Harry Schonberg’s Quirky Process On ‘Funky Lunchbox’ EP

Harrison Cooper Schonberg aka Harry Schonberg is a mixed media artist and musician who uses humor and improvisation in his work. From furniture, paintings, murals, and even Rap verses, this creative mind holds nothing back and expresses what many wouldn’t dare to express.

Therefore, if you’re into hilarious freestyle tracks, you gotta read this interview and listen to his new album, ‘Funky Lunchbox,’ right away.

1 — Who were some of your musical influences that helped shape this new project?

George Clinton. I had a ‘Best Of The 80s’ Funk compilation CD in my parents’ minivan which influenced much of the feeling I was aiming for. Mac Demarco, specifically his recent album One Wayne G. The Beastie Boys. Stevie Wonder.

2 — In three words, how would you describe your musical style?

Spontaneous, Slimy, Pop n Lock.

3 — The new EP, ‘Funky Lunchbox’ covers a wide range of hilarious topics, how do you come up with lyrics and concepts for your songs?

Normally, just before I begin working on music, I eat 2-3 Flintstones multivitamin gummies. For some strange reason, this always helps me to get in the headspace to work on music. It has become a sort of ritual for me, and I find it’s really important to anchor my creative process. Usually, I’ll just start by fooling around, almost at random, until something starts to click. A drum loop and a baseline are great, as it often implies a larger feeling, and leaves lots of space to work off.

As far as the lyrics are concerned on ‘Funky Lunchbox,’ pretty much everything was Freestyle. It’s so much fun to just yell and scream, fooling around with cadence and word choice. I made this whole album alone, and so it was often a time for me to just get out whatever chaotic nonsense was bubbling in my head.

4 — Do ideas come to you naturally or do you map things out?

For this project, pretty much nothing was mapped out in advance. In other projects, however, I often sit down and map out the chords and words for songs.

5 — What kind of gear and setup do you use in your home studio?

I just got a set of Eris E5 studio monitors which a friend recommended to me. I have a pair of Sony Studio headphones as well. Other than that, most of the stuff I have is pretty simple. Most of the synths and drums of the album were stocked off Ableton. I also recently found an old Fender Pro Reverb Combo amp buried in a pile of old junk in my parents’ garage. It sounds amazing, but I think some of the wiring is shot because it electrocutes me a little every time I turn it on. Sort of a safety hazard really, but it sounds amazing! It was featured on “vulnerable funk” for most of the guitar work.

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My favorite track is probably “holiday spirit funk final,” or “funky home birth.” The latter was recorded with a great friend of mine, eyesdown. He is a super-talented lyricist, and the music he makes is super inspiring as well.

7 — Would you like to share any funny anecdotes from your time recording this material?

As I was in the process of recording “meth plug out of town funk” I got bit by a large rat in my parents’ basement! The wound then got infected, and I had to go to the emergency room. This was obviously a pretty harrowing experience, and it certainly marked some sort of turning point in the project. I rarely go to the doctors’ office or hospital, and so being in that strange environment filled me with inspiration for sure. After I got back, I had a really easy time cutting a lot of the half-finished ideas I was hanging on to.

8 — Your new EP has such a unique flavor, how would you say it compares stylistically to your past releases?

I would say the lyrics in ‘Funky Lunchbox’ are the most new thing about it, as far as my past work is concerned. I really made an effort to say the most strange and out-of-pocket garbage that I could possibly think of. It was really important to me that an outside listener would sort of understand what I was talking about, but almost as if I was speaking a brand new language. I thought of people that I have met who seemed a bit unhinged and tried to channel some of that abstract energy. I wanted the lyrics to be more divisive than anything else I had made in the past. As far as the beats and production go, I made a real effort to simplify things. Normally I jam so much stuff into my songs, and ‘Funky Lunchbox’ was a great exercise in trimming the fat.

9 — What was going through your mind when your latest photoshoot was taken?

If the photoshoot in question is the one with me sitting on the toilet, the cover for the single “Funky Hell”, then I’d have to say it was a spur-of-the-moment decision that scared me. That dangerous, unsure feeling is what motivated me to release it like that. I was really inspired by a list of banned and censored album covers that I found. Specifically, I remember the “No love deep web” death grips album cover, which originally was the album title written on a man’s penis in what appeared to be sharpie. Around that time, I also saw a poster with Frank Zappa sitting naked on a toilet. This was incredibly inspiring to me. I’ve always been sorta self-conscious about my body, so I think part of me just wanted to push the limits of what I was comfortable with.

I was so worried my parents were gonna chew me out when they saw it. Both of them laughed after they found it though! It helps that the picture is not actually of me but of my uncle Clark D. Schonberg.

10 — As an artist with a visual sense of humor, do you have plans for any music videos? How do you think you’d bring your songs to life on screen?

For music videos, I have released one for “vulnerable funk.” It was filmed on my family’s vacation to Colorado, and centered around a puppet I found in a thrift store that I named “Fool Baby” or “Tom Fool.” He accompanied us throughout the trip and ate dinner with us a couple of times. He was a really swell guy, and we fell in love, but he had some strange political opinions, and I was forced to distance myself from him in the end. Ultimately a sad tale of falling in love way too fast.

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