Brainterviews

INTERVIEW WITH

SEBASTIAN ELLIOTT AND VORA VOR OF BRAINDANCE
PROGFREAKS.COM WEBZINE, MEXICO

FALL, 2001

1) Braindance is probably the only band I’ve ever heard of that can afford to rent out the Plaza every week for five hundred of its closest friends and fifty dancing frogs. Furthermore, with the band being an independently produced venture with twenty-five people or so in its team, one just has to wonder...have you been partaking in money laundering activities lately?

yes.

2) After reading most Brainformation available out there, such as interviews and your unique newsletters, I just had to know...where does this obsession with different kinds of foodstuff, particularly chimichanga and cheese, come from?

Is there anything else to reward oneself with?

3) You were at one point going to study a phD on psychology, but decided that having a band would be much more satisfying than having a well-paid, secure career. After listening to the somewhat twisted and deeply goth-related nature of your lyrics, one has to wonder if your studies didn’t help twist you a bit...furthermore, is this bitterness and deprecation directed only towards oneself or also towards the exterior?

Overwhelming inner-directed hostility generally allows others that would ordinarily present me with antagonism to pity me.

4) With Braindance retaining only the core of Vora Vor and yourself, and the other musicians in the band having left the fold, how hard it is exactly to find people who are willing to play with an unorthodox act like Braindance and also have what it takes to do it?

We utilize subtle manipulation and conniving persuasion on those who would otherwise run from us...

5) In regards to other relationships surrounding Braindance, namely your fans... You seem to have a very unique relationship with your fanbase, particularly notable through the way that your newsletters are written. A lot of the dark entertainment of the band is probably present in that relationship, but who is actually weirder? The fans or the band? Having rented a tour bus and been on it with a bunch of Braindance fans, were you ever surprised by some of them?

I wasn’t aware that anyone read those newsletters — they exist solely as an outlet for my senseless babbling. I’m presuming that our fans are significantly stranger than us, since they’ve mistakenly granted us their support. Successfully convincing brainfans to travel anywhere with us has always been surprising.

6) Being big on comic books, how important do you think Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller’s Sin City were to the way comic art is viewed and created? Hey, here’s an idea, what would happen if Gaiman and Braindance crossed one day?

Although my tastes in comic art generally leans towards artists such as jim lee, marc silvestri, dale keown, and michael turner, gaiman and miller have certainly helped to give comic art more credibility as an art form, and appeals to those readers who appreciate a grittier take on the medium. Any artist of that calibre who would lend their talents would be highly valued.

7) After having recorded an EP and two full-length albums, played a respectable quantity of live shows, fought your way through years of band existence, and dealt with the ineptitude of many record labels, promoters, distributions, etc., how have your expectations of Braindance changed in comparison to when you started off? Are you even bitterer nowadays?

The seemingly limitless capacity for bitterness has always taken me by surprise.

8) Have you ever realized that you have a peculiar Copy/Paste habit when doing interviews?

Yes.