On Sunday, January 9th, I met with Caleb Stone of Professor Calculus in Koreatown, Los Angeles to discuss his thoughts, opinions, the recent success of ProfCalc, and a bunch of other unimportant bullshit. It was a very good interview (see below).
FCBK - www.facebook.com/profcalc
TWTR - @profcalc
EMAIL - bookprofessorcalculus@gmail.com
You recently played a death metal show in the valley.
Ya, it was at this bar called Dublin’s Irish Bar, but we thought it would be way better if it was called O’Darby’s.
Why O’Darby’s?
Just because that’s a really funny made-up Irish name.
Was it a good show?
Ya. It was this bar right next to CSU Northridge so it’s where all the college kids come party. So it was one of those… no bands has a huge draw where they’re like ‘Yo, where playing some underground thing,’ and then there’s a bazillion people there just waiting for them, maybe unless it’s Jay-Z and they put it on Twitter like one tweet. No bands do that. It’s all about playing somewhere that already has an audience and imposing your tastes upon them.
It was you, Mouth of the Serpent, and Isolation and Infamy.
Ya, it was the goofiest thing ever. And there was a huge private party there.
Unrelated?
Unrelated to the metal. And they were all sitting right next to the metal and they had a huge table set-up so it wasn’t like they were going to move. So it was definitely funny to see that, to view the imposition first had. Ya the whole night was pretty fun. I got two phone numbers. The ladies were feeling it. My amp was feeding back a little bit, which I wasn’t too happy about.
Oh, sometimes that’s nice.
No, it always sucks. Unless you do it on purpose. Unless you’re trying to be that rock dude, holding his guitar to the amp: ‘I don’t give a shit, I play shit that sounds bad on purpose because I’m so raw and that expresses my musical attitude.’
Did ProfCalc have to adjust for the metal set?
We’re kind of a metal band I guess. We have enough breakdowns in our music. So no complaints there. It was a good night and then we have an 18-year-old girl’s birthday party coming up, which will be a smorgasbord of moral dilemmas. I love that in LA kids do that. I don’t think that kids in small towns go, ‘Yo, I’m turning 18, I better get seven bands, rent a venue, do this huge blow out thing, get three hundred confirmed guests on Facebook. I think it’s great that kids are being empowered to do that, being empowered to shine in this town. Because not everybody is going to have a highlight in their lives.
We’re all just leaves of grass.
Did you just say we’re all leaves of grass?
Ya.
Isn’t the correct term blades?
Blades, blades of grass, ya.
Are they blades?
Yes.
Ya. Sorry that’s just me Larry David-ing out on you. You’re a killer interviewer, by the way. You just got non-stop questions anytime I stop talking.
Leaves of Grass was a book of poetry by Walt Whitman.
But is anybody who is consuming media these days interested in Walt Whitman references? They want Solja Boy references. You just want to be on NPR.
No, this is the slow interview…the eventual interview. We’ll get the goods eventually. You’ll be playing with Things, Dream Panther, ProfCalc, Alpha and Verbs – Red Fox. That will be a fun birthday for that girl.
Oh ya. Red Fox in the building.
And Truman Peyote, one of my favorite names for a band.
Ya, I met that guy. Did you know that his name is also Caleb?
No, I didn’t know that. I just like that name, Truman Peyote.
Ya, he’s from the East Coast. Maybe he’s cool. I don’t know, I don’t even want to think about what I come off to people as.
What are you working on now? How’s life?
Life’s good. I’m trying to make a conscious effort to eat better. I know I’m going to fail but if you try, you’re at least going to do a little better. And just try to eat less, and I know that that sounds like a dumb, anorexic aspiration but it’s hard to create a diet that’s snack based and wholesome. The way to speed up your metabolism is just eat chicken and rice bowls. Just like seven tiny bowls of chicken and rice a day. But it’s impossible. It’s the inevitable progression of our days that sometimes it’s going to end with booze. And when you get drunk you’re going to eat some shit. Or even if you’re just out and you want to be existing out on the go. If you spend too much time in your room, it’s like living in a bubble. It’s like, ‘What am I doing? I’m living in a rat cage.’ But if you’re out you can’t get any nice food for cheap. If you want to eat healthily you have to be a Bourgeoisy-fuck. So I don’t know what the answer is there. Everything is full of sugar.
And red-40 die.
Ya. You have to work to enjoy the shit that tastes good for you. Nothing that immediately appeals to your palette is going to be good for you. That’s why kids eat chicken nuggets and they’re begging their parents to go to McDonald’s so they can get some toy that comes in happy meals. Oh, did you hear about that?
They took out the toys in happy meals in San Francisco.
No more toys. Oh did they only do that in San Francisco?
Ya.
So white. That’s so white. San Francisco is the whitest-bourgeois-iest place in the world, I went there recently.
You’re about to offend a lot of people in this interview.
No. White-bourgeoisy people will be like, ‘Ya. Right. That’s my shit. San Francisco. White-bourgeois. Keep it bourgy.’
Do you want to talk about ProfCalc at all?
Ya we got a new record and you should care. We try to make enjoyable music for the people to rock on to. ProfCalc is all about parfaits, humanitarianism, and bitches. I feel like we could come up with a lot of permutation with that formula. Prof Calc is all about blank, blank, and blank.
ProfCalc is about a lot of things.
Ya, ya. Prof Calc encompasses all sorts of paradigms of stuff. That was a good one, though - parfaits, humanitarianism, and bitches.
Ya, but when you say it you should be wearing gold teeth.
Do people with gold teeth have sex? Do women find that attractive?
I’m pretty sure that they do.
Can we take a poll? Like, after reading this, to all the female listeners, if you’ve had sex with a man with gold teeth, send an email to email@email.com.
You have a lot of video content on your website.
Ya, I’m starting to get better and editing and making videos. But in order to come up with any semi-decent video content, you kind of have to do something despicable. Like really, you have to film someone who’s probably a really nice person acting like an idiot and put them on the internet for all to so. Or you’ve got to film someone who’s drunk and they’re making a buffoon of themselves. Somebody’s getting exploited on some level.
Not always.
Ya, really. People don’t say, ‘Hey check out this video of this guy speaking eloquently on the topic of religion.’ No. It’s like, ‘Check out this viral video of a drunk guy on a motorcycle getting hit by a donut truck and dying.’ That’s what we want to watch as Americans. That’s what we want. It’s kind of nasty. There was a quote that someone said, from a little while ago, but I think it perfectly sums up the state of the nation. It was like, um, ‘Everyone in America loves a good chuckle. And we’re willing to sell our souls for a chuckle.’ Or something like that. And this guy said this in the 60’s. He didn’t know what it was really going to end up being like. It was preemptive.
Very prophetic.
This interview is like, fucking, Vocab-Energizers: The Interview. We’re letting everyone know that we went to private schools and we got big words. Unnecessarily.
I didn’t go to private school.
Ya, but you went to school in Huntington Beach. That counts.
No.
Oh? Was it raw, dog? Did you have to go through a metal detector before you went to class?
No.
This interview is getting worse.
No, trust me, we’re about to strike gold.
Gold, boobs and weed.
For people who haven’t heard your music, how would you describe ProfCalc to them?
We’re sort of about crepes, really.
Crepes?
We’re sort of like the thin breakfast pancake of bands. We’re sort of like the Good-N-Plenty of bands. We’re sort of like the Jay-Z of ska. We’re like the Isaac Hayes of J-Pop. We’re sort of like mittens of bands. We’re sort of like the that-Lego-that-you-can’t-find of bands. We’re like the bagel of bands. The Jesus of late night, for sure. This is getting hard.
Well, we’re cutting deep here.
We’re like the unnecessarily large parfait of bands. I bet there’re a lot of parallels you can draw when you look deep, you’d be surprised how deep we are in general, as people, as lovers. We’re sort of like the cream cheese of bands. I can’t say these things with a straight face.
You got anymore?
ProfCalc is kind of like the swag hat of bands. We’re like the Gucci of music. We’re like the polo belt of music. We’re also about polo socks.
How’re the women in your life.
Great, I met a girl last night. And I think we’re going to hang out today. I think she’s a keeper, man. Because she was cute, but not too cute where she’s going to be all like, ‘Hey, bla bla bla. I’m a big old pain because I’m so hot and all the guys want me.’ And she loves smoking weed. She just texted me: ‘srsly lets go get sum bud n grub’
Tell her to bring a friend.
I’ve never been that guy who’s been like, ‘Yo, bring a freak for my boy.’ Does anybody say that?
No, just say, ‘Bring a friend.’
Ya, I know. Dude that never works because they always bring someone who’s not the right friend.
Tell her to bring the right friend. You have to word it right.
Man, the last part of this interview is brutal.
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