We spoke with Big Scrimps about “Facing East: The Holy Processions” and more!

Q: Okay, first off — “Big Scrimps.” I gotta ask. Where did that name even come from? It sounds like a joke that went too far in the best way.

A: “Big Scrimps” is actually the name of the group text I’ve had with The Big Man and Brother Muscles for a few years now. 

We had finished every aspect of the project before we even thought about a choosing a group name to release the project under – not only songs, but song titles, album title, album cover (minus the artist name), everything was done. We were throwing possible group names around for a few days when I realized it’d been in front of us the whole time. 

Dudes were cool with it, so that’s what we went with. 

Q: So this whole thing started over a Friendsgiving? I love that. What was actually happening that night — like, was this just food coma talk that somehow turned into an EP?

A: Oh man, we ate so good that night. It was at the spot Big Man Z shares with his lady, and all the essential Thanksgiving foods were represented on the menu. After dinner, and before we played some card game, I happened to have a conversation with each dude that pointed toward this EP. Ordained by the cosmos and broadcast to me, the lucky antenna for this idea, and its steward. 

I actually wrote a little sort of journal entry thing for posterity that relates how exactly things came together, excerpted below:

When, on the night of our Friendsgiving 2023, The Honorable Brother Muscles told me his idea to record songs consisting exclusively of DJ Drama-esque ad-libs delivered with an Action Bronson-style verbiage/parlance (we’d been enjoying the Accidental Bronson stuff) with a comedy slant, I was immediately like “oh yeah that’s cool, I like it.” And when, later that same evening, Big Man Z happened to mention to me that, while cleaning their place to host Friendsgiving, he and his girl had listened to at least a few songs that would make for some glorious sampling, I said, “I like the sound of that, please take a second right now to think of some and text me that shit asap.” I knew something cool could happen if I connected the dots. 

I spent the next week making beats from the three songs the Big Man texted me, and sent them to the dudes like “Yo. Here’s y’all’s idea. These beats are the stage and you are the players. So, we doing this or what?” It turned out that we were, and I’m so glad we did. 

Q: When you listen back now, does it feel more like an inside joke that got out of hand, or something that took on a life of its own?

A: To us, it was never a joke. Our intention was absolutely for the EP to be funny, but I approached the beats with a straight face, and as ridiculous and oftentimes impolite as the bars are, it was important to me that they could stand on their own – that the listener’s enjoyment of the music wasn’t contingent on them knowing the emcees personally. 

I’ve written and released a fair amount of music over the years, so I knew from experience to use that idea as the project’s guiding light. To me, if you’re gonna spend time making something, you should aim for it to not age poorly and become embarrassing over time. It was a priority to me that it could be played for anybody– any race, age, sexual orientation etc. – without us feeling compelled to hide our faces and explain plaintively that we were only joking. No punching down, no targeting, nothing too meanspirited. Anybody can catch these hands, but no faceshots and no closed fists. 

It definitely did take on a life of its own, though. My mind goes to the cover art. The way that came together is that, during a lull in a session I asked the guys what they’d like to see on the cover. They started a lightning round of throwing ideas out and I just took notes. During the process of sourcing the images and assembling things in a way that made sense I came to realize that every piece of it was a fallen soldier from our youth. The cover told a story of the millennial loss-of-innocence our generation has experienced collectively (counterclockwise from top left: James Earl Jones (the voice of Mufasa to a 90s baby), Harambe (where it all went so horribly wrong), Paul Walker (I said forget about it, Cuh), those Ronald McDonald benches from the 90s (I got lucky with a beheaded one from middle of nowhere Indiana or something), Jimmy Carter (me and Muscles are Georgia boys, and he’s the only president since Kennedy who gave a shit about doing the right thing), Pluto (still a planet in my book), and of course the Twin Towers (tower 7!)). 

So, I think that the outlandish subject matter is somehow made more serious against that backdrop. 

Q: There’s this beautiful chaos in the music — like you’re laughing but also kind of zoning out to it. How much of that came from just… not overthinking it?

A: We were definitely laughing the entire time. And we certainly didn’t over think anything. But I’m gonna chalk the “zoning out” aspect of the music up to the very chilled-out beats I made from the songs Z sent over, and the relaxed, almost meditative delivery and cadence of the both guys’ vocals. In very different ways. 

Somewhere along the way during the recording of each song flow states were achieved, and they started saying all kinds of things nobody ever thought before. And that’s where we would hit paydirt. Modern Day Philosophers!

Q: I get the sense y’all weren’t sitting around storyboarding songs. What did a normal session look like? Was it just “hit record and see what happens”?

A: That is an astute observation. The bars were completely freestyled. To begin a song, I would have each guy do three takes rapping over the beat’s entire duration. I wanted to have way more material in the can from each guy than I could ever use. With this abundance of material, I could be really selective in the process of whittling down ~9 minutes of material into a 16-bar verse and an 8-bar chorus for each guy, and some version of a combined final verse. 

We very much hit record and let it fly.

I addressed this a little later in my journal entry thing – excerpt below:

Over the next year we recorded a total of eight times. To start each song, I had the guys freestyle way more than we could ever use, and then I’d parse through everything we’d recorded, figure out what was workable and how to string those bits together, and how the song should be structured based on what we had. When I was satisfied that I’d done all I could with the latest recordings, I’d export a version and send the (usually 3-4am) text, “Inboxes, Gentlemen!”

We’d listen and decide what was good, what needed to be re-recorded, and what should be replaced because it was problematic or boring, or just not quite it for a third reason. And we’d go from there. 

Q: Were there any moments that were too weird to make the final cut? Like, something you loved but maybe the world wasn’t ready for yet?

A: Maybe not, maybe so! So much stuff got left on the cutting room floor, but with the aforementioned guiding light firmly in mind, all of the cuts made were for the best. Maybe someday a bizarro world edition of Facing East comes out (we have plenty enough material recorded for each song to be cut in an infinite number of ways), but I’d rather just work on new songs. 

Q: The whole project feels funny and self-aware, but also kind of deep in a way you can’t explain. Do you feel like humor lets you say real stuff without trying to be serious?

A: : It does kind of feel deep in a way, doesn’t it? Hahahahahaha who would have thought we’d end up here? Certainly not me. 

if you “drop the needle” anywhere on the tape and listen to a several-second snippet, it’s likely that whatever bar you happen to land upon is completely outrageous or absurd– almost nothing truly personal is said –but all in all, somehow the whole thing feels like more than the sum of its parts. It’s a distillation of friendship and a monument of how cool it is to do cool stuff with your friends. 

It definitely has a vibe to it. And now we’ll always have it as a document of our friendship at this time in our lives and will be able to listen to it whenever we want, forever!

Q: I know people compare it to Action Bronson or DJ Drama, but to me it sounds like something totally new. Were you even thinking about influences while making it, or just doing your thing?

A: Well, the original concept was for the lyrics to be exclusively DJ Drama-esque ad-libs delivered with an Action Bronson-style verbiage/parlance, but with that in mind, the guys did what they did and it turned out the way that it did. The beats didn’t have an Action Bronson inspiration to them, and DJ Drama has worked on a gazillion projects, I wasn’t thinking about him when I made the beats. But, yeah, that was the original light beam of inspiration, but it was focused through the lens of our individual and collective creativities and became our thing. 

Q: You can tell this was made by friends who actually like being in a room together. What’s the secret to keeping that creative chemistry alive without it turning into chaos?

A: Aw yeah we three are the best of friends 🙂 The recording sessions were often chaos, but it’s fun chaos ha. I think the fact that we were just doing it to do it and that we didn’t have any goals for the project other than for it to exist, and that we didn’t put any deadlines on it getting made kept things fun.

Q: If someone stumbles on Facing East and has no clue who Big Scrimps is, what’s the one track you’d tell them to start with — the one that kind of sums up the spirit of it all?

A: For a first-time listener I would tell them to start at the beginning. It starts out pretty wild, but it finishes way wilder. Also, listening to the songs in that order is more or less listening chronologically. We essentially started at the beginning and kept going as more ideas occurred to us. And then we finished, and that sequence felt the best.

Q: There’s this looseness to the whole record that feels intentional — like it’s rough around the edges in a way that makes it feel alive. Do you think that’s part of the magic?

A: How very kind of you say so! The looseness is a natural byproduct of the equipment and process we used to get things down, but if it contributes to the magic for you I am very glad to hear it! I agree that the tape has a certain charm to it, and I think everything about what it is and how it was built plays a part in that. 

Q: And looking ahead — what’s next for you guys this year? Are you letting this project breathe, or are there already some late-night sessions brewing again?

A:The reason for making the EP was never commercial, so what’s next isn’t really a priority on our end, though we have been thinking thoughts a little bit. The point was just to do it, so the fact that it’s done is both a triumph and a relief, and the fact that people enjoy it has been a bonus. Not that we’re surprised. We worked hard and took our time to make it quality. 

We made the EP because the idea materialized, as if plucked from the ether, and because doing cool stuff is a cool thing to do. Z and Muscles had never recorded music before, so as someone who’s been recording music for a minute now, it was really fun and special to see them get excited with each round of exports. 

Anyway, making beats from samples is something that I really enjoy, but falls outside my normal milieu, and the same is true of rapping for the dudes. 

All that to say, maybe we’ll do one song every year going forward? To be determined.