One lives in Chicago, the other lives in New York, but that doesn’t stop the Hood Internet from cranking out mash-up mixtapes.

This post is part of an occasional series of news, interviews and videos in advance of the Monolith Music Festival, Sept. 13-14 at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

The Internet made The Hood Internet (shocking, right?) The blog where their music is posted a few times a week has helped their popular mash-ups spread across the far reaches of the interwebs.

Steve and Aaron, however, are pretty lax about their group’s online popularity. We talked them about the start of their band, how they decide what to put in their songs, and who between the two of them is the better DJ.

How’d the idea for your band come along?

Steve: I don’t even really know if I’d call it a band. I guess it is. That’s a loosely definable term. Me and Aaron were already in a band (May or May Not) and we’d just come and throw ideas around. We were both into old school rap and current s**t as well and we both have pretty expansive musical tastes. And we decided to mess with those things and make weird mash-ups. ‘Cause there’s a lot of stuff circulating on the Internet. Girl Talk had already been doing stuff like that. People were already doing it. We just turned it up a lot and made a lot of them.

How important is the blog and the Internet in general to what The Hood Internet is?

S: Without that kind of channel we wouldn’t really exist in the way that we do. When we put up the first batch of tracks it got noticed pretty quickly by some other well-read pages like Gorilla vs. Bear and it spiraled out from there. If this was 15 years ago we’d be making tapes. There’s that whole thing, fifteen years ago we wouldn’t have the kind of access to the software that we do.

Aaron: I think it’s essential to what we do in terms of the visibility it gives us. I think there’s a lot of DJs and mash-up artists out there but I think it’s one of the things we do differently. I think having one spot where people can come get the music and it’s updated regularly. I think of all of that helps get the word out and get the music out there.

I’d love to hear a cassette mash-up.

S: Those sort of things happened. DJ 12-inches had that stuff. People were doing mash-ups, it just wasn’t as well spread.

How much tweaking do you end up doing when you work on a song? What programs do you use?

S: In the beginning I was using Sonic Foundry Acid and Aaron was using a 1997 version of Cool Edit. It was some pretty rudimentary s**t. Now we both work on Ableton. If we’re working on an a cappella track that has a melody and we’re trying to fit that on a song, we’ll change the pitch of it so it doesn’t sound completely out of tune. Ableton has good interpretive algorithms for that kind of thing. We don’t just paste an a cappella track directly over a song. There’s definitely a fair amount of tweaking. It ranges from song to song. Sometimes songs come together in a matter of hours, sometimes they come together after a few days.

A: I use Ableton Live. It depends on the song. Some of them are pretty easy and you can sort of just cut out the parts that you need and put a vocal track over them. Some of them I’ll have to add drums over top of it. Moving stuff around a lot more. Sometimes it’s quick and sometimes I’ll work on it over the course of a couple of weeks.

Have you always been just as into rap as you were into rock and electronic stuff?

S: Not entirely. When I was in junior high I started getting into alternative rock and I knew about rap but I wasn’t really into it. When Nirvana hit I liked a lot of that stuff and listening to They Might Be Giants. I sort of always had broad tastes. In college I started getting into underground hip-hop and after that I got into Cash Money, Hypnotized Mind and all that southern s**t. I remember hearing “400 degreesâ€? by Juvenile and I didn’t like it at first, I was trying to be sophisticated and like “whatever,” but then I got really into it. I knew who Master P was but I didn’t really follow what was going on in the South.

What about electronic music?

S: A lot of the electronic stuff I listen to I don’t think of as electronic. LCD Soundsystem I don’t actually think of being as electronic. There’s drums on stage. The music I listen to that’s “electronic� I like because it’s made for and by people for like rock music. A lot of it… it’s whatever.

A: For me it’s gone back and forth. When I was younger I was really into rap. Back in the early ’90s (and) late ’80s. For a while I stopped listening to most rap. And then it’s something I got back into probably… it’s been off and on for about eight years. So now I think it’s a healthy mix, and when I was younger it was one or the other.

How do you decide which artists/songs you want to put together?

S: (It’s) pretty arbitrary. We try to stay on top of a lot of new stuff. We’ll have older a cappella tracks. A lot of it is what is kind of available. Finding rap a cappella. That stuff surfaces on the internet where we primarily get a lot of our stuff. Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s bands we like and have been listening to, or songs we kept in the back of heads. Like, “Oh, that would make a good beat.” Or it’s just trying to put a really stupid title together—although that’s mostly Aaron.

A: I think in terms of picking artists we’re not too picky. In terms of picking the rap we use for a track, it’s just what’s out there. There’s only a few a cappella tracks in existence. For the music that we mash it with usually I just pick what I’m listening to at the time that I like.

Do you walk around with your ears up hearing songs and wondering what can you mash-up?

S: This probably just comes from playing in music, (but) you think, “I really only like that part of a song.” I’ll hear a little break or part of a song and it’ll have a rhythm I could use and write it down, or keep in the back of my head.

Do you rap at all?

S: We would both make raps on our computers in college. I had heard his group from the guy who played Juvenile for me. I went to school at University of Wisconsin, and he was in Ann Arbor and he was in a rap group with one other guy. My friend was friends with the other guy so we didn’t meet until later, but I ended up hearing his rap group from this guy. So we both have rapped, but I wouldn’t consider either of us rappers.

A: That was when I was in college and something just for fun on the side. It was never a serious pursuit of rapping. And I’m not very good at rapping, so that never took off.

What are your live shows like?

S: We have this whole giant archive of all of our songs, and some non-Hood Internet songs that we just sprinkle on top of things so people don’t have to listen to an entire set of mash-ups. We mix those and we have this sound effect that’s like “BOING!� and just sprinkle and pepper… and we have video projections. Pretty much it’s just two guys on a stage playing a computer. I can’t really glorify it. It’s more about what’s coming out of the speakers.

Have you seen other mash-up artists live before?

S: I work at The Metro in Chicago and Girl Talk played here and I had seen him a couple of times before. It’s crazy (that) people are already on the stage dancing during the first song. You don’t really get that so much. People aren’t really as familiar with our stuff. I played by myself in St. Louis and the crowd was really inhibited and like, “OK, it’s dude on stage with a computer.� It’s not much to get excited about. I could see being in the audience and thinking the same thing. It’s more about the production and the presentation. I think of Justice’s live set up with the huge cross and I’m like, “That looks awesome,� or the Daft Punk pyramid. And it’s not like they’re recreating the keyboards live. It’s like DJ set, sort of, but there’s not a record player up there.

A: Uh… they’re awesome. It depends on the show. It’ll be Steve and I and we’ll have a computer or two with all of our songs on them. And we’ll play the mixes we do and then put another song over it. On occasion we have some live video projection. In general we just try to make it a big dance party.

What would you say to people who don’t consider mash-ups to be songs?

S: That’s fine. They are. They’re sort of bastardizations of other songs. If they don’t consider them songs that’s fine. People can think what they want. There’s this guy who wrote about us in the Chicago Reader and he said there’s no music more soulless than the mash-up. I don’t think I could really try to argue that and stand by it, but we try to re-imagine how it could sound with some other stuff. It’s mostly just fun.

A: I’d say that’s absurd. Of course they’re songs. I can see not liking the art form but to deny them being songs is crazy. I think they’re like remixes and people can like them or not like them and that’s legit.

How much touring have you guys been able to do as the Hood Internet?

S: Not a whole lot. Aaron and I both hold down full time jobs so we don’t really go on tour. We go somewhere for a few days, or just go somewhere for a weekend.

Who’s the better DJ and why?

S: Well my feeling is that, I think Aaron spends a little more time with his tracks than I do. Aaron makes better tracks than I do most of the time. I think my ratio of good-to-bad is far greater than his. But live stuff — I figured out how to perform and do what we’re doing live on Ableton Live and I do that better. So Aaron is like a better producer and live presentation is more of my field.

A: I think Steve’s probably better. He’s been doing this for longer. I would say Steve’s better, yeah. I would say we’re better when we’re DJing together. We’re more powerful with our powers combined.

Like Voltron?

A: I was thinking Captain Planet but like Voltron. Like Voltron mixed with Captain Planet.

Who are you most excited to see play at Monolith?

S: Hercules and Love Affair is definitely my number one. I’ve been a fan of Del (Tha Funky Homosapien) since the first hip-hop stuff I was into. TV on the Radio is pretty awesome. I like Atmosphere. There’s like a ton of good bands. Festivals are exhausting. I was just at Pitchfork… Lollapalooza is coming up and it takes twenty minutes to get from one side to the other. You might end up not going to see your favorite band cause you’re just like, “Screw it!� The whole Monolith line up looks pretty solid and I haven’t been to Red Rocks before.

A: I think I’m most excited to see TV on the Radio. I’ve never seen them. I love their record. They should be exciting live. As long as they don’t play any of that Scarlett Johansson record. That would be pretty disappointing. If she wants to join them on stage though… that could be a good thing.

How do you guys keep coordinated since one of you lives in Chicago and the other lives in New York?

A: We do lots of emailing and instant messaging and stuff like that to be on the same page. Usually bouncing around a couple of different projects we’re working on. Individual tracks we work on alone and post when we’re done. For bigger stuff like the mixtapes we work together and email back and forth what projects we’re working on. Sometimes one of us will work on a track and get it part of the way finished and then send it to the other and then back and forth till it feels right. Live shows we switch off between who’s picking songs and manipulating them.