Alec Empire
Interviewed By Jeff Hammond
Bimble ( Editor ) : This interview first appeared in the Tokyo Times and has been reproduced
here with the kind permission of DHR (Digital Hardcore Records) and it's author Jeff Hammond, an Englishman based in Tokyo.
At first glance Alec Empire, in black leather from head to foot, appears
the archetypal rocker, but his short clean hair and his drug-free,
no-drinking, no-smoking stance hardly screams " sex, drugs and rock'n'
roll ". Besides, with interviews starting from 10:00 am until late at
night, without even a proper hour for lunch, Alec has little time for
driving cars into the hotel swimming pool. The leader of noise
terrorists Atari Teenage Riot was in Tokyo for a gruelling week of press
interviews, in advance of the release of the band's new album and their
appearance at this summer's Fuji Rock Festival.
As self-proclaimed anarchists, of a type closer to the political ideas
of the original anarchists and the Situationists than the aimless
violence and apathy of many of the 70s punks, ATR are well aware that
their chosen ideology is often criticised for being naive and
unrealistic, but they are unshaken. " We can't go on this way. It is
becoming more and more clear that capitalism obviously isn't working
either. " They are adamant that there can be " a different approach to
life where people can take responsibility for themselves - and it is
mainly an educational thing " And music is part of that education.
" Most music is just functional - to entertain, and in an easy way. It is
superficial, just to calm people down - selling boredom. We want to
excite, motivate people, shake them up ". The band's mission is to
" disturb and offend ", and the main weapon in their armoury is noise. " We
use noise because of it's sheer energy and power.
We combine elements of revolutionary energy with rock'n' roll, punk,
techno, and elements of pop music, but we don't like to call it
'crossover' or 'techno-punk' or whatever, we think that is too simple. "
The term the band have adopted, not only for their music but also for
their label, is Digital Hardcore.
The advantages and difficulties involved in working with the media is
something the band are keenly aware of. Not only is there the danger of
their words being manipulated, but also the fact their ideas can be
simplified because of lack of space. " We have talked before about
whether we should go through the press at all, because it can be so
superficial ".
Their arguments can be best understood by listening to
their music, and reading their own DHR freepaper which allows them to
explain their position in more depth and " re-question this information
flow ", but they are aware they need to work with the press to get as
many people as possible to that stage.
Co-operating with the media also poses the question of presenting an
identity, " That's a difficult problem, we wrote a long article about
this in our DHR freepaper. When I started getting into the early techno
music about 1991, it had no personality, it was instrumental and
anonymous. That was very subversive. " But now techno can be as
media-friendly, and therefore image-conscious, as any other form of pop
music. " It is important to be aware how much an ideology is connected to
a face, because that leads to a power structure. So it is important to
destroy an image of yourself once it has been established. Is it the
best solution? Maybe not. But that has been our recent strategy ".
Challenging his own image, even contradicting himself, has resulted in
what could loosely be described as ambient recordings, as well as the
influential " Electric Ladyland " in which he brought together techno,
dub, hip-hop, and more in an influential series of compilation albums.
" We get a lot of aggressive response. For some time I was seen as a kind
of leader of the Hardcore scene and when I did other stuff that
questioned that whole direction, it was surprising how extreme some
people can be ". But he is sticking to his guns. " We don't want a crowd
who just shout along to whatever we say. We have to go against that. We
want people to shout " Fuck Alec Empire ". Our listeners have to question
us as people ".
Jeff Hammond
