Headless Horseman Interviewed by Heems of Das Racist

Fareed Sajan of Headless Horseman discusses eating ice cream in the winter, being a first-generation American, and whether or not Heems is a good manager.

In honor of our first showcase of the year, which takes place Friday night at Pianos, here’s an exclusive interview between Fareed Sajan of Headless Horseman and the band’s manager, Himanshu Suri, otherwise known as Heems from lovably eccentric rap group Das Racist.

Headless Horseman uses outdated technology to create tech-y, beat-oriented pop songs with sweet vocals layered over them and have been getting quite a bit of buzz lately. Both interviewer and interviewee will be performing on Friday night—Hima alongside Quinn Walker of Suckers in their new band, DADS—in addition to sets by Blood Orange and Rewards. You definitely don’t want to miss it. RSVP on Facebook for more information and come early; the magic starts at 8 PM.

What would you do if the software you use to make music that’s no longer available, since Comp USA folded, somehow got lost?
Cry and eat a doughnut. It actually already did sort of get lost, but I resurrected it with the help of some famed nerds.  The program we use, Magix, is important to us, no doubt…but by no means are we incapable of using something else, or even (god forbid) going into a studio with a producer. Magix is a very bare-bones DJ program that was free and we fell in love with it. There are no presets and not really any plugins we can use, so we painstakingly create all our own EQs and effects. We really earn every sound we have. The program is also glitchy — it crashes and is sometimes very unreliable, and all of that is reflected in our music. We incorporate mistakes, because a lot of times you can’t make what you actually want consciously. It has to come out as a mistake unconsciously, and then you have to be conscious enough after the fact to know to keep it and move forward with that new unexpected direction. But basically, we like using a glitchy program to make glitchy music. If it were lost, I am sure we could find some other way to glitch things up. This just feels most natural to us now.

How did you and Conner meet?
We met in high school in Allentown, PA. Conner was the ‘art fag’, as one particularly articulate emo-mall punk once put it, and I was some brown dude getting high during gym class. We had a post-rock band called The Night Owl Cafe Killers in our senior year, and thats when Conner and I really became friends. Neither of us had ever really engaged in meaningful musical collaborations, so post-high school we worked together in different capacities all of which leads up to today with me in my underwear staring at this computer screen and getting hungry.

Am I a good manager?
I would say you are a good ‘manager of expectations’, as you would put it. And quite competent when you are drunk, might I add.  I like your brand, bro, nice kicks, and your band, too. The brand of Greedhead [Suri's management company] is tattooed on my soul.

What’s next for Headless Horseman? (I’m often touring and occasionally out of the loop so this is useful for me, too!
A new single that will put us on the R&B map. It’s Top 40-style hip hop. It will beat out the thousands of songs Nicki Minaj, Drake and Rihanna cameo on that are all simultaneously on the radio.  Naw, but we are excited to release our single called “One Chord.” There will be a music video accompanying it, and I believe in March we are doing SXSW and touring down there. That will be a first for us on both accounts of SXSW and touring. May I remind you that we are new new new?

Top 5 rappers dead or alive? (I know you don’t listen to rap!)
Conner listens to rap: Notorius B.I.G. above everything, the new Kanye, Lil Wayne‘s Tha Carter III, The Beatnuts, Camp Lo, Eazy-E, Dr. Octagon, Gravediggaz — also been really into those Odd Future kids.

Why do you think bands that come from Wesleyan are so fuckin’ dope? (Your having gone there as well as I).
Communal inspiration. Seeing your friends make music and bring it beyond their respective bedrooms is always encouraging. So often people will get stuck just jamming all the time, or making music that never leaves their bedrooms, that they forget why you make music in the first place — to share it. And that also songwriting above all else is most important.  I have always sort of found myself surrounded by musicians, and in most cases, people get caught up with other things surrounding the actual making of music. Songwriting is fun, and being a nerd about it is okay too. I think maybe Wesleyan breeds an environment where it’s okay to geek out and spend way too much time with your friends focusing on songs.  Writing a good song is rewarded with people caring about what you do at Wesleyan. It won’t go unnoticed, and that is encouraging.

What’s it like being the child of South Asians who were born and raised in Africa?
It’s strange and disconcerting at times. There is obviously a generational difference. My parents, having grown up in Kenya, experienced a very different life from what I know, and as a result, they have different values and expectations living in America.  Like any classic immigrant story, they came to America seeking better opportunities. My dad specifically came here to do all his post-high school studies.  They expect my siblings and I to value the same sorts of things as they do, but I can’t see eye-to-eye with them. Being a first-generation American, I didn’t witness third-world living conditions, so I don’t have the perspective of seeing America as this chance to get this lucrative career and better my living conditions. It’s quite natural to have the desire to do better than how your parents did, to take advantage of the opportunities your parents didn’t have.  My parents did that, and now I feel that I’m doing that, though I don’t think my parents would see it this way. My parents overcame their obstacle. They came to America and achieved things their parents couldn’t do in Kenya. Now I’m pursuing my artistic inclinations that perhaps my parents didn’t have the chance to pursue. My desire to do this is sort of alien to my parents and often causes a rupture between us.

What else about you do you think is ill? I can think of at least 3 things.
When you stand on a tall balcony and you spit and hear the sound of the spit hitting the ground. I like that sound. Sitting in a hot tub on a roof of a Brooklyn building in the winter.  You don’t have to be drunk but I guess that helps. Also, eating ice cream in the winter.