Rabbit In The Moon
Interviewed for Riffin' by Webjockey Fashionboyz
Rabbit In The Moons' Rifflist on Riffin.com: Rabbit In The Moon Mix
Rabbit In The Moon Shines Like the Sun
Rabbit In The Moon is a pioneering electronic music act that combines dance, performance and video into unforgettable live events. Consisting of T. Confucius and Bunny with visuals by VJ Tek, RITM consistently strives for originality, ingenuity and cutting-edge audio/visual synethesia.
According to one account of their show, "At the apex of the night, with 5000 people screaming at the top of their lungs, Bunny was unleashed... a screaming human disco ball that slithered down a rope from the rafters. The colors refracted off his mirrored, hanging body while a mass of hands reached towards the light. As he was lowered to the crowd they did not let him touch the ground. Instead, they carried him to the stage, as if he was their sacrifice."
Their recent release, "Decade," is a combination studio release and DVD of their live performances and videos from the past 10 years. It was released on August 28 from Contagious Musiq.
Riffin': Tell us about the new album and DVD "Decade."
Bunny: With "Decade" we're trying to marry the audio and the interactive video world. We are trying to do something a little different than everyone else.
VJ Tek: Well, with the DVD it's really a presentation of our performances and music videos. It is a culmination of the work that we've been doing for the last, you know, 8 plus years. It's a true testament of what we have accomplished as artists.
Riffin': So it combines performance art, video, live music and electronic gadgetry and costuming?
VJ Tek: Yeah, because we didn't want to just release an album because then you don't see the show. And the live performance is always a major focus of what we're working on.
Bunny: Certain songs on the record were actually written after the video was made. We picked the tempo and a vibe, but used the video to score to. To create something different than you would have if you were just writing at the studio with nothing to look at.
Riffin': So here's the dreaded semantic question... do you consider yourself a musician, a performance artist, or...
Bunny: I was a performance artist who became a musician. T Confucius went from being a musician to a performer. And VJ Tek started off doing visuals, but now he's a mind control artist. (Laughter)
VJ Tek: I'm a song and dance man.
Riffin': Mind control artist. I love that. That's great.
VJ Tek: And you know what? It's an interesting question because we have actually been struggling with that. We work with all kinds of different artists, and we're creating dance music, but it's hard to pigeonhole. It's not trance, it's not progressive, it's not electro, it's not industrial, it's not rock, but really it's an amalgam all of those things. So we've been calling it "visual music."
Riffin': How has the dance music scene changed in the past decade?
VJ Tek: After September 11 the party scene was pretty much devastated with the Patriot Act, so you've seen it go underground again and try and change and redefine itself. What I was always initially attracted to the rave scene is that, you know, you call a show and you go out to a venue and all these different people are working to put this show together independently. Hopefully in a virgin space around an idea, and then all these DJs come together and perform and it's a live event. Hopefully the United States opens up a little more so these things can keep growing and changing and we'll really see people experiment and really have some fun with it. But it's been so tough.
Riffin': There is definitely a very like spiritual element to your art.
VJ Tek: Music has become the thing that brings the world together, and it's kind of the spiritual connection between everybody without ideologies or deities. It goes throughout all cultures and it talks to everybody in different ways. It's kind of like we're showing like a global connection. It's interesting how people see the show and then they put their own kind of spiritual significance onto it. Bunny becomes kind of like the Shaman who creates this kind of a ritual type environment. I guess you could call it "techo-shamanism."
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