Got the chance to interview Chris Manak, better known as Peanut Butter Wolf— the legendary DJ, record producer and founder of Stones Throw Records.
Photos provided by Max Flick for Synth History. Scans provided by Peanut Butter Wolf.
Synth History: When did you start getting into music and what kind of stuff were you listening to as a teen?
PBW: I started getting into music as soon as I started hearing it as a kid—mainly from TV shows like Sonny & Cher, Donny & Marie, The Brady Bunch, Sesame Street, The Monkees—but I always go back to being in second grade in the late 70s and having a teacher who showed me disco, funk, and soul music as a turning point. He set up a series of music listening stations with turntables and headphones and would let us hear his records—songs like “Boogie Bogie Bogie”, “Hotline”, “Shake Your Body Down To The Ground”, and “Groove Line”. I remember in elementary school, another teacher once played a silent short film on 8mm reel-to-reel, which was just a bunch of saturated colors through a kaleidoscope effect. They played the song “Popcorn” along with it on a record player and it blew me away.
I’d have my mom buy me a K-Tel disco compilation for my birthday or Christmas. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was another favorite album, even though I wasn’t allowed to see the movie because it was rated R.
When I was 9, I got way deeper into funk and soul, thanks to a radio station called KSOL. I was also keeping up with top 40, what it was called back then. In terms of the ‘hits’, the songs with electronic instruments were my favorites: “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc, “Pop Muzik” by M, “Cars” by Gary Numan, “I’m Ready” by Kano and “Heart Of Glass” by Blondie were the pop songs I wanted to hear. On the funk and soul side, they were incorporating a lot of keyboards and sci-fi elements, too, and I was making lists of the songs I heard on the radio to bring to the record store to try and buy them on 45—Gap Band, Cameo, Parliament, etc.
By my early teenage years, in the early to mid-80s, the second British Invasion was fully upon us. I was starting to become aware of what a DJ was and got really deep into electro music, which we called ‘space jams’. Songs like “Planet Rock”, “Electric Kingdom”, “Pack Jam”, “Cosmic Cars”, and “Planet Doesn’t Mind”. Some of these songs were played at night on the mix shows, but at my age, most were only discovered by going to the record store.
By 1985, I really liked hip hop, like Run DMC, Just Ice, and Schoolly D; and also new wave like Cabaret Voltaire, Soft Cell, Bauhaus, Tones On Tail, Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Ministry, PIL, etc. I also started getting into reggae like Yellowman and Prince Jammy, and ska, like the 2 Tone stuff, which led us back to the late 60s original ska music. Three compilations that were awesome to me in my teenage years were: Some Bizarre, Blood On The ROQ and Sleeping Bag Dance Hall Classics. I was living in San Jose at the time, but my best friend’s parents had a summer vacation house in Newport Beach. We’d go there for a week every year as a vacation. They had the coolest record store over there. The “Temptation”/“Hurt” 7” by New Order was one record I remember getting there and going crazy over.
By around 1987, my friend and I stopped liking the contemporary funk and soul that was coming out, as new wave, punk, hip hop, and reggae were much more interesting to us.
Synth History: What led you to found Stones Throw?
PBW: When I was 16, I had dreams of starting my own independent hip hop label when I grew up. My favorite hip hop labels at the time were all indie ones, like Sugarhill, Profile, Tommy Boy. Sunnyview, Beauty And The Beat, Def Jam, Wild Pitch, Tuff City, etc. The major labels didn’t understand hip hop and mostly put out corny stuff that didn’t even become a hit for them. When I was in college at San Jose State, I was DJing on the radio station and actually put out my first hip hop record, that I made the beats for in 1990, and it flopped. We didn’t know you had to master a record and didn’t know how to promote or distribute outside of San Jose—which was not a hip hop city. We had 500 copies and put about 20 copies in one record store and the rest just sat to my knowledge. But the fact that I had a hip hop record out in San Jose with my name on it made every rapper in the area want to work with me, which was awesome. One rapper I met was 16 year old Charizma—I was 20. He ended up being the best fit for me of the bunch. We got really popular in our area and got signed to the hip hop division of Disney’s Hollywood Records, which was called Hollywood Basics, and the idea of doing my own label didn’t matter to me anymore. We were signed! We were on that label for a couple years with not so much as a single out. It was frustrating, because before we were signed, we were recording in a studio that was $25/hour and paying for the studio time ourselves and making songs we loved; but after we signed, they were like, “We want you at Fantasy Studios,” which was like $100/hour that they paid, and recouped. The problem there was that they stalled letting us go to the studio, so we were just sitting on all these song ideas that we couldn’t even record. And then that label folded and we were released. Charizma and I really didn’t have a plan, other than to start recording again, which we were at least thankful for. Then, in a horrible twist of fate, Charizma was killed at age 20. A couple years later I decided to start my own label and the first thing I released was a vinyl EP of some of the music I previously did with Charizma.
Synth History: What were some of the biggest obstacles in the early days and how did you overcome them?
PBW: The trick for me has been to never spend more money than I have. I never took out business loans, not even credit cards, really. I started the label in my mid-20s while renting a house and having roommates in a modest neighborhood in San Mateo, CA and paid $300/month for rent. In those days, I really only knew or cared about vinyl as a DJ and record collector myself, so the early releases were mostly vinyl-only 12” singles, and breakbeats LPs/DJ tools. I found some artists that believed in my vision, somewhat, and I lived release-to-release. I was working at a record distributor by day and DJing by night to help finance it all, but there were definitely obstacles.
Because I had such a small label with only the ability to distribute singles and vinyl, any recording artist who wanted to have a chance at “major success” wasn’t interested in working with me. I did have a few artists early on that signed with me and after I took them to a certain level, we worked out a deal with a larger label to take over the project—which ended up not really working out anyway. My core three artists that I released 12” singles from were offered album deals by my studio engineer, who basically pulled the rug out from under me because I didn’t have contracts with anybody. Another problem was that the stores didn’t always pay the distributor, and the distributor didn’t always pay my label, especially since they had more power than me and little incentive to pay me. Even though records were selling, I wasn’t always seeing the money and I was still accountable to my artists, of course, on units sold whether or not I was getting paid.
Synth History: Are there any particular releases from Stones Throw that you feel have been pivotal in shaping the label’s direction or reputation?
PBW: Everyone goes back to Madlib—and more specifically his Quasimoto side project, DOOM, and Dilla, and I have to agree that those are the three that solidified the reputation and to an extent the direction as well.
Those defined the early 90s to the mid-2000s of the label. They were kinda lumped into that ‘lo-fi hip hop’ category, which is what I always loved about Madlib’s production. It was dirty and raw. By the mid-to-late 2000s, I was more concerned with particular artists over what kind of music they were making.
One of my favorites is Koushik and that one never sold, but in hindsight, it was because he never really figured out, or had an interest in, performing the songs live. He never once performed a song from that album. But it paved the way for me to take more risks with artists like James Pants, Mayer Hawthorne, and later Mild High Club and Los Retros which both streamed over 100 million listens on Spotify, even though it wasn’t the music Stones Throw was known for.
Synth History: Can you tell me about some of your favorite memories from the late 90s - late 00s?
PBW: I really think my favorite memories were when I was starting out from the mid 80s to the early 90s. By the late 90s, the process wasn’t quite as exciting, although the results were getting to be a lot bigger.
Synth History: What is it about an artist that makes you want to sign them?
PBW: Me wishing I made music as good as theirs.
Synth History: Do you have any favorite memories you can recount from DJing?
PBW: My favorite ones are generally the earliest ones. Opening for Trinere in Hayward in 1987 as a 17-year-old and her showing up in a pink Rolls Royce limo and kicking us out of the greenroom. We told her, “But we’re performing too,” and she yelled at us, “I don’t care. Get out of here, kids.” Eight hundred people all looking at me while I scratched the record and my partner, MC Kool Breeze, rapped. Nothing like doing it for the first time for so many people—who had no idea who we were. Also loved doing the Madvillain record release party in Los Angeles in 2004. DOOM, Dilla, Madlib, J Rocc, and I, all on stage together. Was also around 800 people, but this time everyone in the building was there for us.
Synth History: What is your turntable of choice?
PBW: Technics 1200.
Synth History: Top three pieces of gear in general?
PBW: I’d say my original Casio RZ-1. This was my first sampling drum machine I bought in 1987 and still own it today. I just had a son four months ago and his name is Casio. My other favorite one is the Ensoniq EPS. That’s what I used to make all my music from 1990-2000. It has a raw, lo-fi sound that I preferred over the cleaner stuff out there and I later found out that RZA used the same machine for Wu-Tang Clan.
Synth History: If you had to pick one record that you think everyone should listen to at least once in their lifetime, what would it be, and why?
PBW: Top 10 off the top of my head, in no particular order, would be: PIL - Second Edition, The Free Design - Kites Are Fun, Bruce Haack - Electric Lucifer, Kraftwerk - Computer World, Gary Wilson - You Think You Know Me, Sly & The Family Stone - There’s A Riot Goin’ On, Quasimoto - The Unseen, Gangstarr - Step In The Arena, A Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory, De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising.
Synth History: Do you have any advice for someone trying to start their own label?
PBW: I usually just tell people to not worry about spending a lot of money on staff, promotion, etc. at first—or ever—and don’t worry about trying to convince the industry that your artists are worth supporting. Thirty plus years in and I never really got that industry support that I thought I needed and I’m still here. Never even been invited to the Grammys [laughs]. It’s a lot easier and will get quicker results if you find other recording artists who are already popular to champion your artists if you have the talent. But I’m kind of beyond giving advice because everything has changed so much since I started doing this. I’m trying to learn as much as anything at this point.
Synth History: What is inspiring you the most right now?
PBW: My daughter has been my inspiration more than anything lately. No words.
Check out Campus Christy, a collaboration between Chris Manak aka Peanut Butter Wolf (vocals) and Brian Ellis (instruments) here.
Interview part of of Issue Four, out November. Peanut Butter Wolf and Stones Throw will be at the release party! Details.
Synth History Exclusive.
Interview by Danz.
Photos by Max Flick.
Scans provided by PBW.