Chicago musicians Rich Jones and Joseph Sepka are kicking off the new year with a new collaborative project: Bad Ambassadors. The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to their status as veterans of an ever-shifting indie music scene; rapper/singer Jones recently wrapped his first national solo tour, and Sepka has produced for Qari, Ness Heads, and other rappers when he’s not recording folk music under the name Walkingshoe. The group’s self-titled debut EP is a garden of pop hooks and danceable beats rooted in the “he’s the DJ, I’m the rapper” ethos of hip-hop, and the lyrics capture the frustrating and wistful feeling of realizing your city has changed around you. A week before their album release show at the Hideout on January 10, I spoke to Jones and Sepka about rehearsing with a live band, battling gentrification, and beyond.

- Jack Riedy

RJ: Rich Jones
JS: Joseph Sepka

How did you guys first come across each other's music?

RJ: I definitely had heard of Walkingshoe because of his work with Defcee - I think Clinton [ShowYouSuck] was later - and then I feel like Neon Pajamas had shared a bunch of your stuff too. When I put out the EP Love Jones with Krush Love, I know that he followed me and we were like okay, cool we should get up at some point and then we did beers face to face and it was like “I think we'll get along just fine.”
JS: Yeah, I remember you were sitting on my porch too. It was like maybe the second time and I was showing you some songs. I think you literally wrote “Saturday” on the spot or at least created a lot of it.
RJ: You know what man? I feel like it was “Up For You.” I feel like you showed me the beat and I already had the words for “Up For You” for a long time and then it was like it clicked because I remember being on the back porch too. We were hanging out drinking beers and whiskey and shit. It was great. We used to have so much fun, Joe. What happened? [laughs]
JS: We still do. I was so much younger than now.
RJ: That's true. Now we read books and stare into each other's eyes. It's a good time.
JS: It was like an instant thing where we clicked. I produced a lot of music on my home computer workstation, and right at that time I was branching out and renting some time at a studio space with some friends. It was a really cool basement spot and all of a sudden I had access to all this recording equipment that I would normally go into a studio and pay time for, so now we have this open studio and free range. Over the next couple of weeks and months, Rich would come in the studio and we would record literally whatever came to mind. We had no expectations and we weren't set out like this is going to be a hip-hop project or this or that so it literally all flowed out. It was one of those most natural, easy projects I've ever been a part of in terms of how easy it all came out.

What studio was this?

JS: We didn't really have a name for the studio but it was a house in Avondale and it was a basement. I think it's been a studio there for like maybe 10 years. There was a basement spot and one of my buddies Matt owned a bunch of the equipment. Are you familiar with The WHOevers? These guys also would record at this spot so it was just a basement spot but it was a really awesome studio space. Unfortunately, the house got foreclosed on. I think the landlord wasn't paying the mortgage and we had to move over to Fort Knox.

When were you renting that studio space and recording over that few weeks? This was a couple years ago, right?

RJ: Five years ago.
JS: We weren't working on it for five years straight. It came out in pieces. I think we had a bunch of initial songs recorded in the beginning and then like a year or two later we would add some touches here or there and then eventually it all led up to us releasing it this year.
RJ: The core records were probably within the first two or three years, and then it was like “Okay, what do we do with this and what do we do to make sure this is a finished product?” Definitely the waiting part has been probably the worst part of all this, but I'm glad it's coming out now.
JS: Yeah, it's crazy. Plus I've known you for so long Rich and we've never officially released anything together but we've played so many shows together in the time since.

How did you know this collaboration was worth a whole project together?

RJ: We started slow. It was like once a week or once every other week we'd get up and there was something new that was being unearthed. Once we realized we had a batch of music it was like we should probably do something with said batch of music versus piecemeal putting it out. Also, very early on we definitely had conversations about what it meant in terms of the presentation: Is this a Rich Jones/Walkingshoe thing? How do you frame it in terms of what this is? I think we both felt strongly at a certain point that this should be an entirely new thing. I think both of us agreed that it would be fun to have a fresh start in some respects. Obviously, I don't feel like I've done nearly enough but looking at the last 10 years I've released a shit ton of music, so I think it would be nice to get a little reboot. If you're going to define this it's obviously related to the music I've made and the music Joe has made, but also some “what our powers combine” type thing.

Can you tell me more about how the backing band for the show came together?

RJ: I got really lucky. I had met my friend Justice Hill previously, but then we were at a party or a club or something and he full court pressed me and was like “I want to be your music director. I want to do your music stuff.” This was for Rich Jones solo stuff. I was like “Okay, cool. I haven't really performed with a band in a long time and I'm wary for these reasons but sure. Let's get lunch and talk about what that looks like. I have a show coming up that actually needs that and I don't have the head space really to build a band so if you want to do it, cool.”
The people he brought in were such pleasures to work with. I've worked with a lot of amazing people but there was an ease with it that I was really in awe of. When Joe and I were talking about what does it look like for this live show for us, obviously we should maybe involve other people. It was a no brainer who I was going to go to because Justice and Jaelyn, who goes by Observe, had done such a great job for me and in such a short amount of time so I already know we can bring them in, they'll learn the music quickly, but not only that, they'll find ways to Chia Pet on it and grow it out in ways that I think maybe Joe and I wouldn't be capable of because we're so close to this specific batch of music. In the rehearsals it's been really fun to see where they take it and where that then puts Joe and I with the choices we make.
JS: With these bands you have two directions you can take it because all the recorded music is based off of pre-production. It was basically me and Rich making stuff in the studio so you can go down the full band route where you play everything or you can play it like mostly digital. We did a nice merger of keeping it sounding a lot like the album while also adding a nice live lift to it. It was a lot of fun putting together these songs in a live setting where we can add the real analog instruments along with still preserving the natural sound of the album itself. I'm really excited about the show on the 10th.

When it comes to recording the album itself, it was very tight knit between the two of you. What was the process for putting the songs together? Rich, did you contribute any ideas to the production or did you have specific ideas for the backing tracks? Joe, did you have any contributions on “this is what I think this song could be about” or lyrical suggestions?

JS: I would say I didn't really give a lot of direction on lyrics. A lot of that flowed pretty seamlessly out of Rich. Some projects that I've worked in the past, you send a beat to somebody and they record something and then they send it back to you and it's back and forth through email. This was totally different in that we were always in the same room creating the beat. Often the beat would start with a 15 second repeated loop and then in the process, Rich and I both in the room in the basement studio for five or six hours, we actually extend the song and craft it together. It was very much both of us there for the making of each of the songs, which was a really cool experience and which is why I think all the songs go together really cohesively. We never set out to make a project but it was a constant momentum. He would come in the studio. We'd make a song. It would turn out really great. We were like “Why don't we do it again?” He would come in the studio we'd make another song and it would turn out great and we kept doing that and kept doing that because we had this momentum.
RJ: It was funny too because I was realizing I had certain abilities that I hadn't really explored in certain ways before the recording process. There was one session which didn't make the cut unfortunately but it was pretty crazy. The way I wrote the song was: I did the first line, took the second line off, then I did the third line but it was all freestyle. I did one run like that and then I was like, now run it back to the top and then the response to the first line or the second line, the fourth line, the sixth line. I freestyled the whole record in like two takes and then did the hook and then that was that. It was insane. I sat down afterwards and I was like “Holy shit. What did I just do?” A lot of it I think had to do with Joe really stoking my sense of self and my confidence. I'm not here to bust myself down or give myself too heavy of a pat on the back but it was definitely good energy around this because I'm finding myself able to do things I hadn't been able to do. I pride myself on being good at improvising and freestyling and all that but up until that point I hadn't done that on record. To try it out in this capacity and then to have the results be so amazing ... You could say if it's so amazing why didn't it make the record? Good question. [laughs] Various reasons but maybe we'll put it out as a loosie or something.
JS: Part of the reason I think why it didn't make the cut is we wanted to keep the record relatively short and quick and easy and accessible. We have these six songs that fit perfectly together. I think we tried fitting some other ones in there and it disrupted the flow and we were like we'll keep it as is. Keep this as a quick, nice, easy to listen to album that you can throw on for 20, 25 minutes. Then we have these other songs too that we're planning to release probably in the future or something like that.

When you have these older songs that you've worked on, in some cases five years ago, were there any things that you noticed you had to change from the old sessions every time or anything that you were like “Wow, we were really on about this four years ago”? Were there any constants that you were either changing or keeping for these old tracks?

JS: I've learned a lot since then in terms of mixing and having sounds sit in the right places. because I mixed a lot of this album myself initially, and then we shipped it over to Joel Gutman to do some of the final, a little bit more pro mixing. Four or five years ago I think I was a little bit more loose and open and these songs were able to come out freely. Where maybe I'm not so much now any more, for better or for worse, but now I can take those sounds and really hone them in a little bit more cleanly and create a sharper, more professional sounding mix. It's almost like working with yourself from the past in a weird way. Like time travel, which is a cool aspect of it because you get the best of what you did when you were younger and then the best of what the experiences you gained from when you were older. It worked out really nicely.
I don't know Rich, you'd probably say the same thing, right?
RJ: Notice I haven't chimed in because you crushed it.

There's a couple questions I want to ask about some of the lyrics of specific songs. Especially in the opener “Who Me,” talking about people looking for other people that are for sale. Obviously, you guys have both had a lot of experience in different musical groups and different settings, so what is selling out to you, at this point?

RJ: It's a lot of things. At this point we're in such a weird era for how to even monetize what you do as an artist. It would have been really gauche to have your music in a car commercial (in terms of an original piece. Composing for commercials and then having your music used for commercials, it's two very different things). But, to have your stuff used that way would have been like “Oh sellouts, bye.” But also people don't really buy product like that. The money of music is all messed up. You'll see Twitter blogs will write so and so was featured in this ad campaign. For me, that song came from a spot of having I think been counted out by people in the earlier stages of my career and being really frustrated by that. Then seeing what happens when you build up a little head of steam and when you start to look like the sexier pick. All of a sudden they're not really rooting for you, but also what's your price so that they can be affiliated. Now you want to come around, now you want to be down with this. Meanwhile, I've been out here doing what I've been doing for a long time. I think the idea of selling out is in my mind less about the look of certain more capitalist approaches to presenting music and more about personal community affiliation. Seeing how people will count you out, but then they put a waiver on you where they fuck with you just enough that if something good happens it's like “Yeah, I was there the whole time.”

That definitely comes across in the lyric. It's almost like the selling out isn't really on the artist. It's more about the people surrounding them. Are you being forced to sell out by the people that have flocked to surround you?

RJ: Right, exactly.
JS: Selling out ultimately to me is doing something that you don't want to do because you're trying to make money. It doesn't have to be selling out as long as you feel for it and you're okay with the decision, and you're doing it because it feels right. You can make any type of music as long as you're doing it and it feels good. It can be pop music, it can be dance music, it doesn't have to fit into a box. If I ever felt like I was selling out it would be because I'm truly unhappy with the music I'm making. I'm making it because there's some other direction pushing me to make that song whether it's money or I want recognition. All that kind of stuff I don't think leads to very long term happiness or long term fulfillment. It's all superficial. I can understand that people, you got to make certain decisions because you got to pay the bills, even that necessarily doesn't have to be selling out. Again it's doing things because you want to do them and doing things on your own terms. As long as you're doing that I think you're fine and there's nothing to be upset about.
And I think both of us, we're a little bit older relative to some of the other folks making music right now. I think as you get older you get a little more comfortable with yourself and you're not worried about what people think in certain respects. This is a generalization obviously because there's a lot of younger artists that are very bold, but at least in my experience as I get older, I'm going to put out the music that I want to make and nothing else because nothing else is worth me putting my time into.

On the flip side of internally thinking about yourself selling out, I think my favorite track might be “Pardon” where you talk about this external encroaching gentrification. How has that process affected the neighborhoods that you guys live in? How have you seen gentrification yourselves?

RJ: That song was so crazy because I literally took the Blue Line from California to Belmont maybe four years ago. I've taken the blue line my whole life. That day in particular I happened to look up, and it was really wild to not recognize an area that had been one thing for my whole life and then all of a sudden it's like “What the fuck? What happened?” It was such a bummer. I got to the studio with Joe and he put that on and I was like “I think I got something to say” and then I wrote it out. It just flowed out of me because that in turn led me. The first one is more about the area that I live at now which is the Logan Square, Humboldt Park area. Seeing all the construction and the displacement and some of the new things that are replacing the old things and then I think also the new people that are replacing the people of an area that give it its original character. Obviously change happens, people move, all that, but it's been most alarming for me when I think about what makes Chicago so special. Being a native Chicagoan is having enclaves that are unique and aren't like everywhere else. I'm seeing a really alarming amount of homogeneity and a streamlined Chicago experience. I do have a pretty clear idea of who that benefits and it isn't necessarily the people that have been amongst any residents of an area, and the people that it does benefit, those people don't have any deep attachments or feelings about where they are. To be fair, where I live in Logan I'm sure folks maybe look at me a little sideways for where I live but I'm also actually from here. I have emotional investment in this city. It's very different than a brand new baby's first condo in the hot new area. It's a very different relation that I have with the area and with my city and with the neighborhood. I don't know, I have extreme worries about what this means in terms of the future.
A great example of a neighborhood that's been cratered, not to say it was amazing necessarily before its latest incarnation but look at Lakeview. Look at directly around the Cubs park. You can literally get West Town Bakery and Big Star. They brought all the sexy brand names right outside. If you're a tourist, you don't have to go to those neighborhoods. You don't have to go out of a comfortable flight path to see something or to do something and I think that's really fucking lame. It's really sad. I travel a fair amount and yeah, I'll do some kitschy tourist shit because it's fun, but also I don't mind going further afield to do something that's special. I don't need it directly outside of my doorstep, and especially in a city like Chicago that has such great public transportation, it is very frustrating to see how lazy they are making the newer residents because it's all available to you in a lot of ways. You don't have to go very far to get that that donut or get this pizza or a taco and I think that's missing the point of life. I think life is definitely not about the destination. It's the journey, and not because the journey is a five foot walk from wherever the hell your condo is. You've learnt nothing. You've gained nothing except a full belly and that's I don't think enough.
I think in Chicago specifically, a lot of the gentrification that I see I have dubbed as Big 10-tification, like Big 10 college football. People are people and those are totally fine schools or whatever. It's more the ethos of the meathead game day mentality type person. That's a lot of fun, I like going to football games too, I'm not a joyless prick. But it's a strange marker of neighborhood destruction to come, from my experience.
JS: As Rich said too, I think things can change but when things change, things can also change for the worse. You can have this beautiful tavern or something that was specific to Chicago and you can only find it here and then you transplant this thing that could literally be anywhere. It could be in the suburbs, it's like a McDonald's. Thanks for swallowing that up, that no longer exists anymore, I'm glad we got another one of these that we have everywhere else.

I want to end this optimistically so talking about change for the better. You guys have the album dropping next week. You're performing at the Hideout. It sounds like you have a lot of songs that are already in the vaults in the works but what are your goals for the group, big picture, after next week?

JS: I'll kick that off. Personally, I really want a lot of people to hear this album. I want to make sure it's getting out there. I want a lot of people to hear this album. As many people as possible because I think they're really going to like it. I'm really proud of this album. We're going to do a lot of ground-up activities and probably start planning some additional shows. None of that's official yet or anything but we'd definitely like to play some more shows to keep pushing and pushing and pushing this album and making sure it gets in as many earbuds and headphones as possible over the next couple months.
RJ: Yeah, Joe is spot on with that. As with everything, people can't have an opinion or feel a way about what you've done until they have the opportunity to hear it, so I feel really good about this project but I also know that in terms of this moving forward it can't really be a thing until we've shown it publicly. I'm curious to see what opportunities potentially emerge from sharing this music and performing this music because I think we've got a good live presentation. Even outside of a business point I am really excited to see how people respond to the music and which songs hit certain people. I'm always surprised by what resonates with who for anything. They almost never do what you want them to do in that regard but luckily everything on the project I like and Joe likes so it's like “You really connected with that one? Okay, cool.” I think in some ways that will potentially give us a better sense of maybe where to take this moving forward, how to grow this further. Past this release and beyond. I think we both have a desire to play this out as much as we can and I would hope we could maybe take it on the road a little bit and do some fun stuff like that.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.