Finally after talking about doing an interview for a long time, it’s ready. How are you all doing?
I am doing fine! Puck is probably very busy as usuall, and Stefan is working on visuals and his own music so all should be good. Puck just send me a text message if I am also planning on visting the Nitzer ebb show, so she seems fine.
Can you give a brief introduction to the band’s history?
It all started on a summer day in 2000 when I bought a version of Cubase VST3.5 and found out what I could do with it. I started experimenting with sounds and effects and released the songs under the tPROE banner. I was already making and releasing music as Kratarknathrak. But that was hardware based and I used a primitive version of Cubase to program a sampler, a synth and two drummachines with it. The VST version opened up a lot of possibilities for me.
Can you explain the name, do you believe in one Europe?
The name is from an old episode of Mission impossible. In this episode they made someone believe the USA was invaded by an European communist power called “The peoples republic of europe”. They were executing people all over the place, stating “You are an enemy of the state”. As for Europe being one: I do not have a real opinion about it. The current EU government seems lacking. I never bothered with it. I like the idea of an imperial Europe like in Roman times, but those times are long gone, and I am not sure we would want that again now.
tPROE started 10 years ago, how do you look back on 10 years of tPROE, what was the best experience you had, has making music changed a lot in 10 years?
It will be ten years this year though I had ideas to use the name prior before that, and made some EBM stuff I wanted to release, but I thought it not good enough. I had originally envisioned tPROE being an EBM act, but decided to release the darkambientstuff I made in summer 2000 under that name. As for the best experience: That would be the US tour we did last year, and seeing your band grow and getting bigger and more renowned. Making music in my view has not changed much. Basically it all comes down on mixing sounds. Only thing which changed is that computers are more powerfull, giving you more VST’s and channels to work with. It has become a lot easier. I already started making industrial music in 1988 and released some cassettes in those day through the tape circuit. In those day I had to do with a primitive drummachine, a analogue synth my brother had, and a cassetedeck and two old taperecorders. Cutting tapeloops is no fun at all, so its better now.
Originally tPROE started off as a darkambient band, evolving their style to become industrial with powernoise influences. What made the style change? Was it something planned or did it happen naturally?
I had already made industrial and powernoise before that, so it was not really a change of style for me. Making and releasing music is a process which has a certain flow. It started out with darkambient, but when I experimented more and started using rhythms. I also discovered the Ant-zen label in those days, and I wanted to see if I could do something like that, and that worked out pretty well. You never plan things like this. You hear things which inspire you, and you get to work. It’s as simple as that. When I noticed the hard stuff catching on it certainly motivates you. Cybercase picked us up, and booked us when he heard the third tPROE demo-album “Steel and honour”. And from there on the road was quite clear for me.
In between tPROE recorded an ambient album “Cumulonimbus II” what was the reason to record this. Did you had the feeling there was still some unfinished works from the early days?
Those were not from the early days, but work made from 2003 til 2005 while working on the albums of those years (Among the Ruins, Juche, Monopoly of violence). I still make brooding darkambient soundscapes, but I feel regular tPROE albums should focus on harshness, and I only use a few soundscapes here and there to break up the albums a bit. It is a bit inspired on Speedy J who also makes ambient soundscapes, and releases them under his real name (Jochem Paap). I used the “cumulonimbus II” title to emphasise it being an darkambient release, and not a regular pit-slamming industrial album. And there is now even about 45 minutes material for a “Cumulonimbus III” album, so you will see more of these popping up. Another thing is that these tracks can be very long. One new track I made for Cumulonimbus III lasts for about 23 minutes! This would be a bit odd on a normal tPROE album and won’t fit in the flow. Releasing them separately feels better to me.
The line-up of tPROE has changed over the years, who are the current members of tPROE and what is their role in the band?
Currently my sidekicks are Puck, who does live noise and static, and does logistic and management stuff for tPROE like making sure everything is in place like we want it to, and to nag soundengineers when they don’t do as she wants. She pushed one offstage when we played Seattle, so soundengineers better listen to her. Furtermore there is Statik who does live video’s and visuals, and scouting for groupies.
We know the bandmembers are individuals with a strong opinion, does this mean that songwriting and recording is often based on a conflict of influences and ideas or do you work in harmony when being together?
Not at all! Because I am the only one making the music. I let Puck and Statik hear stuff I am working on, and if they have remarks I take them into consideration or not, but that happens rarely. Statik also has his own project Statik Sky, so he can make up his own musical ideas, and Puck likes tPROE music very much and seems to be more on concentrating on the business aspect. That’s a side I don’t like, so I am happy she does that, and she does an excellent job in that field.
You are a dj as well, do you keep in mind what people dance too when working on new music? What makes music good music for a dj?
Yes and no. I think it is important that an album should have a few good tracks for the dancefloor, so I also write those. But if I want to experiment around I am free to do so. I also like dancemusic. I always liked EBM, Disco, Funk, Hiphop, Techno and the likes, so for me making music for dancefloors is quite natural. Most track I start working on wind up as dancetracks, so thats normal to me. As for good music for a DJ its very simple: it has to be a good catchy song. Preferably with a good production. There is really nothing to it.
What is your opinion on todays cybergoth scene? Is there something you miss in todays music?
The Cybergoth scene sucks in my opinion. Its all about fashion and not about music anymore. A lot of new bands only follow a trend and make very unoriginal stuff while dressing up like zombies from radioactive wastelands. Worst example of this is Ext!ze, a really bad band who only focus on image, and release awfull bad and badly produced cliché- electro industrial. As for todays music: There is a lot of good stuff going on in genre’s outside of the stale industrial genre’s. I am quite fond of dubstep and minimal techno myself, and I also incorporate element of that in tPROE music. I would like to see that more in industrial genre’s. Some bands are doing that, but it wouldn’t hurt if more bands do that.
At the moment the dutch scene is bringing forth new talent, bands like Static Sky and Mono Amine are also on Vendetta Music and released new albums. Do you feel you opened doors for them?
I don’t know if I did that. I had the impression Joost was signed at the same time, or perhaps even before me. Statik sky might have been discovered through tPROE, because Dave (Vendetta label boss) asked me about him wheni just released “Singularity”, but Statik Sky had already released some material on compilations, and was already to be heard in the US industrial clubs. So Dave could have heard about him through that. The dutch scene is doing quite nice nowadays. XMH just got signed by Danse Macabre, and I know there are plans for NG-Pro to release their latest album “The place to be” in the US on Vendetta. It seems the Netherlands are doing fine in the industrial world, but I do feel we have a lot of good bands, so it is all wel deserved.
Last year tPROE did a tour in the USA, how did that go, was it a dream come true? Planning a tour is always pretty hard, how did you guys pull it off?
It was a dream come true indeed! When we were in Denver the first few days, Statik and I would poke each other and say: “Dude! We are in America!”. It has been an interesting and rough ride. How we did pull it off still amazes me, because we had to drive about 7000 km in one week for 5 shows, and sometime we had something like a little more of one day to drive 2000 km, so little sleep, lots of red bull and keep on driving. Puck really amazed us with her stamina, so we now know she must be a superwoman. For me the sights to see were amazing, because the USA is a freaking beautiful country. Also the people were very nice to us everywhere, and we had lots of fun with our touring buddies from Hocico and Hardwire and with all the bands on the Vendetta fest, Only downside would be the monsterdrives and huge distances, and the stress from not having enough sleep. But when we finished the hellride we were already wanting more, and really sad we had to fly back. I also heard this from a friend of mine who plays guitar in a metal band. When you tour you suffer, you get lack of sleep, you get dirty, but when you are home at last you only want to get back on tour. And that’s what we want to do again: Tour!
Last year you released a new album called Babylon, how are the comments on it so far?
Pretty amazing. A lot of people really like it, and some say it is among the classic industrial albums like Haujobb’s “Home and gardens” or FLA’s “Tactical neural implant”. For myself I am happy that I managed to incorporate influences from dubstep, dancehall, drum&bass and even reggae in the music, without compromising on harshness, and a lot of people noticed and appreciated that. A lot of industrial bands seem to focus on IDM for influences to make the genre more diverse, but to me getting some gritty dancehall out is more interesting then doing something like Autechre with distortion.
Every musician tries to make their latest album an better one compared to the previous ones, was this the same for you and did you had in mind what progress you wanted?
Babylon is my best album to date. I really like what I did there, and I worked hard on getting where I wanted production and musically wise. The album is more diverse then previous works, while still being hardhitting and dangerous. The progress is going more urban and doing more influences from black culture in the music. Something which is considered strange in industrial land, though I know a lot of my collegues listening to urban music like funk or hiphop. I hope “Babylon” will influence more people to get into this, then go all artyfarty with IDM.
Does Babylon have a certain theme or is it a collection of songs? Any deeper thoughts behind it?
Babylon is a very spiritual album. It focuses on themes from rasta culture and the bible, and the general mainstream dividing in good and bad. “Babylon” is the symbol of sin in mainstream religion, and this album is to celebrate the concept of Babylon. I find Christian and Islamic morals absolutely abhorrent and this album serves as a symbolic kick in the nuts. I myself am an atheist, but I am not blind to the symbolism, and spiritual ideas behind these notions. I sympahtise with left hand path religions like modern Satanism, Thelema, and absurdist religions like the FSM or Discordianism.
One thing I especially am proud of is “Nicolea Carpathia died for your sins”, my ode to the antichrist. The character Nicolea Carpathia is the antichrist in the conservative Christian “Left behind” books and films. When you look at the movies you notice the bad acting and the constant whining and praying of weak babbling Christians. The only moments the film comes to live is when Nicolea Carpathia enters the scene. He is delightfully evil and you immediately sympathise with him. To me this is proof that the Christian moral is evil and perverted and that everything anti-christian represents the good side. Babylon is all which represents anti-christianity, so there you have the concept behind “Babylon”.
Will the 10 years of existence of tPROE be celebrated, any special plans for it?
I never though about this to be quite frankly. I am thinking of releasing the old demo albums again, because there is good stuff on them, and a 10 year rerelease of “Cumulonimbus” might be a nice idea. But with the current bad music market with all the illegal downloading I don’t see any ways to do this in a way without throwing away a lot of money, and I am not prepared doing that again. So I think I just do nothing about it.
What will be next for tPROE?
Currently I am working on the new album “Machine district”. I already have about 20 songs ready of which about 10 or 12 will be released on the album and others perhaps for compilations or EP’s. I also would like to do vinyl releases, because I like vinyl, but again the market sucks. Furthermore I hope to get some more shows going on in Europe and the USA, and everywhere where they want to have us.
Any last words for the readers?
Keep them booties shaking to the sound of the cowbell!
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