed as a sort of commentary on fascism, social metaphysics, and the art of manipulating humans. This character seems to be pretty Machiavellian in his dealings with others-Maybe a bit like what Karl Rove would’ve been had he decided to go into producing challenging progressive concept records. Is this a sort of tongue in cheek commentary on the social dynamics of life in 21st century America?

A: Yes. That is exactly what it is.

Q: If there is one central message or concept to your upcoming record, what would that be?

A: The one central message for the upcoming Dr. Zoltan record is this: the philosophical discoveries of the 1800′s have been lost, and I am attempting to bring them back and build upon them. I am a huge fan of 19th Century American Transcendentalism. Thoreau and Emerson.

Q: Have you ever considered a career in politics? The persona of Dr. Zoltan begs the question… Where do you stand politically?

A: I do consider myself as having a career in politics right now. I believe there are too many people who do not use their own minds to collect and synthesize data from the world around them. Since they are not thinking for themselves, in comes The Government or God to tell them what to do. It is that simple, and that is how we end up with the growing Fascism and Theocracy taking over the U.S. Dr. Zoltan has said, “The masses are incapable of voting correctly. Democracy is over.”

Q: You seem to have a fascination with the writings and the ideas of Ayn Rand. How does this relate to the music that you have made in the past and what you are doing now?

A: Ayn Rand’s writings helped me understand that I should be the ultimate judge of what I create. “Do you wish to stand alone against the whole world?” “If necessary.” And as a creator, I know I must do that. No matter what anyone else says, I am the judge.

Q: “Magic”, salesmanship and metaphysics played a big role in your three disk Sir Millard Mulch record. Do these ideas have a place in the Dr. Zoltan project?

A: All of the ideas of Sir Millard Mulch will be appropriated and expanded upon by Dr. Zoltan Øbelisk. I see Sir Millard Mulch as the demo before I figured everything out, and Dr. Zoltan as the real deal.

Q: Can you tell me a bit about Dr. Zoltan videos you released on the Internet? What were your intentions with these videos?

A: The first three videos, Tool Are Not Weird Or Dark, The White Stripes Must Be Destroyed, and Coheed & Cambria Are Not Prog Rock were simple marketing tests. I wanted to see how people would react to those messages and how far they would travel with zero promotion. The next batch were more professional, and they are still evolving. The goal was to do 3 new episodes (and I am in the process of shooting the 3rd right now) in order to establish a professional style-sheet to work from. Thanks to the internet, I can release projects that are a “work in progress.” This also allows for easy updating. Creations are no longer bound to the material they were originally printed on. They can evolve over time, and I won’t have these huge boxes of CDs sitting around with outdated material on them.

Q: What other sort of activities are you conducting under the persona of Dr. Zoltan? Are you planning on writing another book?

A: I will conduct every possible artistic activity under that name. There are 4 main categories: audio, graphics, video, and text — with corresponding products and collectibles for sale. Books, DVDs, clothing, everything. I will be launching a new website at the beginning of 2008, created by Rudimental.com (also the creator of VirgilDonati.com) that will be a huge filing cabinet for all of those categories. Dr. Zoltan will be the “host” of all of this content. He’ll hold everyone’s hand and walk them through everything. There will be a lot of free content, and a lot of activities for people to participate in, but I will also be expanding the MutantMall store drastically. Once this thing is in place, I will be able to focus on just outputting content, and the whole machine will be running better than it was in 2005.

Dr Zoltan Podcast #1 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Sir Millard Mulch - Sampler Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dr Zoltan Podcast #2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dr Zoltan Drumkit From Hell Sampler Play Now | Play in Popup | Download