Telekinetic Walrus's spaceship bumps back to Binghamton

The spaceship with the heavy bass bump is returning to Binghamton. Things are gonna get a little weird. That’s right, Telekinetic Walrus is coming back to town, and we at Carousel couldn't be more pumped. The Miami-hip-hop-meetsfunk-meets-EDM-meets-Gwar-meets-aten-strip-meets-Firefly-meets-Doctor-Seuss project (we tried describing it in less words, we couldn’t) is heading to New York this month for a performance at the Grassroots Festival in Trumansburg, and they’re stopping by Fitzies in Binghamton along the way!

We checked in recently with all five members of the band: Time-Zoo Keeper, Y Diz, Corinne Stevie, Komakozie, and Faun 5000. Here’s what they had to say:

TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL: It’s been nine months since y’all came through Binghamton. What’s new in the world of the Walrus?

TIME-ZOO KEEPER: We have a new single that we’re releasing, “That’s Wassup”, as well as a new stage show, a whole new, once in a lifetime, on-stage visual ambience. We’re more excited than ever about everything that’s happening. New merch, pins for the first time. We just moved locations and we’re building a new studio.

TCC: It’s impossible to talk about the music you play without first explaining a bit of the mythos you’ve built around yourselves. Can you give us a crash course on intergalactic space travel and flying squirrels and primordial walruses?

TZK: The story is based around the Prime Primordial Walrus and his Pride of Walruses who, upon being instructed by the Grand Creator, fought through great peril, during the time before universes, to essentially catalyze the big bang and create the multiverse. However, the pride of walruses perished against such great forces of evil as there were at that time, and so the Prime Primordial Walrus is the only one left of his pride of primordial walruses. The story begins in this time before universes and takes place throughout many known and unknown universes and, in fact, different multiverses. The Prime Primordial Walrus is known by many lifeforms as the Telekinetic Walrus, as he famously used telekinesis to fuse the souls of his fallen pride of walrus into an ionized form of meta materials from which he draws much of his power. The Prime Primordial Walrus is the right hand of the Grand Creator and, although there are many other timeless super beings, he has by far the greatest powers. The Flying Squirrel, another timeless super being, is an ally of the Prime Primordial Walrus who first emerges in the beginning of the second multiverse. After the great battle of the first multiverse, which resulted in a sort of multiversal reset, a second big bang and the creation of all life, the Prime Primordial Walrus needed to rest his power and allow the multiverse to take its course. So, the Flying Squirrel was sent to assemble the super crew for the first time. At that point, although all the characters had previously known each other, or known of each other, they had yet to work together in the capacity of saving the multiverse from evil. Fast-forward to now, the crew has begun to work together in defeating the growing forces of evil, leading them to more and more difficult bosses and henchmen. They discover that there is a new evil king, but they don’t know who it is, so their hunt for balance and justice continues. In this exact moment, they are on the way to fight the next evil captain, a world-enslaving soul feeder named. Hillumpary.

TCC: Of course! So the costumes and personas you bring to the stage-- they’re characters in this mythology?

TZK. Yes.

TCC: Last time Carousel interviewed you, there was talk of a comic book being in the works, chronicling the adventures of the Telekinetic Walrus. How’s that coming along?

TZK: Great. We’re still in the writing phase-- we don’t want to rush the comic books. But, once they are out, people can expect a whole new level of understanding and entertainment within the world of Telekinetic Walrus.

TCC: You’re playing the mainstage at Fingerlakes Grassroots this year, on Saturday night. That’s quite the honor. How’d you get involved with the festival?

TZK: We originally got involved with GrassRoots because Ray Orraca, of the Moksha Family (shout out!), had asked Y Diz to put a solo set together for their stage at the GrassRoots Festival in Miami. That was before we were all technically “Telekinetic Walrus” together. All of the band members came with Y Diz and we played during the second GrassRoots Miami at the Moksha stage. In between that year and the next, we had reached out to the festival via social media to offer to help promote the event because we resonated with it so much. They replied back, “Sure”, and we went over to the GrassRoots house where we met Emma Hewitt, Jonny Tunnell, Johnno Potts, Jon McNamara, Luke Miller, and the whole promo crew of that year, and we all became super tight while working together. That third year in Miami we played an official Telekinetic Walrus set on the Moksha stage and have only been getting more involved since.

TCC: You’ve become a standout in the thriving South Florida music scene. What is it about Miami that breeds such creativity?

FAUN 5000: I think it’s the collection of different cultures down here and the influence of American hip-hop with Latin and Caribbean cultures. You know, the melting pot of stuff that goes on down here. Not to mention that we’re the capital of the Bermuda Triangle.

CORINNE STEVIE: I think the weather; the fact that it’s so hot and the sun is so bright. You can see every single color that exists, you know? You see every single color that’s out there, whether it’s different skin tones to the way the buildings are painted. Everything is pretty much influenced by the sun and the temperature and the whole vibe of that. So, I feel like that adds to the creative aspect. Like for me, as an artist, if I’m walking up the street and I see a blue house or a pink house, or you know, somebody wearing something funky, like that is a part of the creativity.

KOMAKOZIE: It’s super hot, so you now, you’re forced to want to have to breathe and have to drink water and nourish yourself and pay attention in that way. Where if you’re working, you’re just going, you’re just sweating-- you’re already in it. So, it motivates you to continue on, somehow.

TZK: I think it’s a mixture of all that stuff, as well as the mixture of all the different cultures. America is a melting pot, but you don’t even really know what that means entirely until you go somewhere like Miami, where you literally have insane amounts of cultures melting together in high concentrations. Also, the fact that Miami is so international leads to a lot of international events like Art Basel, Winter Music Conference, et cetera. And those kind of events help fuel the creative scene from an inspiration standpoint and from a financial standpoint as well.

TCC: Intergalactic space battling lyrics aside, you’re music is quite experimental in its own right. There’s nothing I’ve heard quite like it. How’d it all come together?

Y DIZ: Basically, it comes from the flavor of all five of us and the collaborators, because there are other musicians that we collaborate with on the albums and stuff. Everyone that we work with comes from a pretty diverse background and musical training. And just in general, what we do is all pretty diverse. As the producer, I definitely help play a part in gluing it all together, but if it weren’t for everyone’s contributions, then it wouldn’t be what the fuck it is. So, it’s a beautiful thing and I think that’s what makes it what it is, really. That’s what makes our project so unique and different, the fact that you can’t put a finger on it. You can’t just say, “Oh, this group is a hip-hop group,” or, “this group is a funk group”, or whatever. There’s just way too many influences and way too much flavor and way too much funky fun for you to put an easy label on it. You can’t.

CS: I think the cool thing about it is that we actually celebrate and embrace how different we are and how different all of our backgrounds are. Because everybody is different, you know what I mean? But some people would rather just be the same and try to cover up the fact that they are different. But in our case, we actually embrace being different and push to be more and more different.

YD: ...And to accept people for their differences.

TZK: Ya, so I think we all share that same ethos and that’s part of what helped bring us all together. I think that when it really boils down to it, if you had to condense it into one word, it would be “happenstance”. If when the big bang happened, if one molecule had been assimilated in a different form or fashion than everything that lead to all of us coming together and this happening at this exact moment in time, then this might not have happened, or might not have happened in this way. We’re lucky that all this came together in a sense, because it’s not like anybody ordered for it to happen, it just happened. So, it’s beautiful in that way.

TCC: Who do you cite as influences?

KKZ: Madlib, Michael Jackson, Jay Z, from Black Thought to Black Sabbath, you know. Pink Floyd, Beck, Miles Davis. You know, hip hop is my main thing but it stems from jazz and soul and just straight raw music, African music, sound from nature, the medicine for the people.

F5000: As a saxophone player, definitely Joshua Redman and Maceo Parker. Not as a sax player, definitely Jimi Hendrix, DJ Qbert, Tobacco, Parliament Funkadelic… just a wide range of stuff.

CS: I would have to say Nina Simone, The Fugees, Missy Elliot. And then for visual inspiration I would say, Kahende Wiley, Barbara Kruger, and local artists that we know like Kazilla, Reinier Gamboa; local Miami artists and just the people and family around me.

YD: My oldest influence is Outkast, who I’ve been listening to since third grade. Also, Primus is one of my weirdest influence that I was obsessed with when I was younger. And also the Gorillaz are probably my three older influences. Nowadays, especially when I’m printing t-shirts, I like to get a little robotic. So, I like to listen to Chemical Brothers, Siriusmo, and just a little bit more electronic stuff. For me I just like fresh music. We got record players in the crib-- we like to listen to old school stuff and we like to bump the newest of the new, so we see the old school and new school influences as equally important.

TCC: If the Primordial Walrus had an iPod, what would be on it?

TZK: Honestly, the Primordial Walrus has transcended past the need for an MP3 player. He actually created all the music of the multiverse and it’s been said that at all times, those who know how to listen can hear the symphony of the walrus playing throughout the multiverse. The Primordial Walrus is the Akashic Records of music itself. Theoretically though, he’d probably have some Die Antwoord and Tupac on his iPod.

Telekinetic Walrus plays Fitzies Pub (9 Main St, Binghamton) on Tuesday, July 19th. There is a $5 cover at the door. MC/RV from Norwich opens. Music starts at 9pm. For more info, check out telekineticwalrus.com. Presented by your friends at Triple Cities Carousel (that’s us!).