Interview: Dustin Wong

Dustin Wong just might have an indie rock resume to kill for: Born in Hawaii, raised in Japan, of Chinese and American Heritage, ex-member of Ponytail, solo artist with a million pedals. And to top it off, he was cool enough to talk to us. Makes it hard to hate him, don't you think?

Currently touring with Beach House for his album "Dreams Say View Create Shadow Leads" which dropped in February, he chats about the sounds of youth and making stripped down noise rock. Check more out about Dustin here.

love/hate: How has your creative process changed since going solo?

Dustin: It feels like working on a painting. The length of the loop determines the size of the canvas and my octave pedal and distortion determines the color and textures. The delay pedal kind of works as a straight edge and grid.  It feels a lot more intuitive to me then ever before.

love/hate: Growing up overseas, do you feel you had access to different sounds that most Americans don't get?

Dustin: The cicadas sound different in Japan and even the trains sound different too.  They sound almost like modular synthesizers. The inside of the train is fairly quiet, people are very quiet and keep to themselves, to the point that you could start feeling their thoughts... The pachinko parlors and arcades have extraordinary noises too.

love/hate: "Dreams Say..."was a different creation process for you. What inspired you to go with a different approach?

Dustin: I wanted to document the piece as close to the way my live performances are. So I went directly from my pedals into my laptop input. But now I'm realizing that there are more efficient ways of recording purely from a direct input. The way electricity is used the sound itself can change foe the better or for the worse. I'm still learning and refining this process.

love/hate: What, if anything, are you listening to and loving these days?

Dustin: I've been really enjoying music made by William Eaton. He made his own guitars with harps and zithers integrated into the instrument.  He gets these very beautiful harmonic overtones and undertones.

love/hate: What are you plan for 2013? More music? Touring?

Dustin: I'm working on the next record at the moment, the structure is about 95% done, I just need one more song! I'm going to try and record this at an actual space. Not much planned for 2013 but I'll be playing with Zs in January in Tokyo. Will be taking things step by step!