Who is Debs?
No-one special... just a gal who likes cats, music, pink things and drums!
You are playing drums in System: FX. Can you give a brief introduction to the band and why pick drums to play instead of keyboards or guitar?
System:FX is me, my husband Steve and our good friend Mike... I guess you could describe our sound as old school industrial with an up-to-date feel.
In 2006, at WGT, Steve and I saw Feindflug play, with about 4 drummers on stage, which looked incredible. I've always wanted to be involved in music, but my hands are too small to play keyboards or guitars (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) but I have a good sense of rhythm, so I thought maybe I could give drums a go.
Rumor is that drummers are always a bit crazy, does this count for you as well?
Ha haaa, if anything I'm the sensible one! We leave the crazy to Mike!
How did you get involved in music, Steve was active for a long time, did he drag you in? What do you remember of your first steps in music?
Steve definitely dragged me in... after seeing Feindflug, as I said earlier, I kept talking about it, so he said that if I was serious he'd buy me an electronic kit and I could play drums for him once I'd learned how to play. He bought me a kit, I took lessons (from Bob Malkowski, all round top musician and great guy) and learned!
What are your rolemodels in both music as personal life?
Musically, pretty much any decent drummers. Alexys from Inertia is a great role model, being a fellow female drummer, and Jan from Implant has been very influential in how I use my drumkit on stage... he's also given me some very useful tips. I don't really have any rolemodels in my personal life, I pretty much go my own way.
You did a few live shows, recently, how did they go? Are you still nervous before doing a show, how do you handle that?
We've had some great live shows over the past year. At only our second ever show we supported Panzer AG (side project of Andy LaPlegua), and a few months later we supported 32Crash... if anyone had told me I'd be playing the same show as Jean-Luc de Meyer in our first year of gigging I'd have laughed in their face, but it happened! I do get nervous before a show, every time, and I deal with it by pacing around on my own! I'm the worst out of the three of us!
You just released the ep: High Definition Violence, what can you tell us about the making of the album, did it all go as planned?
It took a lot longer to release than we'd planned. It was recorded in the first two weeks of January 2008 and Steve started on the production. Unfortunately we had some personal issues to deal with in the first half of the year, which meant Steve had no time to work on the EP. Later in the year when things returned to normal (or whatever passes for normal!) things started moving quicker. Then it was down to getting remixes done and getting it mastered. It was mastered by Reza of Inertia/Killing Joke and it was finished the day before Reza left the UK for a three-month tour with Killing Joke!
How are the first comments on High Definition Violence?
We've had some great feedback on it... people have been impressed with Steve's production work, and he's had offers to produce CDs for other bands. One person even asked if Len Lemeire had produced it, which is high praise as Len is a great producer!
What will be next for System FX?
Writing new songs definitely! We want to go into 2009 with a bunch of new songs for out live shows. We've got a few things lined up... a couple of club gigs in/around London, we are supporting DAF in their only UK show in March, and in April we are hopefully doing our first gig outside the UK, in The Netherlands. Onwards and Upwards!
Any last words for the readers?
Buy our CD!! Ha haa, but seriously, if there's something you've always wanted to do, just go for it, like I did with drumming. You won't know if you're any good until you've tried!
www.myspace.com/sysfx