ATHERTON

T-SHIRTS AVAILABLE HERE
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"This sounds like a toothless whore exploding in my eardrum: it blows my mind!" - Christopher Roberts, Label Coordinator VICE Records
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"people should:
lose a penny once and a while. hold a door. have sex with strangers. smile. dance. talk friendly smack about the people who cant dance; think like Walt Whitman. plant the root. buy drinks for people. give compliments. take deep breaths, spend money blithely, listen to music and give high fives."-B. Limoges
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WHAM/BAM MAGAZINE Fall 2008
A Different Way Of Doing The Same Old Thing?
BY: Nicola Jane Young
"This burger is HUGE." An hour before he walked onstage for one of his last shows as a Toronto resident, Devin Francis Atherton made a long-distance call from a College street diner. Over ginger ale (with a side of large Angus beef burger with onion, barbeque sauce and melted cheese), Atherton shared with me some of the highs and lows of life as an independent hip hop artist.
On this particular July evening, the 25 year-old Ottawa-raised rapper is Toronto-based, soon to be transplanted to our beloved Montreal in hopes of making it big like those Arcade Fire guys. This is not entirely true, as fame and fortune are not the be-all and end-all for 6'3 Atherton, but to say he doesn't hope to be struck by some fresh creative lightning bolts in our fair city would be a lie. Besides, there's always bartending as his tried and true backup.
From high school coffee houses to downtown rap battles, Atherton (or "MC Devin" as he was nick-named by his grade one teacher) went on to pursue hip hop most seriously in the past five years, finding a friend in the genre after he quit drugs and drinking in 2003. His debut, A Different Way of Doing the Same Old Thing (produced with DJ Sire in early 2006) was released on self-run Vinyl Tap Music, the same label that will launch his sophomore effort No Threat in January 2009. Since parting ways with Sire, Atherton has performed as front-man for a live band (Atherton and the Throw-ups), as half of a dynamic rap duo (The Leathers), and often by himself in the company of his trusty laptop. (At press time, he was having trouble getting it to turn on in an attempt to read my final draft.) He puts on a good show but Devin's passion for hip hop lingers beyond live performance; he seemed to truly enjoy reflecting on his creative process.
When Devin was 12, he started smoking weed and discovered a hidden talent for freestyling. He could never remember the lyrics to songs so he made up his own and got a rush from the laughter that inevitably surrounded his improvisations. Furthermore, he couldn't sing and had a knack for rhythm. Musing over what got him into hip-hop, Devin half-joked, "Smoking pot and the ability to not sing drew me to my art form."
The stigma associated with rap music does not go unnoted. Devin is the first to admit, "When I tell people what I do, they cringe. And I love that!" What compels him is that "it's still a performance art", noting that he "always liked acting, drama, comedy…and onstage, you can incorporate it all into a live show."
His creative process has evolved considerably since he started out. What was once a regimented initiative has become more light-hearted. Starting out, he would never write to beats and needed perfect silence and solitude to produce anything; seemingly impossible before midnight. Mellowed out and with less structure to the hunt for "creative juices", they come pouring in with relative ease as long as his mind is open (and it usually is.) Ideas will come to him at work, or he'll write in his head while walking down the street. Devin considers the transition, "Before, I needed everything to be silent but now it's like I have to complicate things more." A lot of the writing is very personal; bits and pieces of relationships and above all, emotion. Devin's goal? "Put as much humanity in it as possible. The stuff I love most is stuff that makes me go 'Wow, I'd really get along with this person'." He considers Sage Francis a role model, and Louis Logic a mentor, as well as a dear friend.
His ideas come from a variety of sources, "Basically, personal experience and observation." Some are really planned out songs he's been "working on for three years." Others, less so. "I'll get a funny word in my head (like 'asparagus') and run with that."
When asked how he knows a good idea from bad, Devin responded candidly, "Fuck, that's a good question…" He reasoned that intuition guides him more than anything. "Definitely just a feeling. Sometimes it's 'fuck this is garbage, fuck this is garbage' but when it feels like something I'd want to share or show off, then I know it's good. I guess there is an emotion, that's like 'Yes. I have done it.' And that's one of the reasons I continue doing it." Devin allows that over time, you "build up a tolerance to creative joy" as there is "always a desire to do better than last time", quick to add that he's "not a perfectionist by any means".
For Devin, nothing is ever finished until it's on the CD and he cites getting an album done as the hardest part of what he does. "Shows are always satisfying as fuck but they're not definite. You could have a great show or a shitty show but after that you might have a great show. An album is indelible, there's no taking it back so you put more into it."
It may sound rash, but Devin insists, "If something doesn't motivate after four lines, if nothing magical hits then I scratch it and go with a new thought." He'd
abandon a song if it would truly upset someone, but would be more likely to rework it to less blunt effect; disguise it, in a sense. He has yet to directly address his battle with addiction on an album, but time has allowed for guilt over "upsetting the framework of an otherwise perfect family" to be all but overshadowed by a relief and appreciation for the relationships he was able to salvage. At this point, "Nothing is taboo." It took a certain amount of distance and perspective for Devin to believe that, which has come to benefit his writing.
In a close-knit underground community, it's easy to be discouraged when some who are less driven seem to move forward by chance. Barriers once past
can re-appear in the distance. When a strong performance at Toronto's North by Northeast festival garnered great press and a picture on the cover of NOW magazine last summer, Devin was surprised when he wasn't even shortlisted for 2008, owing to a change in administration he was alerted to by the promoters, who were equally surprised at his absence on the shortlist. Jealousy is inevitable, even among friends and collaborators, in a tight but competitive scene that sadly awards "tons of rejection". Heavily involved in all aspects of his musical vehicle, if one part of it lets him down, there is always something else to work on that will provide distance without total disconnect, be it "making t-shirts or designing flyers for an upcoming show."
A voicemail left the day after our interview said it all.
"Last night we had a FANTASTIC show. Ohmygod it was great, you should've been there. I would've totally crowd-surfed you, on my own, it was that great. I had the strength to crowd surf you alone, with just my two arms. And probably crowdsurf like, ten of your friends, one for each finger. You know, that's the kind of power that was surging through Paul and I and the rest of us."
Nights like these make it all worthwhile for an underground rapper that's just trying to make rent like everyone else. The clincher?
"When it pays off, it's fucking gorgeous".
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Complete Bio / Epk : View Atherton's EPK
Booking, Contact, Info :vinyltap@gmail.com
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My friend and I made a CD it looks like this.and you can buy it HERE or grab it off iTunes
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I found these songs on my computer
you can download them HERE



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