[Interview - Orkus Magazine, Germany, February 2007]

Your first release is already in stores. What does this mean for you, I mean to do music and not only playing music as a DJ?

The two go pretty much hand in hand. I was always playing around making music from being a kid using the Amiga, MED, Soundtracker, things like that. I started DJ'ing when I was at university. When I came back to Manchester I ended up DJ'ing full time so the music making took a back seat for a while. After a couple of guest slots I started DJ'ing at The Wendy House in Leeds on the Mutate industrial floor (previously I was playing more indie/rock/alternative nights...and even a trance night for a while) so I started getting back into writing dance music again. I think the technology and equipment improved over that time to the point where instead of needing banks of keyboards and studio equipment I could do everything from my PC. I think that was the real turning point for me. I was hearing new and exciting tracks in clubs when I was DJ'ing, but I was also able to create new and original tracks to play in my sets. That is basically where Skullfuck came from, I wanted a new track to play in my DJ sets. :) It means that I can always have new and unique tracks to play months before they get released, plus I can test out tracks in the club to see how the crowd react while I'm working on them.

Your Sound can be described as hard, pushing forward, right into the face. How much did your work as a DJ influence you?

Massively. I think my DJ sets and the sound of Modulate are very closely linked. I love that really chunky club sound. There is nothing better than seeing a crowd going crazy, the bass shaking your ribcage, the lights, the smoke, the whole atmosphere. It almost becomes ritualistic. There is no better feeling than blowing the roof off with a DJ set. Not every Modulate track is designed to fit in my sets but sometimes, sure, I'll write a track specifically to fit into my set. Then I can go and test it on my crowd, if they like it first play without them knowing what it is, I know it's good.

“Skullfuck” ontains only Samples as lyrics. Is this one typical mark of Modulate not to sing?

Yeah. Pretty much. I'm not a particularly good singer, if I do vocals they are probably more in a Front 242/Nitzer Ebb style. I can shout but I'm not a great vocalist and I didn't really want to go down the route of massively effected vocals, I think there are too many people doing that sound already. I'm not saying I will never do vocals...there are a couple of tracks that I'm working on that I might do vocals for...and when I do certain tracks live I do live vocals over the top. I think that live interaction with the audience is important. But I do like instrumental tracks and almost by not having vocals all the time it makes us stand out a little. There is also the techno/trance influence on my sound and quite a lot of that is purely instrumental music. I have never been massively into lyrics, I almost look at vocals as a melody line or snippets of sound...the sound itself being more important than the words they are singing. I seem to focus more on the music than anything else so it just happened naturally really.

How does your songs become real? Is there first the melody or the sample?

I don't really have a set method of writing. It could be either. Sometimes a sample or snippet of dialogue will catch my ear and I will sample it and build a track around that. I think Revolution started with the sample, Skullfuck started with the drums, then the riff. Sometimes I will just play around on a keyboard and a riff will come into my head. Sometimes I will just play around with sounds, programming a synth until I make something interesting. Sometimes I will have a feel of the completed track in my head before I start, so I know roughly how I want it to sound before I've even touched the computer. I might just start playing with some drums, or listening to sounds on a sample CD, flicking through a bank of synth sounds. I think I will play around until something catches my ear, until I think, “That sounds interesting”. Then I will flesh out the track, arrange it in the computer, if it is going well, maybe finish it off. Or sometimes leave it for a few months and come back to it. I probably have 50-60 unfinished songs that are anywhere from a 4 bar loop or a riff, through to a full track.

Why do you use samples? Is this just an asthetic aspect or do you want to make the listerners think?

Both I think. Sometimes I will use a sample as a piece of sound. But I think you can tie things in to a general theme or concept. It might not be massively obvious until the album is released but there are a few themes and concepts that run through Modulate and I think most of the tracks more or less fit in with them. Skullfuck was written to fit into my DJ set...the crowd in Mutate love big drums, big riffs and things they can shout along with! So on one hand it is a dumb profane party track. On the other, you can connect it to Full Metal Jacket and the films stance as possibly one of the bleakest most nihilistic anti-war films ever made. I think most of the tracks I write seem to have some form of subconscious influences in them, you can interpret them on one level, then you can probably go deeper and peel back other levels, and I'm sure people will come up with their own interpretations of them.

What do you want to describe in “Kommune1”?

The long answer to that is far greater in scope than I can go into here. The short answer is that there were certain themes that I wanted to explore. One of which is, as I see it, my generations utter dissatisfaction with the way our world, our lives and our countries are being run. And then what do we suggest/implement as solutions? Humans are essentially fallible, power essentially corrupts and democracy is essentially a veneer is the massively simple version.

I was watching a documentary on the Bader-Meinhof group and the Red Army Faction and how what initially started as idealism ended up becoming terrorism. And so the samples present both sides of the argument. One gives the opinion that regardless of living in a democracy the populace do not really have any major influence over the political processes taking place. The other side suggests that in trying to bring about idealogical political change it had descended into rioting, unrest and fighting. So effectively, “We want a better world” balanced with “Yes, but this isn't right either” which I guess ultimately asks the question, “So what now?”. That is like opening Pandora's box, it is such a complicated and far reaching question.

On your website the people get a quick picture of your likes. So you wrote that you like “1984” or Fritz Langs marvellous “Metropolis”. It seems that human beings are not that far from this apocalyptic vision no longer. How do you see this?

I think that certain pieces of dystopian film and literature have proved to be staggeringly accurate and prophetic in so many ways. I think ever increasingly individuals are becoming supplicant to the state with a gradual erosion of civil liberties. I don't think people buy the reasons that are being given for the introduction of so many things like speed cameras, CCTV, biometric ID cards etc. And I think one thing that repeats over and over and that becomes increasingly clear, is that humans are fallible and that those who seek power are often those who should least have it. I think by and large, we have lost faith and trust in politics as a process to represent and do what is best for us.

Then I think there is the purely aesthetic side of Metropolis which I think is one of the most visually ambitious and iconic pieces of cinema ever created.

Are your sound some kind of letting out your frustration towards the society? Is there something you are getting sick of?

Possibly. I'm not sure it's as obvious or direct as saying that, but I think subconsciously yeah, looking back at the music there are certain themes and influences coming through, one of which probably is an element of frustration. Personally, for me it is a lot of the points I raised above. I especially notice it with the clubs and DJ'ing. That there are so many people who just want to escape from their day to day lives at the weekend. They go out and by various means, be that alcohol, drugs or dancing, put themselves in an altered state of consciousness and release all their frustrations on the dancefloor so it effectively becomes some form of social catharsis.

You are also playing as support for VNV Nation. How did you get the connection to the band? Are you a bit nervous?

Hahaha. Nervous, yes. I Googled for some of the venues...they are big places. :D

Ronan? He'll probably kill me for saying this! He moves in mysterious ways behind the scenes and I don't think he likes taking credit for it all...but he did help me out a lot. :) The connection came about because I made contacts with a few DJ's in the US via MySpace, Tom Gold @ The Castle in Florida and Rev John @ Das Bunker in LA (and yes, our track is named after the club, I know it's not grammatically correct German!). Ronan was doing a DJ tour last year and he passed through The Castle. Tom had been playing Skullfuck and he said his crowd were loving it, Ronan saw what it did to the dancefloor, next thing I know I have an email from Ronan...I thought it was somebody winding me up to be honest! “Hey, I'm DJ'ing in the US, I like that track of yours, any chance you could mail me an MP3 so I can play it out?”. So I sent him a copy. He gets back to me a few days later. “I've been playing that track out, it's been going down really well, fantastically well in fact, lets move things forward”. So anyway, the eventual outcome was that he recommended us to Infacted. Torben had heard our stuff a while ago and liked it too, so yeah, it was a bit of a no-brainer. Infacted has a great roster with some of my favourite bands on, and they were really into what I was doing and where I wanted to go with the band, so we signed with them.

The tour? Well, I cheekily emailed Ronan asking if they were playing any UK dates and could we open up if they were? Next thing I know I've been offered the whole European tour! So yeah, I'm massively excited about it. For a band just putting out their first EP it is an amazing opportunity.

Will there also be a full length album this year?

Yes. I've got quite a few tracks demoed already for it so hopefully we'll give them a bit of production polish. The more I work at it the better my production gets so you end up thinking, “Oh, I can make those earlier tracks so much better now” and being a bit of a perfectionist things are never finished! We have the VNV tour coming up, then hopefully over to the US for some dates in the summer, so we are pretty busy but hopefully we'll have an LP ready towards the end of summer.