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Tell us a little about the pre-history of the band, how you all came together to be what you are now. Destroyx: We met through a mutual interest in zines as I ran a zine distro for punk rock zines. We started making zines and other arty things together and music was just the natural progression for our creative collaboration. ZooG: Zines are dirty, gritty, lo-fi, bold and honest - we try to make music that follows this ethos. Destroyx: We formed in 2004, and put out our first EP in the middle of that year. The band has progressed really quickly and has just been an unexpected tornado of activity for us!
You seem to have embraced the cyberpunk motif beautifully. How did this influence your musical style? Destroyx: I think that cyberpunk is the visual and musical metaphor for our generation and is appropriate for our concepts and sentiments in our music. It's about our bleak debased humanity mashed up with technology. I would say our musical style is a mixture of our highly varied influences. We listen to everything from grunge, pop, industrial, noise - which is kind of how our music turned out.
You've got a very busy live schedule at the moment. What would you say are the best and worst parts of the live experience? Best experience: ZooG: I enjoyed talking to people who travelled a long way (up to 4 hours on some nights) to see us. It was great to see people come to several shows. These people really gave us encouragement - we had no idea our music effected people so positively. I really believe we made many friends on this tour. People were coming out in the extreme cold to see The Cruxshadows, Ayria and us play. Destroyx: It was a shock to meet so many Angelspit fans from the other side of the world. We had no idea anyone would know who we were, so it was very flattering and humbling to meet awesome people who enjoyed our music. I really also liked getting to meet the other bands, who were awesome people and very inspiring to travel with. Worst experience: ZooG: Lugging our gear out at 3am in -12C weather (about 10F) after a gig. We'd just walked out of a very hot Australian summer a few days earlier - the difference in the temperature was a real shock! Destroyx: Staying 8 hours in a hospital in Philadelphia before our gig that night. I had an upper chest and throat infection and they put me on an IV drip! (I guess this hospital visit was taking medical metaphor a bit too far!) I performed that night but felt absolutely terrible. What made it worse was that it was our debut gig, which definitely compounded my nerves.
You're on the road with the Cruxshadows at the time of this interview. Would you share with us one of your best concert moments? We'd also like to know how this pairing came about. I saw the Cruxshadows in Phoenix, Arizona a few weeks ago and I think your pairing on stage would be an excellent mix. Destroyx: Since we are on the same label as the Cruxshadows, we were lucky enough to be considered to join the tour. It is certainly a privilege for us to be on this tour. Some might say that it is a strange lineup because we are quite different musically, but I think that it brought a variety of people to the show. Best concert moment: Destroyx: The best concert moment for me is definitely when audiences sing the lyrics back to us, especially in the song 100%!
Who does the majority of the songwriting for the group or is it a totally collective effort? How are your ideas constructed into full-length pieces?
Destroyx: Song writing is definitely a collaborative process. ZooG generally comes up with the initial musical ideas on old fashioned pen and paper and his analogue synths, and then we flesh our the concepts together on the computer. We both work on lyrics and arrangement. ZooG: We definitely fuel each other's creative fire. Sometimes we have a lyrical idea that spawns a song, other times it's a musical idea. Destroyx definitely plays a huge part in the groove and drums of the track. My specialty is bleeps and analogue fat. We both work the vocals and guitars - we like BIG GUITARS and words like bullets. The guitars are played by Graeme Charles Kent from the Australia Punk GODS 'The Grand Fatal'. He is made out of pure ROCK.
Your previous E.P. "Nurse Grenade" was quite impressive, but the new release is nothing short of stunning. What went into the creation of the new album? Did you record and produce this album yourselves or was it done with a producer in a studio? ZooG: Krankhaus was the result of
a lot of experimenting. We wanted to push ourselves as much as we
could. We wanted to make something that was hard and dirty and yet
had a pop edge. We wrote most of the album then toured it in January
2006 throughout Australia. We wanted to make sure audiences liked
it and it worked live. Most of the audiences were familiar with
our EP 'Nurse Grenade' and knew the tracks - but they warmed to
the tracks off 'Krankhaus' much more, even though they had never
heard them! We recorded all of the vocals immediately after the
tour - so we were definitely in ROCK mode! We want to work like
this in future. Music that has been tried out in a live situation
always has more life.
Assuming you could perform a show anywhere in the world, anytime, any way you wanted to, where would it be and what would make it special? ZooG: Our ideal gig would be in a huge abandoned medical research facility. Destroyx: Having a variety of fetish performers and dancers on stage with us would be very exciting. I think incorporating multimedia and theatrical elements is always engaging for the audience.
Speaking of live performances, which do you prefer, the live performance experience or working in the studio? ZooG: I think we've really caught the live bug since being on this tour - we want to play live as often as we can now! The studio is also great fun. We want to figure out how we can combine live and studio as much as we can. We'll be recording more live percussion in future tracks. Destroyx: Before touring the USA I probably enjoyed the studio much more than live gigs. Now I've figured out how to have much more fun during and after gigs. so I'm looking forward to more future gigs. I'm quite a hermit like person when I get creative, so I like burying myself in the studio designing things and working on music. Playing live shows is quite a social event, as I like to meet fans and new people. So it's a little contrary to my nature as I am quite shy, but I'm learning to enjoy that social aspect of playing live.
What's your position on filesharing as a means of distributing music on the internet? Do you think it's something that should be regulated? Do you feel it has helped get your music out to more listeners? ZooG: File sharing is great provided that you are cool with the artist starving and the record company going broke! When we released 'Nurse Grenade' it literally cost us NOTHING, so we could afford to give it out. We recorded it ourselves, got a friend to master it for free, took the photos against a white sheet in our spare room, then duplicated them on our computer - so sure, have it for free. On the other hand, 'Krankhaus' was professionally mastered, the photoshoot used professional a photographer, make-up artists and a pro-studio (which was VERY expensive), then professionally duplicated. The whole thing cost about 6 months worth of rent. If it's worth having, pay for it! We are currently looking at the logistics of our next album and we want to make it much larger than Krankhaus'and it will be funded by album sales.
ZooG: I have
a question: Why do people assume music is free? Music is one of
the main binding elements that defines the Goth/Industrial sub-culture...right?
People always say that "it's all about the music'' but these
people rarely BUY Cds. So why do people feel that the musicians
and record companies who are working SO HARD to produce and distribute
music are worth nothing? Why do people think that just because they
can steal music, they should? Don't get me wrong - the internet
is an awesome way of distributing music and giving people a taste
of what is out there. Many of the record companies who release Goth/Industrial
are NOT "bad guys". They are small business who are doing
it part time or struggling to do it full time. Why do people expect
a professional service but are not willing to pay for it? There
are many bands who MUST do their music full time in order to keep
up with the demands of their fans - these musicians do it because
they LOVE their audience, why are they denied the dignity of an
income? I hate living in a capitialist/consumeristic society - but
free MP3s and catchy anarchy slogans don't pay the rent. People
say they are not giving money to "Record Company Execs",
but ultimately they are not giving money to the musicians either
(plus, we work closely with several record companies and NONE of
them are evil "record company execs" - they're all people
who love music and want to get it to the masses) Show your respect
for the people who make the music - pay them what is due to them.
The more you download, the more the music disappears.
Once you're done with this latest round
of live dates, which I wish you all the best on, what's next for
the band? Destroyx: I'm working on the new design concepts and visuals for our live show, as well as our next release. Playing live is a priority, as we have really developed a taste for it and want to unleash our insanity on as many crazy people as we can. We would love to tour Europe and Japan in particular.
Gothic Beauty Magazine |
