Featuring Outworld Interview by Ruud Dreessen aka ebm-industrial.nl | 27 december 2009
For the first question will be - do you know the netherland? Outworld could you please shortly introduce our readers your music project Outworld
Only Hellrider has been in Netherlands once, but he's not able to remberer all the things that took place. Anyway Outworld is a project born to embrace the most extreme branch of electronic music, and to melt all this influences in a new musical dimension.
Greetings
Greetings goes to all the one who helped us and believed in us, and to our friends, they know who they are..
Please fill also a biographical resume about how, when and where...
Outworld started it all in 2002, as Lord Jian decided to form a band which aim would be to renovate the electronic music from within, even if this would have led the band through the hard path of creating a brand new style.In reference to Hocico and Front Line Assembly and to the old German-Italian mid 90ies Techno-Trance scene, out of respect for the best underground acts playing, inspired by the avant-garde attitude post-black metal, Outworld succeeds to conjugate EBM’s raw power and the most gloomy introspective Cold-Wave atmospheres with the alien melodies of the Industrial, by their skills and personality growth through years of passion and dedication to their most preferred music.
How did you start to make Electronica / Industrial / Experimental and what is Gothic for you?
We began our activity in 2002, but it’s in the year 2004 that this project started properly. I’m very influenced by Gothic and darkness as well, first from my early Symphonic Black Metal, Darkwave and Cyber Metal music listenings (Cradle of Filth, Clan of Ximox, Aborym end much more …).Gothic is such a complex concept; we think it's related to darkness, night, magic and stuff like that... Musically is a way to give voice to the darkest corner of our souls.
What and who are some of your influences in Electronica / Industrial / Experimental ?
Hocico
Grendel
Psyclon Nine
Front Line Assembly
Amduscia
Rammstein
Run Level Zero
Decoded Feedback.
What are your top ten favorite Electronica / Industrial / Experimental Club Songs of all time?
Lord Jian:
Forgotten Tears (Hocico)
Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode/M.Manson)
Hate This (Grendel)
Low Life (Front Line Assembly)
High Tech/Low Life (GenCab);
Matyr
(Unter Null); The Tie That Birds (Stray)
Du Hast (Rammstein)
Bind, Torture and Kill (Suicide Commando)
Technoshock Vol.V (Rexanthony).
Tell one secret about Outworld that you have never told to anyone?
Lord Jian: We use a “secret” mix of analog and digital sounds, with one laptop for each one of us, and one studio workstation. And we are almost surely the last ones who work with Windows OS.
So tell me a bit more about yourself, such as musical?
We try to do very experimental things, but we like to do it step by step. We also like pounding beats, abrupt acceleration and progressive patterns, with a constant melodic reseach on the background.
By the way do you like my questions? tell me what you think about it! ;-)
They’re ok, man, feel safe ah ah..
What is the main idea, the message you want to leave to people who listens to you? What is your motto?
We like to express our motto in our dialect, that is not as the same as in Italian. But in English it would sound like “Listen to Outworld, Motherfucker!”, where motherfucker doesn’t mean something offensive all the time, but on the opposite side it’s sometimes and somehow a good appreciation.
What’s the origin of the name of your band? Have you changed the band’s name before?
We’ve never changed the name, neither I think we’ll do. Outworld means the legacy of some kinds of pop culture things (in our case, I’m obviously talking about Mortal Kombat movie, soundtrack and videogame), and the will to be a sort of Lovecraft’s “Intermundia” between many dark dimensions of music and, of course, attitudes toward it.
Where did the concept come from? and what’s planned now that your album is finished? Or anything else you're working on? Tell me why this title. Tell us a few words about the concept of this.
Wolvie: The concept came from….well, as a project started from metalheads, we intended it since the beginning such as a declaration of war against some kinds of shitty and crappy pop music, including our prime target, that is the “house music”.
Are you a member of any music organizations?
Lord Jian: No. Nevertheless I’ve been asked for collaborations, but sometimes we had a different views about music and other things with these guys. But here in Italy it’s a completely different story, as you could imagine..
How is the current promotional tour going for supporting this album?
Lord Jian: We lack in true music and bands managers. Or, at least, they are very few in number, and far from each other. But the strange thing is that there is a large audience, but it’s forced to listen just to bands from abroad. It’s like an economic problem.
What do you think of a modern Electronica / Industrial / Experimental and about Gothic scene?
Nice question. Well, the whole scene is changing, the songs quality of every single band is growing a lot, that should mean that the fan ask for a fresher product, and this is good, because lets all band to experiment, as before this was poorly admired, because the labels would squeeze the trends to the bone. For this reason, bands like Front Line Assembly, Suicide Commando and XFusion were not exposed properly to the public, while nowadays they are well regarded as masters.
To me, the north american scene is some step further than Europe, but we hit always harder!
Our usual question - what is music for you?
There’s no way for us to describe the combination of sound, or the importance in our lives. As wanna-be scientists we could answer it’s firstly sound, physical vibrations in a media. As musicians ew could answer it’s sound put in a certain way with certain purposes. As persons, we can tell it’s a spiritual food. Nothing less, nothing more.
What was your best live experience so far?
It has been on the last 8/31. We had enough fireworks and gunpowder to blast off a small car! But for safety reasons, we didn’t this, and we had to play outdoor, just because of the smoke, the rockets and the sparkles fall.
Please list the name, age, school, and respective instrument of each band member
Wolvie: 31, Foreign Languages Degree, keyboard, fuzz bass & backing vocals
Lord Jian: 26, Secondary School, vocals, drumbeats programming, sinths.
Hellrider: 27, I.T. Degree (almost), synths and backing vocals.
What are your views on the current state of this electro scene in Italy.in terms of creativity and audiences? And the scene in other countries?
In Italy there are 5/10 very good acts, but more if you include all the kinds of electro music like Techno, Psytrance, Goa, Gabber and Hardcore. The creativity is growing, and this lets the bands’ sound getting more personal and experimental. In the other countries it’s the same, just 10/15 years further from us, at least in terms of audience quality and quantity.
you have very nice numbers. Tell me about lyrical compositions what you can tell about the done work? How does your music creation process work? How do you create a song?
The whole composing process has gone through a path surrounded by bothering and difficulties, but there were nice moments, too. The lyrics start from our personal view from “Outworld” to “our world”, and then are very precise in describing our messages. The one of “Inverse Polarity Soul” is, for example, that the mankind is evolving in a bad way, actually in the worst one. Thousands of years of civilization have created an hell on earth, instead of an heaven, where the human being is splitting in roles assigned by the power. The lyrics are just the form the feelings assume when it need to sing them on the songs. There’s not a strict rule of composing. Melodies are written mostly when we have the inspiration, but there are also moments when we rely more on brain than on heart, if you know what I mean.
What genre of music do you consider your work to be? Who are your major influences?
We used to call it “Outworld Sound”. To me, in fact, the genre-oriented classification is dead and buried as well. We mixed up electro form with metal substance music, so everything “alchemist” has influenced us.
What do you do to chill out?
Hangin' out with friends, have some beers, seeing movies... things like that.
So what are their main influences as a band at the moment?
Our main influence is our album "Inverse Polarity Soul". The target is to evolve its sound to something new but still 100% Outworld!
What is currently inspiring your material as an artist? tell me all about the Electronica / Industrial / Experimental scene of Italië?
There are few interesting bands in Italie, like Epochate, Dope Stars Inc, etc... but they have a sound almost different from ours.
Do you think that people from the music press didn't expect you to grow up musically?
The music press…to us it’s a sheer media. It could be runt by smart and kind people or by ignorant persons, that are there just by some mafia-trick. I strongly pay attention to press and reviews, but just to read between the lines, that is if we have passed by “unnoticed” by them or on the contrary we have left some kind of sign on them. Then, if they think we’re not growing, it means they’ve not already listened to our music at all. But, summarizing, we are very well appreciated.
what is the key to making music from Outworld and what inspires you to keep growing as a musician?
The key consists in never close our ears and eyes on the surrounding scene, enjoying everything and learning from anyone who deserves to teach us something. It could be Madonna, Kraftwerk, Rage Against The Machine or Ozzy Osbourne, I don’t care.
How do you see the future of download / Copyright in area of goth-Electronica / Industrial / Experimental music ? What are the best ways to develop it in your mind ?
Wolvie: I’m a fan of the raw underground self production and trade, but I have realized that you’ll need always a greater support. The real problem is not the increase in downloading, but in the decrease of sales, because there have been too many parasites out there spilling the blood of the bands. Just like bulls and bears at the stock exchange. I hate this, it’s the real reason behind this music economy crisis.
Please let us know about your upcoming plans, some new releases you like to confirm here
We are working on a still untitled album, planned for somewhere in the future. Maybe we'll publish a single in April; anyway we are very focused and we want to give the best as a band as always before.
If there was one thing you want people to know about your band what would that be?
Maybe we could say that we are normal people, who have to work to survive!
And what is next on Italy agenda?
Expect the unexpected!
How can fans-to-be gain access to your music? Do you have a website with sample songs or a demo CD?
They can listen to our music through our website - www.outworldsound.com -, or our myspace - www.myspace.com/outworldimension. In the future we'll probably upload our cd on some digital store.
Were you asked to play or did you have to ask for a slot?
Yes, we were asked, but the most of times we refused, because the club was not able to match with our stage set needs. We asked for a slot, too, and we can say it's very hard to have one.
It has been a pleasure to interview you on your musical activity,Well,any last words to your ebm-industrial fans?
Never surrender to any asshole.
Thanks for your time! great work on the albums and good luck with everything.
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