Adam 12 Interview

MikiWAR: People know you most for a couple things: She Wants Revenge and your club night AFEX. How did AFEX come about?
Adam: I did a club in the early 90’s called Afex. Afex was at a club in Hollywood called Carlos And Charlies, which is on Sunset, near Crescent Heights. It was ill hip hop all night. Cut to a couple years ago, no one, in my opinion was doing it right. People do throwback nights…. I have a problem with some old hip hop, but I like most of it. People do throwback parties and they tend to do ironic stuff for ironic sake. So you’ll hear a lot of funny stuff like Digital Underground and Rob Base. This is their idea of classics for people who don’t know hip hop very well.

I just did it because honestly, I couldn’t go anywhere to hear it. I said, “F*** it! I’m going to do my own night and play dope s*** all night and everybody that likes it can come." I didn’t know if anybody was going to come or not. I figured if we had good guests people would come. Then every DJ wanted to spin there. From Large Professor to AM. It’s DJs-that-know-hip-hop's favorite place to play because the people that go there respect old hip hop to the point where you can pretty much play anything and get away with it. People will go crazy. You don’t find that often. Nowadays especially to be a competitive DJ you have to do a bunch of crappy clubs and you don’t get to play anything you want to play.

MikiWAR: Where does the name AFEX come from?
Adam: When I did the original AFEX, the guys who I did it with made t-shirts, buttons, and flyers. They were these two knuckleheads from the rich side of the valley, so they had money to make the shirts. The name comes from the line “they want EFX”: The Das EFX song. So they made the shirts, brought them back, and the shirts said “AFEX”. I guess it was my bad for not telling them the correct spelling.

Dainjazone: I’m sure you enjoyed all the sets at AFEX, but which sets stood out to you?
Adam: D-Nice was dope because he is from that era. He was fourteen or fifteen following BDP so he knows that era well. There’s a difference between those who emulate what you think was happening back then and those who actually played all this music because they knew what went together. They had a better understanding of how to play it rather than being an iPod (for lack of a better word). Older dudes like D-Nice are thinking about a beginning, a middle, and an end in their set.

All of AM sets were always amazing because he was one of the best guys on his feet. He would be figuring out ill mixes just by knowing songs so well. The BladeRunners, Spinderella, and Mike B are always dope.

Dainjazone: With your hip hop background, why didn’t you become a hip hop producer as opposed to the style of music you portray in She Wants Revenge?
Adam: The other guy in my band is Justin Warfield. He was an MC in the early 90s. He was doing The Pharcyde stuff before they were doing it. He was a forward thinker, worked with Prince Paul and QD3. QD3 produced his first record. When we’re out and we bump into people like Questlove, Black Thought or Tip, they’ll say, ”Yo! Your first album was my s***!” It’s crazy how much respect he gets till this day when people find out he’s Justin Warfield.

I’ve produced all kinds of stuff; from hip hop in the 90s to working with female vocalist. When Justin and I hooked up we were supposed to make hip hop together. We were making beats to slang for the longest. Kenna asked me to make a beat for her second record. Justin heard the beat and asked, “What is that?!” It wasn’t like the stuff Justin and I were doing. I told him it was for Kenna and he told me.” Don’t give it to Kenna (room laughs). Before you send it, let me play guitar over it and sing on it." At the time I was talking to this real super gothic chick. The song was about a girl I liked and a girl he liked. I played it for her and she said it was dope. I didn’t tell her it was about her because it was dark and whatever. I called Justin and said we have to do another one. Then we did a third and a fourth. I was really just trying to impress this girl, but we took a step back and said, “There’s something to be said about these songs. They’re all kind of dope.” We grew up in households filled with different music. As much as we were influenced by hip hop, we were also influenced by the dark wave 80s stuff.

We gave a friend a couple of our songs. He was on Interscope signed under Fred Durst. I told him not to give it to Fred because Fred and I had beef…

MikiWAR: Hmm! That’ll be a follow up question later on (room laughs)
Adam: I toured with Christina Aguilera, which not a lot of people know… I’m surprised I’m telling you this (room laughs). One year we did the MTV awards together. Fred and Christina were forced to do a song together, like a mashup. This is when Limp Bizkit was peaking and was totally disrespecting her. I stepped up to him and said something. Donut, who is Fred’s bodyguard stepped up and I was like, “Ok…its cool (room laughs).”

So I said don’t play it for Fred. My friend said, “Fred has changed. He’s really cool. Let me play it for him. Whether you like him or not, the dude has sold millions of records. So you have to respect him as a businessman. That night, off two songs, Fred called me and wanted to sign us to Interscope right there. We didn’t know if he was trying to make his label look cool or if he really liked the music. What was his angle? So we went and hung out with him for a week and he turned out to be one of the coolest guys. So I said, “We’ll sign with you, but you cant f*** with us. We don’t want an A&R guy. The record is already halfway done, so just let us do our thing.” He was cool with it. We took the money from Interscope and built our dream studio with it, which we still have, even though we’re not on Interscope anymore. Fred came in the studio once and was like, "I like that. I like that. I don’t like that. I'm not going to tell you to change it, but here’s my opinion." Very specific, real amazing notes. That was the only time he f***ed with us.

It all happened because this one one guy wanted to play this one song. We were rehearsing for our first show and next door to us was Bowhouse rehearsing for Cochella. I knew one of the guys from the band and I asked them to come in and listen us. He came in with the band and another guy who ended up being from Sirius Satellite. The Sirius guy asked, “Yo! Do you guys have a record?” “Yea we just got them.” “What’s the single? Can I play it?” “We don’t even know… just pick one. Play whatever you want.” The song “Tear You Apart” almost didn’t make the album because we were sick of hearing it. This Sirius guy literally only played it because it’s the only song that says “f***”. He played it on Sirius and no one could have ever imagined that record doing what it did.

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