Attention Deficit Delirium

Don't be afraid to check out the music! (Photo credit: Dave Keffer.)

You may not know the name Collide, but if you’ve been watching NCIS (the #1 television show in America) then you have undoubtedly heard their music. A long-time fixture of the Goth-industrial scene in the U.S., the L.A.-based duo of Karin (vocals) and Statik (electronics and beats) serves up a catchy blend of sounds that define their name:  ethereal, sensual singing gliding over pulsating grooves, gritty guitars and driving electronic sounds.

Fifteen years, five studio albums, two remix releases, one side project and one live CD and DVD into their career, the group is still going strong. Their music has stretched into different areas, they have performed with a live group since 2004 and their latest effort, a covers album called These Eyes Before, is actually a breath of fresh air as opposed to a cheap cash-in. They could have done covers appropriate to their chosen genre, which many bands would have, but instead they tackled everything from The Beatles’ “Come Together” to Radiohead’s “Creep” to Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”. And the tracks snarl a lot more than you’d think, with some of the grittiest sounds the group has conjured since their rockin’ debut Beneath The Skin, employing their blend of goth, techno, ambient and rock sounds to good effect.

Taking time out from their busy lives, kaRIN and Statik gave ADD the lowdown on their new release, their thoughts on NCIS and a glimpse into their future.

kaRIN brightening up a somber sky. (Photo credit: DearestGrudge studio.)

When many artists do a covers album, it’s usually a stopgap release done for extra cash. But These Eyes Before feels like a revitalization for Collide because it’s a bit more rockin’ than some of your recent work and brings out more of the inherent contrasts in your sound. Why did you decide to do a covers album and pick the songs that you did?
kaRIN: We had wanted to do a complete cover album for awhile.  We have already done several full lengths, a couple of remix CDs, a live CD and a side project,  so it seemed like good timing.  We went through a very long list of songs to choose songs that we both loved and felt we could work with.
Statik: A big part of it was that it was just fun.  It’s wasn’t about writing a song. It was about taking something that we knew and seeing what we could do with it — how to put our own spin on it.  For me, it’s two different parts of my brain: the writing part and then the arranging and mixing part.

What was the most challenging song to cover and why?
kaRIN: For me, it was “Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing” because the timing is so specific.  I love to make my own timing in a song and weave in and out vocally to find my own path. Statik, on the other hand, is very rhythmic — must come from his many years of being a band leader at his school.  It is one of our many differences.
Statik: I don’t think there was one that was particularly challenging. They all had their own things to work out.  “Breathe” seemed simple, but was really hard to get the mix just right. There weren’t that many parts, but I had a really hard time getting the relationship between the guitars and keys, and the different drum parts to all work together.

Collide live at the El Rey. (Photo credit: Arturo Everitt.)

Statik, what challenges were involved with recorded and integrating the Putnam City North High School marching band into “Tusk”?
Statik: I had the song done in rough form, with the band parts templated in. I then gave that to an arranger who had to write out the parts for the band. I set a tempo, and the band performed to the bass player who was hearing the click. They recorded it across the country, so for ease of editing and mixing, we decided to do a few takes of just drums, one without the drums and some with the whole band. That way I could mix and edit pretty easily. In the end I was really happy with it. I had always wanted to incorporate a marching band into one of our songs.

Blue-hued promo shot for The Secret Meeting. From L to R: Dean Garcia, kaRIN, Statik. (Photo credit: Peter Benke.)

While Collide has been a staple of the Goth-industrial underground for 15 years, you are slowly getting known to the masses. How has having your music used on NCIS helped you, and is it leading to bigger and better things?
kaRIN: Every bit helps. We absolutely love NCIS.  They have a loveable, smart perky Goth character Abby [Pauley Perrette] who listens to our music in her lab. As we speak we just heard today that they will be using our music in the episode of NCIS: Los Angeles where Abby goes to a goth club called “Steampunk”. They will be playing a few Collide songs. [ADD note: check out the episode "Random On Purpose" here.]
Statik: Slowly is the keyword there. I think in another 15 years, we will be downright well known. As far as NCIS or other TV shows,  I’m not sure that it helps get us more well known. For the most part, I don’t hear any music on a TV show and know who they are. It’s not like there are credits for that. The biggest benefit is probably the extra income. As file sharing goes up and actual CD sales go down, we need all of the help we can get.

The Goth look gets bigger every year, such as with Pauley Perrette on NCIS, yet the music never seems to. Why is that? Do you see it changing?
kaRIN: Hmm, good question. Yes, visually Goth does get bigger with all the vampire stuff out right now and in fashion. Funny how the media loves the look but does not always embrace the music. It is definitely a credit to NCIS and the music supervisors there that they have a Goth character and keep the music authentic. It has become the number one show on TV,  so they must be doing something right.
Statik: I know I shouldn’t say it, but umm…a lot of Goth music is really bad.

Collide live in L.A. 2004. (Photo credit: Bree Thompson.)

Statik, you have done programming for artists as varied as Michael Jackson, Prince and Tool. What recent remixes have you worked on?
Statik: I worked on a Tear Garden remix for a CD that cEvin Key is putting out on his Subconscious label called “Have a Nice Trip”. kaRIN also did guest vocals on it. Other than that, there hasn’t been anything besides Collide for quite a while.

Karin, how is your jewelry business doing?
kaRIN: Great. We have expanded so much and now also do clothing, leather items and cases. You can see them on my design site. I am lucky to have several creative outlets that I am totally passionate about.

Statik in a good mood. (Photo credit: Dave Keffer.)

How was The Secret Meeting side project received, and will we hear more from it in the future?
Statik: I don’t think a lot of people still know about it, unfortunately. For those who don’t know, The Secret Meeting is us (Collide) and Dean Garcia (from Curve). So there. Now you know.
kaRIN: We were very pleased and loved working with Dean. Besides being super talented and prolific, he is such a sweet person, and we have all become good friends.  Recently we (Noiseplus Music) helped release Dean’s latest project SPC ECO with his daughter Rose, who has a beautiful, angelic voice.  We are hoping to do another Secret Meeting release, and Dean has let us know that he is interested as well. So we will see — if it’s meant to be, it will be.

How has performing with a live band over the last few years broadened your horizons as musicians?
kaRIN: It gave me a whole new experience of what playing live would be like, and now we have new friends to hang out with.
Statik: I wouldn’t say that it broadened my horizons as a musician. Our shows made me realize how tough going on tour is though.

Are there any dream projects you’d like to do?
kaRIN: I would like to work with Massive Attack.
Statik: I hesitate to say. Somehow, working and meeting someone you really respect brings them down to “human” level. I’ve met people who I really admired musically, and after meeting them in person it really tainted how I feel about their music. And I don’t like it as much. Or I should say, it just seemed like some of the magic went away.

What happens when kaRIN doesn't finish her vocal mixes on time. (Photo credit: Dave Keffer.)

What do you think your fans would be surprised to learn about you?
kaRIN: We think we are funny.
Statik: That we’re not that funny.

What’s coming up from Collide in the future?
kaRIN: More creating! Working on a full CD takes so much of our time and energy and sometimes can feel all consuming, and we can’t wait to get done. Somehow, though, as soon as we are done I can’t wait to create again, which is how I know I am totally and utterly creatively addicted.
Statik: I have an idea for the next CD, but I’m not sure if kaRIN is down with it. At the moment, I’m taking just a wee break before getting back into the creating mode, to recharge my brain a little.
kaRIN: I have a new idea, too. So maybe if he does my idea, we can do his idea. Can’t tell yet though.
Statik: I’m not telling you or anyone else, otherwise, where would the surprise be? You’re all just going to have to wait.

Porcupine Tree in London, June 2009. Frontman Steven Wilson is second from left.

Without even knowing it, the masses have made progressive rock cool again. Not that it’s really called that anymore — check out my Grammy.com story “High-IQ Rock” for more on this — but groups like Muse, Dream Theater and The Mars Volta have managed to chart high, sell impressive units at retail and are luring increasing numbers of fans to their shows. One group that has consistently made great music in the “thinking man’s rock” arena — straddling the line between tuneful accessibility and intellectual artfulness — is Porcupine Tree, the two-decade old band fronted by founder Steven Wilson. While they certainly have their share of four and five minute songs that are easier to market (so to speak), their music on recent albums has become lengthier and the execution of their concepts more ambitious. P-Tree’s latest platter, The Incident, contains only five songs, the first of which is the 14-part, 55-minute title track. One might ask, “These guys are on the cusp of mass appeal, so why do that?” Because the rules of the game are changing, as Wilson explained when he sat down to chat with ADD.



Why is ambitious, epic music popular again?
It seems the climate is more open than ever for doing something ridiculously over the top and over ambitious and reaching for the stars. It seems like it’s OK to do that now. I’m so happy about that. I’m so happy that ambition in music is acceptable, but God knows for 20 years it was almost like ambition was a dirty word.

The limited edition version of Porcupine Tree's "The Incident". Lavish packaging to match their musical ambition.

Isn’t it bizarre that in this iPod, song shuffling, A.D.D. world that bands like Dream Theater, Muse and Porcupine Tree can find success given that some people can’t even listen to a whole record anymore?
You’re right, there is a paradox there, and I talked about this on my solo record [Insurgentes]. There’s definitely a very big negative and a very big plus about the whole download culture. The very big negative is the jukebox mentality — people putting their iPods on shuffle, it’s very easy to shuffle from one track to the next, the lack of artwork and the poor quality. But the plus side of download culture has been liberating music from mainstream media and commercial radio — and that whole MySpace and Facebook thing, where people can the just follow the dots, follow the trail to bands that they probably would never have discovered if they just had to rely on commercial radio and what major record companies are pushing. Because what we’re seeing is the death of major record companies and the death of commercial radio. While I see that there’s a negative total to the whole download culture, I can see that it has completely liberated music from that three-minute pop song straight jacket. It’s gone. It only really exists now in the very sharp end of the commercial, American Idol end of the market. It doesn’t really exist for album-oriented artists anymore. In fact, bands like Radiohead don’t even bother to release singles anymore, which is great because I’ve never been good at writing singles. I’m very happy to be liberated from a world where I have to give any consideration to selling myself in the space of a four-minute pop song. So what the hell, let’s go in the opposite extreme. That’s what I was thinking in a way [on this album].

Today it seems like many bands make more money through touring and merchandise, not albums.
Let’s not also forget what I’m saying. We’re not talking about the death of the album. What we’re talking about is the death of the album as a commercial commodity. In fact it’s probably fair to say that more people are listening to more recorded music now than ever before. I figure that probably more people will hear The Incident than any other Porcupine Tree album but it’s probably going to sell less, and that is simply because the music proliferates now in a different way. It proliferates on a greater scale, but if you look purely at the bottom line, commercial units sold, of course it looks like the music industry is dying. But I actually think it’s the opposite in some way — the music is reaching more people than ever before. People listen to music on the bus, on the train or when they’re jogging, because of iPods and the portability of music and the fact that it is easy to steal. Albums themselves are probably listened to potentially more now than at any time in history because you don’t have to buy them anymore.  [continued...]

P-Tree in white.

Why does a musician start making music? He starts making music to share it with as many people as possible. If he has any other motive, then he’s not a musician, he’s an entertainer. If he wants to be a star and wants to make money, that’s not a musician. A musician starts making music in order to share with as many people as possible. It’s a very strange time for music because the financial rewards are really falling away, but at the same time there are a lot of bands out there that are reaching more people than ever before because of file-sharing, and I think we’re definitely one of them. The fact that more people are coming to the shows shows you in a way that more people are discovering the recorded music, which is acting as the advertising to go and see the band live. It’s definitely not a great time to be making a lot of money from the music industry, but it is a great time if you’re ambitious and want to share music with as many people as possible.

What does that mean financially for a band like Porcupine Tree?
This is where it all falls down. We’re okay because we actually started before this whole thing kicked off. We had a good fanbase going into the 21st century, and we continued to build on that. If you’re starting out now as a band, I’m not quite sure how you do it anymore. You could share your music on the Internet, but you still need to give people a reason to come your website in the first place. So that’s the problem.

It's raining Beatles tunes! (But not iTunes yet.)

The wait is over. At long last, on September 9, 2009, 22 years after the Beatles back catalog was first released in basic, unremastered form on CD, their entire discography of official studio albums — twelve in all, plus Magical Mystery Tour and Past Masters Vol. I and II — will arrive in stores, both individually and in box sets. Plus there’s The Beatles: Rock Band video game. Its a momentous occasion, but not just for Beatles fans who want the new album mixes, liner notes and photos and the collected documentaries on DVD.  Or those who might want to role play as the Fab Four. This is a pivotal day for the major labels of the music biz.

We all know that CD sales have taken a nosedive in the last ten years, dropping 50% from what they used to be. While digital downloads are making up for part of the deficit, overall music profits have shrunk. It’s been bad news for the major labels but good news for many indie artists who have more control over their careers and profit margins thanks to the Internet.  Still, if you want to get your music out on a mass scale, you need to be backed by a company with widespread distribution. And the majors are hurting. They can’t create or break pop stars much anymore; American Idol does it far more effectively. There are few rock bands that sell massive quantities these days; many do better selling concert tickets and merchandise. Plus concert promoter Live Nation is stealing their thunder by signing megastars like Madonna and Jay-Z to multi-platform deals that include album releases and a cut of all profits.

Strawberry Fields Forever, even in the virtual realm.

What does this have to do with the Beatles? Everything. The biggest-selling band of all time, they continue to enthrall audiences nearly 40 years after they broke up. Any time a new compilation, documentary or remix project emerges, it sells well. People keep writing books about them, and magazines and newspapers keep printing stories about their history. Their recorded oeuvre came out over a mere eight years, yet it was more influential and popular than the music of bands who have had careers spanning five or six times longer, including The Rolling Stones and The Who. The Beatles are the ultimate catalog band, and while other artists may have released far bigger albums commercially, they have never had the consistent success of the Fab Four.





There isn’t anyone from the last 25 years, beyond Michael Jackson, who has exhibited such staying power. And it’s something that the industry needs to look at. After they saw CD sales soar in the mid-1990s on the backs of young talent like Alanis Morrissette, Hootie & The Blowfish and Shania Twain, the majors got lazy and greedy and seemed to care less for artist development. Album prices went up. The CD single, a collectors’ favorite and a good way to make extra cash, was gradually phased out in America; some figure it was to push the sale of increasingly expensive albums that had few if any good songs beyond the single(s). Radio narrowcasting and constricted video playlists raised the stakes, compounding the problem for music labels and their rising talent. No longer could an artist take a few albums to evolve, mature and reach platinum status. They had to make it quickly to recoup investment, or they were dropped. Sure, The Beatles rose to fame quickly (thanks to singles initially), but they were that rare, exceptionally talented ensemble that could. Most artists need time to grow, and the industry has grown impatient and nervous, preferring short-term success over long-term profitability, often to appease stockholders who want to make money right now.

There always seems to be a new Beatles story to be told or a new twist on an old tale.

Having a solid back catalog makes a difference, and young artists today usually do not get the chance to amass one. Sure, Bruce Springsteen went platinum by his third album Born To Run, but it was not until nine years later in 1984 that he would become a superstar with the fifteen million selling Born In The U.S.A., his seventh album. Judas Priest took eight years and eight records to go platinum with Screaming For Vengeance, but once they did so their previous albums started to achieve gold (500,000 units) or platinum (1 million) status. Similarly, AC/DC sold well worldwide but did not become an international sensation until their sixth album, Highway To Hell. Its follow-up, the legendary Back In Black, was an even greater success. Then, of course, there is the resurgence of classic songs, the best example being Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was used in a funny lip-synching sequence in the movie Wayne’s World that brought the song rocketing back up to the top of the charts 17 years after its initial release.

Many veteran bands are finding their catalog tracks to be lucrative today when licensing them out for movies, television shows and especially video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. (Journey is one of the big licensing winners lately.) While the idea of The Beatles: Rock Band game might sound like heresy to some, it will promote the group’s music to a new generation of fans. It is interesting to note that the game features a number of different scenarios, with the virtual Beatles performing everywhere from the Cavern Club in Liverpool to Shea Stadium. The group went through many phases and looks and explored many styles of music. Most artists today don’t do that, at least on a mainstream level, and their handlers and stylists do not want to make really radical changes because conformity is the name of the game. (And those that are followers of fashion tend to produce less interesting music.) As The Beatles, Elvis and Michael Jackson have proven, originality sells a lot more music, not cookie cutter copycats.

Don't even think about illegally downloading us!

Perhaps the idea of originality is anathema to an industry now built on chasing trends and making a quick buck. But it is often original bands that carve out a niche for themselves and help prop up the backbone of the industry. While big sellers like Nickelback and Linkin Park are important financially (and remain viable), artists with cult-like followings such as Tool, Radiohead and Tori Amos also provide consistency, both in terms of album and ticket sales. And as the Finnish band H.I.M. proved a couple of years ago, having a charismatic frontman, distinct sound, identifiable logo and marketable imagery is also important. Look at Iron Maiden — their catalog and mascot Eddie continue to be cash cows for them, their management and their label 30 years into their recording career. And their fans are devout and loyal.

There are those who argue right now that no matter what you do, people will continue not to pay for music because once you can get things for free, why go back? The Beatles catalog, solo albums aside, has never been made available in digital form — which may change as soon as this week — but that has not hurt their credibility or their sales. We need more artists whose originality and integrity warrant that kind of respect, and we need an industry willing to deliver them to the masses. Perhaps that is a naive assumption to make in this day and age. On Sept. 9, 2009 we will find out if it still holds up.