Posted by Double 7 World

I have to proclaim my lack of objectivity on this week’s Featured Artist. Sananda Maitreya is one of my favorite musicians and if you like good music (yeah, man!) than I imagine you will fall in step, if you’re not already. Sananda took the time to answer a double dosage of my 7 Questions, so check back for Part II tomorrow. He was very candid and truthful with each response and a pleasure to interview. Check it out below!

~ Pete Chatmon

************ 7 QUESTIONS WITH SANANDA MAITREYA ************

1. When did you realize this would be your career?

$ – I beg to differ kind sir, the question is, when did I realize my ‘calling’? I do not have nor trust a ‘career’ which can be given and taken away even if you earn it. A man such as myself, focuses not on career but simply ‘work’. Work I trust, ‘career’ I do not. At the age of 2 years, upon hearing the Beatles, thereafter, 2 other pieces of music riveted my young attention, the theme from ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, ’Moon River’ sung by the great Andy Williams and the theme from the TVseries, BATMAN. I also remember a popular Coca-Cola radio jingle which got my attention, all at the age of 2. A calling is more comprehensive than a career and has more built in protections from spirit, if you trust that it is spirit that induced the call. This is my blood expressed in song.

More from Sananda after the jump, including a live performance of Wishing Well!

2. What advice would you give to the aspiring yet frustrated artist out there?

$ – It is as natural and necessary to experience frustrations as it is to be horny, to be hungry, thirsty. These are the things which in fact insure our growth and development towards a more focussed and intense distillation of who we are. To NOT EXPERIENCE THESE THINGS WOULD CHEAT YOU! It also serves to separate from the ranks, the insincere, those just in it for image or a quick buck. KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND REMAIN THAT and it will mutate according to its own natural law and in its own time, as you ripen so will your music. It also helps greatly to have a God and to have faith in its will for your fulfilment according to the truth of your desires. Never use frustration as an excuse to stop working, except for the time it sometimes take to ‘reboot’. If you really love it, THE LOVE WILL CARRY YOU THROUGH, otherwise get out, and get out now while you still have a chance.

3. Who are the top 5 artists in your current listening rotation?

$ – When I am incubating and nurturing songs, ideas, I take pains to keep other wavelengths from my headspace. I listen more when I am not ‘in season’ as it were. Otherwise I stay close to the grand classics, be it classical, jazz, rock, r&b, country, the works that have already influenced my ‘template’. Actually these days most new music reaches me via Nintendo and Xbox. Most new artists are already forced into old templates with new polish so I always wind up disappointed with the let down, so I keep to my own tunes and developments which keeps me busy enough.

4. You’ve been able to maintain musical integrity and relevance abroad. Why do you think talented artists, like yourself, often have more success abroad than in the US?

$ – I always treat any interview now as an ‘information gathering exercise’, it keeps me on my toes. Simple answer to your question is that social and racial profiling are simply a part of our national identity, some are equipped to handle it, some were deliberately ‘programmed’ by ‘higher forces’ to slip out of the noose of the old models and encourage the spread and initiation of new ones. This is the Angels will for man and they are more than aware of the usual complications and defence mechanisms and whenever at any point in human history, mankind or portions thereof are stuck and held back by lower consciousness, MOVERS are sent in to deliver and aid the remedy. I belong to one such ‘pod’ of beings who work always throughout space time to help the children of God get out of the fishing nets which trap their consciousness in old, less productive forms. Europe has fewer ‘profiling imperatives’ where our images are concerned and generally they are more willing to accept an artist MUSIC FIRST and not as we prefer, IMAGE FIRST. More compositional space returns to artists when they feel to be in a freer, less judgemental environment, and while there are racists everywhere, there are mercifully far fewer black racists to deal with and I am no more fond of them than I am the white supremacists, they both work for old consciousness and their wine has long been bitter and stale.

5. What is your musical process? How do you approach recording your music?

$ – Good sir, I never approach the music, that would be rude ( as well as forgetful). I always stand ready as a sentinel to rouse my self to action once she approaches me. I am a mailman and I deliver the music’s mail, the portion given to me to cover my route, if no one else’s. While waiting for new music I attend what music I have already as I am always at least 2 or 3 ‘albums’ ahead in my mind, based on material I am still working with, haven’t yet released or still feel that I am incubating to another form. As far as recording, I always start with the drums, which is easy since, also being the arranger, I know where all the ‘holes’ and breathing spaces need to be and it is easier to simply do it than to explain it to someone else, plus, IT’S FUN ! Depending on whether the song is guitar or more keyboard driven, I put down next that particular instrument first, next the other if the other is needed by the tune. I always put on bass last as by then I am ‘closing the rhythm section’. Then the vocal and the mix, which by design I keep as close as possible to the recording , to get the sound as it goes down so that the ‘mixing’ is in effect more of a ‘balancing and highlighting’. I have always hated ‘demos’, for me the demo is how long I have had the piece in my mind, where I arrange all pieces before getting into the studio. I do not go to the studio to ‘work’, or create, but to simply record what has already been created and thought out before I got there, and these days I always leave open just enough space for spirit and surprise.

6. What is the last thing that you think about before you go to bed?

$ – What work there is still to be done.

7. Obama or McCain?

$ – I am disappointed with the brilliant young Senators choice. I thought a bolder move would have been to nominate SENATOR McCAIN AS HIS VP ! Just completely thrown a spanner in the whole process and announce “ I NOMINATE FOR MY CHOICE OF PRESIDENT, THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE, A TRUE MAVERICK, SENATOR OF THE GREAT STATE OF ARIZONA, JOHN McCAIN, or as me and Michelle and the girls like to call him around our house, ‘J-Mac”. It would have been strategically one hell of a move and he could have spent the rest of the campaign chasing J-Mac down and essentially taunting him with the notion that he is running away from the responsibilities of the country and that it were downright ‘unpatriotic’ for him to refuse in such a time as our great national need. The whole of the televised debates could have been about the Illinois senator demanding that McCain be his vice presidential bitch, the ratings would swell! Biden was too traditional a choice and would’ve painted Barack as much a maverick a J-Mac had he nominated him, oh well……McBAMA FOR PRESIDENT ! ( I am already on enough ‘lists’, so I do not wish to be added to more, though these days, if you’re on one list, then you are really on them all !).

7a. What would you like to see on Double 7 World?

$ – The abstract of your imagination helping to announce to other minds, a new birth of freedom, a new possibility of consciousness towards amore truly American collective ideal. We were meant to serve together and honour and bear witness to one another’s truth and graces, or our God is an idiot and he made a grave mistake. Thank you for what interest you have shown in my world and may your spirit and it’s prayers bless and keep you ! That and perhaps a POLAROID WET T-SHIRT COMPETITION?

WISHING WELL: LIVE (1995)

www.SanandaMaitreya.com
:: Official Website


www.SanandaMaitreya.com/ecommerce
:: ecommerce for latest Mp3 and CD releases

www.myspace.com/SanandaMaitreya
:: Official My Space Page