This Guy Has Implanted Earphones Into His Head

Have you ever felt that dread of forgetting your earphones at home leaving your ears unloved on public transport? Well Rich Lee has come up with a novel solution. By placing magnets in his outer ears, he’s now able to connect up a coil to the hole in his outer ear and listen to music; pretty soon he’s going to be able to do it wirelessly. He’s part of the body modification subculture that call themselves Grinders. While most people are asking why, Grinders ask themselves why not pushing their bodies to its full potential they cut themselves open to evolve their senses.

With this in mind I called up Rich and we talked on the phone about where the idea had come from, watermelon sweats and the real reason behind putting magnets in his ears.

Noisey: Hi Rich. So where did your interest in body modification come from?

Rich: I’ve always thought it was cool aesthetically, subdermal implants, cybernetics, things like that. I like tattoos as well; I wish I had more of them.

And what are Grinders groups like? Are they made up of people that watch Robocop too much?

Actually it’s a pretty varied group, we’ve got geeks, body-modifiers, sci-fi enthusiasts, very open-minded people. A lot of transhumanists.

What’s that?

A philosophy that says we can affect our own biology evolving with technology and improve ourselves beyond our current primitive forms. The human body right now is designed to deal with prehistoric threats; it hasn’t really caught up with modern times. Transhumanism essentially observes that now we can and should! That would be bionics, sensory extension, bio-hacking and sometimes genetic modification.

Sounds cool, what hacks are out there for the human body?

There’s a lot going on in the community, everything from genetic modification of muscle tissue for super strength to different sensory enhancements for detecting any spectrum of waves known to man. All kinds of sex implants, like, adult themed…vibrators implanted that, y’know?

Do "stuff"?

Yeah, haha. There’s also hack out soon that would turn the smell of your sweat into watermelon instead of an obnoxious odour.

So, do you read a lot of science fiction?

I don't, I come from a background in finance and international business, I haven’t read too much science fiction, which a lot of Grinders give me shit for. I’ll come up with an idea and they’ll say that I stole it from a book and I thought I was being original, apparently I just don’t read enough sci-fi. I’m not that well read in that style.

Ha. Anyway, when did you consider the earpiece as a body-modification?

Someone else in the Grinder forum came up with the idea, using bone conduction instead of what I’ve done, it was their idea, I thought it was brilliant cause you could hook it up and listen to music or download data from something else.

What were you family’s thoughts on the implant?

I told my wife, she thinks it’s weird but I’m a weird guy and she knows that.

She didn’t persuade you not to?

No, she knows better. She understands what she married.

In laymans terms, what did it involve?

I went to a body modification artist, we met in Las Vegas. They put a scalpel into my tragus, the portion of the outer ear and put in magnets. The incision didn’t puncture the cartilage, which makes it much more bearable in terms of pain.

Do you have a high threshold for pain?

All the Grinders have techniques to reduce the pain like putting ice on to numb the area. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience, though I’ve been through a lot worse.

How did it feel afterwards?

My recovery was speedy; I had to wait a week to do anything with the implant.

I read you have magnets in your fingers as well?

Yeah, when you put a magnet there the nerves around your fingertips regrow and anytime the magnet passes by a magnetic field it causes the magnet to vibrate. The end effect is you pass it through livewires and you could find if it’s on or not.

That sounds confusing, are there any other things you can do with it?

Loads of pub tricks, there’s so much free beer that I’ve gained from it. I can move things across the table like I have telekinesis.

What about the problem of metal detectors?

They’re so small that it doesn’t really come up on the detector.

Do you feel drastically different now to how you were before?

I’ve been steadily making improvements, so I wont have to wear a coil around my neck. It’s gonna have Bluetooth soon.

Check you. What are the uses you hope to get out of it?

Listening to music is a big one, I’ve been hooking it up to different devices to explore the world around me, like a contact microphone, I can now hear through walls at what’s going on around me. If I put it on a bar I could hear what’s happening on the other end of the bar. I can use it like a stethoscope and listen to somebody’s heartbeat.

Woooah. What’s the latest use that you’ve thought of?

I want to add a thermal detector so I can hear a hiss if there’s something thermal nearby. I think you could definitely apply that use to a fire department. Metal detecting is something I’m looking into as well.

What did you think of people criticizing you for potentially listening into other people’s conversations?

I have better things to do, if I did it though it probably might save lives. I don’t wanna spy on my neighbours though.

I guess the government’s already doing it.

With stuff like PRISM, yeah, but I’m just one guy.

Would you recommend that everyone have it done?

Our bodies are obsolete, if we want to survive; we need to be modified. It’s not for everyone but I do consider this the first step.

The first step?

I don’t see a future where we’re not modified.

Spooky. Thanks Rich!

Follow Dan on Twitter @keendang