Can you introduce the band?

XmH is an EBM project started by me. Our main goal is giving good performances and getting people to dance. The line up consists of: Benjamin Samson (me), I write the music and the lyrics. Live I take care of the vocals. Pieter Sperling, He takes care of the live programming and plays live keys. We recently added Charlot Wever, she will bring backing vocals to the performance and play live keys. And behind the scenes we also have Wim de Nooyer who provides with an honest opinion and some ideas about the music. And he just happens 
to be our manager ;)

But if you really want to know what XmH is all about, you’ll just have to come and see us :)

Charlotte is just added to the line up, why a third member and what is her role in XMH?

We needed female backing vocals on the new cd. After a short search it was Charlot that would do them, and she really nailed them. The moment she came into the studio there was a sort of chemistry, it just clicked. So I asked here how she felt about doing those vocals live on stage. She liked the idea and she became part of XmH. She will also play live keys on stage.

What does XMH mean?

It doesn’t really mean anything. I needed a name for my project. One day I was watching the movie “Aliens”, and I heard that the alien was called 
Xenomoprh. I thought that sounded cool, but I soon discovered that about 20 bands/acts have that name. I couldn’t really think of anything else, so I took the first, middle and last letter. That formed XmH. 

Before you started XMH you played in several acts, why is XMH the best project so far?

For me personally: XmH gives me the freedom to do what I want, how I want it and to work with the people I want. Musically: I think XmH sounds better than a lot of the acts I played in because I have gotten older and learned a lot about making music. 

Right now you are recording the new cd “Time to play”. How are the recordings doing so far?

Now everything is going great! In the beginning everything that could go wrong went wrong. It started by choosing the wrong studio, mixing tables blowing up, material that went missing and so on….Eventually Gerwin van Ruiswijk (NG-Pro) came to our aid. We entered the studio with him and everything came together nicely :)

Can you tell us a bit more about the cd? (tracklisting, releasedate and so on)

The cd will be called “Time to Play” and the release is planned at the end of July (2007). It will contain a lot of new, danceable tracks. A new version of “Rape your God”. And remixes by NG-Pro, XP8, The Peoples republic of Europe and Jesus Complex.  

It will be an independent release, is there any interest from labels at this point?

Not at the moment. Right now I’m focussed on the release of  “Time to Play”. And I’m hoping to gain the interest of a label with that cd. So for now it’s wait and see.

Your debut mcd did pretty well in the Netherlands, “rape your god” even became a small club hit. What did this mcd do for you?

This mcd introduced me to the public and it certainly opened doors for XmH. It got me performances and got the name XmH out there.

Is it still for sale or do people have to wait for the new disc?

I’m afraid they’ll just have to wait :)

What is the hardest part for you in making music, lyrics or the music?

I’d say making the music. But I usually don’t pay that much attention to the lyrics. I use them as an instrument in the music. Most of the time I don’t have any message in my lyrics, the main thing is that it sounds good in the song. 

What inspires you for the lyrics?

Occasionally I do have something to say with my lyrics. If that’s the case the main inspiration is probably politics or something that happened in my life.

But most of my lyrics…. What can I say… I have a strange sense of humor :)

You played with quite a few of the bigger names, is the any band you personally want to play with?

I’d really like to play with Hocico. That’s the band that inspired me to start making electronic music. 

Is it strange for you to play at summer darkness, you go to parties pretty often so you must know at least 50% of the audience in person?

It’s kind of weird to see the same faces in your audience as you do at the parties you go to. But when I’m not on stage, I’m usually quiet. I like to dance and watch performances, but the rest of the time I tend to stay in the background. So I don’t really know 50% of the audience in person. I just recognise faces :)

Guess you are quite anxious to go back onstage because you want the new tunes to be heard am I right?

You are absolutely right! I really want to see the reaction of the audience to the new stuff. And it’s been way too long since we’ve played live!

What can we expect from the summer darkness concert?

A lot of songs from the new album, Charlot on stage with us for the first time, an energetic show and maybe even a surprise guest ;)

Website:
http://www.xmh-music.nl/