Rising local Wise Blood talks music, ambition

Twenty-something local Chris Laufman, who makes music under the moniker Wise Blood, isn’t what… Twenty-something local Chris Laufman, who makes music under the moniker Wise Blood, isn’t what you’d call humble — with luck, he believes, his name will soon be ubiquitous.

“I want to be the biggest because I’m supposed to be,” Laufman said.

But despite growing attention on music blogs and a recent interview with Pitchfork, details about the musician remain scarce.

Contrarily, Laufman’s music is unmistakable. He combines, stretches and layers beats and samples from previously made sounds and songs, then adds his own vocals on top. The result is an innovative mix of head-nodding beats and woozy, muffled harmonies. The Houston-born son of a Baptist preacher, who turned down Juilliard music school, sat down with The Pitt News to demystify part of his life and art after he returned from New York City.

TPN: What inspires you?

CL: Going to the Carnegie Museum, like legit. That really does inspire me, a lot. Being around here in my environment. Also, books on great artists. That’s what inspires me the most.

TPN: What’s your favorite book?

CL: “The Violent Bear It Away” by Flannery O’Connor.

TPN: Interesting, because you took the name “Wise Blood” from one of O’Connor’s books, right?

CL: Well, that was my nickname when I was a kid. My grandpa gave it to me. He called me “Wise Blood,” and I never knew it was a book until recently. And then I read it, and it just floored me so I kind of had to go by that.

TPN: The book is very religious. I also read that you were a Catholic. Does that have any influence on your music?

CL: Oh yeah, completely, because I’m doing it for God.

TPN: What were you going to go to Julliard for?

CL:  Music composition, because I can play viola, violin, piano — you know, all those.

TPN: Why do you create the music that you do?

CL: Just because I want to do something interesting … I don’t like to play guitar that much anymore. I like to try to find better ways to come up with music — more interesting ways, you know? But sometimes it’s more difficult than others.

TPN: Why do you think creating sampled music instead of playing an instrument is more difficult?

CL: I don’t even know how to explain it. Chopping up samples is so difficult and making them go together and stretching them out for two-and-a-half, three minutes of a song and having transitions take place. You have to find something that matches your rhythm. It’s so difficult, creating fluid movement. It’s frustratingly difficult. I’m at the point where I have to move away from it, maybe, because it’s so mind-numbingly frustrating. But when you hit something great you know it. I celebrate, but it’s f**king difficult.

TPN: What is your process for creating your music?

CL:  Basically, I just come up with a whole idea for a song. It’s all based around ideas. Like inspiration and ideas are the biggest part, you know? If you just approach a song with no idea of how you’re going to do it or what it’s going to be like, it’ll just flounder, and it’ll just be a bunch of parts that don’t come together. But if you have a solid idea — an idea is the point. Once you have an idea, just run with it, you know?

TPN: A lot of your lyrics seem to be about relationships or sexual situations. Are they about anyone in particular?

CL: Yeah, yeah sort of. It’s just about vague things like when I go out at night and I see a girl that I’m like, “I’m going to go home with that girl — I’m going to charm her and I’m going to go home with her.” I mean that’s what “B.I.G. E.G.O” is all about. That’s what the lyrics are all about: you’re going to need me tonight, you know? Like these drugs are kicking in. Like me doing drugs and completely getting so into it and loud. It’s all about that. It’s all about me being this drunken, cocky asshole. Which is usually what I am, except when I’m in Pittsburgh on Murray Ave. just drinking a beer. When I’m not playing somewhere. The past few months I’ve just been this asshole, like “I’m famous, f**k everybody.” And so now I’m in Pittsburgh and I’m not. I need to work a lot.

TPN: Do you think that “musician” is the right title for you?

CL: Yeah, why?

TPN: You take samples of songs, things that are premade, and string, overlap, stretch them, but you didn’t create those sounds.

CL:  I know a sh*t load about music. I do, and I’m telling you: creating something different and making it unrecognizable but also [building] off of it is the most incredible thing you can do. So yeah, I’m a f**king musician.

TPN: What’s next?

CL: Big things, hopefully. I have to put a new piece in that I’m struggling with. Then probably tour. So we’ll see.

TPN: If you could play anywhere in Pittsburgh, where would it be?

CL: I know exactly where. Okay, you know that area in the Carnegie Museum where they have all those entrances…? That room. I wouldn’t even approach doing that until four years down the line when I’m making more abstract, better things — if I’m alive.