Done for Mindframe e-zine, February 1998
You've been relatively quiet since the release of "TMOTD" and your summer tour with Luxt. What has been going on with Scar Tissue between now and then? Any new Scar Tissue works in progress?
Well, after the tour we went into find-a-job mode, and once we were able to pay the rent and eat, we went into recording mode, where we've been ever since. Our remix CD is scheduled for release April 7th, and the 3rd full-length should be out around early August; both on 21st Circuitry.
I've heard some rumors about a Scar Tissue remix album in the works. What is the status of this? What remixers do you have lined up?
So far we have remixes being done by Download, New Mind, Crocodile Shop, Clean (Haujobb side project), SMP, Railgun (local artist), A-Pod (unsigned band from Minneapolis), Necrofix, and 3D House of Beef. No guarantees yet on any of these specifically ending up on the final release, since we haven't heard everyone's remixes yet.
Do you have any idea how the remixes will compare to the original Scar Tissue sound? Are we going to see Scar Tissue catering to the club market like many other bands do on remix albums?
Some of the remixes will be club-oriented, yes. That was the idea for this CD: get Scar Tissue played in clubs and get people asking "who is this?" But it was also just a fun thing to do. I like hearing what other people do to my sounds.
Going back to "TMOTD," how was that album a step forward from what you were doing on "Separator"?
Well... I can tell you how it was DIFFERENT, whether or not that equates with a "step forward"… I think its a more "mature" sounding recording. It feels like a solid piece of work, even though it varies widely stylistically like Separator did. TMOTD was produced and mastered in the same studio, and that has the most to do with it sounding like a cohesive work to me. TMOTD also has the first contributions from Phil Cladwell, in terms of programming, sampling and sequencing. I’m very lucky that his style fit so well with mine.
Why were the vocals on "TMOTD" either processed beyond recognition or absent altogether? Do you feel that you see the voice differently than most other musicians?
There are vocals on only one song of TMOTD (the first one, Crashtime). They were sampled and then sequenced into the song, not sung live. I wanted to use my vocals like samples, and in the rest of the songs to use samples like vocals. Look at the songs Cascade and Membrane: the samples ARE the vocal lines, and had they been "sung" by a live person, the songs would have lost their power. The human voice is just a sound, like a guitar, keyboard, whatever… and to think that EVERY song needs to use that sound is to be lazy about developing a song’s palette of sounds… it is forcing the song to accept a certain sound without justifying that sound’s place. And you’re right, I think I’m in the minority on that view of human vocals.
You've mentioned in previous interviews that Phil had a heightened input on "TMOTD" compared to what he did on "Separator" - how do you feel this impacted the overall sound?
I think it was an amazing coincidence that his programming style meshed so well with what I was doing. And he definitely affected the sound of the album, since he processed his samples himself and I then used them with only slight modification. The songs "A Million Screens", "Gravity" and many of "the devices" are mostly Phil’s work.
What kind of role did improvisation play on "TMOTD," and "Separator" as well for that matter?
There’s a fine distinction, or maybe none at all, between "improvisation" and "getting it right on the first take". Most of Phil’s guitar parts were developed and recorded within 2 or 3 takes during final mixing. There’s never a long process of "writing" any of our parts. We just perform them while recording, and usually we like what we do, so we move on to the next thing.
Scar Tissue is infamous for its powerful live shows; REALLY?!?!?! That’s… weird… but cool is there a certain kind of atmosphere you try to create with a live show? What do you want your audience to walk away with from your shows?
We want it to be powerful, yes… but not "serious". We want people to have fun, and see that WE are having fun too. I think the music speaks for itself in the "power" department, so all we have to do is groove to it like the audience is and enjoy it with them. The best compliments we’ve received have been people telling us that we are good MUSICIANS, not that we jumped around a lot or had "a lot of energy" or anything showmanship-like.
Many electronic-based bands tend to be very studio-oriented, but Scar Tissue does not seem to have this problem. Why is that? What makes Scar Tissue more exciting live than your average electro or electronica band?
I really don’t know.. I mean, I don’t know WHAT we do live that is interesting or exciting. I always get compliments on my drum playing, so I think people really like seeing live drums, especially if they are hearing deep, tribal rhythms. And Phil is really fun to watch too, with all his electronic toys and odd guitar techniques. I think people find it refreshing that we’re not just twiddling knobs.
Do you feel that your work translates well to the live experience? Have you encountered any problems with making Scar Tissue work live?
Our first 8 or 10 live shows were really bad. We were not comfortable, didn’t know what we "should" be doing… it was pathetic. Then something finally clicked, and we just fell into a nice, relaxed space. I think we just had to do it enough to be able to say "fuck it" and just PLAY. That sounds so simple, but it was a hard thing to do… to stop THINKING about performing and just perform.
Tell us about the DJ you added to the live lineup. What does he add to the music? Will his input be carried over into the studio recordings?
His name is Tao (pronounced "Dow") and he’s really cool. For a long time I wanted to ad a DJ to our live show, just so there was more interesting stuff going on, visually AND aurally. We just recorded 2 songs using him in the studio and they are AMAZING. He’s just adding scratches and odd sounds, but they’re weird enough to fit in with our style. Both songs are remixes we did for New Mind’s new album, and I’m thinking of releasing the songs on our own remix CD as well.
How exactly does a Scar Tissue song start? What is the compositional process like?
The best songs are "done" in a split second. What I mean by that is, a sound will be created after some time of pure experimentation, and that sound will suddenly create the entire "feel" and structure of a song around itself, in my head. From that second on, it’s just a matter of developing and recording what I hear in my head. Its a very "out of body" kind of thing… like the song is coming through me, not like I’m creating it.. I know that sounds New-Agey and weird, but it’s true. It’s probably one of very few times in my daily life that I feel something that might be described as "spiritual". But that’s a stretch.
What kind of role does sampling play in your music, particularly dialogue sampling? Since vocals seem to be sparse at best, do you use samples to convey themes or messages that a vocalist might otherwise convey?
That use of sampling dialog, to convey themes or messages that a vocalist might otherwise convey, was much more conscious on TMOTD for us. But it was a very similar process to that of song creation described above. We didn’t labor over samples deciding what to put where… we just DID it, because that’s the way the song MADE us do it.
To put it bluntly, what is up with the toys? Are they just a gimmick, or do they serve a higher purpose in the music?
They’re a gimmick just like our sampler is a gimmick. Both things make cool noises if used correctly. No higher or lower purposes, just purposes.
What exactly is Form/Alkaline? What kind of role does each member play in it compared to Scar Tissue?
Hmmm…. We don’t really know about that yet. We don’t really 50/50 on anything. One of us does 90% of something and the other "finishes" it. So we figured that anything eaither of us made that didn’t fit into Scar Tissue should be released as something else. Phil called his project Form and I called mine Alkaline. But then we realized that there IS no Scar Tissue "sound" and all the things we were recording separately could easily be called Scar Tissue. Soooo… Form/Alkaline sort of exists as the spill-over of material not used for Scar Tissue.
How does the sound of Form/Alkaline compare to that of Scar Tissue? Why did you feel it necessary to form a side-project in the first place?
See above.
Will Form/Alkaline material be making its way into any Scar Tissue shows?
Oh yes… on tour we were performing a few songs that at the time were F/A but are now very likely to be released as ST songs on the 3rd full length CD, due out in August.
Have you started work on the next Scar Tissue record? Can you say or predict how it will sound compared to your previous two releases?
We have most of it recorded. It’s once again a wide variety of style. No vocals so far, though a few songs might get vocals added to them. It’s very dark, heavily percussive stuff.
Probably my most important question is: why now? Scar Tissue has been around for quite some time (since the early 90's?), but you were only picked up by a full-fledged label a few years ago. Why is this the time for Scar Tissue?
I don’t know why we weren’t picked up sooner. Ask the labels, we sent demos to all of them. And still, 21st Circuitry is the only label that has consistently been supportive of us. I think that since we don’t sound like other bands it was hard for people to see where they could fit us. But other than that somewhat general excuse I don’t know.