Amp Fiddler: I hope I can bring some level of conversation that’s a little different than what everyone else brings. I think my mission at this age is a little different than the 19 and 20 year olds. I’m really trying and working at creating the possibility for my product and my messages to move in a way that I can help other people. I want to do either a clothing line and non-profit organization where I can help kids in ghettos learn to be more involved in music and learn production and other skills. I would like to have a camp for them in different cities where they can go and have workshops. I would like to have Ghetto Fly clothing where part of the proceeds would go towards maybe creating housing for kids in South Africa or places where kids don’t have any parents--where they’re just running wild because of AIDS, and they don’t have any place to live. I want to do something that will really help people. With the songs like “Unconditional Eyes”, that’s about the way that we see each other, or “Love and War”, I’m just trying to bring something different than most of the other artists who are younger. The conversation in their music is more about love and relationships.
Emm Yes, definitely. That’s interesting. So how far have you gone with the clothing line concept?
Amp Fiddler: I’m having a guy just put together the t-shirts – the first step is just making the merchandise for my tour.
Emm Sure.
Amp Fiddler: And then I want to try to get backing from people who will help to make it into a real clothing line at a very low cost, and then sell at a fairly reasonable cost. We’ll have something that’s really different and funky but be able to make it so that we make a lot of money and the proceeds go to those places that really need it. We just have to find out what and how we can – I’m going to need people to help me with this --but just what places really need help the most, and how we can do it. I want to create that, even if it’s just meals for people on Thanksgiving or however it is. I want to find contractors that know how to build housing, real small houses for low minimum. I want to just create those kind of things. So it’s a bigger picture than just me and me making this record. And I think that’s something that’s different to bring than most kids at 20 years old. They’re not going to be thinking about that, it’s just about their career and being successful. But they don’t have anything else to really worry about. Maybe they haven’t been to places that I’ve been, seen the places and the people that I’ve seen, seen people suffering. Maybe if they did, it would affect them in a way that they want to make a change to help things grow in the world.
Emm That’s really interesting. I would imagine that a lot of young musicians probably see themselves as struggling too.
Amp Fiddler: Yes, it’s really not a struggle in the big picture of the world.
Emm Right.
Amp Fiddler: And when you think about kids who have enrolled in the military, not as a soldier but just as a reserve, and have just had to go overseas to fight and then they come back in body bags-- it’s much bigger than what we think. I mean, these kids are going in saying, “Yes, I can join the reserve and then I can have some money to pay for college.” But then the next thing you know there’s a war and they’ve got to go to war. If they’re not coming back dead, they’re definitely going to come back with some kind of a disease you know what I mean?
Emm Or they come back mentally scarred in some way.
Amp Fiddler: Yes. There’re a lot of them that are mentally scarred. I know they were scared out of their minds. You can’t blame them. The war is no joke. I do understand that it’s necessary to have war, but in our instance, I don’t feel that was necessary. I mean, you think about other countries like some of the African countries that are fighting for their freedom, fighting for liberation, and you understand that in this instance, it’s not the case.
Emm Right, yes, people fighting for basic rights and we’re just out there to be out there.
Amp Fiddler: It’s the wrong way to go.
Emm Have you done any other kind of activist work, either as far as the war is concerned or with anything else?
Amp Fiddler: No, I haven’t. I’m really just trying to get in more knowledge about what’s happening before I go out and speak my mind.
Emm Sure.
Amp Fiddler: It’s so deep, you know. So I have just been staying cool. “Love and War” to me was just my opinion about how I felt about it at the time before we went in there.
Catch Amp Fiddler live on his U.S. Tour - Summer 2004:
Saturday, May 29th - Movement Festival, Detroit
Friday, June 4th- Cafe du Nord, San Francisco
Saturday, June 5th - Temple Bar, Los Angeles
Thursday, June 10th - Bonaroo Festival, Tenessee
Saturday, June 19th - Summer Stage, New York