TG: I thought we could start out by
talking about how Decoded Feedback got together.
Y: We were both living in Italy and we were
going out to clubs a lot, just having a great time. There was this really cool
EBM industrial club, and we were hanging around people who made music, and
we’re saying, you know this would be really cool to make it ourself, just
to try it.and it seemed liked such a neat thing to do, to try to make this
music yourself.
M: At that time the scene in Italy was really
really good. This club called Express had great shows, we saw Die Form, Noise
Assembly. A lot of bands from Europe played there. So that’s what inspired
us to try to do our own stuff with music.
TG: When was that?
M: 1992?
Y: 1993 I think about.
TG: What was your first release?
M: First album was Overdosing. It was basically
a collection of some demo tapes and we put together this album called
Overdosing. Actually we are about to re-release the album because a lot of
people ask for that album; it’s not available anymore. We are about to
re-release it with Bloodline, including maybe some new tracks, some remixes in
it. It will probably be in the new year; Feburary, somewhere around that
time.
TG: What’s the significance of the
name?
M: It was more related to an overdose of
information, an overdose of feelings. I picked the name …
Y: That’s what I was going to say,
you’ll have to answer that J
M: Overdose of information. A lot of stuff was
going on in my life in the time. An overdose of things in my head
basically.
TG: What do each of you do in the
band?
Y: Basically we do share a lot of things. I do
a lot of strings, I love doing melodies a lot. I do a lot of basses, drums.
I’ve even started getting into a little bit of sampling, and have been
getting into writing lyrics. We do share a lot of the stuff together, except
for Marco does most of the sampling (99%).
M: Most of the sampling, drums, basses, and
lyrics. I’m the singer as well.
Y: We do the arranging together. One person
sometimes starts, the other one starts. It depends. Sometimes it starts from a
sample that he’s done, and then I’ll start doing the base on
that. It just goes like that.
TG: What equipment do you use?
M: We don’t say names of what we use. In
fact, live too we cover the names of the keyboards we use.
TG: Why
is that?
M: I don’t like the publicity to
companies. And also, I like the fact that people are curious to know what we
use. I like people to guess basically what we use. It’s pretty easy to
guess if you know the instruments.
Y: Well, some of them. There’s one
that’s a bit difficult.
TG: What is your writing process
like?
Y: Basically again it just starts with, either
like Marco does a sample and it starts from there.He does a lot of samples and
he mixes 2 or 3 samples together, so we have a certain note that he might have
to start with. Then you have to start from there and have to decide if notes
can go around it. Sometimes it just starts for me playing strings. I’m
just playing a couple chords.
M: The classical composing the piano. Sometimes
just writing down lyrics and working from the lyrics. Just me practicing with
the voice and building the song around that.
TG: What are you trying to say with your
lyrics? Is there a message that you’re trying to get out there?
M: Not a specific message. A lot of the lyrics
I write is about pain, what I feel in a certain situation, and what I feel also
about the world. My personal life, and also my persona in the world, the way I
feel about the world. Interaction between people. We don’t have really
political issues that we deal in the lyrics.
TG: What makes Decoded Feedback unique
compared to other bands?
M: Two different cultures together; a woman and
a man together. Combining ideas together, and we like to use a lot of hard
beating and hard basses combined with melody on top. A lot of bands do very
hard music, or really melodic music. It’s difficult to combine these two
things together, and make them work together very well. This is one of the
unique things of Decoded Feedback.
Y: I think the samples that Marco does are one
thing I really like. I recently said in another interview is the way that he
combines some samples together, and I’ve been starting to get into it too.
One of the best sampling merging together was Passion of Flesh. In the
beginning there’s two different things we sampled and melded them
together. Recently somebody complimented saying that we don’t just take
typical samples, not just right from the movies. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Mixing all sorts of strange samples. We get them from all sorts of weird
places. It’s nice, different in that way.
TG: What movies have you sampled?
Y: We don’t usually say where we get them. Aliens is one. I think
that’s about it. I can’t remember other movies.
M: Again, it’s pretty interesting to hear
what people have to say about that.
Y: We always say that if anybody can figure out
the sample in Breathe, I swear I’ll pay them, let’s say $100. If I
say that someone will figure it out. It’s impossible to figure out where
that sample came from.
M: It’s not impossible.
Y: It’s almost impossible.
M: It’s a movie ..
Y: If anybody gets it, a free t-shirt and a
free cd, how about that?
M: Ok.
TG: Do you guys like being in the studio or
playing live? Which one do you like more?
Y: I like both. I love playing live. At first I
was very nervous playing live; I didn’t like it. The very first years that
we did it, the very first time, I was very nervous. But now I really, really
enjoy it. You get to really see the reaction of what people think of your
music. But again, I like the studio stuff too, but I find they compliment each
other, because once you play live, then you get the inspiration to make more
music and it’s a lot of fun.
M: The studio is more like a moment of
reflection. A quiet moment that you work on the music and lyrics. The live is
more like an andrenalin rush, it gives you a lot of excitement and make you go
on.
TG: You’re playing this Thursday at
EBMfest. Have
you played with any of those bands before?
M: No. We know at least Hocico and we know the
music of Hocico. We don’t know the other two bands. So it’ll be
interesting to see them play.
TG: I’ve heard some sort of allegations
that you don’t actually like playing in Toronto. Is there anything you
want to say about that?
M: Yes. It’s not true.
Y: Totally not true.
M: We like to play in Toronto. The only problem
is nobody ever offer us a good place to play. We want a good system, a good
place to play and all people before they ask us to play in very small places,
and with very bad systems and we prefer not to play in this. We prefer to play
once in a while.
Y: But make it a really good concert. There
were a couple concerts unfortunately that were cancelled, that were actually
planned that were quite big. We were supposed to play with VNV Nation
actually recently, but then Icon of Coil was put on the floor. But before that
we were actually going to be the band. So many times that’s happened, and
we’ve been billed with another band and we’re like cool and then all
of a sudden they cancel, they don’t come to Canada, work permits problems.
So it’s been a lot of that too, so it’s been really quite ironic that
it’s happened so many times. Then we heard that somebody was going around
Toronto saying that we’d snubbed Toronto and all this stuff, and
they’d banned us from their playlists. And we’re thinking what is
going on that people make these rumours and scandolous things. You don’t
even know the story. We’ve been quite frustrated never getting a concert
down in Toronto for a long time.
M: I think DJ’s, they should support more
local bands. Because going out in clubs, I notice not a lot of people they
support us. It’s a very big difference compared to Europe or the States.
In the States we are always on all the playlists. And in Toronto: rarely. It
should start from the DJ to support local bands. I think it’s very
important. Unfortunately, that’s not really happening in Toronto.
Hopefully this show will help that.
TG: Is there anything else you’d like
to see changed in Toronto’s scene?
Y: I’d like to see more bands coming here.
But unfortunately that’s due to a lot of the problems recently with the
terrorist attacks. And it’s going to be much more difficult to get people
to come into Canada. As it was before, very few people would come. So I would
like that. I wish people would want to go out, and really request that these
concerts come. Maybe people would, if people write to Metropolis Records, call
them and say hey, get these people to come to Canada. It would be good to see
if there were more concerts.
M: Also, one of the problems of Toronto people,
they prefer more go club nights then attend to shows. I wish that people would
go more to concerts. Even if it’s a small band, or you’ve never heard
the name of the band, go to see it. Support the bands because that’s the
music that is played in clubs. You have to support the bands. Even if you never
heard the name of the band before, try to go see it, you might like it. Instead
of just supporting only the big bands.
TG: You’ve played in Toronto once
before?
Y: Twice with Covenant.
M: Lee’s Palace both times.
TG: What are your musical influences, or
other bands that you like?
Y: For me, I love Leather Strip. That’s
one of my very big influences. Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly, Mentallo and
the Fixer, Clock DVA. I like a lot of things but Leather Strip is one of my
favourites just because it’s very aggressive, but at that same time has
melody. That’s what I really like.
M: For me, it really changes. My inspirations,
my preferences really change, year by year, album by album. I listen to very
different music every year and every month. There are a lot of band sthat I
liked in the past that I still like. But I really try to listen to new bands,
get elements from new bands, fresh new elements from new bands. My favourites
from the past are definitely Skinny Puppy, Project Pitchfork, Frontline
Assembly, Front 242. The new bands: Imperative Reaction, God Module, really
good American bands. From Germany, Feindflug.
Y: There’s so many.
TG: I went to your website and noticed
that you that you have some songs that people are able to listen to, and you
have a page on mp3.com but there’s nothing available for download there.
How do you guys feel about free music online?
Y: Audiogalaxy, they do have our stuff. I think
the mp3 is huge. It’s strange, because it’s promotion, but it hurts
the bands too. Metropolis records actually has said it’s hurt sales for
all their bands. It has effected their bands, not a huge amount, but enough
that it has made them worried. I wish people would understand that’s it ok
to download stuff here and there, especially if it’s a rare mix, something
you can’t get. Like obviously Overdosing’s not out right now so if
you can’t get it, download it, that’s fine. But the thing is that if
it’s a cd, maybe the new ones, try go out and buy it once in a while.
Don’t always buy the typical big bands, and just download the smaller
bands. It’s going to destroy the scene and the musicians are going to stop
making music. We’ve heard of a couple through Metropolis that are really
in trouble. Their sales went right down. Luckily not ours, but some other
people have gone down and they might be dropped because of this. If people
would just try to support the scene, and at least buy a couple cd’s. I
know they’re quite expensive, but it really would help.
M: It should just be a tool to listen to the
songs, to discover bands, to listen if you like the band. But after you should
purchase the album. Not just download the song. You are killing that band. The
moment you download the song and burn it on cd you kill the band.
Y: There’s a thing that’s incredible,
that a lot of people will say that I only like one song off the album so
I’ll just download that one. You can’t expect a band to make one
album full of fantastic hits, it’s impossible. Each song on that album is
from that artist, and it is an artist piece, and it’s going to be
different, each one. So if you like the band, even for that one song, you
should buy it. It will in the end effect the artists. Even though we’re
not in it for the money, it’s just that you can’t expect people to
not beable to make at least enough to buy the equipment.
M: That’s also for DJ’s. I notice a
few DJ’s in Toronto, basically they have all the CD’s burned. They
don’t have one boxed CD and that’s so bad. That means no supporting
anything, no supporting the music you believe in. I wish more people would
listen to the song and if you like it, you go out and you buy it.
TG: So where in Toronto can we buy your
merchandise?
M: HMV, all the record stores, Penguin. For
t-shirts there’s Siren.
Y: Also Northbound Leather. And they can also get it through us.
If anybody really needs anything, they can also email us and we’ll get it
to them, no problem.
TG: Are you working on a new album right
now?
M: We are halfway through the new album. At the
same time, right now we are getting ready for the show. The new album will be
with remixes. Right now we are talking with some bands we might have: And One,
Noise Sex, doing some remixes for us. We like to have very different kind of
bands: And One because it’s a really fun and popular band. And Noise Sex
because they are very good musicians for noise music. They are two very
different bands that we like and I think it will help us.
Y: In Evolution, the remixes we had done for
us, everybody did such different jobs and we really liked every single one.
Every single remix that people did we liked. Each person is a gas-fused
version. Relic was completely different from Din Five’s version. It was
just amazing, so different.
TG: How long does it typically take you to
come up with a new album?
Y: Could be anywhere from 6 months to a year.
It’s always a work in progress. When we were working on Biovital we
already had a song that didn’t make it into Biovital but actually got into
Evolution. There are always little remanents of songs floating around. Actually
this is something that a lot of people don’t know: on the European version
of Mechanical Horizon there is a song called Body Haunter, it’s actually a
redone version from our very first demo tape, which we redid in 1996 and we
were going to put in on Overdosing but we didn’t feel like putting it on.
So we kept it and came across it and said this is really good, let’s put
it on, it’s a really fast EBM song. We threw it on there, but it’s
only on the European version.
M: It’s about a year period of time to put
out an album. Normally we will have a lot of songs ready, after we pick the one
we like the most. It’s a lot of work.
Y: Sometimes after you get a song, you say I
don’t think that’s good enough at the time. You keep it but you might
not put it out right away.
M: 6-8 month period of timeof writing songs.
2-4 months for mastering the songs and actually getting a final product ready
to burned on an album.
TG: It was great talking to you, looking
forward to the show on Thursday.
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