Well, that’s a fairly lengthy story, but I’ll cut it back for you. My former label, where I had done my first 3 or 4 Circle of Dust releases as well as Argyle Park, had lost their distribution. This obviously put me in a bad position because I needed to do another album but they had no way to put it out. Then I started hearing rumors of the labels imminent bankruptcy. There were a bunch of things going wrong. I was [finishing up a] tour and I kept checking my machine back at my house and I kept getting messages from this Criss Angel guy saying that he needed to talk to me. So, I called him eventually. We talked on the phone and he, briefly, ran over this whole magic concept and I’m thinking to myself, “Magic? Oh, my god, that is so cheesy.”
“I don’t look good in a tux...”
Yeah...yeah! This is what I’m picturing. So, I come home and we end up hooking up. He brings over these plans for the whole show and a book with illustrations and I said, “Wow! This is a lot different than I had expected.” So, needless to say, financially I needed the money and Criss, at that point, had really hired me to program and write the music with him for what would be a new demo for his project. Over the months we worked together, not only did we click on a professional level, but very much on a personal level. At this point, we view each other more as brothers than anything else. We share so many common interests and goals and get along in a way that, for both of us, has been nothing like any relationship we’ve never had with anybody else before, on many different levels. So, for me, I have to say, it was a very difficult decision to lay aside my own project or projects and decide to focus on this, but we discussed it at great length and we both heartily agreed that the two of us together are much stronger than either of us individually. So, that was why we both came to the conclusion that we would work together and we’ve lived happily ever after. [laughs]
You’ve described Angeldust as ‘Jim Rose Circus meets Cirque du Soleil.’ Do you still believe that this is an accurate description of what the two of you are doing?
It’s probably a little extreme. I would say that the show is not really a shock rock show. This is not like we’re going to pick up cinder blocks with piercings or anything like that, and I’m not even knocking that sort of thing. We see this as much more of a - I don’t want to say ‘viable’ or ‘Commercial,’ because those are dirty words - that’s not really what motivates us. We’re more into, as you mentioned before, The Terminator and stuff more like, “Pretend James Cameron produced this movie.” That’s what we want the show to be, something that is mass marketable because that’s what moves us, that’s what stirs us. There is a place for shock rock, but we know that there is no longevity in that.
I think you have an edge and that maybe where the Jim Rose reference comes from.
We’ve been compared to a lot of different people and a lot of different projects and I think it’s because people don’t know what else to compare it to. We say, “Fine, you can compare it to whoever you’d like,” but it’s not until it actually comes out, starts to get into people’s faces and they actually see it, will they really understand that it’s not like anything else they’ve seen before. That’s the whole thing here. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell everybody. This is nothing like you’ve ever seen before. Criss and I had and have our own visions and our own dreams and that’s why we’re trying to really make a strong point that this project is not about taking this person and that person and combining them. It’s a very separate idea. It was created from our own dreams and desires, not looking at someone else’s career and saying, “Oh, I want to do that too.”
I mean, you have an edge, but you’re still appealing to the intellectual part of the audience who wants to know “How’d they do that?”
Well, we certainly aim to appeal to our audience intellectually as well as visually, musically etc. We want people to take the experience home with them - give them something to digest and make them want to come back again.
Can you elaborate on what you’ve called your ‘anonymity fixation?’
Where did you get that from?
This is from the one of the interviews on your web site. I was just curious about whether that stemmed from you, at a certain point in your career, were using a lot of pseudonyms and you wanted the attention to be more about the music.
Yeah. Like Argyle Park, for instance, I was fully involved in Circle of Dust and that was what I wanted to focus on, but, to me, it was exciting to do a project that I could throw out all preconceptions and do something that wasn’t [right for] Circle of Dust, but I could do it for Argyle Park. I just didn’t want to deal with it. So, to the guy I did the album with, Buka, I said, “Look, you handle it. I’m just going to use fake names. You do the press. You take care of the media. I don’t even want to know about that.” To tell you the truth, I don’t really know why. I was really experimenting to find out what I wanted to do musically, my identity personally. So, the easiest way to do that is to go under a pseudonym and if people don’t like it, or I don’t like it, which is usually what ends up happening, it doesn’t matter because most people don’t even know that it’s me. Those projects are years old and I’ve changed quite a bit over the years and over time. From here on in, I’m pretty much done with pseudonyms. There comes a point where you need to develop one identity, or one persona, one individual.
You’re preaching to the choir on this. In the past, I’ve written under, like, ten different pseudonyms. All of that was about trying to find my ‘voice’ and, once you find it, you can be comfortable with it.
That’s what it is, experimentation.
So, let me ask you about the new Circle of Dust record, Disengage, it’s going to be released by Polygram? Has it been released yet?
No. The album was supposed to be out in July of 1997, and, because of the politics involved, it won’t be released until March 10th, which is what I heard today. The stuff has been done for a long time. There was supposed to be a CD single for it that included remixes and, for other political reasons, that was pulled. I did manage to convince them to put the remixes at the end of the CD so there will be actually sixteen tracks on the disc total.
In another interview with you that I read, you said that the song “Chasm” is about ‘watching who you trust and who you believe.’ Did that stem from your experiences with your former label, Rex, in specific, and your history of involvement in the ‘Christian music industry’ gone into the formulation of that point of view?
Not necessarily that specifically. I think it was probably all of those thoughts crossed my mind in the writing of those lyrics. You have to remember that those lyrics were written probably two years ago. People are going to be hearing them after March 10th of ‘98, but those were written sometime in ‘95 or early ‘96. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember what I was even thinking specifically when I wrote them, but I am certain that a lot of those different things were going through my mind. I think it’s just a betrayal of trust. I was raised to trust people and was taught that doing so was the right thing to do. But when it came to real life experience, I learned something completely contrary to what I was taught. It was difficult for me to accept at first, I’m sure, but life’s tough - accept it and get over it.
We’ve been through similar things. People you put your trust in and you think they are the ones who aren’t going to stab you in the back...
...and those are the ones who do just that.
Now, we keep in mind the old phrase ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’
[laughs] It’s sad, but it’s true. I think it’s a hard fact of life, man.
Do you want to talk about the Rex deal at all?
In what regard?
Well, it just seems that you were held for a long period of time in this cage. Here is this creative artist who wants to create and has shown the ability to create and create well, but because of some contractual hang-up is now forced to not do exactly what it is that he does best.
Well, that whole period
... There were legal conflicts that arose out of that which lasted over two years. I was bound contractually to REX for two years, but could not do anything creatively. This was the period when I first met Criss.
That just seems like that would be a total nightmare.
It really tends to drain any creativity out of you. The only way for anybody to understand it is to actually be in the situation. I don’t want to sit here and make it sound like I’m crying about it. It’s just not the best situation to be in. It sucked. I was on this small label that wasn’t really dumping a lot of money into the project anyway. Here comes all of this great press, and, really, a lot of critical acclaim for the amount of distribution the CDs had, and they couldn’t do anything with it. Then, all of a sudden, they pulled the plug on what little they were doing.
You had said it was stifling creatively. I would think that even if you had this brilliant creative idea, you were boo-fooed and had to put it on the shelf.
I hate to say it, or maybe I don’t, but a lot of Disengage was written during those periods. I can’t just sit back and not write. It’s not possible. I’m always in a creative mode whether it be visually with artwork in a computer or writing songs. I’ve tried many times to just practice playing an instrument. I can’t do it. I got for about five minutes and then I start to create something instead. There’s no way I could ever stop. I was, in a sense, creative still, but I had to archive the stuff because I couldn’t do anything with it at that point.
I read an interview with you on your web site from Heaven’s Metal Electronic...
Oh, god...
I know... These will be painless and quick. It seemed to be conducted by a rather militant, Christian interviewer who just wanted the interview to be controversial. Do you find now that you’ve decided to point yourself in a different direction than that faction of the music industry, who were once in full support of you, that they seem to be sniping at you?
I wouldn’t even say that I changed my position. It’s just the first time that I spoke about it. I intentionally stayed out of the press for almost three years and there’s been a lot of changes that have gone on. I finally agreed to do that one interview because, I felt, the people had a right to know. I was approached by them a few years ago to do an interview and I turned them down. It wasn’t a matter of not having an opportunity. I just didn’t feel it was the right time. I think this article just hit the press pretty recently, and, needless to say, I’m catching flack for it and I knew that I would, but, to be blunt with you, I don’t really care. I didn’t do the interview because I wanted to create conflict. I just wanted to say, “This is how I feel. These are the questions you have. Here are your answers. That’s it. Take it or leave it.” I have learned that I can’t live my life for anybody else. I grew up most of my life feeling that I did have to.
I think the interview comes off as you saying, more to the fans than the industry, “Let me cut through some of the BS that you may be hearing from people and explain a few things.”
Yeah. I did that interview via email and I think I made specific mention in there that the reason I did do it via email was that I didn’t wish to get into any kind of debate about anything.
Smart move.
I am done arguing for what I believe. I will state the facts and, if you don’t like it, then go somewhere else and argue with someone else and that applies to whoever. I’m over it. I’m tired of feeling like I have to justify what I believe and why. So, if you ask me, and you’re civil about it, I’ll give you an answer. If that’s not good enough for you, then go somewhere else.
In that same interview, you say that the ‘Christian music industry’ and the ‘holier-than-thous’ came out against you when you started to express the fact that you had, as most people often do, doubts regarding your faith. I would think that was a given in relation to the human condition. Can you tell me a little about what that time in your life was like for you?
Again, I don’t really want to dwell on that too much because I’m trying to put that behind me. It all just boiled down to what I was talking about before. The people you think you can trust or you are supposed to trust... You don’t expect to get stabbed in the back by people that are claiming to love you. They’re the ones who usually drive the knife the deepest. I guess they feel that they’re doing the right thing. I guess that’s between them and their maker. I don’t really know. As I said, that interview, for me, was just, “This is it. This is how I feel. Goodbye.”
Ok. One of the things you mentioned was, during that time when you couldn’t not create. You had mentioned doing artwork on the computer. You’re doing all the artwork for Disengage?
Yeah, I did. I put up the Dusted.com site as well.
It’s beautiful stuff.
Thank you. To tell you the truth, I’d love to rip it all down and start over. It’s part of the creative process, I think. The overall thing is technology and that is what completely motivates me. The computer is a much more useful tool than to just act as a device to create a sequence or e-mail someone. It’s a powerful and wonderful thing. It’s just using this technology to your advantage and, over the last few years, I’ve gotten very much into graphic design, web design, animation etc. Anything to do with the technology. The whole Internet concept bit me on the ass and wouldn’t let go. It’s incredible. And, as far as that’s concerned, I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. There are going to be so many more things possible. But, I had the opportunity to do my artwork for Disengage and I did. It wasn’t until after I had finished the artwork for the whole project that I found out that they weren’t going to allow me the 16 page booklet I was originally told I could design. So, now I have all these five inch by five inch panels I had created and I have to figure out how to fit everything into a space half the size. Sounds easy if you look at it mathematically, but it wasn’t as simple as all that, unfortunately. I had to redo the artwork and layout. Needless to say, I’m not too happy about it.
...those bastards!
Yeah. I don’t know. I keep getting all the good record deals. [laughs]
I’m curious... When you go into a CD store, who are some artists that you think are making some damn good music these days?
I would say Aphex Twin, Arvo Part, Lycia, Sam Phillips, The Future Sound of London, Nearly God to name a few. I’d have to really think about that. To tell you the truth, I’ve been going back to old stuff. I haven’t really heard much new stuff.
I’m going through a Dean Martin stage, so...
[Laughs] Great! That’s a little older than I was talking about, but nothin’ wrong with that. Graeme Revell’s score to The Crow City of Angels is excellent. I’m really looking forward to new Curve and Massive Attack releases too. There’s the ever present Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, Cure, which would mainly consist of anything from Disintegration and back, Depeche Mode. The complete list would be far too extensive to mention.
I know that getting Angeldust off the ground is a major concern for you, but do you plan on spearheading any projects other than Angeldust in the near future or is Angeldust going to be an avenue for every facet of your expression?
That is the intention. The way Criss and I have planned this is that, when we start going, there is never going to be an end to the things we are going to be doing. And, like I said, it’s more than just the music. There are a lot of visual things involved. We’re hoping that, by the time the ball gets rolling, we’re going to have ten things to do at once. The object is that there won’t be any time just sitting around doing projects. For me, personally, I will be creating no matter what, in whatever facet that may be, whether it be visually or musically. It doesn’t matter. I think that’s just both of our personalities. The difference here is that we take those creative elements and we make them into Angeldust and define what Angeldust is. Had I continued with just doing Circle, I’m certain that I would be doing other things; programming and things like that. But right now, Angeldust is the focus.
It occurs to me that, now that I’ve had a chance to talk to both you and Criss, it’s an exciting time for the both of you.
It is and, to tell you the truth, it’s a long time coming. It really is. I have this feeling that, and it happens to a lot of people, they show up on MTV and people say, “Oh, who is this new band?” We’ve laughed at that plenty of times because if people knew how many years are combined between the two of us, we could be in the Rolling Stones or, at least, in their age bracket.
What was it someone said, “I’ve spent my life in becoming an overnight sensation.”
Yep. That’s a hundred percent right. In a sense, it is very exciting because we feel that we are finally at the point where this project is developed more than it has ever been and we are at the brink of pushing it over the edge and things are going to happen. 1998 is going to be a very good year for us. From my mouth to God’s ears...
Carpe Noctem Interviews, Vol 3 Page 21
