by Sheldon Birnie
Since the early 1990s, Winnipeg has boasted a prolific and diverse hip hop music scene. Today, that scene is still thriving. One crew that continues to perform and promote underground hip hop, with a bent towards enjoying the good things our cold, hard city has to offer is the Deafwish crew. In November, Deafwish’s Chivas & Kream dropped their latest album, Secret Ingredientz, at the Windsor. On NYE, Chivas Brother, aka Carter Hanke, and Kream, aka Aaron Karlson are performing alongside their rec hockey teammates in Clipwing and Propagandhi at the most sought after NYE event of the year. Chivas & Kream, “just two guys from Dauphin who got together and started doing music,” sat down with Stylus over a few pints at the Toad recently to talk hip hop, skateboarding, booze, and hockey. Here’s a little taste of those ingredientz.
Stylus: How did you guys get into making hip hop music? Or music in general, really?
Kream: He’s [Chivas] has always been in bands. I always wrote hip hop, when I was younger. I never performed, but I always wrote it. I just loved it. We grew up in a small town where we skateboarded and listened to punk music, that’s where we started. Actually, Propagandhi was one of the bands that we loved, along with other Fat Wreck Chords bands and stuff like that. I’d say we were more acquaintances back then…
Chivas: You asshole!
Kream: Well, we were!
Chivas: That’s not what I’d call it!
Kream: Well, we were. You were like, way older…
Chivas: Yeah, like, fuckin 15 or 20 years older…
Kream: He’s like, 50, 60 years old now… No, but there was a gap of about four or five years. Anyway, we met up later, after he’d had a wild life living in Europe and this and that. We both ended up in Winnipeg, playing Caress of Steel. Oh no, it was Stink Birds.
Chivas: Yeah, it was another rec hockey team, but along the same lines.
Kream: I found out that he was doing rap, and I was like, “Yeah, I write shit.” I’d recorded some stuff with a different dude in Winnipeg, but we never performed. Just jammed and recorded. I showed Chivas those tracks, and we started making rap.
Stylus: What would you say would be your mutual influences on the music of Chivas & Kream?
Kream: I really like Madchild. He’s doing really good right now. He was gone for a while there, drug abuse and all that, but he’s back now. I like Yellawolf, stuff like that. I’ve always liked gangsta rap, even though we’re the furthest from that stuff. Doggystyle, The Chronic, stuff like that. But I like all rap. There’s so many different styles, and we try to bring in as much of that as possible. Fast, slow, sing a little.
Chivas: I’d say, for myself, as an influence to really pick it up and pursue it the last two and a half, three years like I have has been maybe not so much individual musicians or artists, but a matter of circumstance. Having friends in the city, old high school friends or college friends, whatever, that are giving me beats. Like saying, “I have a beat for you, come over. I have a nice sounding tube amp, a good condenser. Let’s just do this track.” Then we’ll throw it up on some sort of social media and be done with it, then do it again the next week. It was that kind of prodding. Not so much people or songs or records, but like, I don’t have any money and I don’t have to go and buy a Marshall stack and a Fender Strat to be in a band. I can just go over to my buddy’s house with a pen and piece of paper. That was to me more an influence to really push it.
Stylus: Coming up to the this new record of yours [Secret Ingredientz], how was the release at the Windsor?
Chivas: It went well.
Kream: It went really well. We had some buddies playing, too, which was fun. Bearfight played their first show, which was really cool. A few of our buddies are in that band, and they were really good.
Stylus: What went into the making of the record? How long did you work on it?
Chivas: Honestly, you’d have to say that it started in the summer of 2012. That’s when we started collaborating, and we used a lot of those songs. So, you could say we started demoing in the summer of 2012. A lot of the initial ideas were Kream’s vision, and then I started coming up with songs on my own. He was inspired.
Kream: I got the ball rolling.
Chivas: He got the ball rolling, and then all of a sudden he was on a high again. As he mentioned, he used to do rap with his buddy. But they never put anything out, never played any shows, that was as far as it went. So I think he saw me as like, “Hey, well we’re on the same level, but at least he’s playing shows and pushing it a bit.” I think we demoed about 20 songs, then narrowed it down to 14.
Kream: We had sticky notes on the walls, the whole thing. It was fun.
Stylus: Based on a couple of the tracks, a few themes seem to reoccur throughout your new record. You’ve got booze, you’ve got partying…
Kream & Chivas: [laughing] Yeah, there’s all that…
Stylus: Was that just a result of the demoing and the songs that worked best, or is it kind of just what you’re writing about?
Kream: Well, our crew, Deafwish, generally is about partying and getting drunk. We just did a tour and called it the “Back to School Blackout Tour,” so… haha. Generally, we sing about that. But we try to touch on different stuff, not just the same old shit. It gets boring if you don’t. I find a lot of rappers sing about the same things over and over…
Chivas: Money, bling, “I got hos, I got cars, I got money.”
Kream: My idea is to try and almost, I mean, we always resort back to boozing because people at our shows are drinking and having fun, but we always try to come up with something a little different every time.
Chivas: But yeah, those are some of the general themes, and we’re not gonna shy away from it. That’s our bred and butter. People come to the shows and tell us like, “We love that song about your ‘Motto’ or the song about ‘Pourin Out da Liquor’!” When you hear that feedback from friends or fans it kind of keeps you grounded. I mean, we like trying different things, but that just comes out of us. It’s easy for us to do and it’s fun to perform live.
Stylus: So this New Year’s Eve show. It’s a big one. What can you tell us about it?
Kream: We’ve got to come out rip roaring and get people going, I guess. Play our higher energy songs. That’s the job of an opener.
Chivas: He said it best, but yeah, we do have some new songs we’re gonna debut. We have one “United We Stand,” which is about combining punk and hip-hop. That’s essentially what is happening on NYE, and what most of our shows look like, if you take a look at the line up. We have another song based on Rob Ford. A little bit topical, a little bit humourous, a little bit informative. So yeah. Different things like that. Some serious, some fun, a solid beat, and something that can help sell drinks at the bar so they’ll have us back!
Kream: You always want the promoter to want to have you back.
Stylus: This show also seems to be a bit of Caress of Steel gathering for you guys. How important is hockey to you guys, as an alternative to creativity or to fuel that creativity?
Kream: The team is crazy, it’s all artists. They’re all doing something. If it’s not music, they’re artistic, or computer graphics, or tattoo artists. Everybody’s doing something creative. Lots of people are either in bands or were in bands. Of course there’s Chris and the Beave from Propagandhi out there. We’ve talked about it, like, “There’s so many bands that are active right now, we should have a big Caress of Steel show.” We kept pounding it into their heads, and it fucking worked out. So there you go!
Stylus: What positions do you play?
Kream: Defence.
Chivas: Forward. Usually centre, but sometimes wing.
Stylus: First line, second line, third?
Kream: First line [laughing].
Chivas: Fourth line [very serious]. Bench warmer.
Kream: Fuck, he’s got the most points this year.
If you haven’t got a ticket already, pray to whatever power you wish that you can get your hands on a ticket or two for this event. The Caress of Steel New Year’s Eve Bash at the Windsor, featuring Chivas & Kream, Clipwing, and Propagandhi will be one for the ages. Game on!