Doomtree Live on The Interface: Fire, Family and a Four-Song 'No Kings' Set

Though their individual members have found varying degrees of success in their solo careers, Minneapolis based hip-hop collective Doomtree are blowing up on the strength of their third album, "No Kings." Touring behind their ambitious effort, the group -- Cecil Otter, Dessa, Lazerbeak, Mike Mictlan, Paper Tiger, P.O.S. and Sims -- has become one of the most exciting, high-energy live acts around.

Need proof? Then check out their incredible Interface performance below. Despite a late night before, the septet showed up at our New York studio at 10AM, shook off the early-morning rust and delivered an explosive set that also happened to be Spinner's first foray into hip-hop for The Interface. Afterward, all of Doomtree sat down with Spinner to discuss "No Kings," their egalitarian ethos, hip-hop in Minneapolis and recording in a cabin in the woods. Read the full Q&A below!

The 'No Kings' tour seems to be going great. What's it been like out there? Any crazy moments?

P.O.S.: This tour has been more crowded than all of the other tours. Attendance is definitely up, and excitement is up. We play in little cities like Denton, Texas, and everybody in the crowd bodysurfs and does a backflip and tears their face off and throws it at the wall and flips out, lights their shoes on fire. Everybody's nuts.


Watch Doomtree's Full Interface Performance
Sims: All that really happened.

Dessa: It's also the most crew-centric run that we've done. In the past it's been a lot of mini-solo sets and some crew songs, and this time around supporting "No Kings," because it involves so many of us on each track, it feels more like a game-theory moment on stage.

Mike Mictlan: Dessa stage dived for the first time in her life.

Dessa: Denton, Texas.

Mictlan: That was a highlight.

Sims: We were talking about it after the show, we were kind of recapping, like "That was a crazy show." It was fun when Dessa stage dove. It was officially a unanimous great time.

Mictlan: And in San Diego, Sims broke his hand, like dislocated it, reset it onstage, taped it up with some gaff tape, finished the set and then we went and had a shot.

Sims: That happened.

Cecil Otter: And then he wrestled a bear.

Sims: [Laughing] And then I wrestled a bear.

What's it like balancing the careers of seven people? How do you all get in the same room all the time?

Mictlan: Food. Put some food together and were on.

P.O.S.: That does help. It doesn't happen all the time. For this record, we set aside time specifically to make this record. We went out to a cabin, out in Wisconsin, that Sims' family has now because he's married [all laugh]. We went out there for like a week and we wrote this record, came back, now it's out.

Sims: Yeah, we had to book time like to write and to record. We started at like a 12-month out window, like, "All right. We want to release it next November, so we're going to need to do this, this and this. You're back from this tour at this point." We booked it like it was another tour.

What's the songwriting process with seven people involved?

Sims: Well, Paper Tiger writes all of the words and the songs and gives them to us completed with reference tracks. [Paper Tiger nods]

Mike: And then we burn all of those.

Paper Tiger: And then we write two words that rhyme together and they kind of fill in wherever the rest of it's going to be.

Otter: A lot of it is "fish and dish. And wish. And fish and dish."

Dessa: For this record, it started with production, and Cecil and Lazerbeak did a lion's share of that. And Paper Tiger and Stef [P.O.S.] are also part of the production team in Doomtree, and they came up with all of the production that made a coherent sound. Then we went to the cabin with food and lunchmeat and booze

Where did the 'No Kings' concept start?

Mictlan: Well, it's pretty much a recurring theme in our music if you look back. I've had a song called "Kings Get Deaded," you guys did "Coup for the Kings." It's always been a thing. There's a symbol that me and Stef got tattooed that Cecil had been putting on his artwork for a long time. We had just been kicking around the theme a lot. I mean, me and Stef were like big advocates of "No Kings" and the concepts, but it was really trying to just name what we did.

After 10 years, people fit into a certain role within a group. Who's like the straight one, who's the wild card, etc.?

Dessa: I would say if there was a straight man that would probably be me. I don't know about always getting everybody everywhere on time, but if there was a person most likely to be sending e-mails that would be me. Me and Beak.

P.O.S.: Dessa and Beak definitely handle a lot of the business that people outside of Doomtree are going to notice, but within Doomtree ... It's been 10 years. We all kind of got things that we do and always kind of count on each other for little things here and there.

Mictlan: I'd say Cecil was the wild card, and I'd be the wild card draw four like in Uno. We're kind of both wild cards though, bro.

P.O.S.: We're all the wild card.

Otter: You never know when I might just show up on time.

Do you guys think this would've been possible if you all didn't come from the Twin Cities? Because it seems like it has such a different community as opposed to something like Brooklyn, where there's a million bands.

Sims: I don't know. You could ask that question about like every single decision you've ever made in your life. Like, "Would it be possible to be in Doomtree if you would've gone to a different elementary school or whatever? Would you still be making the same music?" I don't know. There's not like a storied tradition of hip-hop in Minnesota, so you don't have to sound a specific way. There are great hip-hop artists who came out before us and definitely paved the way of how to do this independently and how to create your own sound, and we kind of took the mold that they set out and kind of carved our own niche and did it the way we did it. Minnesota music is great because it's a community that supports itself, but you kind of got to have chops too. You can get shows but you're not going to get another one if you're no good, and that's kind of the idea like, everyone's like, "Oh, Minnesota music it's great, everyone plays with everybody, and everyone gets a shot." Yeah, you get one, and then if you can't hack it, you can't hack it.

Otter: Then again, with the whole-crew effort, if we all weren't down to like take turns putting albums out and not being like, "I want to go now, I want to go now, why's he going now?" ... Like when Stef has an album coming up, we put our effort into him, and then Mike, and it keeps going that way. If we had too many egos in the group, and we all wanted to be the one that was big right away or the one that was put out, I don't think it would ever work.

Mictlan: Back to the question about us as a reflection of the Twin Cities, or would it be possible, when I look at it from an outsider point of view, I can see the influences in the city that we live in. We're multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-gender, you find that a lot in Minneapolis, St. Paul.

Dessa: There's sort of a necessity for a DIY ethic, because there's not a lot of other "IY's" or whatever.

Sims: Predators.

Dessa: Yeah, there's not a lot of predators. No, but there are very few artists from Minnesota who play a show in Minnesota hoping that there's going to be like an A&R rep at the back of the room, just because A&R reps just don't frequent backs of our rooms. So you do for self.

P.O.S.: As early as maybe 14, the idea for me to make a demo and send it off to record label, just never even seemed like a smart or reasonable thing to do. If I have the technology to make a demo, I have the technology to make a record and put it out, and that that's how we've all moved. It's like, go! Stop waiting around for someone to come help you or blow you up or make you big, it's all pretty much us helping each other do what we can.

So, what are you focused on next? Is there like a next level?

P.O.S.: We're still focused on 'No Kings' as a record. It seems to hopefully have plenty of life left in it. We're going to tour Europe after this tour, and then I have a record coming out, Mike's working on a record, Cecil's working on a record, Dessa is. Everybody, we're all working on music all the time.

Dessa: To your question about how do we get seven of us in a room, it's tough, and so we're really trying to ride on 'No Kings' as hard as we can. Knock on studio stool, I think we've gotten the green light that we've got at least a few more really hard months that we can look forward to. We've got some months where we're given the opportunity to work really hard to make this thing go.

Sims: You say "how do you get to the next level?" or "what's next for us?" The idea that's in my head and probably the rest of ours is, Doomtree exists to support each other on like our solo endeavors and push us as artists, both creatively and in your career and to get you more success. So, we're all here in support of each other, everyone going to the next level, and becoming bigger as solo artists, and then we come back as Doomtree and do Doomtree records because that's our family. We love each other and want to make music together, and we're here to push each other and make each other better.

P.O.S.: And if he puts out songs that suck, they won't come out 'cause we'll all say "Those songs suck."

Sims: But that's never happened.

P.O.S.: And that's never happened.

Sims: I've never made a bad song.

P.O.S. Because everything we ever make is like spun gold.

Otter: And if you make a song that's too good, we're going to be like, "That song shouldn't go out."

Sims: "That song's awful.