THUNDERCAT
WITH HIS SECOND LP APOCALYPSE, THUNDERCAT ONCE AGAIN PARTNERS UP WITH FLYING LOTUS TO CREATE A FITTING TRIBUTE TO A DEPARTED FRIEND
Thundercat recently returned with his second solo LP Apocalypse, a powerful blend of synaesthesia-inducing soul and addictive astral funk. As we spoke to the LA songwriter and bass virtuoso on the week of the record’s release, he talked us through his rich musical upbringing, segueing from thrash to soul, and delivering his new record in the wake of a tragedy.
We’re catching up with Stephen Bruner (Thundercat’s somewhat less exotic given name) on what should be a happy, untarnished day. He’s just returned home following a successful tour of Australia, and Apocalypse is rightfully receiving acclaim in spades. Yet, poignantly, the record is dedicated to the memory of the alternative jazz piano prodigy Austin Peralta, who passed away last November aged just 22. Peralta’s solo album Endless Planets had been released by Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label in 2011. He also played keyboards on Thundercat’s debut album and appeared on FlyLo’s 2012 effort Until The Quiet Comes. More importantly, he was a close friend to both Bruner and FlyLo, and a central member of the Brainfeeder family.
The loss is understandably something that Bruner is still grappling with. “A lot of the album’s feel was spawned by that specific thing”, he tells us. “It’s about heartbreaks and setbacks. It’s kinda like the reality we deal with on a consistent basis. And sometimes you’re well equipped to deal with something, but then for whatever reason you may not be. And the truth is most of us aren’t. You experience it either sitting down, standing up, walking backwards or walking forwards, y’know? So the album is me expressing how things can be sometimes – that coupled with the emotions that were going on about one of my closest friends. And it was a very, very disheartening thing for me to deal with, and it still is to this day.”
But while Apocalypse is at times understandably melancholic, there’s also a clear sense of overcoming difficulty in the wake of loss. First single Heartbreaks + Setbacks is an inspirational and forward-looking, almost sanguine piece. The force of Bruner’s bass takes a naughtier, funkier direction on the magnificent Oh Sheit, It’s X!, as he enjoys a party in full-flow while flaunting his immense bass dexterity, and his falsetto croon of “I just wanna party/You should be here/And in this ecstasy, baby” is one of the most joyous choruses you’ll hear this summer. It’s an album that delivers a bittersweet fusion of emotions, and Bruner claims its personality is something he allowed to bleed through naturally. “A lot of the time it’s instinctual. Y’know, even when it comes to listening to somebody play when we’re recording, a lot of the time I feel like the first idea was the right idea. So I chose not to look at it like ‘I coulda, shoulda, woulda’, and looked at it more like, ‘this is just how it’s supposed to be.’”
As the son of respected sticksman Ronald Bruner Snr (who played for The Temptations, Diana Ross and Gladys Knight to name a few) and the younger brother of Grammy-winning drummer Ronald Bruner Jr, Stephen Bruner comes from excellent stock. “It was a very nurturing sort of environment creatively”, he tells us of his background. “I was just kinda blessed to grow up like that. Everybody in my family is a musician, so it was interesting to watch everybody in the house express their emotions at the same time but in different ways.”
After selecting the bass as his weapon of choice at a young age, Bruner’s gift led him to join the line-up of LA thrash punk legends Suicidal Tendencies at the tender age of 16. “My older brother had started playing with them first”, he explains, “and this was right around the time that Robert Trujillo [now of Metallica] had moved on to Ozzy Osbourne. So they were looking for a new bass player and my brother suggested me. It was kinda nerve-wracking, I’d never been put in a position to play with a band like that. But it was one of those things where I picked up very quickly on it, it became second nature to play with Suicidal and I didn’t think much of it. It pushed me further along in my career and it was a lot of fun. They were kinda like older brothers, y’know?”
While still in his teens, Bruner would go on to tour Japan with influential jazz bassist Stanley Clarke, and over the course of his career he’s found himself playing with everyone from Snoop Dogg to Erykah Badu. But undoubtedly his most significant partnership of all has been that which he holds with his close friend Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. Such has been the influence of Thundercat that when Crack spoke to him later last year, Ellison told us that these days he thinks of Thundercat as being pretty much ‘part of Flying Lotus’. In turn, Ellison co-produced Thundercat’s album back in 2011, and on Apocalypse, he appears on the credits once again under the title of executive producer.
Sweetly, Bruner becomes particularly enthusiastic when the subject turns to his friend and collaborator, recounting his realisation that he and Ellison shared a special bond upon their very first meeting. “We met years ago at South By Southwest. I was introduced to him by a friend from a group called J*Davey. When we met, we could kinda see it was like the beginning of an adventure. It was like, ‘OK, cool, we’ll hang out sometime’. And we did. Sure enough we started creating all kinds of shenanigans! I’m sure we both hold it very sacred, the fact we work together so well. So it’s a very interesting place to be when you get to that point with a person. I’ve enjoyed every last bit of me and him working together. It never gets old. Any time we’re sitting together in front of a computer, when we’re listening to music or we’re playing something, it’s cool to be able to share sentiment and emotion creatively. Me and him do that very well, we’re always in that mindset. I joke that we’re always sitting in front of a computer”, he laughs, “… but we really are!”
“In my opinion, Lotus is an electronic genius”, Bruner continues, excitedly. “He’s a guy that, in whatever scenario you put him creatively, and with whatever electronics, he’ll dominate it. So a lot of the time when I say ‘sitting in front of a computer’, it’s like …”, he begins to laugh. “Him touching a computer is just hilarious! It’s like, who knows what’s going to happen? He might have figured out some way to make a Transformer! It’s like an adventure every time I go over to his house – when we get heading down that path, we never know where we’re going to wind up. And, y’know, we try to stay in that space all the time.”
While it’s a creative collaboration that seems certain to endure for a long, long time, there’s no doubt Stephen Bruner is carving his own musical identity, wholly separate from any high-profile associations; one of a songwriter, a unique personality, and among the most innovative and technically remarkable bass players of a generation. And if there’s anything Apocalypse has proved beyond a doubt, it’s that nothing sounds quite like a Thundercat record.
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Apocalypse is available now via Brainfeeder.
Words: Jack Bolter
Photo: Theo Jemison
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