In a way Spod has been combining music and exercise since forever. The dude’s hedonistic live shows blur the line between Greek orgy and best-house-party-ever and have gotten bodies in motion and made people sweat for years now. But to make the union official Sydney’s one man vibe machine decided to launch Fantasyze a batshit crazy scheme that aimed to combine exercise with music. That was about ten weeks ago and Spod has since finished the program with a swag full of tunes and a leaner paunch. We caught up with the human total gym and discussed the finer points of increasing your babeatude, working up a sweat and “touching people”.
For those who don’t know can you describe the Fantasyze project? Basically it’s for people who think the road to fitness is a road laden with fable and fantasy, and I just wanted to prove this road is REAL! 9 weeks of running workouts, from chill dog 2009 to running five kms in 30 minutes in 9 weeks. Each run is split into walking & running segments, the tunes shift between the two so you know when to change from walkies to runsies, and there’s a bad ass foghorn & explosion in case you miss it, oh and my best friend Alex is talking on my behalf. Shit is real, it happens, and is free! I got love.
How did you come up with such a crazy idea? Well my friend Seja was doing these workouts by these dudes called Cool Runnings (which is called the couch to 5k) and as fitness regimes are boring as shit and full of rubbish jams, she was replacing the shitty jams with hot jams and I was going to make my own then figured I should just do them with my songs, and songs I write with my friends and make it a bit of an event and to hopefully make some kind of a difference in other peoples lives.
I guess the first question should be, did you actually get healthier or lose weight? Can you compare your health before and after? Pretty early on I made a decision not to work out to it as I was creating it, mainly due to having to listen to it all so much in the production, I thought I would just get through it, make it all and commit to that, then start it after I finished it. I’m starting it this week, and I think I’ll blog about the progress. That said, I did run up to week 4 just to make sure it was kinda working, and since then I’ve fixed my bike and ride everywhere and started skating again, so I’m tonnes fitter now anyway.
How does exercising improve songwriting? Exercising improves any kind of artistic endeavour on so many levels. The activity & oxygen opens up your mind’s scope, the exercise itself gives you time to daydream and mentally voyage through lands unknown, you feel more positive mentally and physically, so you’re more keen to really get into working too. It’s hard to remind yourself how good you feel in all aspects of life when you exercise till you start doing it again.
Mind’s scope hey? Well then, how does music improve exercise? By breaking the initial tedium and having something to latch your pace onto. Enter the zone, ride the lifewaves.
Have you noticed anyone ‘wowsering at your babeatude’? That shit is just classic life for me. I’ll be like grabbing some bread and wowsering is totally in effect at 3 o’clock. I just keep it solid and buy that bread.
Has your exercise regime waned since the nine weeks elapsed? Yes, and only because I was listening to the workouts waaaay too much, and wanted to keep it fresh and exciting so I didn’t have to force the enthusiasm, I really was in the barge zone for body party.
What was the response in regards to helping people exercise? Do you feel like you’ve touched lives? It’s been amazing!!! I’ve been steadily getting emails off people going into how this has helped them get off their arse and get fit, which is amazing. The real shit, life party. Having people be entertained and inspired by me just doing some stuff is just too awesome, and people saying how it’s changing their lives and how they live them. That’s it, right there. Nothing better!
Who made your teaser video and why is it the most awesome thing ever? Me! Ever since I bought a decent computer to finish my Superfrenz album, I’ve been teaching myself video production just because it’s something I’ve never done. I’m really bad at explaining myself, so when it comes time to make music, videos, anything, I just have to learn how to do it and do it by myself. I made a clip for a song of mine called Dead, and want to do more but I’ve just been so busy so I figured I’d make a video a week but the workload killed me. I’m now starting to do clips for other people like Richard In Your Mind & Talons & some other bands on the burners which I can’t wait to rip into! I just bought a brand new 20 year old VHS video camera, like a big production type one that goes on the shoulder for $30, so it’s totally on.
How do you think this whole experience will help writing of your next album? Well it’s got me back in the production zone, and I really just wanted to get fit and feel enthused for the new record, get physical & positive! This new one may or may not be a Spod record, maybe i’ll start doing instrumental music named after classic celebrities. Who knows.
What are your top five workout tunes?
Physical – Olivia Newton John: of course
Ocean Man – Ween: for the tempo and relaxation
Big Pimpin – Notorious BIG: AAAAMPIN!
Nutritious Treat – godheadSilo: just makes me want to run. forever.
Bette Midler – Spod: oh yeah I did, that shit is more vibey than Roy Ayers!
What are your top five workout moves? The Nelson Nelson, Chimpin’ Squats, The Broken Charlie, Milkers Delight and Snips.
What was the funnest part of the whole experience? I think the funnest part was when I hung out with Johnny Collide to make the Fascinator songs for Week 5, and jamming with Chris and Myles from Palace of Fire for 8 hours in a space synth hole for Week 7. Actually, the whole process was a lot of fun, the Richard In Your Mind interview, putting together Wet Stallions, and having Alex talk for me, big feelings. Making the clips! Awww, I miss it!
And what was the hardest part? Probably the end of every edit where it was 5am on a Monday morning and I’d been working on it for like 10 hours and had to get it done for peoples morning runs, and had to stay amped about exercise but all I wanted to do was sleep. That was tough. Oh, and hangovers before doing them were hell brutal.
