Saints of Everyday Failures

Three of Puget Sound's greatest failures are about to roll over the state capital. The Saints of Everyday Failures is the latest Hip-hop crew to rip out of Olympia's swelling bellyful of dope MCs and beat-smiths, and they're ready to drop their latest album, True Meaning of Survival, Dec. 15 at the China Clipper.
Unlike many of the crews that have dragged themselves from the primordial sludge of underground Hip-hop, the Saints are both original and sick as fu*k. MCs ePrhyme and D-Scribe juggle lyrics that make Arthur Rimbaud look like a wimp, and turntablist Tha Goonie will scratch your nastiest itch.
Survival is the fourth album from this much-slept-on mob, which has given birth to an album every six months since their first album dropped in spring 2003. Survival, says D-Scribe, is the first album to feature what he considers the crew's tightest line-up, and has more classic Hip-hop flava than their last several releases.
The Saint's art was born of the dynamic tension that existed between their love of music and their love of writing, says D-Scribe. In addition to being just plain dope, both he and MC ePrhyme play multiple instruments, swim in music theory and had spent the better part of their lives writing.
"Rap is a way to integrate the senses," says ePrhyme. "It's an ideal marriage of music and meaning."
After kicking the idea of producing an album around, D-Scribe locked himself in a room one morning and emerged like Moses a day later with eight cuts recorded on an old four-track.
"We were just sorta messing around at that point," says ePrhyme. "Then, all of a sudden, the cuts got really good."
Recognizing the potential for dopeness, ePrhyme and crew invested in a Roland 808, a Korg 16 track and several other goodies. After that, it was on. The two MCs had already written an album's worth of lyrics, and they spent several days in the dark, steaming recesses of what would become known as Sex Magic Studios laying down beats with the help of mysterious producer MyLeftFoot. That spring, their first album, "After the Fall,", was released. They have released two more albums "The Placebo Effect" and "PostApocOlympia" and have appeared on stage with names like Hieroglyphics co-founder Del the Funky Homosapien, Freestyle Fellowship viper Aceyalone and Cannibal Ox mainstay Vast Aire. But these are the last cats likely to let success go to their heads.
"Our name is an attempt to convey humility," says ePrhyme, who works two jobs in addition to pumping out sick rhymes and organizing shows. "There will always be something to strive for. No matter how good you are doing, you can always do better. We glorify our limitations and our ability to work within them."
All humility aside, though, these cats are filthy. ePrhyme, whose name is a nod to ontologist Robert Anton Wilson's semantic system that avoids all cognates of the word "is," raps at you, with lyrics and a raging poet's delivery that'll make you take a step back. D-Scribe rhymes with sick precision, spitting frighteningly subtle verses that get under your skin and are likely to wake you up in the middle of the night. Tha Goonie handles beats like an experienced lover, layering cuts produced by reclusive producer MyLeftFoot like a turntable tantric. People that go to their shows leave feeling strange, altered.
When asked about the themes that permeate their complex, often cryptic rhymes, D-Scribe says: "Rap is the most poetic of all forms of music- it's like a different language," he says. "These songs represent our lives, what were going through. We hope people find their lives in our lyrics. What does it mean? I don't know. The meaning changes with the listener."
- The Weekly Volcano