Travis Barker and Yelawolf officially released their joint EP, Psycho White. TheSource.com opened the floor for the two to explain the project track-by-track. Peep the breakdown below and if you've haven't done so support the project via iTunes here now.
- Sean Lynch (@Kiddfuture)
Push Em' Ft Skinhead Rob Tim Armstrong
Travis: Me and Yelawolf were on the I Am Music Tour with Lil Wayne; me and Mixmaster Mike would open up the show. We always played "Let's Go" off my album, featuring Yelawolf. Yela was like "Damn I want a track that gets people super crunk, hyped and has crazy high energy for my next energy." Staying in a hotel that night at like 4 am I was up constructing what he had hit me about. That's when I came up with something completely crazy like the double time shuffle. When he heard it he was like "thats what I really want to rap on, it would be really different." Once I got off tour I made the choruses and the next time he was in LA we recorded and the song was pretty much done the next day. He did the third verse about 3 months later and we had Rob and Tim do backup vocals on the record.
Yelawolf: Yeah the I Am Music Tour. (Asks for Coors Light at a local spot during the call) One thing you got to realize is Travis is a work horse and he never stops ever. He's always like "what's next what's next?" He showed me this Punk Rock - Hip-Hop track he put together on a drum machine. So I started to write to it immediately, Tim and Skinhead came in as well. It's a real marriage of genres with them.
Six Feet Under Ft. Tim Armstrong
Travis: After Tim and Rob had done the background vocals. I told him I need him one more record that would be on the eventual EP. It was really different, sort of reggae inspired and then Tim and I wrote the track and sent it to Yela and he loved it. When he came into the studio his first idea was what ended up making it with his melody and cadence for the verse. He was like, "What do you think I've never done this... rapping over a song like this." It was incredible from "Push Em" to "Six Feet Under" it showed how versatile Yela is he could pretty much rap on anything. He can even sing but he doesn't give himself enough credit.
So would you say your work brings out the best of him?
I think it just gives people the opportunity to hear him on songs he's never done before. Like "Push Em" verses are like a punk rock song and he kills it and "Six Feet Under" is so different. It's not just your run of the mill rap stuff. That was the goal of the project to be a little more different.
Funky Shit
Travis: "Funky Shit" is based around marching. Like a lot of the EP has a lot of marching drums, not so much programmed drums but real marching snares, sequences and bass drums were recorded. This song and another one, "Whistle Dixie" were the first songs we completed for the EP. Basically me messing around the studio like I said these are the first songs we ever recorded that turned into something. We were really on a quick with making beats out of live drums that had a strong cadence to them. That's pretty much how "Funky Shit" came about.
Yelawolf: This is my personal favorite and it's probably the most lyricaly random thing I've done in a while. It's just some shit to ride to, it's just wordplay really. I didn't write to this one I just went right off the top in the booth with this one.
Whistle Dixie
Travis: I went in and just started with the marching drum, then Yelawolf had this idea to just have a whistle as the chorus not even any vocal it would be just the whistle. That track actually came together pretty quick. We did a first version of it than Yelawolf came back and did all of his verses over in a day in matter of an hour's time and killed it.
Yelawolf: That was the first record we came together for. There was no one else around and I was just like "I have this crazy idea." The first time we recorded music together I had done a hook for him on a track he had originally had for Paul Wall. This was done from scratch, everything was from scratch. As far as Psycho White this was the break out tune! That had us vibing.
Travis: Yeah that track didn't have any programmed drums like we were adamant about using live drums. We wanted a different feel and sound that would sonically sound different.
Directors Cut
Yelawolf: Basically Travis is sitting on a lot of dope tracks. This was one of the records he played for me and was like, "See if you could do something with this." I'm really driven by melody of music as far as I conceptualize records. It just kind of comes to me and there was something about that track that made me want to go straight story. I ended up writing about being this psycho-jealous boyfriend, who is out to kill his girlfriend. Really crazy stuff and definitely a page out of Marshall Mathers book but it's got a little twist on it. It has my dirty south trailer park element of being that dude. The track is super eerie and I think the story came out super ill. Friends of mine that had heard the project tend to pick it as their favorite as far as MC fans go, people who just want to hear straight rap shit. Travis wouldn't you say this is the most Hip-Hop record on there as far as straight rap track?
Travis: Yeah definitely. I had left the studio early that day as Yelawolf was listening to the beat. It was definitely one of the more exciting moments to hear it the next day and hear what he had did. I must've played it like 20 times over and although it was half done it was just crazy storytelling. It was just cool to listen to and much different than anything else on the EP. Every record is different and I don't think there are two songs that even sound alike or match each other.
Any material that didn't make the cut?
Yelawolf: We worked through a few ideas but we were pretty sure and set on this five records. There was probably two or three more idea-records that were drawn up but non of them were ever completed.
Travis: Yeah theres really nothing else with vocals that we were sitting on. There was this one beat that we were listening to and we believed Yelawolf was going to go in.
Yelawolf: Travis was trying to get me to go on this one beat. It was either you rap real fast or you don't rap at all and I just couldn't bring myself to write that many insane lyrics. Like I had already... I was just running out of lyrical gas after "Directors Cut" and "Push Em." We actually came together on like one week to finalize everything. Nearly every record wasn't done, "I'm like we need to rap this shit up." We had procrastinated a lot on it.
Travis: Then there was that one track that Yela had a crazy melody for and it's still lingering in my iPhone.....
Check out part 1 now as well where the two speak on coming together, future plans and videos.
Totally got that he sounded like Marshall on Directors Cut
