Recorded by phone from Bill's house in Vancouver.
JR: I've really been enjoying your new album Corrosion.
Besides that, the only other
Front Line Assembly
work I'm aware of
is "Aggression", from the Third Mind compilation
For Your Ears Only.
What else can you tell us about FLA's history and other
recordings?
BL: The band goes back about two years. Shortly after I quit
Skinny Puppy,
we released two limited-edition cassettes, one called
Total Terror and one called Nerve War. These were
both limited to 100, so mostly just our friends got those. Then
we released an album on Dossier Records called State Of
Mind. Dossier is sort of a small label, so I don't know how
well that got distributed, but we just did it because I liked a
lot of the other artists on the label. Then we did
Corrosion with Third Mind and Wax Trax, which worked out
much better as far as distribution and promotion.
JR: So prior to the release of Corrosion, your work was only
available on European labels. Does that mean that most of the
people hearing your music were in Europe instead of here in North
America?
BL: I know that State Of Mind did make it over here to some odd
places, but I guess we could say that Corrosion is our
first "official" release. Third Mind is getting very good
distribution in Europe by Play It Again Sam. Third Mind used to
be distributed by Rough Trade and The Cartel, but they don't
really put a lot of effort into you unless you're the Smiths or
the Woodentops or something.
JR: How did you end up working with Third Mind Records? Wouldn't it
have been easier to work with Nettwerk?
BL: When I quit Puppy, there were a lot of politics with the whole
Nettwerk situation. They were also talking about five-year
contracts and touring 60 dates of the year, and we weren't ready
for that kind of a commitment.
JR: One might expect that since your band and Nettwerk are both based
in Vancouver, it would be a good arrangement.
BL: Yeah, I always get asked about that. You'd be surprised at how
many bands are trying to get signed by Nettwerk, but I think Wax
Trax is doing a much better job in the States. Although Nettwerk
has an arrangement with Capitol, only two of their bands are
really being distributed worldwide. I much prefer to be working
with Wax Trax.
JR: Is Wax Trax licensing all of Third Mind's roster, or just your
stuff?
BL: No, just ours.
JR: I didn't realize you were in Skinny Puppy, since your name doesn't
seem to appear on their records.
BL: I used the pseudonym "Wilhelm Schroder". I was on most of
Bites as well as the "Stairs And Flowers" single. I was
with them from the very beginning; we were all best of friends
back then.
JR: I notice that you're using the past tense there. What happened to
the relationship?
BL: Well, when you get three people together who all have a lot of
ideas, and if there's not a lot of give-and-take, one person is
going to end up on the outside. I was doing the live shows with
them, but I wasn't getting the chance to be creative in the
studio. I was also beginning to get a lot of ideas in my head, in
case I decided to start another band.
JR: I notice that you are still working with producer Dave Ogilvie,
who has done a lot of work with Skinny Puppy.
BL: Yeah, he lives here and has always been "one of the boys", and is
still a good friend.
JR: On Corrosion I also see the names of Tom Ferris and Cal
Stephenson from
Moev.
BL: Vancouver's not really that big of a place, so we all get together
at the clubs and so forth. Moev has a 16-track studio here called
Limited Vision, which we used quite a lot. We are always swapping
gear with them. We credited them on the album because they helped
us out in many ways other than the music itself.
JR: Where did you do the recording of Corrosion?
BL: We just set up things wherever we need to. We try to do
pre-production at home and then go into the studio afterwards. Four
of the songs on Corrosion were written in a flat above an
underground clothing store, where we shared the place with 200,000
pairs of sunglasses. There was no ventilation, it was late
August, and it would get up to 110 degrees, so the whole scene was
very weird. We just did things wherever we could find the time
and the place.
JR: The finished product certainly sounds very well-produced.
BL: Some of it was done in a 24-track studio, but parts were done with
16 or 8 and eventually pieced together. I think we created a
pretty good mood with the whole thing.
JR: When I try to describe your music, words like "electronic" and
"dance" certainly come to mind. How would you describe it?
BL: I really don't mind the term "electronic", although there is some
guitar on one song. At this point, we really are willing to try
anything. For the new album that we're doing, we're still not
sure which direction we want to go.
JR: Who are some other artists and groups that have inspired or
influenced you?
BL: Mark Stewart,
Throbbing Gristle,
lots of others. It's a pretty long list.
JR: Have you been to clubs where your own music is being played?
BL: [Laughs] Yeah, on a pretty regular basis. I always feel weird
when I hear my own stuff; I just sort of go off in a corner and
drink my beer. Oh, back to your earlier question about describing
our music; we're really not trying to tell anybody what to do or
what to listen to. We do have a more ambient side too, like the
song "On The Cross", and I think we kind of walk a fine line
between that and the more dancier stuff. When I'm just sitting at
home, I'd much rather listen to something that isn't just
constantly upbeat.
JR: Who's your partner in Front Line, and how do you split up the
work?
BL: That's Michael Balch. It works out really well because I do most
of the songwriting, and he's better at more of the technical
stuff. I also come from more of the crunchy side of electronic
music, like Neubauten or
Test Dept.,
and Michael comes from the
other side, so we kind of meet in the middle. I don't think we
sound like Neubauten or Depeche Mode, but sort of a happy medium
there.
JR: What else are you working on?
BL: We have a six-song EP coming out called Disorder, which
should be out in the middle of May [1988].
JR: What about videos?
BL: We do have a video for "Body Count", which will be on the
Disorder EP. Wax Trax has a video sampler with that as
well as Laibach, Front 242, Revolting Cocks, Borghesia, etc. I
heard they were trying to get it on [MTV's] "120 Minutes", but I
think they are fairly suspicious about what they put on the air.
JR: Are your videos particularly graphic or shocking or anything?
BL: Not really, it's just different than the usual Top 40 stuff. We
show riots and lots of other stuff that's going on in the world.
But it's not all gloom and doom, because we think there is hope.
JR: Are you planning any live shows?
BL: I hope so. Wax Trax is releasing Disorder and then maybe
another single in September. Hopefully after that they will put
on a tour for us. We've been asked to come to Europe already.
Maybe between Play It Again Sam and Wax Trax we can set up a
world-wide thing. I heard there's a cool club there [in San
Francisco] called the I-Beam, right?
JR: Yeah, they have the Swans this week and Revolting Cocks were also
there recently.
BL: Really? They never come up here [to Vancouver]. We get stuck
with groups like OMD.
JR: Is Front Line Assembly the main thing you're doing, or do you work
in a hardware store by day or something like that?
BL: Actually it's become a full-time thing for me. There's definitely
a lot to do right now, so it's much more than just a passing
fancy. We definitely want to take it many steps further. I mean,
we actually have a budget for our next record, which we've never
had before. But we're not going to start bringing in producers or
anything, we're going to keep doing things ourselves.