 ELEPHANT: Seek The Truth
Interview by: Edward Truth @EdwardTruth As featured in Connextions Magazine, Issue 8 - Released Fall 2012 Coleman and Jackson Vrana, better known as the west coast rap duo Elephant, are rising stars in the queercore movement— raw, androgynous, spindly punks with loads of sex appeal and shameless lyrics who draw diverse inspiration and don't give a frack about what the world thinks of them. Elephant's latest single, "The Let-Go", features Tampa's dirty rap crunk Yo! Majesty, and sounds more mainstream "feel good" than you might expect from punk-twins-rap meets black-lesbian- Christian hip-hop. Get over it. Elephant's "Notorious H.I.V." is enough to make Larry Kramer cringe, and "Queer Nation" rumbles in a truck of a thousand expletives with writhing bodies to match. Now 26, the Vrana twins (fraternal not identical, as it's rumored) came out at age 14 in Oklahoma, a state whose mentality "screams south", as Coleman might put it. The duo loves to push buttons—a rebellious attitude learned from generations of ridicule and rejection; their great grandmother was a full blood Native American who lived to the age of 93. Elephant's first full length LP is slated for end of summer, then they go on tour. The dark complexity of the brothers Vrana is something Connextions is looking forward to getting into over time. For now, an introduction. Connextions Magazine: "The Let-Go" is fast-paced and feel good, like an anthem. But your music is typically dirtier, angrier. Coleman Vrana: More and more people tell me I need to be less angry. I don't understand it at all. The people writing us are just as angry if not angrier than I am. They tell me I need to focus on being more positive, that there's no real positive message. Like it's some sort of vitriol. How can you be a rapper without anger? It's impossible. The whole point of rap, well, not the whole point, but fighting back—that's the point. CM: What are a few of your musical inspirations? Jackson Vrana: I would say that Coleman and I really shared most of our influences as teenagers. Bands like The Cure and Placebo got us interested in pursuing a career in music. Nowadays I get inspired when I hear all kinds of things, like Fiona Apple's new album, the soundtrack to a horror movie, or an old Missy Elliott song. I think musicians eventually start to gather ideas from everywhere. CV: The Cure was engrained in our heads since we were little kids. Certain melodies resonate, it's hard to explain. Placebo, too. You can hear a similar vocal style, the nasaly thing we do. But it's mostly in the melodies we write. It's hard to say. The first Cure album I listened to was Wild Mood Swings but Disintegration stuck with me the most. We would travel to see Placebo perform. Jackson lived in London when we were 18. I learned to play guitar listening to Placebo tracks—even their old rough and raw stuff I like. And their sexual energy resonates with us, why we're less shy about writing about our sexuality. I listen to both The Cure and Placebo to this day. CM: Faggot.
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