Can you give a brief introduction to Encoder?
Encoder is the musical outlet for Bruno, Sara, and myself. The concept is fairly simple- make music that we enjoy ourselves. The three of us have quite a diverse range of tastes so we don't like to lock ourselves into a rigid category other than "electronic". We draw from a variety of influences (our My Space page can provide a good list of them) and try to make each track unique. We've chosen the final product to be dance floor friendly because a love for music that makes your body move is a common thread among us. We seldom use the same sounds in one track that we used in another. We want DJ's to be able to play multiple Encoder tracks without it sounding like they're playing the same band over and over.
Encoder is a band that consists of members who have a lot of experience in the cybergothic scene, who are the members and what did they do before Encoder? How did you all meet and get together?
For years I DJ'd on the radio, clubs, and booked tons of industrial goth bands. I dabbled in managing bands a couple of times. One was a band called Static Erosion. The other was an aggro-electro outfit called UV. I was acquainted with two UV members but Bruno I hadn't met before. Bruno was the big gears in UV, writing a lot of the tracks and doing most of the production work. As time progressed we found that we had very similar musical tastes. When I let him hear a track that I was working on (what turned out later to be the original version of November), he expressed interest in working together so that he could explore his more melodic side. We clicked right from the start.
Sara is a classically trained vocalist who was in a very cool electro-pop band called 20goto10. I can't recollect when I first heard them but I remember that it was a live show and I was immediately impressed by Sara's voice. Somebody gave me one of their CD's and I listened to it a ton. I thought her singing was just the bomb!
Sara and I were eventually introduced through mutual acquaintances. I approached her about doing a guest vocal spot on a track back when Bruno and I were working on "Supernatural". She wanted to do it, though had something of a contractual obligation to 20goto10 who preferred that she didn't sing for other projects while she was with them. It was a couple of years later after first approaching her that I found out 20goto10 had disbanded. I immediately contacted her to collaborate on a track. She did such a fantastic job we asked if she wanted to do more. We wanted to make her an official member right from the start but she took a job teaching English in South Korea for a year and wasn't planning on coming back to Cleveland when she was done.
As fate would have it, a close relationship had developed between her and one of her former 20goto10 mates. Because of him, she decided to move back to Cleveland after her stint in Korea. Bruno and I instantly offered her a million dollars to join our gang and she accepted! The rest is history...
You describe your music as cybergothic, what ingredients do we have to put in a blender to make cybergothic ?
The full expression would be "electronic cybergothic body music". It came about while trying to figure out how to best describe Encoder's diverse style. The electronic part is self explanatory. "Body Music" is taken from EBM and refers to our affinity toward nightclubs in our music making. As for "Cybergothic", well, the web has been an integral part in our development. Bruno and I write a lot of tracks by exchanging emails. A lot of the people whom we've come in contact with and collaborated with over the years has been completely online. That's where the "cyber" comes from. For the "gothic" part, I think that part just comes from the circles that we move in and the types of people that go to our gigs and buy our CD's. Guilt by association, I suppose. I don't think that "goth" is a dirty word like some bands have come to believe but I do think it has different meanings to different people.
At times our music has a dark tinge to it, even when it's not intentional. Sara's style of singing coming from a classical background tends to give a very neo-romantic vibe. Plus we all look good in black!
You are a dj for many years, does this have a positive effect on you as a songwriter and in what way?
I would like to think it does. I am very conscious of the percussion elements in every track. I try to make the kicks really kick and the snares have the proper snap. I like to have a proper intro and outro for each track so that they are easier to mix. Since I do DJ, I frequently get to test drive new Encoder tracks in the clubs to see how they sound and how the crowd reacts to them. While the members of Encoder have different tastes in music (some very different from each other) most of my adult life has been spent in the clubs. The club people are kind of like an extended family. I also like to see asses shakin' out there on the dancefloor! I try to craft each track so that it has an impact on the dancefloor. There's nothing more satisfying that seeing a packed floor when an Encoder track is playing. It's a real.... rush.
Over the years the electro scene has changed a lot, what do you think are the biggest changes?
Jeez, I could write a thesis on this subject!
I think the biggest changes are the explosion of the internet and accessibility of home studio equipment and software . Networking sites like My Space and Vampire Freaks, internet radio and online webzines such as Cyber Angels have been able to introduce the music to far, far more people than was previously possible. Back in the day, late night college radio and a few underground nightclubs were the primary places one was exposed to this type of music. I think that Industrial Nation magazine once played a big part in bringing people in the scene together and there was the occasional article or CD review in Alternative Press, but these were things fans really had to search for. If you didn't stumble upon the music, you had no idea what you were missing. Now it's everywhere. The term "goth" has bled into mainstream vocabulary. People who otherwise would never have heard of a lot of the music I listened to as a kid are now drawn to it because of curiosity.
I think that the "real" underground base is evolving the most online. The unfortunate thing is that with the underground moving to the virtual world the demand for real world products has disappeared. ALL of the record stores that I used to frequent are gone. CD sales are abysmal. There are more bands making electronic than ever before, but the market is saturated because of it. The underground has never been a good place to make a living, but these days it's almost impossible for a band just to break even.
Encoder just released their album “Slivers of Time” what can you tell about the making process?
Some of the tracks were in the works at the time we were working on "Supernatural". Having "real" jobs and only being able to work on tracks at night and in fleeting spare moments caused the process to be long and tedious. We really wanted to improve our production skills so some tracks were worked and re-worked over a period of years! When Sara officially came aboard that gave Bruno and I an extra incentive to finish up a lot of the tracks that we had been tweaking to death. Sara and I spent many hours recording vocals in the basement of our friend, Creep, from Filament 38.
Each of us worked on our "parts" whenever we had spare time. Bruno in his home studio, me in mine, Sara wherever we could get her... it was all tiny moments over the course of years that came together to form the final product. Thus, "Slivers of time..." was really a description for us and not just an abstract title.
How are the comments on it so far?
Feedback has been excellent! Very positive input from the fans. I must admit that while we've heard a lot of good things, there hasn't been as MUCH feedback as I would like. Having released the CD ourselves it takes a little longer to get the word out about it and a little longer to start getting the feedback. We're really hoping that the DJ's give us a shot. I know how tough it is to break in new music at the clubs. I think that Encoder has been crafted specifically for the clubs and if the DJ's get behind us the fan base will too! I've seen our tracks "Back to November" and "Sweet Dreams" pack dancefloors that they were played on for the first time, so I know that Encoder can become a DJ's friend in they give us a chance!
The first 2 tracks have guest vocals by Lady Omega of Kaiaphas and Romell of Razed in Black, how did you get in contact with them and was it hard to get them do vocals?
Romell I had known from booking Razed In Black a couple of times. I approached him to do guest vocals very early on (before we even had settled on the name Encoder). I had written a track called "November". The music was complete but I only had a sketch for lyrics. I couldn't sing it the way I thought it should be sung so I asked Romell if he'd be interested. We did work out some modest compensation for his efforts, but he went all out with it. I gave him a few lyric lines and a loose "vibe" of where I wanted it to go and he wrote all original lyrics that were pure poetry. The track "(Back To) November" on "Slivers" are his original vocals with completely reworked music and the addition of Sara. The original "November" never really sounded as good as I wanted it to, I don't think I had the production capabilities at the time. It was one of the last tracks completed for "Slivers". I wanted a second chance to do the track they way that I wanted it to sound and I wanted a bridge between "Supernatural" and "Slivers".
Lady Omega was found by chance. I was checking out bands on My Space when I came across Kaiaphas. One of the tracks on their page was a cover of Wolfsheim. When I heard Lady Omega I thought that her voice sounded very cool. Bruno and I had been working on a track called "When it Rains" that was supposed to be on "Supernatural". I had lyrics for it, but neither of us could sing it the way we thought it should sound. We tried, it was terrible. I HAD wanted Sara to do it, but at the time she was still with 20goto10 and couldn't. When I heard Omega I thought she was PERFECT for the track. I didn't know Kaiaphas, they had never heard of us and they were in Brazil at the time. I sent them a message anyway and pitched the idea. They were all about collaborating. Zhyin was very helpful, he set up a recording session with Omega after I had sent them the lyrics. I had the vocals in no time. This was the first time that we had heard female vocals with our music and thought that it was just the coolest thing ever!
You released the album on your own encoder records, why did you do this?
We did it this way so that the CD could get out.
DSBP is a great label. Tommy T is one of the hardest working men in the scene. He is the biggest fan of the music that you will ever meet and he uses his own money to put out the CD's on the label. By his own money, I mean the money he makes working several different jobs. He doesn't make a dime running the label, he does it because he's a fan of the music.
"Slivers" was originally going to be released on DSBP but by the time we had completed it the CD business had tanked. Tommy had taken a very big hit on his last few releases on DSBP. People just flat out stopped buying CD's. He did offer us a partnership, but by that point we had sunk a lot of money of our own into the production and mastering of the CD. The bottom line is that it we couldn't print enough CD's to make our money back for our production unless we did ourselves. We still have a ways to go yet! We're music fans first, so getting the CD out was more important to us than anything. There's a great scene in the move "24 Hour Party People" where New Order realizes that for every record they sell they actually LOSE money- but damned if the record doesn't look and sound great! We're in a similar situation.
Live versions often deviates from album versions, is this with Encoder as well and in what way to they differ?
Every live show we update whatever tracks we are going to play for that show. Because a lot of what we do is virtual, we can't play as much live as we would like. We chose a couple of parts that can be done live, the rest has to be on a back track. Since we don't like to sound like we come out of a can, each track is reworked for each live gig. The vocals are always live so that provides a unique take each time. We also like to bring in surprise guests vocalists on stage to mix things up. I'm trying to get together a few guests to join us the next time we perform our cover of "Sweet Dreams".
Encoder seems to be a band that loves to do remixes? What is that you like in doing remixes?
The number one reason is that they're fun! Remixing also gives us another forum to release our music, another chance to introduce ourselves to a different crowd. Working with somebody else's track gives you the chance to create something that you otherwise wouldn't create on your own. It's interesting to hear how other people put a track together and it's challenging to come up with a unique concept for each remix. We've held a couple of remix contests ourselves and have met a lot of cool people and received a lot of great mixes back. We like to enter the occasional remix contest because we're hoping that WE WILL WIN ONE, one of these days! There has been the occasional individual entering one of our contests that is bitter that they didn't win or place in the top tier. We don't want them to feel that way, but we've been there ourselves.
In my early years of making music, long before Encoder, I tried submitting remixes to some well known bands. Looking back, I'm embarrassed at how some of them sounded! I did an Assemblage 23 remix that makes me cringe whenever somebody brings it up! To think that I actually sent it to Tom... god, it was bad. He was nice and didn't tear it apart. I think his only comment was "Needs more bass". That was an understatement. It was all mids & highs, I had done it on crappy computer speakers.
I like to think I've gotten a lot better over the years because I've kept at it. I've tried and tried to make each remix better than the last. I hope that bands that have submitted remixes to us in the past don't get discouraged if their mix didn't get used. Keep trying! A recent Encoder remix of Assemblage 23's "Binary" can now be heard on the A23 page!
How can people purchase the album?
The best way is at www.myspace.com/encoder. We have both "Supernatural" and "Slivers of time..." available. We have a button for US orders and one for non-US orders. We have to charge a little more for non-US orders because shipping is expensive. Individual tracks can also be found in our SNOCAP store. Ever single purchase helps!
What will be next for Encoder?
We would really like to do more live shows, especially out of state. We've had several offers. Unfortunately it hasn't been economically feasible to take promoters up on them. I've lost a ton of money booking bands over the years and I don't want to put a promoter in a position to lose money by booking us. We're hoping that if the DJ's keep pushing the tracks there will be enough demand for promoters to take a chance bringing us to their town. With two of us getting new jobs, we hope to have more flexibility to do more live shows in 2009.
Any last words for the readers?
Thank-YOU for reading this far! Thanks to the DJ's for all the spins and thanks to the supporters who buy CD's or purchase SNOCAP tracks. The underground NEEDS people to support it. If you believe in a band and want them to continue to do what they do, buy a track or two from them if not a whole CD! Not only is making music very time consuming, it's expensive. The bands that you think are good need you!
www.myspace.com/encoder