Jump to Interview with Musician chris†††

On March 5, I watched a video that was a combination of television broadcasts and air traffic control messages on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Specifically, I was looking for a sample from chris†††’s (real name John Zobele) 2018 closing track “Thoughts And Prayers.”

While listening to the song from chris†††’s album, Deep Dark Trench, the last piece of audio caught my attention—a woman saying “We’re back at 8:30 on this Tuesday morning.”

What seems like an innocuous statement to most, a simple television broadcast, instantly alerted me—especially regarding the context that “Thoughts & Prayers” is placed within. Many of the song titles on the album allude to a great American disaster: “Falling,” “National Tragedy,” “Never Forget,” “Reliving Hell,” “From The Ashes,” and “American Dream.” I could feel that this album was trying to say something. 

When hearing the words “Never Forget” many Americans are led to think about 9/11, and I was too. I knew the actual event occurred mid-morning, specifically from 8:46 AM – 10:03 AM. And that September 11, 2001 fell on a Tuesday, so I found the previously mentioned video, and began searching for the sample. I did not find it, but the actual sample was indeed taken from the day of the attacks.

Once I figured out there was a 100% intentional and direct connection to 9/11, I began searching within the setlist for more hints, or any general commentary on America during the 2000s.

At this point, it’s worth mentioning there is not a single piece of original content on this album. chris††† took various samples, tweaked, chopped, or otherwise edited them into a unique composition, similar to a photo collage, or a ransom note.

Without writing any unique lyrics, and any words coming from pre-existing media, chris††† had to get creative to tell the story he wanted.

Many are probably turned off of this album by now, and I don’t blame you, chris††† himself, although referring to the political content, remarked in an interview with the Pittsburgh City Paper that “Some people are going to look at it and see nothing—and that’s fine. They could see it as a crap, faux-art-house sort of album thing. And that’s fine, it’s not an album for everybody and I get it. There was a time when I was making it when I was thinking, is this even good? But it speaks to some people, and it [spoke] to me [while] working on it.”

This album spoke to me, or to be more specific, it whispered to me. I grasped certain aspects or songs, and wanted to hear it more clearly, to dig deeper. And the first song that quickly became clear to me was “World Peace.”

The song contains 4 samples, some of which overlap each other to create this unique mixture of sounds, one part slow and dragged out valorous guitar, another part loud and wonderfully chaotic in your face 8-bit style noise that almost sounds like a victory theme of the song. Then the listener is hit with a song they surely recognize, Miley Cyrus’s “Party In The USA.” However the song is so massively slowed down that it doesn’t feel like the same song played on high school sport team buses. It’s haunting, broken, a facade.

Without any written lyrics from chris†††, this is where speculation is bound to go wild, and I sure as hell went wild. Here is my theory, a synthesis of “World Peace” and its contortion of “Party In The USA”:

Whenever America declares a state of peace, and a celebration ensues, the next war begins quickly after. This can even be seen in the pre-9/11 world. World War II ended in 1945, but America and the Soviet Union swiftly began the Cold War, and with it, not 5 years after Hitler shot himself, did the Korean War erupt. 

Once the Cold War ended, many Americans rejoiced, filled with pride for beating out the Soviet Union, and soon to enter into a new millennium—some rejoiced at the end of history. However, history never ends, and new blood was sure to be spilled.

The broken promises of world peace were amplified after 9/11, when the War on Terror began. American troops were deployed into various middle eastern countries, to fight at least 3 different groups, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and The Taliban, some even funded by the U.S. to fight the previous militant group, to then be betrayed. All in service to line war profiteer pockets, satisfy Lockheed-Martin shareholders, and of course, secure that black liquid gold: oil.

Nearly every president since George W. Bush had made the promise to pull out of the Middle East, but they all knew how disastrous it would be. Americans rejoiced when Bush announced the death of Saddam Hussein. Obama reported the death of Osama Bin Laden, and Trump reveled in the fact that “[Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi] died like a dog. He died like a coward.” Despite these apparent successful executions of justice, American troops spent 20 years in the desert, until Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, which plummeted his approval ratings.

Despite the constant war, Americans still celebrated when Hitler died, when Japan surrendered, when the Soviet Union fell, and when Saddam Hussein was killed. “I know it’s gonna be okay. Yeahhhh, it’s a party in the USA!”

But this celebration is half-lived, there is always another war to fight, there are always people to kill, there are always young people to sacrifice. Therefore, a corrupted, twisted, and manipulated version of Miley Cyrus’s 2009 hit song.

Additionally, Americans have had an extreme privilege to be mostly isolated from any and all warfare. America has never been invaded by land since 1812, when Canada burned down the White House and depending on your interpretation, they have never been directly attacked since 1945, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor or 2001, during the attacks on the Twin Towers.

So, for Americans, “It’s gonna be okay” but for the Vietnamese children being incinerated by napalm, for the “Several Palestinian citizens wounded” by IDF soldiers, and for a Muslim living in America, they don’t receive that privilege.

Let’s recenter ourselves, go back and listen to the song “World Peace.” What were your first reactions? I wouldn’t blame you if it was “This is weird” or “Oh! Miley Cyrus sample! Cool!” What’s your second reaction, now armed with all this information, how do you perceive chris†††’s work?

Let’s return to that Pittsburgh City Paper interview, and actually finish reading the whole thing.

The interviewer concludes by asking John Zobele (artist name chris†††) about the “recent” Squirrel Hill Synagogue Shooting, and Zobele encapsulates the American mindset about great tragedies.

“I don’t see this as a coincidence because that stuff happens everyday, and that’s also part of the ending where it’s like, thoughts and prayers you know. And we’re at this point right now where it’s like, it happens and it’s gone. Sure, if I’m in Squirrel Hill I’ll see signs but outside of Squirrel Hill, I don’t see anything, hear anything. It’s like, it happened here and at this point, no one else cares. It’s like the Las Vegas shooting—the biggest mass shooting on record. And I haven’t heard a peep. These sort of things happen, and since 9/11 I think we’ve gotten to this point where it’s commonplace, we’ve gotten over the “Oh my god it happened!” And the next day it’s like “Oh … it happened.” And the third day it’s like, “We’re still on this?””

What was the most recent mass shooting you remember?

For me, 3 came to mind, but none of them had a straight forward name, or a good reason for me to remember them.

• I remembered that one Black Nazi kid who killed one then killed himself, mostly because of the dichotomy of a Black Nazi. (January 22, 2025)
• I remember that one transgender guy who shot up a Christian school, but I only remember it because Conservatives hyper-fixated on the identity of the shooter. (March 27, 2023)
• And lastly, I remember Uvalde, a shooting with a set-in-stone name that I could recall, and I only remember it because of the infamous police incompetence on display. (May 24, 2022)

I am the problem. I pasted this image into my Google Document, and I giggled to myself. The pitch black dark comedy of children being gunned down while an armed police officer used hand sanitizer was funny to me. I have “gotten over” the Uvalde shooting.

I, and many other Americans have grown complacent, I think it has happened multiple times now where someone will say “You hear what happened in [Town] a [Place] was shot up and X people died” and I will respond with a vague general sympathy, then we both move on and forget it.

How does this connect back again to chris†††? Well, honestly, I just had a really long streak of vaguely-intellectual thoughts and I wanted to put it down on paper. But also, I am currently working on a research project for Mark Rothko, an artist that many people deride, dismissing them as “large blocks of color.” However, I have stuck with Rothko, I’ve done my research, I’ve  read the academic journals, and I think he really has opened up my vision.

So please, as with chris†††, as with Rothko, I implore you to please stick with a piece of art you may not understand. What you may dismiss as “Wacky Miley Cyrus Sample” might be alluding to 9/11. What might seem like “Large colors” might be an invitation to reflect upon one’s own instant reaction, and what some large, 8 ft. X 12.5 ft. towering colors say about universal human emotions.

You may not have an instant train of thought, so reach out to others, share art, share music, share big ideas, and achieve a communal answer. When I first had the idea that Deep Dark Trench was about 9/11, I shared my ideas with people, and a friend of mine responded with “It’s a vaporwave album with Sonichu and Amychu on the cover. How did you come to this conclusion ?????” I think I was guided by my friend’s comment, I then needed to provide evidence for how I came to this conclusion, and so

On March 5, 2025, I listened to a video that was a combination of television broadcasts and air traffic control messages on the morning of September 11, 2001. Specifically I was looking for a sample from chris†††’s 2018 closing track “Thoughts And Prayers.”

Interview with chris†††

I felt like I understood the general idea of chris†††’s album, but I wanted to enrich my knowledge, and looking at John Zobele’s website, he had a contact page, so I filled out a form, and sent him an email. After some time he responded and answered a couple questions I had about Deep Dark Trench, his inspirations, reason behind his creative decisions, and advice for young intellectuals and creatives (responses intentionally left unedited).

Q: What inspired you to theme Deep Dark Trench around 9/11?

chris†††: at the time i had finished a series of very personal projects and wanted to challenge myself and try telling a story bigger than just me. 9/11 as an event is a big concept in the vaporwave scene as the end of the ‘good times’ that vaporwave nostalgia really drives from, i’m certainly not the first or the last to make an album about it.  

Q: How do you feel your commentary has aged? Now that America has pulled out of Afghanistan?

chris†††: i feel like the album still holds up, at it’s core it’s theme is that if we forget, history will repeat itself, thus the 9/11 clip at the end of the album moments before the first attack, meant to foreshadow whatever next horrible national tragedy that comes. 

Q: Do you think there will be another event that will have the same national effect that 9/11 did, or do you think Americans have grown complacent and will forget about another mass disaster in 6 months or so?

chris†††: there will always be another event, as long as there are people in the world who have hate in their hearts and thirst for power, there will be no true peace. i think the whole world has become more complacent, mostly the shortened attention span and fractured culture caused by the internet, i don’t think america has had something big enough to cut through the noise since 9/11, shootings are bad but they are frequent enough where they don’t even register on our radar. 

Q: Do you have any other projects in the works?

chris†††: i’m working on some new music that i’m hoping to get some out this summer, but it’s still in progress 

Q: Does the album title “Deep Dark Trench” hold any particular significance? And why did you choose to use a drawing from Christian Weston Chandler?

chris†††: the deep dark trench is the holes left behind after the attacks, sounded better than deep dark hole lol. as far as the chrischan (real name Christian Weston Chandler) artwork, my roommates were all watching the doc for them at the time, and i couldn’t help but feel an unbelievable sadness towards them, that the internet had kinda ruined their life, and that it was a ‘tragedy’ of sorts. that as well as the imagery of a child like illustration of sonichu in front of the american flag was striking and would make for an iconic cover 

Q: Your most recent project, WWW, seems to have a similar captivating appearance, with an album cover and titles that allude to something involving the military or war. Is there a larger message waiting behind this project that has yet to be dug into?

chris†††: www is a what if scenario of world war 3 happened online and the soldiers are from different factions of the internet. the album doesn’t follow a single soldier’s journey but more so the general feeling of being at war. idk what the deeper message is myself yet, i wanted to focus on an album that sounded good more over concept on this one. 

Q: Do you have any advice for how to analyze initially difficult to comprehend pieces of art?

chris†††: i intentionally leave alot of my work up for interpretation, because it gives life to an album even past it’s time in the spotlight. i think it’s important that no interpretation is wrong, and it’s ok to listen, watch, or read something and not get it or not see it in the same way the author sees it, it’s what makes it fun and exciting to experience art. if you’re having a difficult time connecting to a piece, don’t force it, come back to it at a later date and you might see or hear something you didn’t before, and it’s ok if you don’t, not every piece of media is made for everyone’s consumption. 

Q: Do you have any advice for young artists who want to express themselves or their opinions but don’t know where to start?

chris†††: just do it, you’re gonna have some reaction to whatever you do, whether it’s positive, negative or nothing at all, and once you accept that fact you can do anything. even if you have no idea where to start, just do something.