10 questions - Jason Honea - Shitty Listener

 Jason Honea was born on Whidbey Island, Washington in 1965. Keyed into his musical side at an early age, his church life and street life reflected this enthusiasm in both love and wonder. Cleaning up creeks and forming bands remain as two top favorite things! This history-hobbyist, wanderer, singer, music maker, and drawer is a Pisces Catholic living and working in Berlin.

He has been a major contributor to many of the excellent projects housed in the Jewelled Antler forest. The Child Readers, with Loren Chasse are the perfect example, but Honea has also perfected his craft with the magical Knit Separates. Honea also has let his punk rock roots explode in the all-out aural assaults of Teenage Panzerkorps, a project with Glenn Donaldson. But Honea's craft is delicate and expansive. On The Knit Separates, one can hear his fixations and realizations come to life. There's mysticism and magic, but most important is beauty. He always has his hand in something and you never know when a new project or album will fall from the skies.

1. People who compose or
improvise within a framework of
modern contemporary improvised experimental music cite some
experiences with
music or in their life as the factor of inspiration? What
about you? How did it
start with making music in your case?

I've mentioned this a few times before but as a child my parents would never buy me records. I had to commit any melody I liked to memory and just hum it to myself over and over . This was essentially my first 'radio' so to speak and it's also  where  i get my ear from !!   Another thing that made a huge impact on me was a Halloween time collection of sounds and what not called Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House. Actually Disney might have had something to do with this record. At any rate, we used to play it again and again non stop... slowing it down, stalling it- just messing with it. I recall being able to tell how unnatural certain qualities of the recording were and asking myself why they might have done it. I also recall thinking how botched some of the skits seemed paired up with the sounds that were accompanying them. Consciously or not I simply took it and made it my MO years later. It just seemed funny to me then but in a few
years I would be doing exactly that.
After long periods of time being in groups I developed the need to jettison the 'band' all together  it somehow occurred to me that it was totally plausible and believable to just make songs out of my voice. my voice could be the band, the lyrics  separate and standing alone.


2. The world is going
through probably one of the worst
moments of history, rather than the end of the world I think
we are about to
enter a new dimension of thought. what moves you going out
of bed every
morning?

What gets me out of bed every morning ?? well, i really  like my life and i enjoy my interests which keep me more than busy and keep me learning..Also, I enjoy  being around people. To be honest i was able to change my life at some point. knowing that you can change your life offers you a few more options.


3. How does your music
resonate with your personal
philosophy ? Do you try to separate
sociological/philosophical  aspects
from your music, leaving it rather to
a vast terrain of associations generated by a listener's
mind?

Not sure what my music might reflect about my personal philosophy.Like i just said I enjoy living my life....the music i do or what you hear is simply my side of the effect.I've always said that with my music I'm not trying to tell anyone anything nor is what I'm up to have any kind of narrow definition.If anything it just represents what i think works about music.

4. Nature vs. Culture. Who
is an artist?

I was lucky !
I grew up in the SF Bay Area in the 70s and 80s which was a massive vortex of creativity to say the least so we had plenty of both !!!. Nature dictates ability but culture makes allowances for certain considerations. In general though I tend to go by the piece of art on an individual basis and not by the creator .

5. How would you describe
the masculine or androgynous  aspect
of creativity and relate it to your
work?

It's not anything I've ever thought about really though after all the punk rock I consciously wanted to create something that didn't have to be necessarily loud and that spanned a wider array of emotions. Neither masculine or androgynous...more like a step towards the divine !!
6. Imagine you can create
your own island including your
dreams, emotions, positive projections. How would it look
like?

It would look like a Rockwell Kent painting and be perpetually 1:30 in the afternoon in September. Nights would feature my kindergarten years fever dreams as super 8s projected onto sleeper waves.Bang !

7. Interaction with other
musicians - what is important for
you to make a collaboration a worthwhile quality?

Thanks for asking. This changes for me constantly.... but i find it easier at least when the other people I'm working with are active in other fields of expression than just music. That said , great things have come about when there's been chasms of aesthetic differences and we've consciously understood that something we did wasn't a 'mistake'.

8. Can you relate yourself
to any kind of esoteric
understanding of your creative process?

Other than the fact that it answers my prayers, no.
I call up my own thunder to create what I think is beautiful and this constitutes my getting to be near the divine.



9. What does
"peace" means to you?

Anarchy.total responsibility.



10. How do you communicate
with the idea of musical
development in the years to come? What seems the most
tempting and challenging?

It's going to come down to more and more commando/guerrilla- style performances .  We're so over served by a variety means in which to listen to music these days (in its thousand and one forms) that before you know it  the active consumer will cease to be able to even notice that music is even playing because its just damn everywhere!! Said active consumer will demand a real live,better than live practically 3D experience....
All that Malcolm McLaren piffle is coming true !!!!!!


photos of Jason by 
Jesse Lillefjel