Mark Rodgers aka CAHM

My friend Mark Rodgers has just released an EP which he's put up on a website www.cahm.co.uk. I thought it was rather good. Here's a few questions I put to him.

Where does the name CAHM come from?
Originally when I first got round to writing songs I was working different factory/crappy jobs and spent time working in a hospital as grounds/porter. All of these jobs seem to have an attitude of discouraging free thought or any ideas outside of a tabloid newspaper, the hospital being the worst culprit.
This institution spawned one of the first songs 'the working warrior', a musical call to arms against people who want to kick down people's dreams to maintain the status quo. The second was a reflection on being let down by people (usual token whiny melancholy song!) friends and figures of affection.
The conclusion was that all these feelings and actions although not always physical but were in fact Crimes Against Human Minds. This first collection of demo acoustic and trip hop tracks under this new name were lovingly locked away under the ep title of 'Fighting Denial'.
These days just having the name as CAHM amuses me as I kinda see it as calm spelt badly.

Whats the best lyric you've written?
"The cloak that keeps us warm, is the one that hides the daggers." From Survive In Distrust

Who was your favourite band aged 15?
Nirvana, I just religiously listened to bleach and nevermind and regularly cited it as world changing stuff if only people would reeeeally listen to. Such a classic teenager!

What song do you wish you'd written?
Toooooooooooooooooooooo many for too many reasons! For saying a lot with only a couple of chords id go for John Lennon's 'Working Class Hero'. For passion and aggression Refused's 'New Noise'. For thinking in so many directions Radiohead's 'Paranoid Android' and for the love noise Nirvana's 'Scentless Apprentice'

What book has influenced you more than any other?
Its prob going to be close run race between my sociology text book 'Haralambos' from my A-levels and 'Introduction to Buddhism' by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. The first for giving me an interest in how the world works and the second for how everything works.

Any genre of music you genuinely hate?
Anything generated from a fucking tv show! Usual boy/girl bands generic pop groups in general. Straight simple house music, I didn’t really get the simple beat its painfully dull and doesn’t ever go anywhere. Girls can wriggle to anything and look normal but it just makes guys do a semi strut dance whilst pointing the fingers to the same beat for 4 hours! Modern R&B its either "my boyfriend is a twat" or "baby do you want to see my dong?"

If you were the master of the universe, what would you change?
I'd consider making cows blind…all they do is stare at you whilst plotting something. Failing that everyone's mind, literally people don’t often think about what they are thinking.

If you had to describe your music, without using adjectives, could you?
The result of a life of paying attention to people.

You are a Buddhist, right? Does your religion pervade your music? Does it help you in any day-to-day way?
I think I'm always going to be my own worst contradiction. The music that has often inspired me has been born of anger, fury and all the other negative emotions to the point that I've never even written a positive love song which most people do at some point. The only positive song I've created was a trip hop spoken word thing. I used a speech made by Ghandi on the divine and some samples of the Muslim Adhan, hopefully this wont be taken as blasphemy. Essentially I wanted to create something reflecting the positive influence of practising religious people and remind people of the power of non-violence
In the real world I like to think I am a lot more compassionate and patient than I used to be and I don’t really fear anything anymore. So in reality being a Buddhist has brought more balance and has removed a lot of old self-destructive tendencies I used to have. I think my music is the last place I have where I get to be a grumpy git throwing the dinner at the tv kinda guy!

You are also into Free Running (AKA Parkour) too. What's your favourite move?
I was always quite content with a nice kong vault with a bit of drop, mostly because it always felt like an all or nothing move and everyone loves the feeling of flying.

Who are your parkour heroes?
David Belle…just watch District 13. And a dude named Forrest who I met at a training thing in London, he was a prime example of someone who has managed to have rid himself of an ego whilst being a professional.

Do you have a favourite piece of gym apparatus?
Theses days I'm kinda limited to the floor and to walking around on my hands as my foot is pretty ruined after a semi-successful gymnastic trick (I landed the trick but it busted the wrong part of my foot and ankle). One of my friends at the gym has been trying to teach me capoeria much to everyone's amusement!

Any plans for performing live?
At the moment this is a strong maybe! I've finished with the band Todays Eden now so I wont be performing with a band for some time. However my friend Nick Parton of Fine Excuses fame (www.fineexcuses.co.uk) thinks an open mic night is calling so it may be time to look foolish for my friends some point soon. This is of course if Nick agrees to perform too!

If you could travel back in time and pass on a piece of advice to yourself as a child, what would it be?
Something along the lines of "if you don’t want to go to school mass then refuse as they cant make you!"

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