Compared to the stages crowded with equipment and band members that frequent concertgoers grow accustomed to, Andy Bothwell – better known as Astronautalis – looked a bit forlorn, all alone on stage with just a microphone. However, once his set began the stage didn’t seem big enough for him; spending the majority of his set leaning out over the audience, at times disregarding the mic completely to shout his lyrics. A few hours before we watched him freestyle over a T.I. instrumental, we met up with Andy for a quick sit down. Given the fact that he’s been touring for the better part of the last six years, it makes sense that he requested the interview include coffee. After tracking down the most ethical, local coffee shop in the area a Dunkin Donuts – and a brief debate about whether or not said franchise would permit an interview with a rapper – TPB got a chance to catch up with the man that is Astronautalis.

After a few sips of his latte, Andy opened up about the origins of his stage name, his participation in the legendary Scribble Jam, and the status of his current projects: two collaborations, a mix tape, and a fourth album. He also explained how books can be used not only to write raps dedicated to science but to also impress the ladies while on tour in the Czech Republic. What else could be expected from a rapper who discusses Built to Spill and Young Jeezy with equal ease and excitement?

- Tim Burdick

So, if you just want to start off with your name for the record.

My name is Andy Bothwell, for the record, and some people call me Astronautalis, but I would prefer if they called me Andy Bothwell.

Alright. How did you get started doing what you’re doing?

I was a battle rapper for like 6 years and my older brother gave me a tape – he was living in New York at the time- and he gave me a tape of the Stretch & Bobbito show and then he gave me a tape with Lord Finesse’s Return of the Funky Man on the A side and Guru’s Jazzmatazz on the B side. I was an indie rock kid, indie rock and punk rock and Britpop and stuff. I was 13 and listening to Blur and The Clash. Yeah, he gave me that tape and it changed my life. I had “rap sucks” written on my binder the year before and the year after I was practicing rap music. You know, one of those classic teenager table turns. So, I taught myself how to rap. For two years, I didn’t tell anyone – my friends, my family, nobody knew – and then kids were battling in high school and I got kind of pushed into a battle and ended up battling everybody and doing really well. I just battled for like six years and I ended up battling all around Texas, and New York City, and Florida, finally culminating in the Scribble Jam Battle in Cincinnati. Which I got totally served at, pretty hard. It was the only time in my life that I’ve gotten stage fright. It’s like a terrifying experience to see- if you come up there and you don’t have a good line within the first two lines, they start booing you. And it’s like 3,000 people booing you at once. If you’ve never had 3,000 people booing you, it’s the most fucking terrifying experience. So, after that I was driving back home to Texas – I was going to school out there – and I was like, “Listen, I can’t do this anymore. I’m fucking over this shit.” And so, I just started to figure what I wanted to do actually making music. So that’s when I started writing songs, and that’s when everything changed for me.

So, pretty much right after Scribble Jam?

Yeah, right after Scribble Jam was when I was like, “Okay. I’m fucking done with this shit.”

Which Scribble Jam was it?

2002. Yeah. I made it to the second round. Mac Lethal won that year. He had a black eye. Fucking guy. I love Mac, man, he’s great.

Where did the name Astronautalis come from?

A: High school. At the time, it was really fashionable in independent rap music to be really scientific. It was all about being like, “mad scientific” and “droppin’ science, son,” so I was way into that. I was way into New York City underground hip hop. D.I.T.C., and those kinds of dudes. So, I wanted to be “mad scientific”… I just made it up. It’s stupid. And unfortunately it just stuck. I kind of loathe it at this point. But, what’s a guy to do? I’m not famous enough to change it to a dollar sign or anything like that.

You’re getting there…

Yeah. One more album, then I’m Prince. (laughs)

So, what’s going on right now in the world of Astronautalis?

Touring. Non-stop. I left home August 11^th, and I will get to go home for one day on the tour that I’m doing next, which is with Sole & the Skyrider Band. I’ll go home for one day to play a show in Seattle, and then I’ll be gone again until December. I might be home for my birthday. So, it will be like five months that I’ll be out. Then, probably take the rest of December off, hopefully, and hopefully take January off, and then go back out in February with- well, there’s a couple different bands that are interested in taking me out. I’m kind of just trying to be an opening act for like the next two years. I’m so tired of doing my own crappy headlining dirtbag shows. I just want to play opening up for my friends.

Right now this is your second tour of four back-to-back, right?

Well, I’ve been touring pretty much non-stop for about six years – eight months out of the year for about six years. Before this year, we booked ourselves. And this year we got our European booking agent, and this year we got our American booking agent and things kind of really changed for us since then. It was like we never had shows in Boston until now, and things are kind of changing now that we have a legitimate booking agent. It’s not just me and my manager doing our best, you know. So, we’ve been touring non-stop for six years, but the tours have definitely reached a level of legitimacy in the last two years. We left home without a record label or anything like that, and just played shows until someone paid attention, then played more shows until someone else paid attention, and just built it that way.

So, what is your creative process like?

Slow. The first album I made was, like every band’s first album generally, all the songs I had at the time. And after that, it was like, I need to really refocus, and that’s when I started to use a lot of the formula and concepts of research that I gained in school into my own stuff. So, it’s a lot of research. Lots of reading, lots of library work. The last record I did, I probably wrote most of it with my computer open and a couple of books open. This next record is going to be even more so, because it’s about stuff I don’t even really know about. The last record was very focused on history and I’m kind of an amateur history buff. But the new record is focused on science, and I don’t know my ass from my elbow about science, so it’s a lot more intensive. I get excited, like “Wow, that’s so cool! I have no idea what that fucking means.” So then I have to read another book to figure out what that means, and why it’s awesome. So, it’s slow. But that’s for my own stuff.

I’m working on two side projects: one with this rapper, named P.O.S., and another one with this producer named PicnicTyme, who’s kind of this traditional Southern hip hop producer in Dallas, who makes beats for Kid Cudi and works with Erykah Badu and stuff like that. So, he and I are about halfway through the record -

The one with PicnicTyme?

Yeah, it’s called Maxx Moon and it’s totally different, because I’m like trying to try something that’s out of my comfort zone, and it’s much more poppy and dancey. It’s really difficult for me to write that stuff. Normally when I write a description of a song, it’s like, “Well, there’s this battle that happened…” and it’s this long convoluted thing and for this one, it’s like “Well, this song is about how… I really like my watch.” (laughs)

With the P.O.S. record, it seems like we’re figuring out where we want to go with it. We worked on two songs together, one on my record and one on his record, Never Better. It was supposed to be for our record, but we kind of ended up pushing it over there instead. I went over to his house to start working on a record with him, we realized that his record was coming out right after mine and we’re both on tour forever. It’s like we’re never going to get started on this, why don’t we just give people a sneak peak?

That process was interesting because we both come from two very different backgrounds and we – in our adoption of different cultures or whatever – have ended up in the same place. We’re very like-minded people and it’s really fun because we feed off each other. I’ve never been in a group. I’ve always just worked by myself and had a friend that kind of helps with the arrangement and music and stuff. So, ultimately, the ideas are always mine. So, working with someone else, bouncing ideas back and forth has been really exciting. Yeah, it varies from project to project. When it’s my stuff, it’s very obsessive and megalomaniac– megalomaniacal? Megalomaniacal. (laughs) With other people, I’m more open to suggestion.

So, you had a different producer for your first two records, and switched to a different producer for this last one…

Yeah, my friend Radical Face is a kid I grew up with who’s a really amazing musician who does his own stuff and also is in a group called Electric President. I worked at a movie theater with him growing up, he’s my old skateboard buddy. I’ve known him for years, and he’s insanely talented. He’s pretty much the one that transformed me from being a battle rapper who loved indie rock to this musician that makes rap music and indie-rock amalgams, or whatever. So, he taught me everything that I knew, but we’ve known each other for years and that last record that I did with him, the Mighty Ocean one, took like a year and a half. It was pretty arduous and we got at each other’s throats every once in awhile, and we realized that, in the interest of our friendship, we should probably take a break from creating works together. But also, if we made another record together, it would probably end up sounding a lot like that one, and neither of us wanted to do that. So, yeah I ended up working with John Congleton, which is like a dream come true. He was a friend of a friend. We hit it off, and it was an amazing, amazing process. Very different from… everything else I’ve done before, and it was really exciting. I suspect that I’ll have him work on my next solo record as well.

I know you’ve already kind of hinted at it, but could you go through some of your influences?

There’s definitely the big… the hit parade. Stuff that I still go directly back to and borrow from. Of course, the first rap I ever listened to. Like, when we were riding up here today, and our friend Nobs had borrowed his mom’s car to drive up here, because his car is busted. And he had borrowed his mom’s car several months before, so it was still loaded up with all these CDs and it was like, De La Soul Stakes is High, Lyricist Lounge Vol. 2 CD 1, all these great rap records, and the Jake One record. And that De La Soul record, I knew every word and I hadn’t listened to it in a couple of years. That album meant so much to me. Like a lot of the rap I initially got involved in: Lord Finesse, Big L, Showbiz and A.G., all those D.I.T.C. guys, the Native Tongues guys, particularly De La Soul.

But then, I got so much out of K Records, Dub Narcotic Sound System, The Halo Benders, the first Beck, the first Modest Mouse records, early Built to Spill. That whole Olympia, WA, indie rock scene just totally blew me away. And that lead to Neutral Milk Hotel, and The Microphones, and all the classic, seminal indie rock bands.

But at the same time, the difference between my last record with Radical Face, and the newer record with John Congleton is that I was still kind of pushing my voice to sound like those bands that I grew up listening to, to sound like Isaac Brock and to sound like these musicians with higher pitched voices, and I have a really deep goddamned voice. And I’ve been listening to Tom Waits since I was 11 and Nick Cave, and all these guys with deep fucking voices. And all of a sudden it just dawned on me, like “Oh! Asshole, you have this voice that nobody else has. Fucking use it.” So, that is when I switched over and started to really enjoy the baritone kind of stuff. So, there’s of course Tom Waits… My dad used to play The Band for me, and Van Morrison, and soul music. That would be the short list.

So, you’ve mentioned that you’ve been touring constantly. What’s your craziest tour story?

We just got back from a European tour, and just that fact that me, and Brock – he’s a tattooed, cranky Texan and I’m kind of a goofy Southern boy – so, just the fact that we’re in Europe, we’re in Prague, we’re in the Czech Republic playing a show, and there’s 150 people, and they’re all losing their minds during my set. Or being in the middle of nowhere in Germany playing some small show, and having everybody know all the lyrics to the songs… To me, that’s fucking mind blowing. Because I recorded some of those songs in my bathroom, with Radical Face. That’s fucking crazy. But there’s like … man… there’s like the classic crazy stories, like how I got a metal plate in my head, which is really stupid, and then there’s more contemporary ones, like how I got a glass thrown at me in a Czech squat house, right before I left the Czech Republic. Apparently the girl had a boyfriend…

At least it wasn’t because of your music?

No. No. I met the guy- It was awkward because I met the guy. Like, I was hanging out with this girl and she was being flirty or whatever, and I was reading a book and I was showing her the book, and she had her head on my shoulder…

And he’s like, “Alright, I’m going to go to bed. It was nice to meet you.” And I’m like, “Nice to meet you too.” And ten minutes later, I hear a door slam open, and a highball glass just smashes on the landing above us…He storms out, slaps the brim of my hat, and goes riding off into the night, crying on his mountain bike. It was so weird, because if I had gotten any inclination- if he had even given me a stinkeye – I would have been like, “Ok. Cool,” and backed off. She’s like, “Yeah, he’s my boyfriend…”And I’m like, “What the fuck you didn’t say this for? Fuck this. Peace. I’m out of here”… That was the best one I think.

And then you left the Czech Republic?

Yeah, then we left the country. (laughs) We’re going back in December though; we can’t help ourselves. After the Tegan and Sara shows are done, we’re going to go back to the Czech Republic. It was our first time playing the Czech Republic, and they were the best shows of that whole tour, better even than places like Berlin, cities that we really kill in. They were amazing, and they wanted us back immediately, so we were like, “Okay.” So, it looks like we’re going to go back and – man – it looks like we might be able to add Slovakia and Lithuania too. I can just continue to check boxes on my passport.

You have sort of an Eastern European thing going on?

Yeah, Eastern Europe is the most exciting for me, particularly those countries that are still in transition. I really want to visit countries in flux, and I want to go to as much of Eastern Europe as I can before Putin takes it all over again.

Come on, that’s not definite…

It’s not definitive…But he’s penciled it in. (impersonating Putin) 2011: take over Eastern Bloc, reclaim Lithuania… ban The Astronautalige. (laughs)

Is there any of your old stuff, or new stuff that you really like playing when on tour? Either because of the crowd, or just for yourself, material you’re particularly connected to…

My shows are very different from my albums. My albums are much more low-key, while a rap show is like a party. I like my shows to be up-tempo, and I like for people to have fun and I like to entertain. But, I do have a particular connection to some of the slower, simpler songs, so I like playing those. But, I like seeing my music make people happy; that means so much to me. So, there’s certain songs, like “Oceanwalk,” that I’ve played so many fucking times. I mean, I’ve probably played 2,000 shows in my life, and I’ve probably played “Oceanwalk” more than three-fourths of the time, so I’ve sang that song so much and so I had to take some time off from it. But now, I see how much it makes people happy, and I’d be an asshole to stand in the way of that. That’s really a total gift. So, generally the songs that I sing for myself are really short, and really quiet and pretty. I use them to catch my breath. And the rest of them I just play because of this perverse desire to watch people smile. I love that opportunity of my job.

Alright. So, you’ve touched on a lot of this already, but what do the next six months look like for Astronautalis? You’ve mentioned you’re touring extensively, and tthen there’s the Maxx Moon stuff, and the P.O.S. stuff, is that pretty much it?

Yeah, a lot of touring, and hopefully hammering out at least one of these three albums I’m working on. And I think I’m going to make a gangster rap version of Pomegranate. I’m going to redo all the Pomegranate songs over contemporary pop, gangster rap songs that I really love. Like, take a T.I. instrumental and re-perform the lyrics of “Trouble Hunters” over it, but reorganize them so that it comes off as more of a pop song, instead of… whatever the fuck it is. (laughs) Because that’s what I do, I listen to a lot of gangster rap music, so when I’m like in the shower and I’m listening to these songs, I can only hear the beat, but I can’t really make out the lyrics, I’ll just rap my own lyrics over it… So yeah, hopefully in December I’ll just knock that off in a week or so, because I really just want to do it. Everybody’s making mix tapes these days, and I really can’t bring myself to make a mix tape so… I’ll just make a fake mix tape.

Well, it sounds like that project sort of takes you back to your battle rapping roots…

Yeah, I mean I can’t bring myself to write “rap” rap lyrics. It’s really hard for me, unless I freestyle them. But I really just kind of want to… I like rapping over gangster beats. It’s fun.

I know there had been talk about your older albums coming out on vinyl. Is that still in the works?

You and Yer Good Ideas is out on vinyl now. Pomegranate is out on vinyl. The label [Fighting Records], that re-released You and Yer Good Ideas and put out Mighty Ocean pretty much fell to pieces. Mighty Ocean will come out on vinyl some time next year. Because I don’t buy CDs; I hate CDs and I love vinyl, so it breaks my heart that any one of my records isn’t available on vinyl.

So, you’ve played Boston three times…Do you have any favorite venues?

The show I played at TT the Bear’s with Alias and Tarsier, and Electric President, and then Sage [Francis] came and did a surprise set too, which was really awesome. Sage just drove up from Providence and did a guest set. It was totally rad. It was a great night, man. That was amazing. I loved TT the Bear’s, but they were like, “Yeah, come back any time. It was great. We loved your set.” And then we tried to contact them again and they didn’t want us. Which was like… It happens. But other than that, the first three tours I played were the Warped Tour – 2003, 2004, 2005 – and so we played like wherever the fuck they have you play… outside of the city. Gillette, it was at the parking lot at Gillette.

Are there any Boston bands or artists that you’re into, or that you follow?

I mean, Guru, was like… Guru was it for me when I was growing up. and Mr. Lif. Man, I’m trying to think of Boston bands…I’m trying to think. I know that there are bands that I like that are from the area, I just can’t think of who they are. I know I’m going to look through my iPod later and be like, “where are you from? where are you from?!”