Burning Tree Projekt is a so cal alternative, hip-hop, rap, R&B, punk rock band from Orange County, comprised of six diverse and talented musicians.
This article originally appeared in
Asia Pacific Arts. (http: //www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/060603/dip_btp.html)
Interview with Burning Tree Projekt
May 7, 2003
Interviewed by Lynna Kim
Transcription by Carol Soon and Angela Kang
Click here (http: //www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/060603/burning_tree_project.ram)for full-length interview in RealVideo
Burning Tree Projekt is a so. cal. alternative, hip-hop, rap, R&B, punk rock band from Orange County, comprised of six diverse and talented musicians. They found their beginning inside a shabby church, but within a few composing sessions, they were well on their way to releasing their unique music to the world. Not only are they multi-ethnic, ranging from Chinese, Korean, Caucasian, Mexican, and African American, but they are also multi-dimensional in their music style. Their music encompasses a vast spectrum of music flavors from Dave Matthews Band to Smashing Pumpkins to Naz to Metallica to Weezer. All these influences mix together to form BTP's own unique genre. BTP's second album is on the way with more serious and mature lyrics, hitting on sensitive issues that they feel are important to address.
Lynna: Why don't you guys introduce yourselves and tell us what instruments you play.
Sean: I am Sean Gordon and I play the guitar.
Andre: I am Andre Harris and I rap.
Enik: My name is Enik and I am the lead singer.
Dave: I'm Dave and I play bass.
Mark: I am Mark and I play drums.
Tim: I am Tim and I play guitar.
Lynna: Burning Tree Projekt, what makes you guys unique from every other band out there?
Sean: We have a rapper and no one has done that before us.
Andre: Honestly, what separates us is that it is not about the money and all the fame, but it's about sharing the word of Jesus Christ with others; that's the whole thing, that's what it's all about. That's what separates us.
Tim: We have a nice little mix of punk, rock, and classical.
Sean: A little bit of everything we like.
Lynna: It's obvious that you guys are multiethnic, a little bit of Asian, Caucasian…
Sean: I am half-Mexican.
Lynna: Half-Mexican? So what other aspects of your band makes you guys multi-dimensional?
Enik: Well, the genres that we actually personally listen to are completely different. Andre is hip-hop, Sean is the heavy metal man, Tim listens to his own stuff, Dave listens to his own stuff, so we take all these separate genres and put it together and make our own.
Dave: Enik listens to Korean hip-hop.
Lynna: Do you come into any conflicts with differences in music flavors.
Andre: Yeah.
Sean: Yeah.
Mark: Yeah
Dave: But it all works out.
Andre: Definitely. It all comes down to compromises. Seriously, because we all compromise a little bit, you know, that is what BTP is.
Sean: Yea. Because the flavor that each one of us gives makes its own pizza.
Dave: What?
Sean: You don't want just flour in your pizza, you want all the other ingredients to make it nice, appealing, and tasteful.
Lynna: So who decides what kinds of lyrics, what kinds of music, what kinds of themes come into one song?
Enik: That is something we all pretty much do.
Tim: These guys (Enik, Dave, Andre) take care of the lyrics, but we all kind of take care of the music.
Enik: Music is worked on all together, because it doesn't work out individually.
Mark: It doesn't work.
Enik: If a person takes control of it too much…(shakes his head)
Andre: That is when we start bringing out the guns.
Enik: That's when we start arguing.
Lynna: So how many hours goes into one song, about?
Andre: It depends.
Sean: It depends.
Mark: Yeah.
Enik: We wrote one of our best songs in probably two hours, an hour. And other songs we work on it for months.
Mark: They are on the back shelves, the archives.
Lynna: What is your favorite song?
Andre: It's different for everyone.
Lynna: As musicians, what is the most grueling aspect of your job, and what is the most rewarding?
Sean: Writing.
Andre: Writing. It's fun but sometimes it gets frustrating. Seriously, because I am always last. Everyone's like, “Where are your raps at? Where are your raps at?”
Yeah, I am always last, so it sucks, but it's all good because when it is all finished, it's something crazy.
Sean: It's also like the most rewarding thing in the world, you know? When we work hard, you get the good thing in the end.
Lynna: Do you guys have deadlines for your song?
Enik: We set deadlines for our songs, most of the time, not all the time, because we just like to get things done.
Sean: We usually have the melody or the basic idea of the song. It's like, “Oh this is gonna be a song, because it sounds like a song,” and then we just add all the necessary things to make it into a song. And it usually takes two or three practices to add all the things.
Enik: Not only that, but our songs evolve in their own way, so even though we play it the first time in a show, chances are that six months later, they are not going to sound anything like that again.
Dave: Even songs on our cd, if we play live, it is not going to sound like that. It's because we change it so much. Music is like a process; it is never going to be finished.
Lynna: So when you write your music, do you gear it towards live audiences or your album?
Andre: More live probably.
Enik: It really depends. In the studio, it is a lot different than on stage because we have to restrain ourselves sometimes when we are doing music in the studio. I don't know, I think when we do music it is all about feeling what we feel; what message we want to get across. On stage it is kind of different.
Lynna: Is there a lot of improvisation on stage?
Enik: Yeah. I like to read the people that are out there. If I see somebody in the crowd that doesn't look very happy, that motivates me to be more emotional in our songs. And if I see someone jumping like crazy in the crowd, that makes me wanna go crazy with them.
Dave: Plus we mess up a lot so I guess you can call that improv.
Tim: Yeah.
Lynna: This question is for Dre. I know you are a talented rap lyrist, you get on stage, and you perfect all your lyrics, but do you have any freestyle skills?
Andre: Yeah, a little bit.
Lynna: You need to give our camera a little freestyle.
Andre: (He freestyles).
Lynna: This question is for Enik. I know you wanted to become a hip-hop, R& B singer in Korea before you started BTP. Can you tell us how your band now, BTP, is different from what you envisioned your dreams to be as a musician?
Enik: Well I think when I was younger, I saw all these singers dancing and I wanted to be famous like that. But what I have now goes far beyond my visions, far beyond my dreams; it's not something I am doing for myself, but something I am doing for God. When BTP happened and when everything fell into place, my life did too. It's not anything like what I pictured, but then again, life is not what I pictured.
Lynna: This is the last individually directed question and this is for Dave. Since you are a student here at UCLA, how do you possibly balance out your musician life with your academic life?
Dave: I guess you can explain it like this. I don't study, so I have a lot of time to do whatever I want. But actually, it is hard sometimes; there are actually other things, other than school and music, like family and church that we all have to deal with. It is not only me who has to deal with the school thing either, a lot of these guys have school and stuff too. I think it is just prioritizing what's more important in your life. If you have too much to do, you gotta let something go and BTP is just not one of those things that you can let go of.
Lynna: I am going to play the Devil's advocate here. What makes you guys think that you guys, as a band, can survive the commercial, competitive, and ferocious society, especially as a Christian rock band?
Enik: Because we are from the society too. We were all born and raised here and we each have problems too, and believe it or not, I think a lot of us have experienced even more than some of the people who are in life right now. So it doesn't make us any different. We are Christians, true that, so our views are Christian, our beliefs are Christian, but it doesn't mean that we don't go through the same stuff.
Tim: Pretty much the overwhelming factor is that we are six guys who are really sexy and we got the high school kid here…
Sean: I think another thing is that I have seen other bands, and I know people who are in other bands, and there is always one guy that is in it like, “ Dude, we gotta make this happen.” And the other four, who don't really believe in it, they are kinda like, “Aw it's just for fun.” I think for us, we are all that one guy in this one band. It's probably what is going to drive us to reach success.
Lynna: This is the last question, and I know that you guys have a tour coming up, a National Tour, as well as a second album. What do you have planned for BTP, I mean any special tricks?
Sean: We have a very fresh video. You guys will be able to see it soon, it's pretty funny.
Tim: You guys can see the video online at www.burningtreeprojekt.com (http: //www.burningtreeprojekt.com/)
Enik: For our second album, the songs that we wrote are a lot more serious than before. We feel that our music has matured more than before. Before it was all fun and games and stuff like that and I think we are just feeling it more this time.
Sean: Actually for the second album, I think this is pretty important for BTP fans; expect it to be a lot different sounding, not for the worse, but slightly different because like Enik said, our first album was experimenting on how our sounds are like together. Now that we know how we work together, it's going to be stronger. The first album was a bit lighter, and now it is a lot more tighter.
Andre: We are dropping pop and bringing in the rock.
Enik: We are also hitting a lot more serious issues. Before it was about love, broken hearts, and bad days, but now we actually talk more about sensitive issues like suicide, just a lot more things that people usually would stay away from because people have these problems and if they need a song to comfort them, then we are the ones to give it to them.
Lynna: Alright, thanks guys. Lots of good answers. Thanks a lot.