Attrition has been a voice on the electronic music scene now for over 10 years now. During their recent tour of the U.S. in support of their new release on Project records, I was lucky enough to catch a performance at the fabled sacred shrine of American punk rock history, CBCB/OMFUG. Martin Bowes and I got to chat a bit prior to the performance.
Brendan : ok, well you have been making music for about 15 years now..
Martin: Yeah at least yeah
Brendan: ..How do you feel about what you have been doing, and what got you into it?
Martin: emm...What got me into it first? lets see if I can remember(laughter) it was sort of allot of things, I mean the first thing I really got into music was punk really. That was the first really. I did like stuff before.
Brendan: Were you listening to American punk, or British punk?
Martin: Mostly British really. cause that's what we heard, but some American as well, but we got to see all of it. I went to see the Sex Pistols and things like that. I got to see all that, and that's what really got me into music but I didn't actually do a band then. I actually did a fanzine for a a year or so, just writing about the local bands.
Brendan: So you had your own Zine.
Martin: Yeah, I had it for two years, and as I finished that was just as I started Attrition. I just basically decided I wanted to have a go at it myself. But by then I had started to get into the electronic bands.
Brendan: What was the first electronic music you were exposed to?
Martin: um...It's probably Kraft Work, They would have something in the charts ya know and so then in like the late 70's it was Kraft Work and then Id already done the punk thing and the Indy thing and I got into bands like Cabaret Voltaire and Some of the more experimental Groups, its like a cross between electronics and non electronics, there was a scene really of more experimental stuff coming up, so I got Into that, although When Attrition was starting up, It was guitar based and drums and vocals.
Brendan: Were you using a regular guitar, or were you doing electronic stuff too it?
Martin: We were using a regular guitar, but It didn't really last for more than a few weeks.
Brendan: I think the earliest recording I've heard were from 1984.
Martin: Yeah, this was like in 82. I got lots of live recordings actually which I was actually listening too the other day and I haven't listened to for almost 15 years. There not bad, they're off the mixing board from various shows, the early ones. I wonder whether to compile some sort of release sort of like for fans type of thing, probably not a major release....
Brendan: sounds good.
Martin: But it started off like that really, more "Post punk", but we soon got a synth then the drummer left, and we got a drum machine so, that's how it started.
Brendan: How do you feel about the music scene now in relation to what you have been doing for the last 15 years?
Martin: Well... it's ok, I think it,s ok because it always has it's ups and downs, anything does, but when we started It was so hard to do anything with electronics. There was no scene really. You just constantly dealt with people who didn't like it cause you hadn't got guitars.
Brendan: (lots of laughter)
Martin: And the gradually everyone grew up.
Brendan: Were the people in the early electronic scene networked with each other?
Martin: Yeah, there was a bit of that in England but it was much more varied , it was like there's the Legendary Pink Dots, who were more Psychedelic really and then there's things like Test Department, Metal bashing. It was very varied, which was good though. I liked that. Industrial meant like Throbbing Gristle and noises and things. Then it became that "industrial" became like an electronic punk really later and things did get a put bit channeled too much. that's a sort of negative thing of later, but the positive thing was that there was suddenly this scene where you could play so you can go and do stuff. that's Craig. He's doing our sound board. (at this point Craig,
the sound tech for the band comes over to talk to Martin and Craig and I try to introduce our selves, over the loud music, which we finally manage, after about 5 failed attempts) yeah I mean the positive thing is that there is there is a bit of a scene. There's magazines, clubs and it makes it easier to do electronic music now.
Brendan: Well the electronic music scene is totally different now then it was 15 years ago, wouldn't you say?
Martin: Yeah really, there wasn't quite much of one then. In some ways it was more varied and perhaps, I don't know, I don't say it's more interesting but it seem to me then. Its hard to compare when you start out, everything is more interesting than when you have been doing it for a long time.
Brendan: Do you think that there was a gradual change or do you think that allot of things changed all of the sudden with the interest in dance music and Rave culture and all that.
Martin: Yeah, I mean that was probably what made electronics acceptable really, the dance music. It was quite common for kids to get a drum machine no and although we did have drum machines years ago, I think they did take allot from the experimental bands. But yeah, now its different , but there are allot of different strands of electronic music now, which there wasn't then.
Brendan: I find that your music is not really easy to pigeon hole. How do you seen yourself in relation to the scene that's exists now?
Martin: We never have fitted really exactly, which, you know, why should we obviously. (Laughter) I mean its you could call it a bit "industrial" or a bit "Gothic" or "Experimental" or what ever, and sometimes I do because in a way sometimes it just helps people get some kind of idea of what it's about if if they don't know. Although it's horrible you almost need some kind of tag.
Brendan: To market yourself?
Martin: Yeah for marketing really, and I don't mind that much but we've never fitted totally in one scene which some time makes it that we cross over, but it also means that we are never the favorites of any particular scene probably, but therefore were still around after all this time, where if you get too pigeon holed you can die when that particular scene go's out of fashion.
Brendan: You have a little bit of a cross over thing going on in the new album on some levels. I noticed that you have a couple of tracks that are heavy dance tracks. Then you also have some stuff that is very experimental.
Martin: Yeah, like classical.
Brendan: The one thing I've notice in terms of continuity between your older material and your newer work, is that the production still seems very minimal. Is that a conscious aesthetic choice for you?
Martin: Well yeah really, or an unconscious one.(giggles) It's definitely a choice.
Brendan: well I mean compared to allot of the other bands on Projekt Records for example. The production on those recordings tends to be really lush and very layered. Listening to yours, you can pretty much hear what is what. Everything is, boom, right there. There's not as much "studio wizardry" so to speak.
Martin: well there is a bit. I did allot with the mastering of this one cause I could do it on computer for the first time. that's why this one blends from one song to another. It flows a bit more, which I like.
I like the idea of it being an album. Not a concept album but the fact that its not just ten songs cause their not songs.
Brendan: They're not isolated from each other, They're part of a larger body of work.
Martin: really they are. So I like that idea of doing that, so I can actually do that now that we have the technology. But some times I like that Dry sound , particularly on the dance tracks, it seems sort of suitable. I know what you mean with some of the project bands. Sometimes its more like swamped in reverb then necessarily lots of wizardry, but I'm happy with it as it is.
Brendan: Going back to the subject of technology, what is your relationship to technology? Do you love it, hate it. How do you feel about it?
Martin: Well when it go's wrong I hate it.(laughter)> I do love it really because I'm a non musician. I can't really play anything apart from... well no,I can really, because I can play a recording studio. I can go and get it to make whole pieces of music, and that is my instrument. If I had to say one thing though, Id have to say an analog synth or something.
Brendan: But you do compose.
Martin: Yeah, I write everything, but as far as actually being a musician , I cant pick up an instrument. I couldn't play live in a band really, unless they wanted weird noises of something.(laughter from both of us) I could do them. But I'm more of a producer in that way, but yeah, I love it because it enabled me...when I actual got a computer, I could suddenly do the things I couldn't do when I tried to play them. I could sit there and work them out.
Brendan: What kind of computer do you have?
Martin: I've got a PC now, but I had an Atari for years.
Brendan: Did you get a Pentium machine?
Martin: Yeah. It's not too bad.
Brendan: What is you favorite operating system?
Martin: em...I mean I've got windows 95 on it. It's all right. It's eh, you know, things go horribly wrong sometimes.
(much laughter)
Brendan: Bill Gates's revenge of he nerds.(laughter)
Martin: (laughing)Yeah. It's all right you know. Anyway computers add allot of things. Like I said, I can put the album on it and master it now. I can burn CD's, I can do lots of things that are really useful. So despite the problems with it, its good. I still love, after spending allot of time with electronics, sitting down with a pen and paper, and writing lyrics, and that's just not technology.
Brendan: I guess I could ask you about your creative process. In terms of making an album, where do you start?
Martin: It starts like lots of sketches all really. Lots of little ideas. I usually, If I've finished an album, like I'm not that long since I finished the other one(Jeopardy Maze), ill just start doodling and doing little ideas, sketches really. I'll start with abstracts, I'll just start with sounds or rythems and things, and gradually I'll work them up, or throw some of them away. It I'll take a couple of years really, and then gradually I'll work them up to a point where words have been put on, and I've got other people to come in and play violin or something.
Brendan: So how long did it take you to put the current album together?
Martin: It's a couple of years really> Yeah, cause we did since Three Arms, Which was the last sort of regular album, it was three years. But I did do the Etude, the classical album in the meantime. It depends on how many tours were doing really.
Brendan: Are the classical albums available in the U.S.?
Martin: Yeah, Etude is yeah. So that was all version of our songs on violin, viola and organ and things.
Brendan: How were you approached about doing that album?
Martin: Well, on the three Arms album, which was in 96, for that one I just got a letter from Frank, who did this all and who lives in Paris. He was just a fan who had picked up our 1st album in 84 and like it's like 11 years later he's actually written to me. He had bought everyone since. Since then he had gone to school at the Conservetoir in Paris and had played in all sorts of orchestras and the opera in Paris, on viola or violin. He suddenly asked us "oh I love your music, this is what I do, and would you like to" have violin on your next album". So I said yes, and he came over. So we did that.
Brendan: So he is the person who did the violin on the new album.
Martin: Yes, Frank De Martise, he's done all the recent stuff.
Brendan: It adds allot.
Martin: Yeah it's nice. I love that mixture.
(at this point Christine, Attritions Current touring female singer comes over to ask Martin about some details on the guest list. Were introduced, and Martin explains that were doing an interview. Christine, seems embarrassed, and apologizes, to which Martin and assure her It's fine, that there is plenty of tape and that all this will become an aside in the interview(which it has). we say good bye for now and laugh a bit)
Martin: So, we did that album, and That worked quite well. I had always liked the idea, where in some of our song, where we had used strings and I was thinking it would be really nice if we used violins, and of course, there was the opportunity, so I suggested to him, about doing the classical album, and he basically arranged a selection of songs. Some that I suggested, and some that he liked. We did a cover of an old classical piece as well. That was our cover version. He's also worked on the new album, and he's done some stuff since with Deform, and some other bands as well.
Brendan: Is he touring with you at all?
Martin: No we can't afford to pay him.
Brendan: So we will be short one violin tonight.
Martin: We do sometimes have a violin player with us actually, but we hadn't got one with us this time.
Brendan: You know what I really wanted to ask you about, was the "God Save The Queen" piece, a the end of the new album. What was the motivation behind that?
Martin: Well I finally got it out of my system because, well, in England it always used to end every night, on the TV, at the end of the night.
Brendan: They used to do that here too. They used to play the national anthem.
Martin: The must have done that everywhere. So that's probably engraved in my brain, from being young. I mean, now TV doesn't end , now does it. It just go's on. Also, when I was little, I was in the Scouts. I don't know what you call it here, but you probably have the equivalent.
Brendan: Yeah, we have the Boy Scout's.
Martin: Yeah, I was really young, and I'm sure it wasn't my choice. I'm sure I was sent there, and we had to learn "God Save the Queen", and I got a badge. (laughter)So I think its deep in my subconscious and it sees to have surfaced as the idea to put it at the end of the album.
Brendan: I think I picked up on the TV test tone at the end of it. That was fairly obvious.
Martin: I'm totally anti royalist actually. The other thing was that I was very inspired by the Clockwork Orange sound track, that Wendy Carlos did.
Brendan: Yeah I noticed that. Were you using old analog Synths for that piece?
Martin: Yeah I did it with analog synths, so it was a little tribute as well.
Brendan: That really funny, because I was listening to that recently, and then when I heard this, I thought "This sounds So much like Wendy Carlos".
Martin: It does say "for Wendy" on the album actually.
Brendan: I didn't catch that.
Martin: It might say Wendy Carlos actually. So its my little joke really. I did want to put it at the end of the set, but didn't it in the end anyway. Everyone was complaining. I should have done it anyway, particular in America.
Brendan: But the thing is that here, most people wouldn't catch it as "God Save the Queen".
Martin: yeah it means something else here, doesn't it.
Brendan: yeah there's a song that uses the same tune(I was experiencing vapor lock at the moment, and couldn't recall the name "My country Tis of Thee") um...(starting to hum it)
Martin: I uses the same tune doesn't it. I've seen it on the Simpsons.
Brendan: (blond gene still kicking my butt) I think its called "of thee I sing". It's basically a hymn to the country.
Martin: Yeah, you get independence, so you changed the words.
Brendan: Yeah, we get independence, and we Rip shit off.
Martin: yeah "well we like the tune but..." (laughter) But I actually did it, and I thought "there must be some significance actually.' It must be the end of an era, and it is really, but I wouldn't say why on that.
Brendan: Hmmm. Ok.
Martin: Not the end of Attrition.
Brendan: Well, what do you see you future plans as being right now?
Martin: In allot of ways, I've got more plans and ideas in my head,then I've ever had. I think partially with technology, now that I've got my own studio, and I think there's so much now. It lets me do loads more, so we've actually got a remix album half done. We've got lots of bands doing remix and I'm probably going to do a couple. So were going to have that out.
Brendan: That I'll be great.
Martin: Yeah, I've got Chris and Cosi doing a remix, and In The Nursery doing one.
Brendan: Really!!
Martin: Various bands. Then some unknown ones, like I've got a Drum and bass remix by a DJ, which I really like. I do like some of the new dance stuff. So that will be, when were done with this tour, the main thing I'm going to hash over. Whether it I'll be the end of the year, or if these things happen to be pushed back, it could end up being early January. So that's the next project which is moving fairly quickly.
Brendan: No pun intended.
Martin: Well actulay I'm 100% that it will come out on Projeckt. It's not really a Projeckt thing and I know if we do anything that Sam(rosenthall) doesn't think works on Projekt, we have got an option to do it elsewhere. We'll see. probably not even worth mentioning that. Otherwise, I will do remixes for other people and production stuff. The albums just come out on the German label Trinity, so we will probably go over there and tour a bit. Well do a few dates in England before we go over there, later in the year. Then I'll be working on new stuff really.
Brendan: What is the current line up of your touring band?
Martin: Well probably relevant to the God Save the Queen question, I've got Christine singing, and she's a new singer for us. So I have had a few different people. It hasn't always been Julia, and I don't actulay know if it will ever actulay be Julia again.
Brendan: now Julia was working with you from when?
Martin: For years really, since the first album. On and off.
Brendan: Her voice reminds me of Nico, more than anything else, sometimes. She's got that kind of throatiness. Almost operatic in tone.
Martin: yeah, I like it allot, but she doesn't like touring anymore. It's actulay difficult for her, and I don't think she's really going to do it anymore. Then I've got keyboards...I mean, I do all the Keyboards on the albums, but I can sing as well live.
Brendan: you could always get a sequencer(laugh)
Martin: I've got James doing keyboards and cords and stuff, and then for a few gigs I've got another guy Carl, playing some extra analog synth stuff. He's a friend, he lives in Jersey city, so he's sort of a special guest for a few shows. So it's a little bit slimed down. We usually have a violin player as well, when were in Europe, but when it comes down to it, sometimes its just a fuss to come over here with a band. So were Slightly slimed down. Not too bad though.
Brendan: How many dates have you done in the U.S. so far?
Martin: Only a couple. We've been here about a week. We did Boston on Sunday at a place called machine, a new club. It's been open just a few months.
Brendan: Did you get to check out Man Ray when you were there at all? That would have been a good venue for you.
Martin: This was good. The Guy from Man Ray was there. Then we played a store warm up in Hartford Connecticut, but that was a last minute thing. There were only a few people. Quite good for testing that. Oh and we did an in store in Cambridge.
Brendan: At Newbury comics?
Martin: No, tower records.
Brendan: I didn't know they had one there.
Martin: that was cause the show at machine was over 21. The first proper show was Boston. This is only the second. We still have got about another 15-16 to go.
Brendan: how long has it been since your last tour of the U.S. ?
Martin: The last one was in 1997 so it's 15 or 16 months ago.
Brendan: Are you happy with the response so far?
Martin: Yeah, this is our Third tour and with each one we do more shows, and generally a better reaction, more people, better response, and i think it's obviously with Projekt building it up, and their reputation. They do quite well.
Brendan: yeah, they are pretty good at what they do.
Martin: yeah, its quite a bit different than Europe actually. We go to Germany, and everything is really well organized.
Brendan: Why does that not surprise me.
Martin: You get there and there's hotels and food waiting for you and everything is perfect, and they've got lots of high tech equipment, but the crowds really cool. And you play, and you go, and everyone say's they liked it, and they did, but they just stay cool. Whereas here, in fact to be fair, it's much more like England here. It's much more disorganized. You never know what's going on, but the crowds always much more enthusiastic ,and its great. It makes up for it. I actually prefer it here. It's more exciting coming here. It's a bit more stressful(laughs).
Brendan: here, it's something different, it's something they haven't seen before, or are likely to see again.
Martin: I think that's it really. You make more of a effort, but it's good to have the different extreams.
Brendan: The bands playing with you tonight, are they on tour with you?
Martin: No I don't really know them. one of them is the promoters band.
Brendan: oh, ok(laugh) I think I covered everything I wanted to cover, so thank you very much for you time.
Martin: yeah,sounds good. Your Welcome.
