Sunday, December 28, 2008

Interview with Chopper: a mad man's rap sheet

From: EmptyThis is old but it wasn't on the web anywhere so I wanted to post it. A while back I had the scary privilege of interviewing Mark Brandon Read aka Chopper. The gangster/author/comedian/painter had just added rapper to his bow with the album An Interview with a Mad Man, produced with some of Australia's underground rappers. Admittedly (I write safely from the other side of the globe) it was a damn shit album, but for Chop's spoken word moments, which are fucking classic. Anyway, Chop Chop has put out a new song with a hip-house artist Ace Wonder featuring Bukkcity, and a sample from the gangster - it's pretty shit. Listen here. Chop has proved himself afor capitalising on his crimes and gangster lifestyle. Of course they’ve only added fuel to the fire by beating up the situation. He repeated the tried process for another few books, naming names and illustrating his torturing repertoire with titles Term of His Unnatural Life, How To Shoot Friends and Influence People before swinging into fiction with The Singing Defective and The Popcorn Gangster and – much to the dismay of uptight parental bodies – the world of children’s books with Hooky The Cripple illustrated by Adam Cullen, and an adults only fairytale The Adventures of Rumsley Rumsfelt. And while he didn’t make a penny from Chopper the biopic of his tumultuous gangster life, it certainly bolstered his profile to become Australia’s anti-hero, a title the man himself