Introduction

[3.25.06]

My pal Brian is one lucky bastard!

Not only did he get the rare opportunity to catch coldwave pioneers Chemlab in a rare one-off performance in San Francisco recently, he got to speak to the man himself JARED LOUCHE about music, art, family and life in the machine age.

The concert pictures that accompany this article were also taken by Brian and his brand-spankin' new digital camera. Suffice it to say, I think we can look forward to some awesome photography in SCN's future.

My personal memories of Chemlab? Well, I remember buying Burnout At The Hydrogen Bar based on a review I read in a magazine. This was obviously before the internet allowed us to "preview" music, so often times my modus operandi would be to go in blindly and hope for the best. Needless to say, I was NOT disappointed! Chemlab expertly blended hard rockin' guitars, abrasive synths and cyberpunk lyrics to create the genre dubbed "coldwave." Burnout is one of those records for me that has stood the test of time and still sounds great thirteen years later.

I was lucky enough to catch Chemlab in concert back when they supported KMFDM on their Angstfest tour back in the day. I also saw Jared do his thing with Pigface later on down the road. Since the dissolution and reformation of the band, a full-blown tour has not materialized as of yet. Hopefully, with the release of both Oxidizer and the new remix disc Rock Whore Vs. Dance Floor, we may yet get to witness the first poet of industrial inflict his unique brand of digital chaos upon the masses.

The Interview

[Brian Backlash]: First off, you just released the remix album Rock Whore Vs. Dance Floor, featuring remixes from Cyanotic, Die Warzau, 16 Volt and a slew of others. It's quickly proving to be a favorite among fans and critics alike. How did you come to the decision that you wanted your work reinterpreted by a number of different artists, and what do you think personally of the final results?

[Jared Louche]: I picked a broad spectrum of artists because I didn't want the expected. For me, if I'm going to put together a remix disc, I don't want a remix disc that's going to sound like Chemlab remixing itself, or Chemlab-genre bands remixing Chemlab. That to me is not an interested disc. That is not a disc that I would buy, that's not something that would stimulate me in any way shape or form. I wanted a disc that was going to push the parameters of the music, that would push the parameters of the people making the music so that they would do the new, the different, the weird, with their own ideas and their own approaches to technology. I didn't want something where you knew what was coming up next, where you could just throw it on and sit comfortably, in your own conceptual intellectual sofa and just veg out. I wanted it to challenge, I wanted it to ask questions, I wanted it to leave questions unanswered. And, I really felt like there is a broad selection of people that I am able to draw from and I'm really lucky, and I felt that I needed to draw from the ones who would provide me most unequivocally interested mixes. People who--even if they're working within the same sort of genre...the 16 Volt remix sounds like dub Hellbent, which is great. That's not what you would expect from 16 Volt, that's what you would expect from Hellbent. Adam Grossman from Ministry, that's a phenomenally interesting remix, but it's drone and it sounds like droning My Bloody Valentine. And that's great. That, makes it a remix disc that I want to listen to. I can't listen to Chemlab stuff over and over and over again, it just doesn't hold me. I've heard it so much it isn't interesting to me anymore. It doesn't do anything for me. This is a disc I can listen to all the time because it's not my material at the end of the day, I'm listening to other people's interpretations of my stuff but I'm listening to how they interpret it. What they do with it, and that makes it fresh for me. Which is great, because I get to listen to stuff the way fans listen to it, and that's exactly what I wanted. For it to be something that is fresh and sneak around behind you and also reveal itself slowly. I didn't want it to be something where once you listen to it once, great, "I got it all figured out," and you're halfway through it, and you know what the other half is going to sound like. That's definitely not the case with this disc, and so in terms of final result? Great success, great success. I can listen to this one over and over, it still titillates, and that's really surprising. Well no, it isn't surprising. All I did, I mean once again, it's me being a conductor. All I did was pick the most interesting people for it, the people that I knew would turn in fascination and horror and delight and self deprecation, and let them do what they do best. Just stand the fuck out of the way and let them get on with it. So the result, for me? Fantastic, I love it, I love it. I can and do listen to it all the time. Which I don't do with any Chemlab stuff, I can't stand that stuff. It's great to play live, but, eh. It's always funny when I go into clubs being on tour and the dj sees us like "Yeeeaaah, I'm gonna play somethin' off of Ten Ton Pressure, because I know that they're gonna totally be into that." Like oh, God, could you not do that? I mean really, sweet and thank you so much, but ouch...I don't want to hear that, that's a busman's holiday. So, I think it's a great disc, I hope that people enjoy it. But once again, at the end of the day, whether they enjoy it or not, I enjoy it. That's what continues to make it worthwhile for me to do. You know--more music, more projects, more collaborations, more records, more more more. As Ratenburg said, you have to keep exposing yourself to more and just see what happens, and that's what I like to do, and I think this is a great example of that. This is a fun disc. And if you don't like it, fuck it, send me the copy I'll listen to it.

[BB]: You describe yourself as a conductor or maestro, who orchestrates the sounds of other musicians to achieve a certain sound or product that you're working for on any given Chemlab record. How does that process vary from album to album?

[JL]: It isn't just the Chemlab records that I do that for, either. It's all records, because I don't write music. Well, I write it in my head but I don't program, I don't play the guitar, I don't play the drums (though I studied drums, many years ago). I'm a conductor because I need to work with people who are insanely creative in their own right, but who have the ability to listen to the ideas that I'm talking about, and the things that I hum and the things that I mumble. The things I sonically scatter at them and bits of other people's music that I play for them, and are able to translate that into something that resembles both what I've been talking about and hearing in my head, but is also snake with a tail in it's mouth eating itself, absorbs and reflects some of their own talent. I like to work with people, lots of different people, because that stimulates me in different ways. I'm never really quite sure what the next record is. Whatever it's gonna be, be it a Chemlab record, the Aliens records, the Hellbent stuff, the record I'm doing with Mark Spybey, whatever it is, is going to be different and it's always in flux, it's always in change. Chemlab, though it was Dylan and I, and then Servo for a while, we had other people working with us: William Tucker, Charles Levi--who brought their own ideas into it--who we absorbed them and bent their ideas around the frame of what we were doing. And always in flux, always in change. I always want to do new things because there are always new things to be done there are always new people to work with. There are always different ways to approach, essentially, the six...there are six basic stories in all of story telling, but there are a million different ways to interpret them and a million different ways to tell each one of them and to approach each one of them. It's the same with music, and in many ways there are some just very basic songs that have been interpreted a million different ways. And I love the idea of working with lots of different people, because that then inspires me and informs the way that I work, and my practices, and disciplines and non disciplines. So yes I do: I conduct--both electrically and as a musician--ther people's talents. To try to bring out the new, the strange, the unexpected, to push the parameters of their talents, to push the parameters of my talents, and come up with something that neither of us could have come up with on our own. And that's what's fascinating to me, and luckily I have been able to work with people who can translate, (laughs) all the jagged stuff that comes out of me, and make it work. I enjoy that, it's music in it's own right, whatever it is that comes out of me. It's channeling the beast, channeling the demons, but it's definitely a strange process. The way that I approached Covergirl, was I wrote down the mood for each song--as pretentious as it sounds--the film references for each song, the literary references for each song, the colour references for each song. I broke it down into actual instrumentation, orchestration, and arrangement, the length of each segment of it...then sent all these hand written notes off to people. Jim Coleman from Cop Shoot Cop, who did "In Every Dream Home a Heartache," I just sent him reams of paper. "Okay, here are all these great ideas, hope you can come up with something really cool, hope it makes sense to you." We talked on the phone a little bit, three days later he sent me what's basically the final version of the song. I put it on, and pretty much trashed the sofa I was sitting on just jumping all over it and kicking the pillows and broke a window and was like "Yes! Yes! Yes!" 'Cause it was just exactly right. That's how I want the idea of conducting to work. You know, it's all I got. "I don't play guitar, what do you want?"

[BB]: Last night you played your third show since you resurrected Chemlab. How are you enjoying working with Gabriel Shaw, Jimmy and Regan in this new live lineup?

[JL]: No, I fucking hate them, they're all fired. Pack your shit and get off the tour bus. Yes, I'm enjoying it immensely. They make it come alive for me. And, I talk about reanimating the corpse a lot, because that's what it is in many ways. They're really enthusiastic and that enthusiasm is critical for me at this stage of the game and I can't work with junkies anymore and I can't work with cynics. I have enough cynicism thank you fucking very much, for a whole band. I need people who are going to be filters to that, who are going to be able to absorb some of that, who are going to be able to deflect some of that. Gabriel is a little machine. He's like a clean version of Dylan, and he's a really good programmer, he's a really sharp guy. He's driven, he's hungry, he works hard, he works the band hard, he makes sure they rehearse their asses off. And he's passionate about it. The really fucking bizarre thing is that he's played Chemlab covers in his old band (laughs) I just don't understand that. That just makes no sense to me. Why in the world would you want to cover a Chemlab song? But hey, you know, the guy puts up with me, I'm certainly not going to hold that against him. So yes, I'm having a great time with them--they really help make it happen for me. And they got great energy as well. And so that's cool. Yep, I'm really happy with them.

[BB]: Recently you'd been working with Mark Spybey (Dead Voices on Air) and Robin Storey (ex-Zoviet France) on a unique sort of record. A lot of the material you'd been working on was lost when Mark's house flooded. It's understood that this project is going to resume or is currently in the works. What kind of album are you working on, and what side of Jared Louche will we see this time?

[JL]: Oh God, who is he going to be this time? The moon looked down and puked; ah, what a creep I hate that guy! Jesus, that Louche? Fuck me, what a jerk. It's a really hard record to describe. At its inception, conceptually, we talked about the idea of sound tracking a collection of my stories and poetry. We riffed ideas by email and on the phone about that. I went up to his studio, a couple hours from me up in the Grim North (that's capital G, capital N). We got right into the studio half an hour after my arriving; basically walked in started throwing ideas around, he just started laying down some sounds. I got onto the mic and we bent some of the sounds around, and I just started talking. The first piece poured out of us like blood from a deep wound and then it resolved itself. It very quickly found it's own voice, that is not Mark's sound tracking Jared's stories. It's Jared and Mark being the vessels for this thing that is self-generating. It's as if it was already in existence and just needed us to be the funnel through which it could vent into the world. It takes some of my stories, but breaks them down into jagged little shards. Sometimes completely incomprehensible shards. Disturbing music--but sometimes really pretty music. At times it's almost like early Coil doing Nick Drake covers, which is...bizarre. And there are moments of really tender beauty and moments of sort of revulsion and horror and disgust. It's a really, really, really, really weird record. It's not beat driven at all. It's just this super cool thing that is its own thing. I'm loathe to describe it to a certain extent, because in describing it it's going to set up a whole series of preconceptions that I think are very destructive to people being able to just approach it and listen to it and take it for what it is as opposed to "Ooooh, the next Jared Record." It is its own thing; it just needs to have its own life and stand as its own entity. So fuck it I'm not telling you anything about it, you'll just have to erase all of it.

[BB]: The last couple of shows you played recently were in New York and Boston, and both of those gigs were played to enthusiastic crowds. How was the San Francisco experience, comparatively?

[JL]: Excellent. Yeah, it was fantastic. In many ways, best audience yet. And that's saying something, because both Boston and New York were really really pumped and full of energy. But yes, San Francisco had a crazy pit, just a crazy pit going on. We did the Bruised Sex remix version of "Chemical Halo" and during the strikes in the pre-atro chorus, the whole house was singing along, and I'm only singing little segments of the chorus...and the whole house was singing. That felt really good...that felt really good. It's a great town to play, it's full of freaks and broken robots and I like that a lot. Good energy, good energy. Exactly what was needed. I look forward to coming back; I love playing in San Francisco. But then I love playing in general, you know. It was over the top. And I trashed my feather boa. Inexcusable behavior.

[BB]: You've discussed plans for a second Aliens record in the past. Can we expect to see that project soon, and do you have any songs or collaborators in mind?

[JL]: You can always expect to see it soon, whether or not that has any bearing with the real world, and sinking up to it--I have no idea. I'd love to get it together soon. I think I'm gonna work with Gabriel on it, though there are a handful of people that I want to pull into it. There's a guitarist friend of mine, Mark Plastic in London, who's got a great guitar sound and I'm going to use him for sure. A couple other of people as well, some known some unknown but I really, really, really am hungry to get that going. But there are a couple of records that with any luck will come together this year, though it's already March so (laughs)...I don't know. We'll see. It should be an interesting record. I want it to have that same sort of organic feel to it that Covergirl has, and a more almost down-tempo feel to it without being sleep and drowsy. But I want it to be much more...I don't know, it's hard describe how I hear it in my head, but it's more soundtracky in a way--although it will be specific songs. And it won't be covers. There will be a couple of covers on it--it might even be half covers--but there are couple of songs that I have in my head that I want to be on there. I'll spend some time working with Gabriel and developing stuff that seems like it fits into that framework and then we'll take it from there. But when it's actually going to come together and lurch into world? I don't know...it's so much harder for me to get records together now, A) because there are so many different projects that are coming to fruition, and B) because I have a son. He's insanely time consuming. It'll come, it's just other things will meet the event horizon first. The next one being the Spybey record, now that Rock Whore is actually out, finally. So the next one is Spybey, and then we'll see what else comes out. Maybe this noise record that I'm not gonna talk anymore about (sinister laughter).

[BB]: How has becoming a husband and father enhanced and/or changed the way you work?

[JL]: Well, I look both ways before crossing the street. It hasn't changed me topically a whole lot in terms of the things I'm interested in, in terms of the things I want to write about...though I have a couple of new song ideas that seem to be speaking with a completely different voice. I'm not quite sure what that voice is yet. It makes me organize my time better and try to be more efficient. That's less to do with being a husband than it is being a dad. I really love being a dad and I enjoy spending loads of time with him but I'm completely and utterly subsumed by the music. And the painting and the photography and all the other stuff that people don't see. So I really have to prioritize a lot more efficiently than I ever had to before, and that's the biggest change. Also, surprisingly though I have less time I'm more driven to do things. I'm more interested in doing more things. I think he's tripped an understanding in me that I am the past. I'm not it. I'm a cog, and I'm a line on the map. Though that line will continue to draw, I feel like I'm...I face my mortality all the time, looking at him. Because I know that I've created something that with the littlest bit of luck, I won't see its end. I'll be gone before he is in the way that is right. It's a humbling feeling. I've only rarely had that feeling before. Dying, yes, you get that feeling. "Gosh, this is for real (laughs) I'm gonna die." Standing in front of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which was begun in 1892 up in my old neighborhood, up in the west side of spanish Harlem up by Columbia University--and it's not going to be done until 2092. I used to stand and watch the Italian stone carvers carving the statues around the entrance way, slowly working from chalk to fine line, and then starting to chip away. And it doesn't even have a spire. Really gives me a sense of place and how you're just sort of a line on the map--a line on the chronology of things--and minute and unimportant and mortal. In a very real and quantifiable way, but Django makes it real in some frightening ways. But it's good for me, because I am so egocentric and such a mythomaniac that it's nice to be brought down to earth every now and again. Made to understand that I am nothing. It's pretty liberating, as much as it is frightening. I like being nothing.

[BB]: When you write stories, spoken word, poetry...do you ever have a specific topic in mind when you begin, or do you just let it flow?

[JL]: Sometimes yeah, some of the work that I do is very specifically topically driven. The BBC World Service commissions me to write poems that are all topic specific. George Bush's undershirt, the weather, for the 50th Anniversary of the first weather broadcast. All sorts of different things, and that's really good because it's an excellent exercise to be able to make yourself write about something specific. But there are plenty of times when stuff just comes out of me and vents out of me like I said, like blood from a deep wound. Just where you can see the wound when it first happens and there's nothing at all except *vrooosh* and it just comes pouring out. So it's definitely both. Sometimes it's just channeling and sometimes it is topic specific. I just need time to be able to do more cause I'm a dad--haven't got any time! And yeah, I try to write everyday. T.S. Elliot said "the writer who writes, writes." And a bunch of it is shit, of course, because I'm me, and whoever you are--whether you're making music or stone sculpture or writing poetry--a bunch of what you do is going to be rubbish. You just gotta enjoy the process of hacking it and editing it down to that kernel that is actually worth keeping and then build from there. Or hack it down and reduce it to its nothing. Then just decide, well, alright it was all shit and I gotta throw it away. It's a very liberating process. That's what I do with my paintings. I'll paint for a year, and then I'll set a bonfire and just burn them all. Bye, see ya later! Creativity is a muscle. If I gave a hundred pound sack of rocks right now and told you "lift it over your head" you'd probably laugh in my face. I don't know, you might be really buff and you could do it, but I sure as shit couldn't. But if I gave you a 25 pound sack of rocks and say work out with this for a little while, no problem. Then a 50 pound sack of rocks, work out with it, sure. You could do that and work your way up the 100 pound sack of rocks. You can't turn around to someone and say "write War and Peace," right off the bat. You have to exercise the muscle, and that's done by writing every day. Yeah, it's a tricky process but it's rewarding. As much as it is frustrating.

[BB]: What was your first experience performing for an audience like, and what role did you play?

[JL]: Well that goes way way way back, because I feel like I've always been on stage. I was on stage with my folks all the time. Making up stories, performing little skits. Yeah, that's a hard one to answer, you know? And then I was doing theatre in elementary school and high school. Always enjoyed doing The Importance of Being Earnest. That's a really tough one to answer because I've been a performer pretty much my whole life. Which sometimes makes it hard for me to distinguish between the performance and the reality...but that also makes life really interesting at times. So, I don't know how to answer that in any better way than what I've just given you. It's something that's obviously really, clearly encoded deeply at the base of my DNA column. It's just who I am. So I guess my first role? Me.

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