Brainterviews
INTERVIEW WITH
SEBASTIAN ELLIOTT AND VORA VOR OF BRAINDANCE
EPOPEYA MAGAZINE, ARGENTINA
FALL, 2001
1) can you tell us a little about the history of the band?
I was hoping that you would wait until we got moving until luring your readers into complete disinterest... At the turn of the century, i was finishing study in psychology at new york university, and felt a tremendous hesitancy towards continuing my education directly after college, with specific regards to engaging in research at the ph.d. level. having abandoned music altogether after a miserable year at the new england conservatory three years before, i decided to give music another shot (based on the need for destitution, the promise of unfulfilled fantasy, and the opportunity to look ridiculous whilst still young) and began to search for musicians through classified ads in several local music papers. I received hundreds of tapes over the course of a year, but the only ad I responded to was the one placed by vora and rob (notorious, our first drummer). As strange as it may sound, when I met vora, I knew immediately that she would be the ideal collaborator, not necessarily because of her knowledge of bavarian pastry, but because of her capacity to communicate pain with a distinct voice. We spent the next year or so adhering to a strict work ethic consisting of ordering chinese food, watching star trek re-runs, and recording demos, some material of which would eventually appear on 1994's Shadows EP.
2) do you consider "progressive darkwave" a sort of new musical style? what´special about it?
After two or so years of writing music together, when vora and i sat down and tried to pinpoint the elements that were integral to our sound, we had to describe it in terms that had not been created (hand motions, body language and carefully placed grunts). Before we had met, i hadn't even listened to contemporary music for four or five years, and didn't exactly know what genre i would have liked to be associated with. i had been completely removed from current musical trends, listening to absolutely no music whatsoever. As soon as I hooked up with vora and rob I knew we were onto something unique, however unpleasant to external ears. it was only after receiving press and response from both the goth/industrial/darkwave community and the progressive community, that we came to be familiar with terms such as gothic, darkwave, ambient, industrial, progressive, death, black, doom metal, etc. in fact, i'm still not clear (and have yet to receive a satisfactory explanation) on what those terms and their respective boundaries are. perhaps if i had been clear on those terms and how they are supposed to be communicated musically, we'd be doing something completely different than braindance, something completely identifiable (and non-threatening by industry standards), and probably making more money doing it. I don't think we've done anything unbelievably earth-shattering — there's a lot of great hybrid music that is out there that combines musical intelligence with a darker intensity. However, it's the caramel coating that makes progressive darkwave so gosh darn special...
3) i suppose that you have many and varied influences. what are they?
on the whole, and not surprisingly, i'm a fan of all of the sub-genres that make up braindance - goth, industrial, progressive metal, darkwave, classical, progressive trance, and sauerkraut — generally, anything with dense programming, multi-layered composition, distinct melody and/or of a darker nature. currently i'm listening to a lot of house, progressive trance, and techno, but my tastes have changed over the years, listening to classical, industrial, progressive metal, ambient trance, black metal, and cheese rock.
4) the thanks section of the booklet have two parts: the normal one and a long list of "jokes" (since batman, tyler durden to the numbers 3, 7 & 11 and the letters j, r & x). why did you do this?
if you're paying for the printing, it's nice to know that you can say whatever you want, even if few understand and even fewer care about your obscure humorous references.
5) also there appears various chemical elements and products (prozac and more). are they part of the joke or you really thank them for the madness and inspiration?
yes.
6) why the "obsession" with the r letter?
everything else was taken.
7) what is your concept of "progressive"?
i think it's important to produce music that you believe in, that represents a unique voice – a progressive voice. i think it's also necessary to push the limits of not only what is out there, but also what you've created for yourself. Unfortunately, music that embraces progress is not necessarily cherished – the music business (and any business-driven art) gravitates towards safety, and non-risk activity – what is most cherished is a facsimile of a product that has shown itself to be investment worthy. our approach is 'a good song is a good song', whether it's ska or trance or power metal, however, it the format in which it is presented that makes something musically progressive, and hopefully influential.
8) this one is for vora. do you feel you enjoy more attention from the audience for being a woman (a gorgeous woman, i should say) than the rest of the band? do you have musical studies or are you self-taught?
being as gorgeous as i undoubtedly am takes constant diligence. otherwise, the pus dripping boils, unending acne, scar tissue, half-popped blisters, and signs of aging will be apparent during our concerts. to this end i use abarrage of products only available in nyc. starting with an early a.m. base of curdled milk balls, i spread this into a sour cream over my skull socketed eyes. this will hopefully remove signs of nocturnal clawings at them with my unmanicured nails due to insomnia next, i take the rotted out cucumbers from last week's egg salad and place them all over my heavily dermabrased cheeks. if this removes the caked acne juice, i will move on to the walk-in freezer to spend some time airing out with the lime-bathed
corpses. the methane and sulfites of these good ol chaps firms up otherwise sagging-to-the-floor buttocks and drooping and veined mammary glands. for our shows, i put in some extra time to achieve my clearly stunning appearance. this involves dried rose stems, baby fat, and turpentine. while this makes me susceptible to moonburn, most of our shows are indoors and during the dark of the moon to worry too much about that. as for extra attention at shows, braindance enlists a phalanx of brainiacs for this very purpose: to protect me from the surge of groping fans driven half-crazed by my gorgeousness. these brainiacs are carefully screened steely-thewed eunuchs who stand side by side in front of the stage to prevent even the craftiest of fans from crawling beneathe their armored legs
to paw at my ivory and powdered feet.
9) you have a shocking look. what importance do you give to image as a whole?
Obviously not enough - you've seen the promo material.
10) you used a lot of pieces of dialogues from films and tv shows. how important for you are tv and movies?
As sophomoric as it may sound, I have found very recently that my interpretation of certain themes within certain movies, although not necessarily designed as such, can be directional mantras. Movies such as fight club or the matrix have provided me with interpretations that have affected my perception of existence. Then there are others that have no meaning whatsoever, and simply allow me to chuckle, chortle, and guffaw with reckless abandon between the many sticky colors of jujubees....
11) what is the difference between this job ("redemption") and the previous ones? do you perceive a sense of sheer direction in your discography so far?
I'm very proud of redemption and the hell that we went through to release it ourselves. However, I've heard the tracks more times than you could imagine, and I'm certainly looking towards refining our sound even further. Having done this completely independently for so long has given us the distinct advantage of letting our sound develop naturally and without intervention from those who probably know better (almost like mildew that's been left to fester without supervision).
12) what are the lyrics about? where do you find the inspiration? do you have any particular philosophy?
I believe in a good measure of ambiguity when writing lyrics. Naturally, the themes have specific meanings for me, but I try not to assign definitive conceptual values to phrases, because listening should be somewhat interactive. Insofar as everyone's experiences are different, so should their interpretations be. My philosophy has always been "never leave the seat up unless you're willing to face the consequences."
13) please leave some words for our readers and your fans in argentina.
o.k.