As prolific as he is as a recording artist, Kyp Malone is terribly difficult to define. From his band’s hard-fought successes, Malone and his band mates have been changing the sound of popular music as the music industry itself is resistant to any type of change in a digital world. Malone’s latest offering, Rain Machine, will be familiar to anyone who follows TV on the Radio while it remains its own entity. Themes of love, spirituality, sex, politics, and death are all expanded in new ways, while the music itself sonically expands on Malone’s previous collaborations.

Malone is passionate in speaking of Rain Machine. It feels like a slight referring to it as a side project. Catching him at the right moment, he comes off as a proud parent gleaming with pride about his new creation.

“We’re still a really young band and we’re getting to know each other,” he says. “We just did two radio sessions today and I felt like I was asking a lot of Heidi, Andy, Carmen, and Ben to have to do sessions when we’re still kind of getting comfortable with each other. It ended up being a really good thing to do, but I don’t think I’m ready to release an official live thing yet. Maybe not this tour, but maybe some version of the show we’re doing on this tour.”

Rain Machine naturally draws comparisons to his other work, which Malone understands, yet takes with a grain of salt.

“I fully expected comparisons to TV on the Radio. The comparison thing is problematic — I’m in TV on the Radio and spent six years writing songs and performing them and producing records in the studio. This is a continuum for me,” he explains, “this is just more music and an opportunity to play with new people I haven’t played with before. It’s not as bombastic as TV on the Radio but there’s a time and place for everything. But people bring their own perceptions to things. They’ll bring their expectations but it’s just another thing.”

During 2008, his primary band, TV on the Radio, reached near superstardom while garnering critical acclaim, and as the tour for Dear Science wrapped, members announced the post-rock ensemble would be taking a well deserved hiatus after a year-and-a-half on the road. Almost immediately, Malone announced the release of an album of side project he called Rain Machine, and rumors of TV on the Radio’s demise began circulating.

“It’s funny that there was any reason to say we were on hiatus, considering the fact we’ve been actively a band as a five-piece for six years — with three LPs in that time, and an EP. Just break that down time-wise; there’ve been a lot of hiatuses and short breaks,” Malone explains. “We haven’t rushed into the studio, except for maybe Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes. Since then we’ve definitely taken our time and gone into the studio when it was right to do so, and that’s what we’ll do this next time around.”

He adds, “It doesn’t feel any different than the last time we took a break, except someone [announced] it on the internet.”

It begs the question how long Malone had been working on the Rain Machine album, since news of its release was so soon after the announcement: “I knew we were going to be done touring the Dear Science record. We do all right for ourselves. I’m my own boss and I’ve got responsibilities. I like to work and I need this to keep going. It brings me fulfillment.”

Malone wasn’t in a hurry to get set up with a label for his work with Rain Machine. “You know how labels work this day and age — they want four months before it comes out to prep and push it. And besides that, I didn’t know who was going to put it out when we recorded it. It’s pretty much been in the can for a year…almost a year. We mixed it in the spring, and we talked to ANTI and they were psyched about it. It wasn’t overnight at all; it was a pretty gradual process.

Like Prince, another artist who redefined musical genres, sexuality has always been a prevalent theme in Malone’s past work, but even the cover of the Rain Machine album is overtly carnal in nature: “[Prince] is definitely someone I’ve been listening to the better part of my life — definitely an inspiration. We listened to Controversy on the way to the club today,” he mentions.

“I could name eight songs by TV on the Radio that I wrote that are more overtly sexual in nature than anything on the Rain Machine record. With the cover, I would say ‘sensual’ before I would say ‘sexual’; I feel like that’s integral to my life experience and what I’m trying to express creatively.”

Malone is one of a few artists who have been able to boast two deals at the same time, which is no small feat since both Rain Machine and TV on the Radio create music that most labels would be reluctant pushing in this economy.

“I have no power in that situation, nor do I know anyone that could potentially make any money off of music. As far as I know…that whole thing is going to eat itself. It’s fine for music to be free. If there’s some other kind of system holding it up and pushing it forward, MySpace isn’t that system. Just because you can post a song online, it doesn’t account for what it cost to record it and how it costs to live in this world. I’m totally fine with music being free if my food is free and my housing is free, my health care is free,” he says.

“If you can fund getting into a studio and making an album off of MySpace downloads, then more power to you, but I think it would be very difficult. Actually, if someones doing it, I’d like to know how, because different models are interesting to me.”

Malone has no worries about what is next for an industry trying to cope with a changing business model as long as he can still find a way to create music.

“If it’s not supported, then they’re just going to support the super commercial stuff. It gets more watered down until it’s just shit culture. And then that industry disappears and they’ll find another way. It doesn’t really matter anyway because music isn’t going to disappear,” he states. “It doesn’t matter if record stores close down or if all the labels fold, and the only thing left is little sound bites recorded to put between commercials to sell shit to people. Music will still exist. And maybe it will go back to where it really has power it potentially holds. More of a more communal thing than the system of raising people up as a celebrity.”

He continues while discussing the music scene in Brooklyn from which he sprang: “For a long time, music was something that was more communally based in most places in the world. My perspective on what was happening [is that] before we were touring the world, that we had an organic music and creative community. It wasn’t everyone holding hands all the time, and there was ego bullshit, but mostly it was a great community. Some people found success out of that, but the whole time there were people doing great shit there.”

With the business struggling to adapt in an online model, Malone has his own thoughts on his band’s online presence.

“You don’t have to have [an online identity], but the label has to. I’ve never seen the TV on the Radio website, I’ve never seen the Rain Machine MySpace page, but the market is such that anyone who’s trying to sell records has to pay attention to that. I’m focusing on the writing, recording and performing aspect on it. I know people who have really embraced it. I have some friends who are really good at that sort of thing. I don’t even like looking at my cellphone, so looking at a computer is a bummer to me.

“I actually wanted the record to be just on vinyl and downloadable, but that didn’t seem financially appetizing to the label.”

Click here to download “Give Blood” from Rain Machine