[Interview - Gothtronic, Netherlands, April 2007]

Being a DJ, at what point did you decide to write your own industrial techno music? Why?

I was writing music before I became a DJ so it was the other way around.  I started playing around with old computer sequencers on the Amiga, then bought a crappy synth and kept writing various things.  I grew up listening to things like Jean Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Vangelis, Tomita, Wendy Carlos etc because my Dad was into that kind of music and a neighbour made me some tapes with lots of those artists on.  So I think they had a pretty strong influence on me.  Then I got into things like Front 242, 808 State, NIN, Orbital, The Orb, KLF, Underworld, a whole load of things in the early 90's.

What are your biggest musical influences, as a DJ and as a musician? Is this different for both activities?

I listen to a lot of stuff, everything from Joy Division to Pink Floyd to Nine Inch Nails to dark ambient, classical, rock, metal, indie, trance, techno, dub, funk etc.  I have a very broad taste in music and a record collection that takes up far more room than I have space for really.  So I suppose all of those are influences one way or another.  The main influences on Modulate are probably Feindflug, Monolith, Soman, Combichrist, Suicide Commando, Underworld, Grendel, Cubanate, Rotersand etc.  So yeah, I think my DJ sets reflect that as well.  These are some of my favourite bands so sure, I tend to play a lot of that kind of music in my sets. 

Your first release is out now, the Skullfuck EP, could you tell us a bit how your music became more known and how this resulted into a deal with labels for the USA and Europe?

In a fairly direct chain of events, I sent a demo to Tom Gold @ The Castle nightclub in Florida.  He said he loved our stuff, his crowd were going crazy for it.  So when Ronan from VNV Nation passed through there on his US DJ tour he said, to quote him, "I heard this hammer of a bass drum, then this sample came in, 'You have exactly 3 seconds....' and this huge build up.  I just ran to the DJ booth to ask what the track was".   So from that Ronan got in touch with me, I sent him a few MP3's, he said people loved them and that he'd help introduce me to a few labels that might be interested in signing me.  So he introduced me to Torben Schmidt at Infacted.  Torben had heard our stuff on MySpace and was keeping an eye on us anyway, so he got in touch and that was how we signed with Infacted. 

With Sistinas, similar to Tom Gold, I had sent a demo to Rev. John @ Das Bunker in LA.  He pretty much stopped the presses to get Skullfuck on to the 10th Anniversary CD for Das Bunker, Fear of a Distorted Planet.  So when that was released Skullfuck ended up becoming a minor underground hit in the US industrial clubs.  John knew I was looking for a label in the US and he suggested Sistinas.  They were a new label set up by the graphic designer who did the artwork for Das Bunker, Combichrist and a few other bands/clubs, German Rivera.  So same thing really, John introduced us and we ended up signing to them. 

So I think really a combination of MySpace, sending a few demos out to DJ's and getting a few lucky breaks along the way I guess. 

Where did you get the sample in the Skullfuck track from?

From the Stanley Kubrick film, Full Metal Jacket.  The same place as the samples for My Rifle and Soilbleed come from.  I pretty much wrote the track because I wanted something to play in my DJ sets because I was tired of playing those two.

When can we expect a full length release and what can we expect of that? What will be different compared to the EP?

I think later in the year.  I'm doing quite a lot of gigs and touring in the next few months, so when I can get it finished really.  I think the EP was an introduction to Modulate.  The album I think will probably explore a wider area and maybe not be targeted as much at the dancefloor.  There are some tracks that are pretty much finished for the album already, there are some that are just at the demo stage, so I'm just working out what I want to include now and how I want the album to sound. 

Aren’t you afraid to be compared to Combichrist a lot. Given the similarities in music and the popularity of Andy’s Combichrist?

I don't mind being compared to somebody.  What I do mind is when people just compare us to Combichrist and ignore all the other influences we have.    People have certainly said we sound like other people too but then it's easy to just read the list of influences I have on my MySpace page.  Nobody has mentioned the massive Underworld influence on Digital Alchemy, or Electronic Battle Weapon sounding like a cross between C/A/T, the MiG29 mix of VNV Nation's 'Cold' and the Warp Brothers (which is what I was aiming for).  Skullfuck was written to fit in between My Rifle and Soilbleed in my DJ sets, so sure, it's a dumb party tune on that level.  In fact, to break it down, the drums were influenced by Monolith's Disco Buddha and Soman's Sound Pressure album...these massive dirty 808 style kicks.  The sample, well, Full Metal Jacket has been sampled by almost everybody.  It's one of the most sampled films ever, though I hadn't heard anybody use the sample I used before and given people keep asking me where it came from in interviews, maybe not as obvious as people think!  The break down and build up was probably most influenced from Fatboy Slim's remix of Wildchild - Renegade Master.  Then the riff was probably most influenced by Grendel or Suicide Commando.  So being honest, there isn't much in there that is similar to Combichrist other than it sounding like a mix of techno and industrial. 

In what way is Modulate contributing a new thing to the music scene?

I don't think there are many artists at the moment that are writing very club oriented industrial/techno tracks.  I think in particular Northborne, Kloq, SAM, Combichrist, Reaper and C/A/T are heading in that direction.  And from what I heard of the new Rotersand album, it is certainly in the same ballpark.  So I think the combination of industrial and techno is an interesting area.

Modulate currently is touring with VNV Nation. How do people react on your music, as it is much harsher than VNV Nation itself? Isn’t it hard to interact with the audience if you compare Ronan and VNV Nation with an instrumental project such as Modulate?

The reaction has been good, particularly in East Germany & Belgium where they really seemed to like our sound.  Being the first band on the bill is always a hard gig, but we are a support act playing to people there to see VNV Nation who have never heard of us, so I think our expectations were fairly realistic.  We are there to warm the crowd up for the bands above, play our music to as many people as possible and hopefully win over a few fans.  And I think we have, we had a lot of people come up and say they enjoyed the shows afterwards and we sold a lot of CD's so that is as good as we were hoping for really, we knew not everybody was going to love us.  Nearly every show was sold out and Ronan said the reaction to the tour has been phenomenal.  He deliberately put a bill together of artists that maybe weren't obvious choices, that they were bands that most people hadn't heard of that he personally wanted to expose to people.  Before the tour nobody knew who we were, now we are #7 in this weeks DAC chart, so you have to respect him for taking a chance with us. 

I've been asked this before, how does what you do compare to what Ronan does?  It doesn't really.  Ronan is THE master craftsman when it comes to interacting with a crowd.  He, through his lyrics and natural charisma, makes a connection with people at their gigs.  The barrier between the audience and the band is practically non-existent.  Even after gigs you will nearly always see the band chatting to fans at the aftershow parties, signing autographs, posing for photos, having a drink with them, whatever, that is just how Mark and Ronan are...down to earth guys.   What you see on stage is the same as them offstage and there was a fantastic atmosphere between all the bands on that tour.  Although most of the time each band had their own dressing room, that was pretty much ignored, they would be in ours hanging out, we would be in theres, wherever the party was really.  There was such a sense of camaraderie backstage that I'm sure came across on stage, the guys from Imperative Reaction and VNV would be watching our show each night, we would be watching theirs, so it was an amazing introduction to touring for me personally.  Not to mention being able to learn from the amazing amount of live experience all the bands and crew had on that tour.  Krischan from Rotersand was doing the sound for the tour as well, so each night they can give you little tips on how to improve your performance.  Modulate had only played 3 gigs before the tour so we were thrown in at the deep end, but I absolutely loved the experience and can't wait to get back out for Leg 2.  

Sure, as an instrumental project we are never going to have the kind of interaction with the audience that Ronan has.  It's not what we do.  I've seen people say, "They would be better live with a vocalist".  Well yes, in terms of interacting with the audience, we probably would but that is not Modulate.  We don't have vocals and deliberately so.  There are a couple of tracks I'm working on now that I might put vocals to, but primarily we are an instrumental act.  What we do live is more akin to the Chemical Brothers, Lab4 or Orbital.  All of those bands have fantastic live shows and they are, like us, two guys playing synths/drum pads or whatever, so you are pretty limited when it comes to jumping around the stage.  Keyboards and drums are static instruments so you are limited as to what you can actually do.  As a support act, which is where we are right now in our career, we can't really do all the things I would like with our live show.  We can't run projections and we are limited in what we can do with the staging, lighting etc.  So while I'd love to do the whole multimedia light show, it just isn't an option right now.   But people go mad to DJ's, people go mad to bands like the Chemical Brothers or Orbital so I guess it's just a case of the right crowd in the right environment. 

What is the best setting to enjoy your music? At clubs, concerts or at a festival? What do you enjoy the most yourelf?

In a club with a DJ set I guess you only get one song, or maybe two in an evening but that's cool, I've seen crowds go crazy to our tracks in clubs.  For more of the 'Modulate' experience I think live is good.  Our music is primarily 'club music' aimed at the dancefloor, so maybe a club night with us as a live band is ideal.  Then we enjoy doing concerts with other people, with VNV the audiences were between 1000 and 1500 each night, so to play to that many people was great.  That's a great size crowd, not too big, and not too small.  Festivals, well, I've only played one and we played first on the bill at 3 in the afternoon 30 mins after doors opened.  So although it wasn't a huge crowd we made a lot of friends that day.  Maybe people are more open to hearing new bands at at festival than anywhere else?  We are playing Dark City in Edinburgh on the 5th May so I'm looking forward to that.  It's in the UK so hopefully we'll have a few of our own fans in and it'll be great to catch up with the XP8 and Grendel guys again.  I'd love to play somewhere like Mera Luna or WGT, I think the big European festivals are the kind of things we can't really match in the UK.  But we also have quite a lot of crossover into the dance scene so it'd be good to play in the dance tent at a big festival as well, maybe Glastonbury or similar. 

Can you recommend us some young and really talented musicians you got into contact with over the last year?

I think we met half the EBM/industrial scene at the gigs on the VNV tour, so I suppose most of them count as young and talented!  Apart from maybe Patrick from Front 242, he's more mature but definitely talented.  Personally who I'm really liking at the moment that I have either met or am in contact with?  I really like Ben's music from C/A/T, I think there is a lot of similarity between our music and the things that influence us.  I really like the Northborne stuff, I've seen them live twice now and the album is terrific.  ESA are great, Jamie did a mix for the EP.  I think as a noise/industrial act they are doing some really good stuff.  Keef Baker, his new album is awesome, he's more an IDM/breakcore act but really really good stuff.  (I think there is a good little scene in the north of England with quite a few artists coming through who are all friends with each other, ESA, Modulate, Keef Baker, Autoclav, Coreline, Dyspraxia, Prototype etc).  Grendel, M4RC is my live drummer and I met Jos in Antwerp; we are doing a few dates in the UK with them soon...the new album is sounding awesome, I've been hearing clips from it since it was a work in progress.  Hate This is going to be a massive track.  Matt from Caustic I've been in touch with for a while too...we were both unsigned and a label wanted us to to a split EP together so we got in touch over that.  It's been great seeing our careers take off roughly in parallel.  So those guys are people I've been in contact with who I think are also doing some really great music. 

Will it ever change? Will DJ’s start to challenge their crowd some more? Will there get less music which is just more of the same? Will people ever start to like originality?

Depends on the DJ and the crowd!  Who says they aren't challenging their crowds?  You can only push a crowd as far as it wants to be pushed really.  I personally don't think less music of the same is necessarily a good thing.  I care more about music being good than original.  There were masses of funk music created, masses of soul in the 60's/70's, disco, house, techno, trance etc.  What that means is that as a DJ you can carefully craft a set and instead of playing 20 different tracks you create one long piece and take the crowd on a journey.  So for me that means having a large base of roughly similar music.  And unless a track directly copies another it IS original.  The question is how original something should be and how you define original.   It's easy to be original.  It's much harder to be good. 

What is your opinion on the current electronic music scene , is it stagnating or are there new developments going on?

I think it had a period of stagnation.  Not necessarily the electronic scene as a whole, that is too big, but the EBM/industrial scene a couple of years ago sure.  But yes, I think there is a new wave coming through now of bands that are taking elements of techno and blending them with industrial.  TBM? I'm not a fan of that term to be honest.  I much prefer 'industec' but either way, bringing in elements of techno into industrial and vice versa.  More instrumental than vocal.  Somebody said in a review that it was a plus point that Modulate didn't have vocals because there are too many bands around already that have some really really awful lyrics and I agree.  Or you get the whole uber distorted death metal style vocals which I'm not into either.  So personally I think people like SAM, Kloq, Northborne, Noisuf-X, Soman etc are doing really exciting things. 

If you would be touring again, which bands or artists would you like to join on stage or tour with?

Well, we are touring with Combichrist and SITD in the US this summer.  Then possibly another tour later in the year that I'm not allowed to mention right now.  So I don't know, I'd love to play with Front 242, The Chemical Brothers, Nitzer Ebb, Cubanate (if they ever got back together), anyone whose audience would get what we are doing really. 

Which non-musical artists or people have been of major influence on your music or thematics and why is that?

Lewis Carroll, Dr Seuss, Aldous Huxley, Alexander Shulgin, Jimmy Cauty, George Orwell, Carl Jung, Fritz Lang.  I don't think I could sum them up easily...but they are all writers or artists whose work I have greatly enjoyed who managed to make a connection with me.