Talking to Apples in stereo frontman Robert Schneider is something like sitting around the kitchen table with a few friends and a six-pack while knocking out the screenplay for a new episode of Seinfeld. With Schneider at the controls of this magic-bus ride, he pulls the topics he likes out of thin air like some deranged conjurer, instantly discards and modifies them, apologizes for going off the tracks, backs the engine up to the starting point, begins talking about something entirely different, then excuses himself to take brief notes on some future project while humming a melody that’s just popped into his head. He’s also one of a handful of great songwriters to emerge over the past 20 years, a psych/pop genius whose knack for addictive melodies and memorable lyrics is perfectly obvious on Travellers In Space And Time (Simian/Yep Roc). Schneider will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with him.
Schneider: Mathematics is my main creative pursuit, besides making music. You use simple rules to play with these intangible structures and patterns that have an almost magical inner harmony, a lot like playing piano or guitar. Sometimes I will be completely immersed in thinking about an infinite series or something, and it is as if the world around me dissolves. I see nothing but these beautiful abstract shapes and colors floating around me, like the astronaut at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Favorite mathematicians: Pythagoras, Descartes, Euler, Hardy, Ramanujan and Martin Gardner, who sadly passed away in May.
Video after the jump.
