If you dial up your Home Video albums on iTunes, you’re bound to run across a track or two that touches on light sociopolitical discourse. But when singer/guitarist Collin Ruffino became engrossed in the ongoing WikiLeaks drama, he decided a track or two wasn’t enough, and that Home Video wasn’t necessarily the best avenue to deliver the particular message he wanted to communicate in support of the heavily criticized news source. Thus, NiveHive was born. (Download “The Stuffed Men Bristle” after the jump.) We got in touch with Ruffino to pick his brain about why the WikiLeaks drama is something everyone should be paying close attention to, and how he’s helping bolster their message in his own unique way: “WikiLeaks is not an organization, it is a backlash, a mutiny. NiveHive is here to provide the soundtrack.”
Is this the first time since Home Video started that you’ve done a solo project?
Collin Ruffino: I’ve been making music by myself for years, and this project is just me alone. I have always wanted to get some of it out there, but never created something cohesive enough to feel justified in packaging it together.
When do you expect to have the full album complete and ready to release?
Collin Ruffino: I want to get this out there as soon as possible. I’m in the final mixing and mastering stage right now, so I hope to have [a full-length] out by the beginning of April. It’s such a current issue, I really want to make a statement now. For the same reason, I don’t think I can wait for a label. I’m not against a label putting it out, but that process can take too long to figure out. Unless there’s a label that pops up that wants to just get it out there now, then I’ll just do it independently.
Will it all be instrumentals accompanied by sampled vocals (a la “The Stuffed Men Bristle”) or will you be singing at all with your own original lyrics?
Collin Ruffino: Originally, the idea was to make a soundtrack to the WikiLeaks drama. I didn’t plan on having any vocal samples at all. I was just going to try to capture the mood of what was going on. Then I actually sat down and made this track, “The Stuffed Men Bristle,” and the vocal samples made total sense. I’ve always loved sampled talking in songs. We’ve put in some cut-up [vocals] in Home Video tracks before—“Business Transaction,” for one. They really hike up the intensity. Some of the tracks on the album continue with the vocal samples used in different ways. There are a couple that are, as originally intended, just meant to capture the mood of an idea, while some present information in a more obscure way. For example, one track has a melody built from a Morse Code message. There is only one track that I sing on, but it doesn’t have lyrics. That track was meant to stand out because it’s about Bradley Manning, the whistle blower who is being held in solitary confinement. I wanted to really humanize him for the listener. I feel terror when I hear about the conditions of his detention, which is actually a little better than all the people in Guantanamo and Bagram. I think people tend to hear about that subject and sort of zone out without really focusing on the fact that these are actual human beings that we are torturing and detaining with no real hope for any reasonable trial or release.
The Stuffed Men Bristle by nivehive
Obviously there’s a lot in Home Video that touches on sociopolitical themes, but more in concept. Not so much with NiveHive. Is there a place for music like this in Home Video?
Collin Ruffino: Something as specific and explicitly political as a Wikileaks concept album didn’t seem appropriate for Home Video. I felt like it would be sort of left field for HV fans. David and I are concerned with the political, but in Home Video we’ve never been blatant about it. It’s like the difference between sociology and philosophy. HV is more philosophy. The music is also different. It’s more stripped down and electronic than HV. I think what separates this and Home Video is that this is, in a way, more personal. Home Video is very personal, in the lyrics and emotion, but it is also a collaboration, so it’s the convergence of two personalities that have agreed on where we meet. I’ve been so obsessed with following what goes on with WikiLeaks, daily, for the past four or five months. No one else in my personal circle is following it as closely as I am, so I wanted to express my solidarity as immediately as I could manage, and wanted to say unequivocally what I wanted to say.
Can you give me a synopsis of where you stand with all this and how it directly effects the particular message you have?
Collin Ruffino: Sure. I first noticed WikiLeaks when they released the video of the Apache helicopter attack in Iraq, the shooting of all those civilians and two reporters. The video really effected me, especially when we see the van (with children inside it) pulling up to help the wounded and the helicopter fires on it as well. Then when the Afghanistan and Iraq War logs came out, I felt that this was an organization that was doing something profound. They seemed to be trying to poke us sleeping Americans in the eye and say, “this is what you are doing.” When the diplomatic cables were released, all hell broke loose. The U.S. government started issuing ridiculous threats, calling WikiLeaks a “terrorist organization,” calling Assange a “hi-tech terrorist.” There were calls for his assassination. Senator Lieberman strong-armed Amazon, Mastercard, Visa and Paypal into dumping WikiLeaks. It was suddenly like a scary fascist movie. The mainstream media started printing lies about the cables—that they were indiscriminately dumped, even though only a small portion of them had been published and those redacted. There was pretty much zero support for WikiLeaks. Only smaller journalists like Glenn Greenwald and publications like The Nation and Democracy Now had the guts to say that this is much-needed journalism.
It’s pretty amazing when you think about it.
Collin Ruffino: I read a statistic that said that 77% of Americans disapprove of WikiLeaks—but 41% don’t even know what it is. This was about when I felt a need to say something in solidarity with WikiLeaks. I was just disgusted by the mainstream conversation. Since my medium is mainly music, I decided to try to express this with an album. The first song came pretty easily to me, so I just kept going. I’m curious to know if there is interest in this type of music. There is a genre of political folk music that is just horrendous; totally earnest and style-less, with lyrics that are so in your face and on-the-nose that it makes you cringe with embarrassment. And that on top of standard, boring chord progressions played on an acoustic guitar. It makes you hate the cause they are trying to promote. I wanted to do the opposite of that. I wanted to make cool music with a message that is smart. I think you can listen to this without feeling bored and beat over the head. You could actually bob your head to it.
There’s such a huge wave of democracy and information freedom sweeping the world right now, especially in places like Africa and the Middle East. Is that something that excites you, and that fuels this project?
Collin Ruffino: For sure. So exciting. I actually have a song on the album that’s about the popular revolts happening in North Africa and the Middle East. I feel like those uprisings are tangible proof of WikiLeaks as a game changer. People are downtrodden and cheated everywhere in the world, including here in the US. Look at what’s happening in Wisconsin. The only way corporations and governments can diffuse the anger people feel is through misinformation. People are convinced that their neighbor is getting government benefits they don’t deserve, immigrants are stealing their jobs, or terrorists hate their freedom. Meanwhile, the elites plunder everything right from under us. Once people see behind the curtain, they realize who is holding them down and can get over the nonsense and change things.
Last but not least, I assume you won’t be charging any money for any of these songs, right Maybe I’m off base, but I thought it’d be worth an ask.
Collin Ruffino: Well, this touches on the political, I think, and a topic I’m curious about in the music business. In the US, there is no support at all for artists. I think even the current Congress has cut what little funding there was down to nothing. Our society wants you to move along a track that makes you a productive cog in a wheel, arts be damned. Consequently, the only art that provides any sort of livelihood ends up being payed for by corporations. I think people know this is the case and feel resentful of the idea of paying money for music that ends up supporting an executive rather than a musician. Then when it gets down to the indie world, fans don’t know what to think. So we have an Internet culture where music is easily transferable for free. I don’t think free music is a bad thing at all. Maybe music just shouldn’t be a commodity. I think if people could have the opportunity to support the artists they love directly, like you would a museum or a political cause, there might be a shift in thinking. I’m going to set up a donation page on my site so that people can give to the musician that wrote the music. The music is free and you can choose to support the person who did it, or not. Currently, I have links on the site to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund and to the support page for WikiLeaks, where you can now donate directly.
Words by Rich Thomas.
