(upbeat drumming music) My name's Vice Cooler.

I work in all forms of art, musician, producer, writer, sometimes session player, but also photographer, artist, director.

[People] Three, two, one.

All of those things in a way have been an excuse for me to stay around creative people because that was what I always wanted to do.

I wanted to be where things were being made, where people were making things, and where ideas were being explored.

(upbeat music) So I grew up in the late '90s in the Mobile, Alabama area.

I loved weird music and art, but I was convinced that if I could somehow figure out how to get these things in to where I lived, people would be able to like learn from it, and enjoy it, and also have something to do.

(tranquil music) The building behind me is the previous location of Satori Sound.

This structure is a very significant cultural oasis for people who were interested in the arts.

And what I mean by that is that it was a record store that had an insane collection of records inside for sale, but it also had a great used collection.

And on top of that, the owner, Chuck, was very enthusiastic and supportive of people just hanging out in there, leaving flyers, putting on shows.

(lively music) Me and my friend Alicia, who we would shortly after start XBXRX together, we came in here, and found a flyer just under the used desk.

It was like this Friday in Mississippi and Biloxi.

I ended up seeing Deerhoof, which was the first noisy band I ever saw, which I really identified with because I identified more with the emotions of sound in music rather than like a technical thing.

It really blew my mind.

And I went over to the merch booth, and I think I maybe had like 8 or $10, and they gave me all of their merchandise, said, "Keep the money."

And they were like, "We encourage you to purchase a guitar, and start a band, and if you do that, we will book a West Coast tour for you, and tour with you."

And I was 14 or 15 at that time.

And so that really inspired all of us to immediately start writing music, and like trying to record it.

We were always saying to each other, "As long as we start and stop at the same time, that's what matters."

And we had interpretive dancers and all these things, and all these ideas weren't necessarily cohesive or hyper-focused.

It was just these weird ideas that we had as Alabama kids.

I think we kinda stumbled into all these weird people because they saw teenagers in Alabama that were like, "We are going to make something happen."

And it was weird.

It confused everybody, and I think there was something naively charming about it.

(pensive music) Growing up in Alabama, it was not out of the question to drive six hours to Atlanta to see a band play, and then drive back because me and my friends wanted it that bad.

And that also was symptomatic of how starved things were at the time here for getting access to art.

(pensive music continues) In the late '90s, myself and a few other people, we started bringing acts through the Gulf Coast that would not have stopped here otherwise.

(upbeat electronic music) My inspiration for setting up shows was to basically try to have a space to bring people together where we could build a similar community of interest in art, and politics, and things like that.

(upbeat electronic music) Having access to places like this, and a few other coffee shops, Tillman's Corner Community Center, and eventually a bar, The Splash, let us set up shows there.

Being able to like have a center point that's like entertainment, you're learning, you know, you have weird art coming through, those things are really inspirational to like me and my friends.

(upbeat electronic music continues) (upbeat electronic music continues) (upbeat electronic music continues) One of our first out-of-town shows was with Quintron/Miss Pussycat, and they were great people to learn from, and they were like very important examples of like how to become an adult, and how to treat people, and how to build a community, and how to support your friends, and how to make things, and like execute those things, and finish them.

I have been fortunate enough where I've picked up so much learning by being in rooms with people, and by people being very generous with their time, and their life experience, sharing that with me that I try to be generous in offering those things to people I care about and know.

(pensive electronic music) Be prepared to just be bad at what you're doing for a long time, and be comfortable with that.

Be comfortable at like trying out things, and just being absolutely horrible at it.

And then that way, there's two things that happens.

One, you learn what you wanna do and you don't wanna do, and then two, once you know you do something, and you know you wanna do it, you know you have to get better at it, and then you can focus your time on doing that.

(happy ending credit music)