Can you give a brief introduction to Blind Effects?
Blind Effects - a dark electro project that already became well known in Midgermany because of their musical appearance. This name stands for the intentional effect on the listeners, but it can also be interpreted in different ways. The project around the bandleader Lutz (synthesizer and programming) can look back on a successful story since the forming in2002, with his bandmates Andy (vocals and lyrics) and Stephan (guitars), who has been in the band since 2009.
You started back in 2002, how were the first days, what do you remember of them?
Our first days were pretty funny: imagine somebody gives you a computer and you're trying to get sounds out of this device, which are definitely NOT what you wanted to hear. This way some really awful sounds just became an acceptable song only in combination with a lot of beer. More and more the whole thing became something good working and one year later we were able to produce an album with tracks we made until that. From this point it worked out.
Was it hard to find the right musical direction or does it keep evolving all the time?
It just evolved. We always said that we do what WE want to do. Well now, we do not stick to one special style but let the music evolve.
How would you describe your own music?
We're playing Dark Electro and a bit of EBM/Industrial combined with elements of heavy metal. Latter is used modest but this could have changed within the next album.
>
What is the secret of adding guitar to electronic music and make it work, many bands try but just in some cases it works really well?
We give our guitarist Stephan plenty of room. He decides how he adds the instrument into the song. Stephan is playing, as mentioned before, classic heavy metal like Yngwie Malmsteen (his big idol). But he's also a fan of the hard but modern style of metal like Machine Head. This combination can be noticed in our songs and it makes them unique in my opinion.
I think, many EBM-Bands that want to put a guitar into their tracks are making one mistake: they take inexperienced guitarists who are even told what to do and what it have to sound like. If you ask me, this is doomed to fail in any case.
Blind Effects released two albums before "Distance/existence" in 2002 and "Operation Beta" in 2005. How do you look back on the albums now?
"Distance/Existence" presents an overview of the sounds from our first days. When I am listening to these recordings now, 8 years later, I am smiling and thinking "Damn, we really did that??" But I think every band can tell this.
"Operation Beta" is characterized by Future-Electro-Pop which was really present in 2005. Looking back on this, I notice that we worked up some great ideas but wanted to put them into this style. I will not eliminate the fact that it is possible that we mix some of these songs again to give them a present style.
The comments were positive for 99 %. This was clear because we published approximately 500 albums and a huge amount of that was given to friends and family and so on and they like everything you give them ;-)
In 2008 you took part of the Sonic Seducer's battle of the bands, ending up in a 4th position. Were you surprised with this high ranking and what did it do for you?
We were really surprised. We knew we had a great song for this but then the reviewer of Sonic Seducer thought he got to rate us. He moaned because of the production of the song and queried our plan to be successful with this. So it was really satisfying for us when we saw that we were in 4th position!
But this helped us in no way. Some magazines wrote that the song is doing great in clubs but we never noticed that ourselves. But I think that we gained a few more fans.
After this the "pain" ep was released? Was this the next step for Blind Effects. The track Painkiller on it was used pretty often by dj's as well. Do you see this ep as a turning point for Blind Effects?
Definitely. We had a guitarist on this EP for the first time. This was a crazy time, Alex was playing the guitar just for fun and then he just had to be on stage with us. The first concert with him on the guitar was a disaster, nothing worked as it should but we had a lot of fun.
The artwork for the "pain" ep and the new album "Heartland sound formation" shows many similarities, why did you do this?
The new album is quasi a continuation of the Pain EP or something like an addition and for this reason we wanted to keep the visual theme. Surely the next album will show an eye again. Let's see in which color it will look at us.
What can you tell us about the recording process of "Heartland SoundFormation", did it all go as planned?
No, no and again: no. The recording was a real chaos. We made a schedule which was right away unnecessary 3 days later. Nothing worked right at the first time, always somebody was late with his part or carped the result. We lost many nerves and sometime we were fighting really hard.
After all everything was good and everybody was fine. Our friend Thomas (statiCViolence) had a great part on finishing the album. He was always like "keep cool, we'll make this!" during the final mix in studio.
Can you explain the album title to us?
The album's title stands as a symbol for the musicians origins: all three (at least five including Ini W. and our live-support Micha) of them are living in different parts of Germany but there is still a strong bond to their home: Midgermany.
The album doesn't only have new songs on it, there is even one (time) of "Distance/existence" on it, why did you rerecord this song?
It already happened that we laid aside some songs to mix them again and then we just forgot them. Just as "Time (2010 Version)". We started to record the song again in 2005 but were not sure about the final sound so we were going on working on other songs. Because of that "Time" didn't appear on the 2005 album "Operation Beta" as planned. In the final phase of "Heartland Sound Formation" Lutz came and gave me the 2010 Version. There are still about 2 CDRs with songs we didn't use yet and sometimes we're listening to them and maybe we will mix some of them again.
Why did you decide to have so many songs of the ep on it and less new songs?
As already mentioned the EP was just like a precursor for the album. We rerecorded the songs and didn't adopt the wholesale. On the EP Alex was on the guitar, and on the album Stephan played it.
A surprising song on the album is the track "assholes like me" which comes close to being a ballad. It is pretty daring to put such a track on an album that mainly holds club friendly tracks. Why did you put this song on the album and is it a special track for you?
This song is something special to us indeed. We are happy about the fact that we made such a great song. Assholes is my personal favorite on this album. We were even happier when we heard Thomas' remix (static Violence, a friend remix) for the first time. He really found a female singer with a voice which has blown us away. We used this chance and also enriched "Time" with Ini W.'s voice.
The beginning of the song "bitch" reminds me of ac/dc's thunderstruck because of the guitar, was that song an influence for this track?
No, not really. Stephan is, as I said before, characterized by 80's heavy metal he's playing his parts out of his own inspiration. The tapping was spontaneous and we thought it sounds good with the song. I don't know any other EBM-Song which sounds like this.
You already did the release party for the new album, how did it go, how did people respond to the new songs?
The release party was a real success. First and foremost we wanted to celebrate the release with our friends but there were also people from "far away" which came just to see us.
The album's responses are really good, we can check this almost daily in new reviews in the internet. We linked the most significant ones on our MySpace-Page. Maybe you could write one for our new Dutch fans?
What will be next for Blind Effects?
Next we want to promote our album live as often as we can. It's just pretty hard to have concerts because we are really built-in in our jobs and don't have the time to manage this yet.
Any last words for the readers?
Everyone should be fine, Celebrate the festivals as they come and visit the next Blind Effects concert nearby. If there is none, call us or write a mail, we're open-minded to everything.
Cheers!
www.myspace.com/blindeffects
www.blindeffects.de