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n.dru: Doomsday Virus is an independent "industrial rock" ( for lack of a better term ) band from the United States. It all started about 10 years ago as my solo project, but has evolved greatly from there. At this point we have 3 contributing members who both write and play live. We play shows when and wherever we can, usually around the U.S. northeast. We've been compared to many acts, from Skinny Puppy and KMFDM, to Bella Morte and Sisters of Mercy. I don't waste my time trying to figure out where we fit or how to fit in with any one scene or genre. I just write music. The rest is up to you guys.

n.dru: I was in my late teens, just about to turn 20. I was heavily into the goth/industrial scene and had been messing around with a bunch of synths and drum machines. Around this time some people had started to get really nervous about the whole Y2K computer glitch. The most paranoid of whom were convinced that this was going to effectively become some sort of "Doomsday Virus" that was going to bring down every computer, telephone, and power plant on earth. We all know how that turned out. But that's where it all started for me, although it took several years before I had the time and the resources available to put something really tangible together.

n.dru: Ha ha... Man, I wish I could do that one over. "Cries" was really a compilation of sorts, songs I had been kicking around for years since the birth of this project that just needed to be documented and done with. So once I got done with college, moved to a new city, and got a stable job I was finally alloted the time and money necessary to do so. I rented a small rehearsal space and forced myself to take that first step and follow these songs through until completion. The trouble is I really didn't know much about recording or mixing at the time, so the quality of the recordings is terrible. That said, I still stand by every song on that CD. I don't think any of them are "bad" just very poorly recorded. Someday I'd love to go back and re-record them all properly.

n.dru: The "Promo of Mass Destruction" was just that. A promo. We sent it out to a bunch of labels and 'zines back in 2004 when we were working on material for what would eventually become the "Fallout E.P." and "Catastrophic Error". The title was a joke, sort of a tongue-in-cheek play on words. Some people didn't get the joke.

n.dru: Well, we were writing quite a bit of new material back in 2004 and a lot of it was very political given the situation here in the United States at the time. It was a very touchy subject with a lot of people and not everybody agreed with my views. So instead of intermingling those songs with an album of more vague/personal tracks, we decided just to bunch them together on one E.P. and release it before the 2004 presidential election here. That way, our fans who didn't want to hear me bitching about the president, and his policies, didn't have to skip tracks on the full-length album.

n.dru: Well, the album was named after the track "Catastrophic Error". It just seemed to fit along with the computer virus theme of the band's name. I once had a program crash on me that gave an error message "A catastrophic error has occurred". I thought it was kind of funny. There were also some people at the time who were calling the United States invasion of Iraq a "catastrophic error", so there's the politics creeping in again. The song itself doesn't have any one meaning. It could be social, political, personal, or even about a stupid computer error. It's all in the interpretation.

n.dru: "Drink the Kool-Aid" marked the first time the current incarnation of the band (n.dru, p4wl, and raHb) worked together, collectively, on material for Doomsday Virus. Before that it was still basically a solo project where I was writing and recording everything myself. I had occasional contributions from m@rk of (the now defunct) Static Sky Records, and of course our former guitarist j0hn added his own touches to the final recordings, but I was still pretty much in control of the situation and didn't allow for much leeway. This time was different. We scrapped the old process, scrapped the old equipment, used a lot of soft synth, and collaborated on every song. Everybody contributed their own parts and then we tried to find a way to put them all together. Even the lyrics for two of the songs were written by p4wl ("divine whore" and "it's you"). Sure, it took much longer to coordinate that sort of effort than it did to just do everything myself, but as a result I think the album is much more dynamic. There's a greater range of sounds and styles with three people working on the songs instead of just one.

We were also fortunate enough to work with a couple other very experienced, talented people during the final production process. We spent over a week with Mark Alan Miller at Slaughterhouse Studio in Massachusetts this summer recording the album. Mark could do things in seconds that would take me hours to do, and it would sound better. He also had a way of "coaching" the best possible performance out of us when it came time to record our parts. He has an incredible ear, and we barely had to discuss the mixes with him at all because he knew exactly what to do.

n.dru: When I write lyrics I try to make them rather vague and non-specific. That way they can be interpreted by the listener in a manner that is relevant to his or her own life. I chose to do that rather than just telling a story that someone may or may not relate to. As a whole though the lyrics are filled with dark ironic humor, very tongue-in-cheek, but still subtle enough to be misinterpreted. That's all part of the joke. It's about believing anything and everything you read and hear, whether it's from a musician, a politician, a celebrity, whoever, and the consequences of such. It's about failing to read in between the lines and taking everything seriously. In a way it pokes fun of the very scene that we're a part of, but in doing so we're also lampooning ourselves.

p4wl: "Divine Whore" is a bad relationship song although it's an amalgamation of past experiences I've had and the feeling that I've been duped. "It's You" is the anti-Columbine song. It's a story of a disgruntled person who doesn't realize that their own problems are self-inflicted. The song culminates in the antagonist's attempted assault on the people who he feels is responsible for his pain. Before he can start the attack, however, he is killed by the police.

n.dru: Basically we're just trying to do everything we can to get this album in the hands of as many people as possible. Whether that means release parties, shows, promotional giveaways, whatever we can do. It's become very difficult to sell hard copies of CD's these days, between the rising popularity of downloading and the current economic situation, nobody really wants to pay for music anymore. But we're doing what we can, and are trying to embrace the new formats as well. This album, along with "Catastrophic Error" is available via many legal download services such as iTunes, Napster, Amazon, eMusic, Rhapsody, and Verizon.

n.dru: Slower than we'd like, but it's picking up steam. A lot of the old clubs and industrial nights around the U.S. are dying out. Many promoters just don't want to spend the money and go through the hassle of putting on a show anymore, and I can't blame them. However, we try to be cooperative and work as closely as possible with anyone who wants to book us. We want to make sure that both parties get the most out of the experience, and most of all, that the fans get the show they want and deserve.

n.dru: right now we're mostly focused on rehearsing and playing as many shows as possible. that takes up the majority of our time, but we're also slated to a appear on a big compilation called "zero demographic" later this year with a new, unreleased track, that we recorded during the kool-aid sessions.

n.dru: We pretty much scrapped the old way of doing things on this album, which was basically myself, a computer based midi-sequencer and a ton of hardware synth and drum modules. as this was a much more collaborative effort, we needed to take a different approach. everything started with using a soft-synth program to lay out some basic drumbeats, using samples of real or synth drums. then one of us would come up with a bassline, guitar riff, or synth line on top of the beat. we'd use the computer program, not for its actual sounds, but as more of "scratch pad" to lay out the structure of the song. after we had a bunch of parts down i'd arrange them and tweak them a little so they'd gel together better. once that was done i'd develop a vocal melody and craft my lyrics to fit it. we finished writing about 3-4 months before we were set to record, so that gave us time to jam out the songs, get comfortable with them and allow them to develop more before we hit the studio.

p4wl: During the process I had a collection of keyboard riffs written down and some ideas. N. Dru kicked it off by putting down some drum beats for a few songs. Then I would try and tailor what I had to the beats or come up with something entirely new. Generally once the song was filled in with drum, bass, and keyboard riffs Rahb would come in to figure out a good guitar track to go along with it. Other times we would sit in the studio and brainstorm as a group. Lyrics are normally done by N. Dru who would fit them into the song structure at the end.

The hard part of writing "Drink The Kool-Aid" was that the synth and guitar share the same frequencies. The guitar had to be written around the songs so it didn't drown out the mix and sound too much like a metal song with a drum machine. On some songs I was more successful than others. Being the newest member of the band, I felt a responsibility to do honor to the back catalogue and to j0hn's work with the band before I joined. I was friends with n.dru and p4wl for years, so I went into recording this album with a lot of respect for DV's music. I was at a few of the shows (before joining), and knew that there had to be these elements in my playing and writing that were identifiable as Doomsday Virus.

n.dru: The key is simple. We screw around with different beats, synth lines, and guitar riffs until we hear something we like. If we like it, we keep it, if we don't we scrap it. There's really no rules involved, like "that doesn't sound industrial enough", "band xyz wouldn't do that, we can't use it", or "this defies the laws of music theory, we need to rethink it". we pretty much just go with what sounds good to us.

n.dru: The three current members of the band all have a lot of the same tastes in music. There is a lot of overlapping of influences. Old school industrial, like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Thrill Kill Kult, and KMFDM is probably the single most common bond between us. Yet each one of us brings our own other influences to the table, which helps keep things interesting. I probably like a lot more early goth, and punk/death rock that the others, whereas p4wl grew up with 80's metal and cock rock, and raHb seems to know more obscure metal and aggressive ebm bands than the rest of us do. That diversity, bonded by our commonality, seems to be a formula that works very well for us.

raHb: I was on an Antonin Artaud (French Theatre Critic) kick at the time. I brought a copy of his collected works to the first gig I played with DV and to Slaughterhouse Studio when we recorded the album. It's not so crucial to the band per se, just me personally, how I approach music and live performance.

n.dru: When I started this project, the idea was to create something that I would want to listen to myself. Something that would combine everything I liked the most from all the bands and genres that I enjoy. Essentially, I wanted to create a band that I would consider to be my absolute "favorite" if somebody had handed me one of their CD's. I think I've done that.

Obviously that's just my own personal opinion, based on my own personal tastes, but I think we have something to offer everyone. It doesn't matter if you like industrial, metal, ebm, goth, punk, whatever... there's something in the mix for you. Forget the rules and keep an open mind and I'm sure you'll find something you can connect with.

n.dru: I think it would be great if more people would let go of the classifications and categorizations and just let music be music and enjoy it for what it is, rather than deciding to like or dislike a band because they meet all the qualifications of their favorite genre. These styles were invented to break the rules, not play by them.

n.dru: Quite honestly, our future is very uncertain at this time. Although I love music and will probably always be creating it in some form or another, I don't know how much longer we will realistically be able to continue at this pace. Downloading has killed the market for recorded music, so it's really hard to justify spending thousands of dollars to make a record when you might not ever recoup those costs. Touring is difficult, especially in the U.S. where the scene seems to be getting smaller and the cities are so far apart. Again, it's difficult to make it finacially feasible. And speaking of finances, the current state of the U.S. and global economy is not making things better.

I know, blah, blah, blah, it's sounds like I'm just bitching and making excuses, but at some point you have to face reality and see that running headfirst into a wall over and over again is neither fun nor intelligent. But like I said, I'm fairly certain I'll always be making music, it might just become a slower, less visible process in the years to come.

n.dru: The scene in the United States seems to be in a lot of trouble lately. Some people are still in denial over it, but the reality is that industrial clubs and nights that have operated for 10-20 years are disappearing at a rapid pace. Even in bigger cities like New York and Boston, the scenes are a shadow of their former selves. Scenes in smaller cities have lost their homes altogether, while some of the cities at the core (Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle) still seem to be scraping by.

I guess there's a natural ebb and flow to things. The early 90's suffered after the wave of 80's goth subsided, yet surged again later in the decade with the popularity of more mainstream crossover acts like Nine Inch Nails. Right now, the emo subculture seems to have grabbed center stage, but that too will pass. Yet dark music will never die, the subculture will be around as long as humanity itself. Why? Because it's always existed. There have always been dark writers, poets, musicians, artists, they just go by different names and different labels as the centuries pass.

p4wl: It's definitely not as big as Europe's but we do have some hot spots here. Most of my experience came out in San Francisco and in Seattle at places like the Vogue, Catwalk, and Fenix Underground. I'm not sure what their scene is like since I haven't been there in a decade but I'm sure it's still strong. Living in Albany makes you miss those days since our scene is not as strong but we do at least have one!

Some of Bryan's (Velvet Acid Christ) statements make it sound like he's interested in an "apocalyptic/folk" direction, acts like Combichrist are all about stompy dance EBM, and throughout the American scene there are elements of black metal and synth-pop. There's a band out of Atlanta that I've been following, Hell Trash, that's blending hardcore punk with electro.

However, the electro scene here is largely ignored by the media. We can't even get the local free paper to cover our shows! So the music develops organically, like the way music always developed before big corporate media flew in and homoginized everything so the music sounded all the same. In my mind, the country as a whole has a lively scene.

n.dru: It's hard for me to say, seeing as though the only other country I've ever been to is Canada, which I grew up only 5 miles (10 km) away from. Toronto was less than 2 hours away from me when I was a teenager, and the scene there was huge at the time, so that was very influential. However, it seems like Europe is much more into this style of music than the United States. Rap and R&B are very big here, pop music too, and out in the more rural areas of the nation country music is very popular. I don't see so much of that in Europe. Bands that play to 100 people at a club here will play to thousands at a festival in Europe. It would be nice to be able to experience that for ourselves someday.

n.dru: I think I've touched on this already. I've been making music since I was a teenager, which is getting to be longer ago than I care to think about, ha ha! Back then we had no internet, no cell phones, no mp3's, no downloading. It was more difficult to find out about new bands, and even more difficult to hear their music. You had to write letters, beg record shops to carry their albums, and then actually pay for them.

Now it's much easier to find bands you like, and hear their music. I could go online right now and talk to someone in Poland or Russia or Japan and hear their favorite bands. That wasn't even a thought 15 years ago. It's really crazy how much has changed. The drawback is that there are so many bands out there, all so easily accessible, that from the band's perspective, the competition to be heard is very tough. And from the listener's perspective, there's so many bands to wade through that it can get to be very overwhelming.

n.dru: I'd say some of my own biggest influences are old school industrial acts like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, and Nine Inch Nails. I also have a soft spot for more punk-ish acts like Bella Morte and the Misfits, as well as several metal, and EBM acts. I don't like to limit myself to any one genre really.

raHb: As far as electronic music, Nitzer Ebb and Thrill Kill Kult really were the bands that made me interested back when I was a teenager. I was doing metal and going to a lot of all-ages hardcore shows, but I always felt a draw to do electronic music, to use the aggression in metal music in a more thoughtful way.

n.dru: Oh man... this is going to be difficult. It's so hard to chose definite "favorites" because there are so many great tracks to chose from, and some are my favorites because the lyrics hit a chord with me, or just because the musical composition is so amazing. I know I'm going to leave out or overlook a lot of songs here, but if I were to make someone a "mix tape" of my favorite tracks, I'd probably start with ...

n.dru: Ha ha! I've often said that if I wasn't writing music, then I wouldn't know what to do with myself. It's just what I do, it's a way to escape for a while and purge yourself of whatever demons may be chasing you that day. Sometimes I'll just be doing something mindless, like driving, or showering and inspiration will hit me. I'll get a beat or a riff in my head and have to try and get it out and translate it into song before I lose it. As far as my lyrics go, I drawn inspiration from the people I know, places I've been, and things I've experienced. But it's all been twisted and exaggerated and made into more fiction than fact by the time I'm done. I think it's more interesting that way.

n.dru: Like I mentioned before, I was just really into dark electronic music as a teenager and wanted to create something of my own. Everyone I knew was always telling me that I wrote very well, and I should do something with my abilities. So I gave it a shot. I'd been in several bands before, but they were generally rock bands where I wasn't really in control of the situation as much as I needed to be to get my own ideas out. Therefore, I did what every other self-centered asshole in this scene does and started my own project!

p4wl: Outside of my regular job and Doomsday Virus I like to keep busy. I still draw a little, like playing Xbox, lifting weights, volunteer time to a charity organization, and work on finishing up my bachelors degree. In the summer time I like to ride my Harley-Davidson motorcycle and get out to some biker events.

n.dru: Between my day job, my house and the band, I really don't have a ton of spare time. It's not very glamorous. But I do make time to watch my favorite hockey and (american) football teams, the Buffalo Bills and the Buffalo Sabres. Like p4wl mentioned I also have a motorcycle that I ride when the ground isn't covered in ice. Which is like 2 months out of the year...

n.dru: I can get into almost any form of music, or at least appreciate some aspects of it, even if I don't identify with it as a whole. Other than industrial/goth/ebm I listen to metal, punk, and even some rap. I'm willing to go on record saying that country music has some good qualities, I just don't typically like the nasally "twang" vocal style, nor do I really identify with 95% of the lyrics, but the music itself has a lot of personality. Classical music, to me, is a lot like industrial. You have dozens of tiny parts, all played by different instruments, somehow orchestrated and put together to form this massive wave of sound. It's amazing the works that some people can compose.

n.dru: This is a very difficult question. As I've mentioned before, I stand by each and every song I've ever written and recorded, just some have been recorded and mixed better than others. Every step along the way has allowed me the opportunity to do new and different things with the music I've created. I think that if "Catastrophic Error" was recorded in the same manner that "Drink the Kool-Aid" was, then it would probably be my favorite. I think every song on that album was strong and they all fit well. It was sort of the culmination of years of what was essentially solo work. A personal pinnacle of sorts. "Drink the Kool-Aid" was a great accomplishment as well, and certainly of a much better sound quality than our previous releases. However, it was also the first time that the 3 current members of the band really worked together on something that big. The whole writing process changed on this album, and as a result I think we were still working out the kinks while putting these songs together. If we chose to create another album down the road, we will undoubtedly have benefitted from this process.

p4wl: "Drink the Kool-Aid"! For me it's because I got to actively participate in the creation of this record. I came into the group as the live keyboardist just before "Catastrophic Error" CD came out so I had no hand in the making of it. This time around I got to be in on it from the ground up. That's a satisfying experience.

n.dru: Thank you Ruud. We appreciate all you've done for us, helping us promote and get our music heard over in Europe. You've been a supporter of our since the very beginning and we're not going to forget that, no matter where this project goes. And to our fans overseas, if you want to hear more of the virus, then make some noise. Request our tracks at clubs and on the radio, demand that stores carry our releases, and tell the promoters that you know that you want to see us live on stage!