Originally published by the now defunct newempire.com
2000
by Evan South
1.) Mike, can you explain the evolution of Fiction 8 as
a solo project with "DI" to more of a band with
"Chaotica"?
Mike - It wasn't really so much a solo project back
then. It was more that the other two band members at
the time didn't really give a shit about Fiction 8. The
keyboardist was busy going certifiably insane, and the
guitarist was more caught up in his own band. It felt
like a really dysfunctional family where I played
mommy most of the time and just stayed in the kitchen,
cleaning up the vomit (laughs). I always wanted to be
part of a band, rather than go it solo. Even though Mark
Mothersbaugh or Gerald Casale generally wrote most
of the stuff for Devo, their music was much more
interesting because everybody in the band put their
own take on the individual parts. Their albums always
had a wonderful energy because they didn’t sound like
some homogenized crap churned out of someone’s
sequencer. I think the reason I’m most happy with
“Chaotica” is because it really was a band effort. Mardi
and Steve brought a lot to the album and have brought
a lot to the shows and have generally made it a lot of
fun to do music again.
Steve – You know, the best part about being in this
band is the fact that, even if we weren’t in a band
together, I would still spend a lot of time with Mardi
and Mike. They are friends, not just band members.
That makes the band environment something very
enjoyable.
Paisli- Yeah.. what they said! I was actually friends with
Mike when Dissonance was released and met Steve not
long after. I was eventually brought on to help out with
promotion. The transition to playing with Fiction8 was
pretty easy, they needed a third member and I could
play instruments, so that was that. It’s just so much fun
to work with these two. No matter how difficult things
are, or how crazy we all get, we still manage to really
enjoy being around one another. We spend a lot of time
together outside of music too and I think it really makes
a difference now and will help us stick together for a
long time.
2.) Not only is this the third album but also the third
record label for you. Will this release be licensed
overseas to Matrix Cube, your last label?
Mike - No, I don’t think so. We were originally slated
torelease two more discs on Matrix Cube but I think it
was a mutual decision to split. Matrix’s parent company
(Trisol) was hoping we’d continue heading in more of a
goth direction, but Spirits was pretty much ‘it’ for us.
The tone of that disc was really set by our former
guitarist and after he got the boot, we really didn’t feel
like continuing in that direction. We told our
management and the label that we’d be heading back
into the electronic territory. And I think after we
submitted the demos for “Chaotica”, it became pretty
obvious to them that they’d either have to completely
change their marketing strategy or give us our walking
papers. Thankfully, they were pretty understanding
about the whole thing and let us sign with Nilaihah
without too much of a fuss. It was definitely a good
move for us and has given us a chance to release a disc
in the U.S.
3.) How would you compare "Chaotica" with your two
previous efforts "DI" and "Spirits"?
Mike – It’s a bit different than both I think. It probably
has more in common with “DI” just because it is a lot
more EBM and dance-oriented than “Spirits” was. But
I think the songwriting on “Chaotica” is a lot more
evolved than anything we’ve done before. A lot of
people have been saying that this new one is our best,
and I think I’d have to agree with that assessment. With
this new band line-up (Steve joined the band after the
release of “DI” and Mardi after “Spirits”), things have
clicked a lot better in the studio than they ever did in
the past.
4.) How do you translate the studio material into a live
setting? I notice you are much more active live now...
Mike - It’s really not that hard. Particularly with this
new disc, a lot of the material was written while we
were playing out all the time. So I think when you’re in
that “live” frame of mind, you just sort of gravitate
towards writing that way. It’s not even really a
conscious thing. For the most part we don’t have much
trouble picking what to play live.
Steve – Actually it’s very easy to do live shows. The
only thing is difficult is the equipment that we bring to
the shows. The list of equipment that we need to do a
particular song keeps growing. Pretty soon you will
only see Mike and Mardi, and there might or might not
be someone behind those keyboards. (laughs) That
however, only makes live shows more fun for me. The
more things I have to coordinate and control at the
same time to pull off the song in a live setting, just
makes the shows more fun. Is that masochistic?
Mardi – I think the reason we’ve been more active live
lately is not that it’s easier, but that we finally have
options for locations to play. We’ve met a lot of people
that have been willing to help us a lot and work on
booking shows, so that obviously makes it easier. It’s
never been very difficult to pull off a live setting, even
though there are a lot of things we’d like to add or
improve.
5.) As one of the few popular American electro
projects, how do view the US "scene"? What would
you change or improve?
Mike - Hmmm … that’s a tough one. You know, I
don’t know if I’d change a thing. There are a few
bands out there that are just rehashing old Skinny
Puppy discs. But for every one of those deadbeats,
there are a lot of bands that are starting to do some
really interesting stuff. I don’t know if I would have
been so optimistic a couple years ago, but now things
are looking really exciting again. In particular, there are
a lot of interesting bands from Colorado right now.
We’ve got links to a lot of them on our website
(www.fiction8.com).
Steve – One thing that I really dislike about some bands
that tout themselves as industrial is the monotony of
the music. One measure of a bass line, some drums
thrown on top of it, and some samples thrown on top
of that does not make a song. Mike mentioned bands
rehashing old Skinny Puppy material. To me, that is
even worse. It’s usually a poor copy without the feel
of the original. There are some very good industrial
bands out there though, and when I hear something
good, something that very obviously had a lot of effort
put into it, I will listen to the same songs for a really
long time.
Mardi – I don’t think there’s much we could change
or improve really! One of the biggest problems out here
is the audience. There just isn’t the type of audience
out here for the electro music that there is in Europe. I
see that changing a bit though, there seems to be a lot
more outlets, and venues and such for us to get our
music heard, but it’s nothing like the European market.
There are actually a lot of really great bands out here,
but they just don’t get heard! I would love to see the
big electro festivals that they have in Europe start here!
6.) Do you still have the same day job of scoring music
for video games, and does that influence your music, or
the other way around?
Mike – Yeah, I’m still working for VR-1 (http://www.vr1.com/).
I think the influence goes both ways. I think the biggest
thing is that when you’re doing music for hire 40 hours
a week, it really forces you to clean up your songwriting
chops. Sloppiness that I might have tolerated 5 years
ago doesn’t even enter into the picture anymore. If I
need some interesting chord to transition from one part
of a song to the next, I don’t just gloss over it with a
drum fill or sound effect anymore. I sit down and bang
it out until I have something interesting. So, in that
sense the games industry has really influenced the way
I write for F8. On the other hand, whenever I’m asked
to write something particularly dark and sinister for a
game, obviously some F8 influence is going to bleed
into the game … even if it’s an orchestral piece. So,
generally, I’d say it goes both ways.
7.) Speaking of influences, what have you been listening
to lately? Anything that you are looking forward to, such
as movies, music, etc?
Mike - I don’t get a lot of time to watch movies. I
caught David Cronenberg’s Crash a few months ago.
That was really good. But generally I don’t like
American movies because they tend to gorge
themselves on CGI special effects. Len from Implant
and I have had a running argument going for a while.
He says that American movies are better on the whole
than European ones because, at least if an American film
sucks it still has good special effects, while the
European one has nothing going for it if it sucks. But I
disagree. At least the European film still has its quirks
and personality, but the American film is so polished
with effects that it has absolutely nothing interesting to
latch on to. They say you can’t polish a turd, but
Hollywood still tries anyway. But as for music, yeah,
there’s a lot of great stuff out there. I find myself
listening to a lot of ambientstuff anymore. Particularly
bands on mp3.com like the Falling You and Numina …
a lot of Hidden Sanctuary
(http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/2/hidden_sanctuary.
html) type stuff. I think it’s one of those things where,
when you spend all day doing techno-industrial stuff
for games and then write music for F8, the last thing
you want to do is listen to more of the same.
Steve – Movies? I can’t even remember the last time I
went to a movie. I don’t even know what is out or
what is coming out. I don’t even have an antenna for
getting regular television. Music though, I have been
listening to a weird assortment of things lately. I rather
like the new U2 release. I literally just bought the new
Orgy CD, which I am listening to right at the moment.
It’s pretty okay. Other than that, I have been sticking
with some older favorites lately: Sister Machine Gun,
Project Pitchfork, and Die Warzau to name a few.
Mardi – Wheeeee!!! Music and movies are the best! I
recently saw “Best in Show” and loved it! I don’t tend
to ‘go’ to the movies that often, but I rent and buy a
lot. I just bought “Run Lola Run” on DVD. I think that
is my new favorite movie, it’s awesome! Music is so
sporadic to me! I get a lot of discs sent to me to write
reviews and I sometimes have a hard time keeping up.
I really love the new Collide CD and am looking
forward to the new Pitchfork. I’m a sucker for electro
synthpop lately, lots of Fictional, VNV Nation,
Covenant, that sort of stuff.
8.) What is next for Fiction 8? More music, live shows,
etc?
Mike – Yeah, things are definitely busy for us right now.
Since we finished “Chaotica” I’ve been doing remixes
for other artists. I finished up ones for Implant and
Aiboforcen recently and am currently working on one
for the Azoic (label mates on Nilaihah Records). We’ve
got a “Chaotica” release party in Denver in December
and obviously there’s a lot of planning and footwork we
have to do for that. After that, we’ll probably start
writing material for the next disc. We’re planning a
U.S. tour with the Azoic in the spring. That’s probably
going to happen around May. After that, I expect we’ll
wander back into the studio and record the next disc.
It’s one of those things where, we’re really hitting our
stride now and picking up a lot of momentum and
generally having a lot of fun doing it so I think we want
to keep going as hard as we can right now.
Mardi – Ouch! Too much to think of right now. I think
our main focus right now is to promote, promote,
promote, then tour. I really want everyone to hear this
disc and love it, then we can move on!
9.) Final thoughts/comments?
Mike – Nilaihah rocks! (laughs) We’ve been really
happy with the new label. It’s one of those rare
situations where we finally get the chance to be on a
label that really believes in what we’re doing and
totally supports us. With this album, we didn’t have
to worry about what the marketing guy thought of
our image or what the president thought should be
the single. We justmade the best album we could,
mailed it to the label, and a month later it was in
stores. The whole experience has been really
unbelievable.
fiction8.com
myspace.com/fiction8
No comments:
Post a Comment