Purveyor of: Human pop, by and for robots
File next to: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, B.A. Johnston, MATROX
Playing: Saturday May 16 @ Handlebar for Wavelength’s May Long Weekend Blowout —& Alphabot’s first Wavelength since WL433 in 2008!

I had the opportunity to sit down with Toronto Musician/Artist/Robot, Alphabot yesterday. He’s an odd sort who puts out sporadic albums, comic books and YouTube videos so I was curious to learn more about him, if that’s the right pronoun. I made a note to ask about robot gender/genitalia but forgot to ask during the interview.

He met me at a coffee shop. He sat across from me, striped shirt, cut-off jeans and vaguely robotic cardboard box on his head. I could see his eyes through the holes in the box, sizing me up. He was very polite but anxious to get started. He’s a busy machine. We’ve known each other for some time but don’t really talk about what he’s working on or his ideas so this would be a bit different.

ME: So, elevator pitch who are you?

ALPHABOT: I’m a Robot Cowboy Crooner. A machine with a human heart. I’m trying to save the world from the robot oppressors or at least, learn everything I can before it’s too late.

ME: So have you travelled the world?

ALPHABOT: Yes. And then some. There’s a lot of parts that are secret.

ME: And are the robots invading everywhere?

ALPHABOT: Pretty much everywhere lots of people congregate. People make robots, so it’s hard to get away from them.

ME: Do other robots make music?

ALPHABOT: No, but they sell a lot of it.

ME: What’s your favourite music right now?

ALPHABOT: I’ve been in a real doom cowboy mood lately. There’s this ghost cowboy Shakey Graves I really like. I’ve also been trying to track down a singer/songwriter in Toronto called the Holiday Rambler. There’s a great band playing around called the Flying Caskets. They’ve got a jugular bass player and a guy who plays a bucket with a hammer!

ME: And you read and write comic books?

ALPHABOT: I read everything. Instruction manuals, plays, movie scripts. It’s all documentation of humanity, and text usually means a lot more than it’s meant to. My adventures are documented, yes. I’ve got a human who likes to draw the stories I tell him. He puts them on the website at alphabot.ca.

ME: Oh yeah. I think I’ve seen those. I remember hearing you have a comic for every song?

ALPHABOT: Pretty much. The songs and the narrative are inseparable, really. The song “Pockets Full of Shrapnel” doesn’t make much sense without knowing about the three witches.

ME: I’ll remember to listen to that one. You’ve got a different sound, how would you describe your music?

ALPHABOT: I don’t really know. I just want to make music that sounds right to me. That’s going to sound different on different days or depending on what I’m listening to. I try to consume as much art as I can, so my art is going to reflect that. My favourite description of my music was “Tom Waits and Paul McCartney in a fistfight on Sesame Street”. Someone said that after a show and I wrote it on a napkin, which I’m sad I lost.

ME: So you do music, videos, comics and your shows with songs and theatrics, do you think bands have to do more to get noticed these days?

ALPHABOT: I don’t know if bands have to do anything. I’d like everyone to create and get excited about creating. Even if it’s just a process. I just want to make things and I get excited about ideas.

ME: What would you make this summer if time and resources weren’t an issue?

ALPHABOT: I want to make a board game, a radio show, a line of designer eyewear, a Netflix special… Seriously though, I’m putting up videos of songs I’m working on in thematic locations and updating the comic on the website whenever I can.

ME: I’ve got to ask, what’s up with the cardboard? Are robots really made out of cardboard?

ALPHABOT: Some are. It’s a cheap material that you can find everywhere. It’d be silly not to use it…

ME: “Do you really believe in robots? Or are you using them as a metaphor for how people — ?”

I was reading this question off the page. When I looked up he was already outside. I was hoping to ask that question, but I didn’t expect an answer, really. I’m not even sure he heard me. I stayed, collected my notes and finished my coffee. The TV in the
corner chirped out news about the new anti-terror bill in between commercials for the new smartphone and the new Batman movie. He texted me later, apologizing for leaving abruptly but said and I quote: “Something was happening somewhere else. We can finish another time.” I’ll be at the Wavelength show at Handlebar on the 16th, anyway. It’s sure to be a winner.

—Interview by Jake Roels