Gold chains

Thrasher Magazine, Jan, 2004 by Jared Soares

TOPHER LAFATE IS THE MASTERMIND behind the genre-bending project dubbed Gold Chains--a musical collage that pieces together elements of punk rock, breezy techno, and gritty hip-hop beats with a bit of Bay Area flavor. To sum it up in two words his new album, Young Miss America, is party music--an 11-track sweat soaked, electro-dance punk package. Topher is a white guy, but his booming Ja Rule-like flow has left some fans at shows in Europe chagrined. No, Topher is not a relative of MC Paul Barman, nor did he attend an Ivy League school or live a pampered and privileged life. Yet, almost every writer has decided to throw Gold Chains and Topher in the rich-white-boy-rappers category without even doing any background research. I could keep on going with different adjectives and comparisons to band A and producer B, but it would not stack up to actually seeing Topher perform or listening to Young Miss America Topher LaFata didn't hypothesize about the structure of the Double Helix, but he did create an album in Young Miss America that is as intricate as a strand of DNA.

Your press bio mentions you grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania. Did you ever take the train to go skate LOVE in the city?

We had a skatepark in Jackson Wall; I would jest go there. We had one of the only skateparks in the Northeast at that time.

Do you still go out and shred?

We have a lot of skateparks in Northern California, and I was eating it bad in the poets. I didn't have health insurance and I was like, "What the tuck am I doing?" I kept eating shit, so I haven't been to the skatepark in like four months.

So you mainly skate pools?

I street skate when I'm skating. I can do my shit, but I'm not pulling big airs.

What's your favorite trick?

Street plants For real, I never understood the purpose of those

Do you consider yourself as a modern day rap rocker? Nut in the sense of Fred Durst, but more along the lines of Dee Dee King when he put out his rap-rock record?

I actually have heard that. I feel more like a singer at this point. A singer like Ian Curtis or Henry Rollins, like in 1980, than I do a rapper. A lot of it is soul singing to me I think it comes off live that it is more like that. It might be hard to tell from the records because it's such weird music. It's basically a punk band for me.

Have you heard of Pitchforkmadia.com? They mention that you sample Stereolab in one of your earlier songs.

I didn't sample it. I played it all myself. I don't really sample anything, I always play it. People say, "He got some weird opera sample," But it's like, Vii have a girl at my house singing like that It ain't samples. But the Stereolab song "Crest" is sort of the backbone for the song "Rock the Party."

That writer tries to call you out on sampling Stereolab.

I had worked with the kid who wrote that article, and his editors may have changed it. I am seriously misunderstood in a sense. Dudes don't know, they don't come see me. They don't know where I grew up. People be like. "Oh, Gold Chains rich, Ivy League, software salesman," and it's like, "Fuck you." You don't know where I grew up and you don't know the shit that I do; that I've been making music since I was 14. Even when I had jobs I was making music all night. One of the Pitchfork reviews was pretty good, and the last one was obviously ""Oh, white rapper," But if I was black or a girl, they'd say "This is great!" People don't listen to the music--a lot of times it degenerates into a personal attack on me. They don't even know me. A lot of these people have never even seen a show or listened to the other shit I've done. I make music, dance music, that's what I am into; and punk rock more or less. since I was a kid. That's what I've always done, and the fact that I've taught myself to program. I wanted to make money and that's all I've sorta been interested in. With that I moved to San Francisco and washed dishes. I was like, "How can I make some fuckin' money? This town is super expensive." I got my foot in the door with computers and just went with it. Fortunately, I did a good job and made enough money to put together my studio. Now I have a studio and I ain't workin', and I can be in there making music. When people try and evaluate me in a rapper or hip-hop context it really doesn't work. People have to understand that I came up on punk rock and rave music, Sure, I like listening to rap, I like MC'ing, but I also like singing, MC'ing for me is an effective vehicle for club music, and that's why I started doing it; not to try and take the piss out of hip-hop or say anything about hip-hop or be some fantasy persona. People will read things about me and say "Oh, he is rich." I've made my own money my entire life and like to be rich. Then I could chill out.

Is the new album a tribute to young, attractive girls?

First of all it's this girl's nickname, "Young Miss America;" it's Amy spelled backwards, one of my friend's nicknames. The record is kind of a commentary on American society being like an ignorant teenage girl who's materialistic, bratty, and beautiful. There are really good qualities about her and at the same time there are horrible and disgusting qualities about her. That's the deal with all the imagery--the United States as a wayward teenage brat. No, it's not a tribute to playground, binocular, van driving shit.