Hip-hop act goes solo

It was an Apple product that motivated Click-Clack, also known as Eric Mikulak, to start working with hip-hop. After his mom bought a Macintosh computer, he started messing around with GarageBand and made his own beats and recorded his own songs. Now he’s getting ready to release his first record Housework on Feb. 17 at Beauty Bar.

Is this your first record?

Pretty much. It’s the first one that’s all me. I released mixtapes before. I’ve been rapping since I was 15, so I’ve released mixtapes before in high school and stuff, but this is the first one that I can fully take serious.

What other projects have you done in the past?

I’ve been in quite a few bands. I still associate with SiP SiP and I had a solo project—not really a solo project but more of my own band in Karmatron. That was a five-piece including me. That was more of, like, funk, soul and backing band instead of me just rapping and singing some. That was a lot of fun, but we all sort of developed and went our separate ways. A couple of those dudes are playing with Ruby Jane now, and they play Lollapalooza and ACL (Austin City Limits Music Festival), so they’re doing well for themselves too.

I actually saw them at ACL.

Yeah, Colter and Kai are good buddies of mine. They are the rhythm section. They lay shit down. Karmatron, we played a lot of places. I played a lot of places with SiP SiP too, and I have played two shows at Beauty Bar by myself. I literally press space bar on a computer and rap for, like, 30 or 40 minutes straight.

Do you find that solo shows are a little bit more intimating than band shows?

No, live is a release for me. I’ll get stressed out some the day of, but performing my songs live is what does it for me.

I read that after years of working and 350 tracks, you are releasing this. How did you narrow the tracks down for this album?

Um, I don’t know. I wanted to do something that was just me where I produced all the beats. Because I recorded a whole mixtape basically on other people’s beats and got mastered and everything and ended up not wanting to release it, because I started making my own beats again. To me, it’s probably 40 tracks that were just me and then just narrowed them down to 13 or 14. But my main reason I’m making this is to finally have a project where I’m producing and MCing.

What is your influence when it comes to making your own beats?

I don’t know. I just find something I like and trying to make a sample unrecognizable and change it enough to where it’s a completely different-sounding thing and then build off of that. I usually start with a click track and try to sample something to it and then build around that.

I saw your video for “Bulletwound.” What was that like filming it? How did the idea come about?

We had this whole plan to film a video, and we had a date set where we were going to film it at The Parish. Then one night, I was working and Cory (Green from Vagabond Collective, also the video’s director/producer) just texted me and said, you want to do a video? He had Aaron Benson (cinematographer) ready to film, and so we just went to this rooftop and did it in one night. I just sent a text out to my friends saying, like, if you want to be in a video, come tonight. We just threw it together spontaneously. There wasn’t really a plot or anything. Cory just kind of snapped into director mode and orchestrated all of us and told us what the shots were going to be even though he doesn’t film or do anything of that sort. He’s not really a videographer or anything. He just orchestrated it. It worked out. I had the idea to do the last shot. The last shot we recorded with me rapping it way faster and the beat sped up, so we could slow down the footage, but that was basically the only thing we had planned. I went home after work and changed the song and then brought it to the rooftop. So it was like us both being insane and wanting to get it done, because we’d been talking about it.

Thursday you’re celebrating the release. How does it feel to release it? Are you excited? What are you feeling right now?

Yeah, of course I’m excited. Been a long time coming, I guess. That’s kind of cheesy.

Well how long has it been?

I don’t know. The main pool of tracks that I selected from I’ve been working on for eight or nine months. It took me a long time to get to the point where I was fully comfortable rapping on my own beats, and thinking that they were subsistent by themselves. It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been fucking working on this shit since I was 15, and finally I’m taking something serious and getting merch for it and playing shows around here. I’m excited.

Sarah Vasquez