2009 Aug 21 Talking Pints: Pet Sounds - Mochipet plays MAO
Mochipet, or David Yang to his rocket-scientist dad, uprooted from Taiwan to California as a child. Growing up in the US, Mochipet got into music and was soon mixing it all up, as can be heard on his recent album Master P on Atari, which you can hear at MAO Livehouse on Saturday. It's RMB 60. We caught up with him for the scoop on dinosaurs and dodgy fans.
the Beijinger: What's with the name?
Mochipet: My grandmother used to make mochi and I'd call them mochi pets.
tbj: What first got you into tinkering with sounds?
MP: Guns N’ Roses. They just looked like aliens to me, and I wanted to be like that.
tbj: You wear a purple dinosaur costume quite a lot. Why?
MP: The first record I released was called Baby Godzilla. My friend had a suit that someone had given her and told me I should wear it to the release party. I did and the rest is Mochipet history.
tbj: What's the coolest dinosaur?
MP: Therizinosaurs. They look like a mix between a Canadian goose and a polar bear. They used to be extremely powerful predators, but then they had no competition so they became lazy and fat and weird looking.
tbj: If your live set was a sport, what would it be?
MP: Probably a combination of chess boxing (play a round of chess and then box the living crap out of each other) and cheese rolling (chasing a block of cheese down a hill).
tbj: What's the weirdest thing a fan ever said to you?
MP: This fan from France sent me a giant sign with “Mochipet” written out of old, cut-out ’70s porn magazines.
tbj: Which artists do you want to work with?
MP: Neil Diamond, Tom Jones, Willie Nelson, Iron Maiden, Jimmy Buffett, Paul Simon, John Zorn and Trey Spruance, to start.
tbj: Who do you still want to remix?
MP: I want to remix everyone.
tbj: If you could only listen to three songs for the rest of your life, what would they be?
MP: Oh God. That sounds like a nightmare.
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