INFORMATION SOCIETY

Did you ever feel out of place on Tommy Boy Records, a mostly hip-hop label?
We never really fit on Tommy Boy. One far edge of what we did overlapped with another far edge of what Tommy Boy did, for a while. Beyond that,we always were about something different from what Tommy Boy was about. I'm not saying they didn't like us. Tom Silverman, the owner, liked us a lot and really wanted to push what we were doing. In the end, though, it just got to be to divergent and therefore inefficient for them to keep on doing our albums.

What made you decide to sign with them in the first place?
We didn't know what we were doing. No one else knew about us or was interested. This was 1985, remember, and if you weren't Duran Duran or Motley Crue, no one knew what to do with you. We were just astounded that anyone was even talking to us.

Are you happy with the current crop of electronic music-making equipment?
I've completely dropped out of the loop. I have no IDEA what's out there anymore except for computer software like Logic Audio or Sound Forge. I'm a beta tester for Sonic Foundry.

What do you see as the coolest innovation since the time you started doing music?
Digital recording. It is having a profound impact on the record industry which is very good for artists: You can make a professional sounding record BEFORE you have label backing. That kind of empowerment is what computers are all about.

What specific pieces of gear have you found to be the most useful over the years?
My computer, and my AKAI S-1000 samplers.

With Paul and James leaving Information Society, will anyone else be joining the band?
Well, you need to make a distinction between the live show and the business of making albums. I'm the only one who owns the band, I make the decisions, and I make the records only with a producer. But there will be people I hire and pay a weekly salary to be the touring group. There will be some turnover, but I HOPE that they'll all be with me for a long time. One of them is my brother, and I'm sure he'll be on stage with me for as long as I do shows.

Are you still in touch with Paul or Jim?
Yeah, we talk. Actually, Paul is managed by my manager. Jim sort of disappeared. He didn't continue in the music industry after he quit InSoc. Paul did. (http://www.hakatak.com)

How was it working with Seibold?
It was wonderful. It was undoubtably the best experience I have ever had working on music with another person. It was the first time I'd been in the studio with someone who was really on my same wavelength. Also, with only me "in" the band, there was a very simple power structure to deal with. Steve really understood and liked the kind of music I wanted to do, and he was able to add exactly the stuff I had trouble doing myself.

How did you originally hook up with him?
A friend of mine here in San Francisco told me to talk to her friend Don Blanchard at 21st Circuitry records. He recommended Steven because he had done some production work on some 21st Circuitry releases. I called Steve and it seemed like a good match.

There seems to be a pretty solid base of creative electronic musicians in California right now. Are you in touch with many of the other artists?
Not as much as I'd like to be. I've never been good at networking and making meaningful professional connections. But I have gotten to know a few: Luxt, Spahn Ranch, Switchblade Symphony, FineLine...

You seem to use the internet very effectively to promote the band and stay in touch with the fans. How it that working out so far?
Our culture has to a large extent transcended the remote-icon-worship phase, and I believe it's moved into what I would call the distributed-access-fame phase. What I mean is that although I sometimes worry that too much personal visibility will destroy my appeal and make people disinterested, (this DOES happen...) it is more true that I can generate a loyal network of people who support the band partially because they feel that they're taking a small part in a community that has formed around the band. This would be impossible without the internet. It would have been impossible on our first album, even.

It is now possible to both appear to be a "famous artist" and yet have homey chats with just about anyone. The reason for this is precisely the impersonal barriers that internet communication throws up as compared to meeting in person or talking on the phone. It is impractical, time-consuming and dangerous to put your home phone number on your album or let people come to your house when they write a fan letter. E-mail and IRC, on the other hand, are virtually effortless for me, and really give people a sense of connection with the band. HTML documents ("The Web") can distribute information and advertising that would have cost MILLIONS only 10 years ago. I mean, 10 years ago, how else besides expensive advertising could you possibly make up to 10 million people aware of your band? I believe that helps me.

How long have you been using the internet?
Um.... Well, I guess I only got my account on the W.E.L.L. in 1993. Before that I was on Prodigy, before that PCLINK, and before that just doing BBS's.

Do you see it making record labels obsolete eventually?
No. The job of the record labels is not to manufacture and distribute plastic discs. The job of the labels is to do the work of selecting which music out of the avalanche of bands out there will be likely to be pleasing to many people. But their way of operating is going to have to change. They are going to have to start selling digital recordings as data, rather than as plastic discs. This is already beginning. I know some people in L.A. who are investing heavily into a system which will store over 100 gigs of CD-quality audio (about 200 albums) and burn you a CD in 5 minutes while you wait. You buy the blank, put it in the box, select the song, and while it's burning the CD, it prints out a label.

I think the internet could make PHYSICAL RECORD STORES obsolete, though. I haven't actually bought a record from a physical record store in YEARS. I buy everything from cdnow.com, or cdconnection.com, or even Tower records' online store. It IS more expensive, but it's worth it to KNOW that they have what you want.

But what really concerns me about all this is that I don't see the labels doing ANYTHING about or even UNDERSTANDING the problem of copying. In a few years, when it's easy to download 500 megabytes of audio data, and everyone has a CD-burner, copying records will be trivially easy. The solution is most likely to digitally protect the data in some way, so that you can't download it without paying, and you can't easily copy it after you have. But this will be difficult, never 100% foolproof, and require a lot of time and cooperation between the labels. I don't see any of this happening. I think there's going to be a big shake up sometime in the next three years when all the labels see their profits plummet due to CD copying. Then they'll have to mutate to information distributors and content developers instead of being plastic disc salesmen.

In regards to the new record, how did hook up with Rachel Girard for the cover art?
Rachel was my girlfriend a while ago. We lived together in San Francisco. I met her at a bus stop in Minneapolis.

How did you end up on Cleopatra Records?
They were the only label that wanted me. They're ok.

Was Cleo really the only label that wanted you or the only one that made a decent offer?
Yes. Slip Disc records said they were going to sign us, but then the guy's dad told him he had to quit making records.

The new material is much darker than InSoc's previous work. Do you agree?
Yes, that's accurate. It is attributable to the fact that that was ALWAYS the kind of stuff that came naturally to me, but that when I was doing the band with Paul, I was trying to follow his vision of what InSoc should be. Artists who follow can never perform as well as artists who lead.

Why did you decide to cover Gary Numan's "Are Friends Electric?"
It's my favorite song of all time. In 1993, when I first recorded my version of it, I felt the time was right for covers of Gary Numan songs. I told everyone that this was the case, and no one believed me. Now look. Sigh.

What can fans expect from upcoming live shows, compared to previous InSoc tours (other than no Paul or Jim)?
All-live, all-electronic, all percussion pad... NO DAT! Mostly the new songs, maybe a few of the more popular older ones, but in horribly mutated form.

I understand InSoc is considerably more popular in other parts of he world, such as South America. What kind of deal have you worked out for distribution outside of the US?
Well, we're in the middle of working that out right now. Cleo only has North America. We are going to get a Brasilian label for South America.

Do you feel that music video is still a viable means of artistic expression? How do you think it has changed in the past decade?
Yes, but what sucks about it now is that most of the videos have nothing to do with the band. Some would-be filmmaker basically just takes the band's money to fund his own resume-project. This was REALLY bad about 5 years ago, but I think it's getting a little better. I'm seeing more videos now that are just bands being bands.