The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson was once quoted as saying his most ambitious, idiosyncratic arrangements were intended as a “teenage symphony to God.” Michigan’s Randy Chabot could perhaps be said to have attempted something similar, but with harmonic synths instead of singers and a backdrop of outer space instead of surf and sand. His Deastro project first gained acclaim with 2008′s Keepers—a collection of home dream-synth-pop recordings, some from 10 years ago when he was barely 13–then returned in 2009 with the studio-produced Moondagger on Ghostly International, a label known for celebrating 8-bit melodies and rousing post-guitar washes equally.

Chabot is currently touring the Deastro material–all the celestial shoegazing jangle, Teutonic bleeps, and undulating synths–even without the band that helped form the backbone of the most recent album. Additionally, he’s playing material from Mind Altar, an solo release of two-track/laptop recordings previously custom pressed and sold at shows and now being remastered and re-released soon on Ghostly. Chabot took a moment out to answer a few questions before hitting the road with Max Tundra (a tour of comical/melancholy contrasts he likens to the Steinbeck novel Travels With Charley).

City Paper: So, how are things going?
Randy Chabot: It’s going good man, though I broke my finger yesterday, which isn’t great. But we were already switching things up. The band I was playing with broke up in September, so me and my roommate decided to learn different songs, rewrite things, which we did for CMJ.

CP: Was the scene at CMJ your scene?
RC: My scene’s anime kids, techies, and hopefully nerds everywhere.

CP: References to cartoons definitely come up a lot in descriptions of your music. Is it that much of an actual influence?
RC: I mean, I love cartoons, I watch them all the time, I thought about studying animation. They’re not a direct influence, though I own everything that the guy who did the music for Looney Tunes did. But I’m getting less cartoony as I get older.

CP: Are audiences picking up on this, and do you wonder how your audience will react?
RC: I think we definitely met kids, made friends that, for some reason, just love it . . . then others hate it. Some get the humor of it, in the live performance . . . then there are those that don’t. I throw everything in to everything. Some songs will be morbid, and I’ll perform them that way, but others are frickin’ jubilee.

CP: There are definitely hints of seeming environmentalism, among other potentially apocalyptic issues, buried in the lyrics. Do you want to impress a message on listeners, or is the music sometimes just a melodic means to exorcise and escape from the issues?
RC: It’s definitely not just meant to be just an escape. I grew up very Christian, and I was teaching a Sunday school one time with a divider door open and a picture of Hell was on the wall. So the kids were freaking out on this concept. And I thought later on the importance of the idea of the apocalypse. When I read [Cormac McCarthy's] The Road, it’s what [the song in question] “Vermillion Plaza” is based on, I was taken aback by the importance of people knowing there is this Hell they could create if they so choose. There’s that feeling, but I don’t think at any point you should present things without hope. There’s more chances than ever for young people to get into good things. The people that tried to change things in the past maybe pass it on subliminally into their children. And hopefully my music adds in to that, makes people pass it on, think in to issues.

CP: Are you OK with it, however, if some people come to a show just to enjoy the arrangements and musical style and never get that out of the song?
RC: I feel like I’m a person who puts a lot in to my music, a lot of study and forethought, so I’m not really worried whether people “get it.” I’m writing from a good place in my heart. There’s no way to determine what other people will get.

I’m OK with people thinking it’s just pop. If it’s through me, at this point, I’m not going to try and say, This is what we’re going to do, this is what we’re about. I’m not that naïve. I more want to say, We can’t do this by ourselves. I got into music because you can’t blame a president–the idea of saviors, everyone waits for them, but we’re all miniature saviors in our everyday lives, in a way. Especially with us, we’re changing up our sound in December, could get more confrontational.

CP: What aspects will change, and what material might stay the same?
RC: I want to have a live band. I think some of the current material will hang around; we’ll play it because we have to. I know it’s the wrong thing to say, the wrong thing to do to write completely new songs and forget about an album in the middle of it, but I just don’t have anything to put back into that person I was. I felt the way things were going, the way it sounded was good, but it wasn’t the way I wanted it to.

CP: Are there specific new ways you’ll put the more “confrontational” new material out there?
RC: Me and the other guy in my band [Adam Psaff, who runs bass, some guitar, and Ableton Live], I think we’ll be doing digital shorts, our own videos, putting a visual aspect in the music. And we always throw everything in with a grain of salt. It’s just going to be a more live sound, probably slower. But I think it will be good.

We don’t really know what’s going to happen, what we’re going to play, we’re just trying to keep it together, turn it out alright. It’s thrown me not being able to play with the band; Moondagger was written to be played with them, so that’s forcing me to do a lot of this stuff. It wasn’t my decision and I was hurt and confused by it. But we’re from Michigan, we don’t have money, they don’t have money, so I understand. No matter what, I perform really hard, it’s the best I can give. And that’s really all I care about.

Deastro performs Nov. 13 at the Metro Gallery. For more information visit myspace.com/metrogallery.

Max Tundra is Ben Jacobs, a British pop (but not Brit-pop) composer known for an OCD approach to spry, MIDI-sequenced melodies. It had been six years since the last album by Max Tundra when Jacobs released 2008′s Parallax Error Beheads You, an album of creative tonal displacement collected under a title conjuring up an appropriately angular, perception-altering phenomenon. Now Jacobs seems to be touring constantly, bouncing between twitchy-synth funk and spastic falsetto soul hooks, all with a music hall-worthy swing to them. It’s giddy and gilded, cartoonish, and painstakingly put together, punctuated by moments that are endearingly awkward. Jacobs is currently on the road with equally hyperactive synth patch micro-editor Deastro, and took a moment to answer some questions by e-mail as he boarded a plane.

City Paper: Is there anything you feel is particularly British in your approach to pop, and do you see anything particularly American in your current tourmate’s material? Is there a particular approach to cheekiness, tunefulness, or something else you feel is your signature?
Max Tundra: I don’t feel any particular kinship with any current British musicians, nor with the reserve which people from these shores are reputed to have. Neither do I like beer or football. In the early ’90s I would go and see various British shoegaze-y bands such as Lush and Ride, and you’d think those groups would have influenced my music in some way, because I was really obsessed with them (I even wrote and published the Lush fanzine). But my music is pretty much free from washes of guitar noise. People sometimes say I remind them a bit of Robert Wyatt, but I think it’s just because of the accent. Are the qualities of cheekiness and tunefulness particularly British ones? There are much more of those in Japanese pop than you find in old Blighty. I have only skimmed through a handful of Deastro songs, as I didn’t want to wear out my enjoyment of them before the tour commences, so I am not qualified to comment on the Americanness of them. They sound fucking awesome, though, and I’m very excited.

CP: What side of the pond do you think worries more about “being taken seriously,” or whether people will fully “get” the intent of a song, as opposed to just appreciate the harmonies, etc.? Do you think using “alternative instruments” outside of guitar/bass/drums contributes to the debate anymore of song sincerity?

MT:I think there’s a lot of shitty earnest acoustic dross that spews out of the UK, pleading me with every whiny chord to take the singer seriously. Even the wonderful songwriter George Michael called one of his albums Listen Without Prejudice. Whereas goofballs such as Lightning Bolt and Dan Deacon are so daft they set up their equipment in amongst the audience. For me a song is as much about an arrangement as the lyrics. You can achieve great tensions by juxtaposing pessimistic words with optimistic sounds, and vice-versa. A lot of bands are scared of ditching their guitar/bass/drums and sometimes pay lip service to modern times by simply putting a squiggly synth noise over the top of their lumpen dadrock.

CP: Do you consider yourself part of a scene—whether local or global? If so, who would you consider your contemporaries, and what is a common theme that runs from you and through your peers’ work?

MT: I am not part of any scene apart from short balding guys who take ages to record albums. Seeing as the only other person I can think of who fits this category is Phil Collins, and I don’t sound much like him (although I love “Sussudio”), I think I’m pretty much out there on my own.

CP: Do you find yourself in friendly rivalries with tour mates, seeing who can get the crowd most engaged? Is performance an escape or an exorcism?

MT: It isn’t a competition intentionally, but it’s always a challenge to win over the fans of very popular bands. When I toured with Hot Chip last year I was delighted with how my music was received by the youngsters. The popularity of Max Tundra thus far seems mainly to have been via word-of-mouth, so I just need to keep playing these big support slots and sharing fans with these bigger bands. Performance isn’t really an escape as, however frenetically I dance about onstage, I am always dimly aware of the 20 or 30 shows (and attendant long drives) comprising the remainder of the tour.

CP: Has touring on your most recent album revealed any new aspects of it to you? When done touring do you think you’ll love the material more or be fully ready to move on in another direction?

MT: It’s funny how much new stuff I hear in my songs each time I perform them, even though it was me who made them up in the first place. The thing about performing songs from Parallax Error Beheads You is that some of those songs are six or seven years old now. I’m in a very different place these days and am often puzzled as to why I went with a particular trumpet melody buried low in the mix, or a reference to then-new personal networking websites. But people sing about trees and rivers and they are much older than Friendster.

Max Tundra plays the Metro Gallery Nov. 13. For more information visit myspace.com/metrogallery.

Hailing from Philadelphia, MC Amanda Blank has been blowing heads with the way she works a rhyme for a good five-plus years, though only in the wider public eye for the last three or so. After guesting on singles and mixtapes from Spank Rock, Aaron LaCrate, Britney Spears, and Ghostface Killah, Blank now steps out from the Diplo-anointed party circuit to weather the criticism of a solo artist with her debut full-length, I Love You. In the process she’s managed to incite those prone to both raunchy and derisive entertainment, all while backed by the Baltimore Bass Connection of DJs Devlin and Darko. Currently on tour with Matt and Kim and the Intelligence, Blank took a moment from the road to answer a few deep, philosophical questions via e-mail.

City Paper: Where does Amanda Mallory end and Amanda Blank begin?
Amanda Blank: Wherever the sidewalk ends.

CP: What’s Blank’s trigger?
AB: No sleep; delirium.

CP: And what’s Mallory’s safe word?
AB: “Trannyface.”

CP: When approaching producers for tracks, what did you ask for?
AB: Something that feels good. Or bad. Whatever is fitting to the moment, I guess!

CP: What do you feel makes for the most appropriate Amanda Blank musical arrangement?
AB: Something heavy. And loud.

CP: What tones do you feel work best with your voice?
AB: Dark ones.

CP: When producers presented a track they considered perfect for you, how did they say it suited you?
AB: Hahaha, they usually just say, ‘This is hot. You should rap on this!’ But mostly it’s a collaborative effort. There’s not much presentation, ’cause I’m usually there while they’re making the beats.

CP: How would you characterize the different contributions of [I Love You producers] XXXchange, Diplo and Switch, etc.?
AB: Well, they’re all really really different people and producers, but all equally as talented and creative. They’re just different. To try and summarize their differences and similarities and complexities would be entirely way too difficult. They’re some awesomely crazy dudes.

CP: Compare your relationship with your contemporaries to something pop cultural (i.e., the Brady Bunch, the Justice League,Rock of Love II with Bret Michaels, etc.).
AB: The Partridge Family meets Fraggle Rock.

CP: In what ways do you feel you have adapted your cadence and tone over the past few years?
AB: I think I’ve become more confident with my delivery. . . and more comfortable playing around with it. That definitely plays a part in the cadence and tone in my rapping.

CP: In what ways have tracks needed to be tweaked to your performance?
AB: Not too much, I guess. It’s not so much how they’re tweaked, but more how Devlin and Darko play them. Our set isn’t always the same; for example, sometimes they’ll loop an intro for 16 bars while I talk or do something on stage, while some nights they just drop the track. There’s very little silence on stage, whether [sound is] coming from me or them.

CP: What part did your experience with blog and mixtape distribution play in how you chose and positioned your sounds?
AB: It made me want to do something different than the stuff I had done in the past. There’s a certain part of you that wants to keep everyone that bought the mixtape and the people that write the blogs happy, and there’s this other part of you that is thinking completely outside of that.

CP: What is it like working within the Downtown Records model, a label with a house studio, healthy online presence, creative promotions, etc.? Which resources did/do you take most advantage of?
AB: Downtown is cool. They’ve been very supportive and laid back about what I wanted to make with my album. They’re good about letting their artist be free creatively, or at least for me they were. Never pushy or controlling. As far as resources, I’m pretty close with a lot of people at Downtown. Especially the publishing company and the studio engineers. I am constantly going to them for something. But mostly Vaughan Merrick. He’s the wizard behind the curtain in that studio.

CP: Do you see lines drawn between the Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Jersey scenes, and if so do you feel there are specific ways you worked to straddle them?
AB: Oddly enough. . . I don’t. The similarities I think outweigh the differences. Especially Baltimore and Philly. Obviously they’re two different cities, but the vibe of the people, the music, even the aesthetic of those two cities. . .they’re almost interchangeable at times. I think that’s why I’ve always felt so comfortable in Baltimore. It reminds me of home.

CP: If you could sample/cover any record, what do you think is a guaranteed floor filler?
AB: “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock.

CP: Where have you been?
AB: Almost anywhere and everywhere.

CP: Where do you want to go?
AB: All the little places in between.

CP: Please fill in the blanks with words that correspond to what’s requested:
AB: There once was a UGLY______ (adjective) girl who lived in a CROCODILE______ (place or thing). One day she went looking for TACOS______ (type of food) when she looked down in the GREEN______ (color) gutter and saw a SOILED______(adjective) microphone with a sticker of a GAYFISH______ (animal) on it. She picked it up, shook it off, and CREEPED______ (verb) it to her SAD-BALLS______(noun). And out came the QUICKEST ______ (adverb) MCing anyone on that block had ever heard. She knew she had to share this mic, so she took it to her friend CLEETUS ______ (name), who lived on a VOLCANO______ (naturally occurring landmass). When her friend heard what the mic could do, “FUCK”______(exclamation) was all she/he could say. They spent all day making JAWNBOL______ (silly word) recordings, then loaded up their RAZOR SCOOTER______ (form of transportation) and toured NARNIA______ (mythical place), fueled by CAPPUCCINO______(beverage). (Madlib help from DEVLIN!)

Amanda Blank plays tonight, Sept. 17, at Sonar. For more information visit sonarbaltimore.com.