Cut Chemist can throw down the wax, battle on the turntables and produce sample-heavy tracks with the best of them.
It’s all in a day’s work for one of America’s most celebrated DJ/turntablists.
Cut, born Lucas Macfadden, is a solo artist with a history as deep as his record collection. He was with Ozomatli and Jurassic 5 during their most creatively lucrative years, but now he’s touring his 2006 solo LP, “The Audience’s Listening,” including dates at the Fillmore Auditorium tonight and Saturday and Aspen’s Belly Up on Sunday.
Talking from a Los Angeles storage unit where he was digging through record crates earlier this week, Cut’s mind was all over the place.
Q: What are you looking for specifically right now?
A: Ah, just little knickknacks. (DJ) Shadow and I are bringing out “Brainfreeze” again. We’re reconstructing the set, so I’m just looking for various 45s.
Q: Are you ready?
A: I’m a little worried. We talked about it, wanting to do something new while maintaining the highlights of the last two CDs. So we gotta figure out what we want to keep and what we want to change and what we want to do to step it up.
Q: You’ve done the underground mixtapes before, but was it tough releasing your record on a major label?
A: They tend to look at things under a microscope more. It took a while to clear all the samples, and it was fairly difficult.
Q: Were there any samples you couldn’t clear?
A: Just one, and I had to take it out. I’m over it now, but at the time … It was a rap record, ironically: ‘It’s Yours’ by T La Rock, co-written by Rick Rubin. Rick wanted an insane amount of money, and I don’t even know if it was him or Sony, but somebody in the mix was stinking up the joint. So rather than dealing with him for that one word, I just took it out.
Cut Chemist plays tonight and Saturday at the Fillmore with the Greyboy Allstars and Medeski, Martin & Wood. Tickets, $30, are available at ticketmaster.com or 303-830-8497. He headlines the Belly Up in Aspen on Sunday. Tickets, $25, are available at bellyupaspen.com.
