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Interview written, conducted and transcribed by Adam Burton, photographed by j. ward [COMA] Have you attended any musical college or have you had any mentors that helped you along the way?
[Tyler Newman] That’s a funny question man; I did go to Berklee
College of Music for one semester. The problem with Berklee was that
it was very formal and when I went there in like [COMA] How did you and Da5id end up actually coming together to play music? [Tyler Newman] That’s actually kind of funny. Da5id and I met because he used to be Sinless records, which was, I don’t know if you know that label, but it was an industrial label in the mid 90’s. And we did the first Informatik, second Informatik, Logiq, a couple different bands. He had tried to get a track from one of the guys that I worked with...I used to work at this recording studio in Boston and he tried to get a track from one of these guys, they threatened to sue him, and he was basically like “Well do you have anything that’s ready?”. I said “Yes”, so that basically started our friendship and you know from there on out, we’ve basically been working on records together for the past ten years, kind of funny. [COMA] I noticed you guys got picked up by Metropolis records, actually after Sinless and everything. You’ve been with them for over a decade now. Are you guys trying to get picked up by any other record companies in the future?
[Tyler Newman] Well I mean here’s the thing about Metropolis; there’s
nobody bigger than Metropolis. [COMA] So do you guys have any plans for a new CD or a follow up to RE: Vision? [Tyler Newman] Yeah RE: Vision we did in 2005 I think, or 2004. I had to do a Battery Cage record, which we did last year, and then Da5id was working on the third Psyclon Nine record during that time. So now we are almost finished with the third record. All the music is basically written, we're working on vocals, final mixing and mastering and all that stuff. Basically we can’t get it finished by the end of the month, so we're going to have it come out in the spring of 2008. Yeah, it’s very close to being done. The music’s done, the music’s really great, probably the best stuff we’ve ever done. Unfortunately it’s a big stylistic change, musically. There’s guitars for starters which is a big difference, the beats are slower. We did one song tonight, (I don’t know if you heard that or not) it was much slower than the rest, had a totally different kind of vibe. The new stuff is way more like Depeche Mode; kind of slower, more rock. This is probably the first time I’ve talked about this in public at all, so, Da5id hasn’t talked to anybody of course. Yeah, I think its going to be definitely different, definitely more rock. I think people are probably going to freak out if they’re expecting anything that we’ve done before. It sounds nothing like any of that stuff. It’s not the trance; we just didn’t want to do anything like that anymore. We did all that for two records and we're done. [COMA] Have there actually been any key points in the last year or two that have brought about the direction of Informatik going with this new sound?
[Tyler Newman] Well, here’s the thing, nobody gives a shit about
industrial music. I mean let’s face it, people in general, like human
beings, people that listen to the radio and stuff, they don’t want to
hear shit like Wumpscut or Front Line Assembly or anything like that.
It's a very, very small fan base. And if you want to try to get
beyond that you have to try to, not really direct the music toward
that group, but sort of expand the horizon not make it so
inaccessible. I think a lot of industrial music does...I mean it’s
funny because I think industrial music, in general, has gotten less
accessible over the past three years maybe. There was this huge peak
in like 2000 where Apop and VNV and Covenant, all these huge bands,
were really selling a shitload of records. That was probably the most
accessible, most trance, most easily digested by the mass population
of the U.S. But now it’s like there’s so much downloading and fucking
CD copying and all this bullshit. It’s like even those bands are
fucking selling a quarter of what they sold five years ago, seven
years ago, you know what I mean? We just wanted to do something I
thought would [COMA] Going back just a bit from that, to Direct Memory Access which was actually a really big success, were there any setbacks or concerns about the new release being successful compared to DMA or Syntax? Was there anything that really kind of concerned you about it being as much of a success as DMA? [Tyler Newman] I think, really in terms of actual sales, DMA is probably our least popular album. Which is funny, because a lot of people name check DMA and its like "ok well DMA is this great record, has these great songs or whatever". (pause. .chatter with surrounding people) Uh what was the question again? I’m sorry. . . . [COMA] You pretty much covered that one. Moving on, what are some of the personal experiences that you’ve actually had that have influenced your sound for Informatik?
[Tyler Newman] DMA and Syntax were both more of a very EBM, kind of
very European style thing. Da5id was listening to a lot of
Leatherstrip, early Wumpscut...that kind of sound. A lot of kick
drums, distorted vocals and stuff like that. When we started really
working together on Nympho and Re:Vision, I wanted no more fucking
distorted vocals, no more shitty beats. I wanted [COMA] Are there any other side projects that you’re going to be working on in the near future or you might want to get started? [Tyler Newman] I don’t think there’s going to be, I’m not sure, but I’m not sure there's going to be any Din_Fiv stuff, I think there’s going to be another Battery Cage release in the fall...other than that I really don’t know right now. There’s some plans but they’re very vague at this point, so I’m doing more sort of metal stuff. There might be some metal thing, but it won’t be anything anyone in this scene cares about at all. [COMA] What are the differences in influences from the release of 1996’s Direct Memory Access up to 2004’s Re:Vision? [Tyler Newman] The last two Informatik records were based on a lot of my stuff, which was all the old analog like Sequential stuff, Mooog stuff, Oberheim stuff...all the old stuff. Now we’re both basically using a huge combination of hardware and software, obviously. The Access Virus is a massive part now, but even beyond that; Da5id is a Logic user, so we use a lot of Logic stuff, we had to program a shit ton of stuff...basically all the presets in Logic are fucking ass! [COMA] Did you guys teach yourselves how to use Logic?
[COMA] On the new guitar stuff that you guys have put together, did you get anybody to actually play the guitar for you or did you just do that in programming? [Tyler Newman] Da5id and I did everything guitar wise and drum wise. Everything that’s on our record is only the two of us. It’s been the same way for like the last several albums. There’s never anybody else unless it’s a remix. But we don’t have any of those on this record. And that brings an awkward close to the interview. Visit Informatik's official website at myspace.com/informatik
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1994 and told them
that I wanted to do electronic dance music, they had no idea what I
was talking about. And back then I was like “Do you know who X Marks
the Pedwalk is?” They were like “NO.” “Do you know who Meat Beat
Manifesto is?” “NO.” Those were the two big bands I was listening to
in ’94, and they had no fucking idea who I was talking about. They
basically let me in if I was willing to pay, you know, 20 grand a
year, because I passed all my classes. But I was like "you know what
man, it’s going to take me like three fucking years to be able to do
anything I want to do here", so I bailed on that. As for mentors,
Da5id’s been hugely helpful to me in terms of, not just Informatik,
but Battery Cage stuff that I’ve done. We’ve known each other for
over a decade now and you know he was massively helpful in the
beginning. When we did Product, basically every Battery Cage record
has been hugely helped by him. Not like he produced them the way he
did Psyclon Nine or anything like that, but just basic helpful stuff,
you know?
Well ok, so there’s major labels. They
don’t give a shit about this kind of music at all, they don’t give a
shit about anything basically good, if we were like Kelly Clarkson or
fucking Maroon 5, or some totally shitty band that would be one
thing. But for anything that’s industrial or electronic or even like
a Depeche Mode band...they’ve been around for 20 years, they can sort
of get on a major label, but for a band like us we're basically stuck
on independent labels. And as far as independent labels go, in terms
of their sort of honesty and the whole business side of
things...which sucks to have to deal with as an artist but you
do...they’ve been actually super great. They’ve been really cool to
deal with as human beings and it’s been this really awesome business
relationship with those guys. So I mean really, there’s nobody else.
I mean in this country it’s like what, Wax Trax II? There’s a couple
other smaller labels but really none of that stuff matters. The
majors are great but they don’t care about the music, so, Metropolis
is pretty much where we're at.
reach more of a mass audience, not just be limited to a
very small group of people, we basically tried to do something a
little more mainstream but not cheesy. You know, we didn’t want to
sell out and make Backstreet Boys music or anything like that. We
just wanted to do something that’s a little bit less harsh, less
fucking...I don’t know...I think the songwriting has gotten better.
Whether people agree with that or not I have no idea but hopefully it
will at least be somewhat accessible. (Laughs)
trance, because
trance is a little more accessible, people seem to respond to it a
little bit better than the fucking distorted beat bullshit. You know,
we just wanted to make more of an impact in a greater sort of
widespread sound. So I mean basically, when we did Nympho we were
listing to a fucking ton of trance music, tons of trance...Paul
Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyke, DJ Tiësto, even the bigger industrial bands
like VNV, Apop ,Covenant, those guys all that had their peak records
in 2000. So that was sort of like the period in which we were going
to dance clubs, sort of listening to what was happening, trying to
figure out how to reproduce it without being a carbon copy. Which
unfortunately, I think a lot of bands miss the point of that. They
were like “Well this is really successful, if we just copy what this
is exactly, we’ll be really huge.” We tried to take whatever the
elements were of that and change them enough, so they wouldn’t be a
fucking Xerox, but be sort of unique and different. Still have that
same element of catchiness, and something people want to hear. That
was true for Nympho and Re: Vision.
[Tyler Newman] Da5id’s more the Logic guy. I use other stuff. I work
for the company that makes Pro Tools, so I use different stuff. I
don’t use Logic so much. But yeah, I mean there’s a lot of
programming. Even the new stuff; it’s got a lot of guitars, a lot of
real drums, you know, more like a Depeche Mode kind of thing. So the
synths were less of a consideration than the actual drumming and the
guitar stuff.
