Interview: Team Teamwork

You know who Team Teamwork is by this point. Ocarina of Rhyme was pretty much the nerd-cred mashup album of last year, and the just-released Vinyl Fantasy 7 has been getting attention everywhere from Wired to Joystiq. Hell, he even got attention from one of the artists he was sampling, resulting in a cease & desist. Point is, dude’s blowin’ up.

Team Teamwork (aka Tim Jacques) agreed to an interview with us for some reason. Read on as we discuss an easter egg he tucked into the album, where he’s putting his music up now, and what we should expect from him in the future.

You know an artist is onto something special when any one of their album covers can make you smile.

You released Vinyl Fantasy 7, your second game mashup album, at the end of last month. How are you feeling about it now that it’s out there?

I’m really proud of it. I put in a lot of time on it, and the only real backlash is nerds that think putting rap over their precious video game soundtracks is sacrilege. The people that actually matter are responding really positively.

On track 5 (Outkast + Raekwon – Royal Flush [Sailing from Junon]), you modify Andre 3000’s line “They say change is dang / erous / as a king standing on a terrace” to repeat “erous” 5 times. Is this a clever nod to fan-favorite FF7 character Aeris?

Yes! You’re the first I’ve heard note that. But that’s exactly what it is.

So this past week you got hit with your first cease-and-desist. Congratulations! What’s the full story on that?

Someone that holds a license for “Ante Up” [by M.O.P.] sent my old host Bandcamp a C & D and they relayed it to me. I didn’t want to get Bandcamp in trouble with my blatantly copyright-infringing work, so I took down all of my albums.

Is your Bandcamp page ever coming back? Are you exploring other options?

No. I’m currently using my 8tracks page as a homebase. You can listen there on a stream and in each album description, there is a download link. Whatthemashup.com also has links for downloads for all of my albums.

Rest in peace, "Free Team Teamwork" shirt. We hardly knew ye.

Neither 8tracks or whatthemashup have a space for donations. However, you’ve begun selling a pretty sweet “Free Team Teamwork” shirt via your tumblr. Is this how fans can support you in the interim?

Sort of, but there weren’t nearly enough preorders to make it worthwhile to print a shirt. So I pulled it down and refunded the few that were kind enough to preorder.

I didn’t even mean for Bandcamp to be a way to make money. I just signed up for that site because it had a really easy-to-use set up for streaming and downloading albums. I just turned on the donation option because it was there. Making remixes is just a fun hobby for me. It’s not, and hasn’t been, any kind of money-maker.

Earlier today, we started up a #ttalbumname trending topic on Twitter to try and see what kinds of gaming/hip-hop album titles people could come up with. Any of these stand out to you as particularly great?

That’s awesome! I’m gonna have to contribute a few. [Editor's note: he did.]

Ghouls ‘n Ghostface Killah is my favorite. 2Pac-Man is a close second. Straight Outta Brinstar is good too, because I almost named VF7 Straight Outta Midgar.

Lastly, what are you working on now? Any anxiety about keeping up your tradition of excellent puns as album titles?

I’ve already got the title set – The Good-ass Remixes Vol. 2. It’s going to be a follow up to the first, but ideally more out-there. So far, I have a song put together with a Michael Bolton sample. I’m not going to stress about it, I’m just going to do it as ideas come to me. It may be out this year; it may be out next year.

Thanks so much for talking to us!