Hi Shane and Tyler, thanks for doing this interview with us, how are you doing?
We're doing pretty great right about now haha. had a few drinks and just relaxing in our chill zone in the garage. It's our smoking area with couches and a sound system, where we mostly discuss band shit get inspired and drink our asses off while coming up with sick ideas we plan on using in the future. Half of which we use. In fact we've got some crazy shit in store soon. its gonna be like nothing you've ever seen in any genre, we just hope we can pull it off. its gonna take some funds but goddamn its gonna be awesome. or at least new and interesting. wish i could go into details but we don't want anyone to steal the idea before we can haha.
For the people who are not familiar with W.A.S.T.E, can you give a brief introduction?
Sure thing, we're a Russian children s pop band who write songs about bukkake. Nah In all seriousness we're what i guess you would call a rhythmic noise band with an edge. And that edge being our live performances. At least that is the category we've been lumped into due the extreme sound we project. But we try to mix that harshness with an emotional content not found in some other acts. We try to make you feel something, even though that something isn't always a good thing. In fact in one instance i gave a cd to a coworker just cause they were interested in what it is the hell i do outside of work, and they came in the next day and was like "dude what the fuck? I seriously almost drove off the freeway into on coming traffic because listening to your cd made me want to wreck shit!" i took it as a compliment. Most of the time i get "i thought my speakers were broken then i realized its supposed to sound like that." love it.
Why did you start with W.A.S.T.E? Being a musician is not about the money, good working hours and so on?
Like all great and shitty things it stems from a woman haha. Nah i was just going through a really shitty break up that was off and on off again i just needed a release. i had been writing bullshit popy electro shit for a while but when i turned up the distortion a little too much and just started writing this i don't give a fuck about making sure you like this music, that's pretty much how it was born. i had made a few tracks in that vein and brought it up to LA on a cdr and met this guy named Shane, now known as the operative at a club up there and said "here man you might dig this probably not though" haha. he put it on while djing that night and people actually dug it and were dancing. i was blown away and couldn't believe it and then this guy franck h bomb came up to me after wards and said "that was you?" I said yeah and he said "that was amazing how would you like to open up for converter at our next das bunker event?" i said "are you fuckin with me" he said "no baby i'm serious" So i of course said yes. I was with my friend theo at the time and said " dude you wanna team up with me, because there is no way i'm doing this shit alone haha. He said fuck yeah and waste was pretty much born. Theo joined and we started colabing on shit the rest is history. even though he's since quit the band to pursue different genres and the family thing. i still talk to him occasionally and we are still good friends.
You recently released “a silent rage of mantra” on Vendetta Music, how are the comments on it so far?
Man the response for that release has been overwhelmingly awesome. i honestly haven't heard one bad thing or read one mediocre review. they've all been positive and some just down right glowing. like on Regen.magazine wow. now, i did work really fuckin hard on that album and poured my soul into it but there's always haters out there who'll hate on just about anything so i figured i'd get some jackass sayin something like oh its not hard enough and you've lost that edge but no , its quite the opposite. its been really great and the more people that hear it write me and just make my day with compliments. i personally feel its our best work.
The album title itself is full of contradictions, can you explain it?
Well its basically about all the shit everyone has to endure everyday and that little thing you say in your head, that " its ok, I'm gonna be ok, just put up with this shit a little longer and everything will be ok." but then you can't stand it and you sort of just break and unleash those inner demons that have been begging to get out and just cause all sorts of violent shit. the mantra is the thing that's silent in your head keeping you taking all that shit from your boss, girlfriend, wife and whatever you have to put up with everyday. In fact the last track "a silent mantra of rage" is just that, a long drawn out trancey rhythm that builds and builds until you can't take it anymore and you snap.
The song titles doesn’t sound too happy, do they reflect your view on life and humanity?
Of course, my views are beyond twisted and i won't get into that because i'll sound like i'm preaching and while i do sometimes now is just not that time. the song titles do go through many different changes and have to be toned down. the track co written by Mekano entitled efficient ways of killing mass amounts of mother fuckers" was originally titled "Efficient ways of killing mass amounts of immigrants haha that's not gonna fly though. motherfuckers works on more levels too.
When you compare it to the previous albums, what progress do you hear yourself?
Oh man there is tons in all directions. For one i've cleaned up the mix a lot, its much less chaotic, and not overly distorted where the bass is completely drown out. but a much more went into the writing, like i actually went back and said, " how would i like this more?" and then changed what i felt needed to be changed. Also the songs fit the theme of the album more, less sportatic and more focused. And this time it wasn't just me and theo, it was also Tyler Viscerine and Mekano on a few tracks as well. They brought something new to the table and i couldn't be happier.
What is needed to build a (rhythmic) noise album, how do you build your songs?
Lots of pain and a really fucked up mindset haha that's so cliche but its also really true. i mean you just can't write this shit in a good mood. you can't be on top of the world and sit down and be like, i think i'll work on some dark shit, haha it just doesn't happen that way. so lots of drugs and alcohol really helped. I mostly build them by sitting down and just making a racket and slowly turning it into a groove. i swear to god all songs start with this 20 minute drawn out intro haha and i have to go back and cut that shit down considerably. ok maybe not all songs haha. A lot of times i'm just pissed off and feel like getting some frustrations out
What are sources of inspiration for you and how do you transform them into ideas for songs?
Man everything can influence me to write, a lot of times i'll go to club get drunk and come home and write shit. hearing other artists shit and watching people dance can be very inspiring, other times i'll just be kickin it and start writing something in my head and have to put it down before i forget it. i've even hopped out of the shower early because i thought of something that i knew i would forget haha. life is inspiring because life is always full of shitty moments. you have to relish on the few good ones because they are few and far between.
What is it on the album that grabs the people attention and gets them to listen to the entire album, usually rhythmic noise is great for clubs but not to listen to at home. How do you keep things exciting for the listeners?
Well it starts off with a nice intro song that of course builds and builds into pounding dance rhythm and then goes into a stompy clubby track but then before it gets stagnant we throw in an emotional synthy noisy piece to keep things fresh. and its a roller coaster from then out. we could just kill you with extreme beats through the whole thing but i wanted to keep it up and down because that's what i like to listen to. a good variety of dark ambient with noise and dance and just chill beats with hopefully creative interesting and downright creepy synth parts.
Tyler: This is something we take into consideration quite a bit. When compiling an album, we go through probably 3 times more tracks then what end up on the CD. Not only do we want to put our best tracks on it, but we ourselves are very old school when it comes to listening to albums and want the listener to be interested in the entire album and not be too inclined to skip around. So we compile the tracks that complement each other the most and are most cohesive together and then try to lay them out in an order that makes the album an expression as a whole. This can be tricky and sometimes calls for some re-writing, but I think with ASMOR, we got a great start to finish album.
What are the pro’s and con’s for you in creating everything by yourself?
I'd like to answer this but i don't exactly do that. even with older waste it was still me and Theo. i definitely wrote the majority of the new album but also had a lot of help so i can't really answer that one. I could for a vuxnut (one of my side projects) interview haha.
You will be touring in Europe this summer, who will be part of the live line up?
Man i'm so bummed about this. we were this close to having that actually happen but it fell through at the last minute for an abundance of reasons, most of which were monetary. We really tried to make this happen and sincerely apologize to all the fans out in that direction who were excited about seeing us. we really hope to make it out there next year. its not the fault of anyone out there, we had tons of friends and promoters trying everything they could to help us but it just came down to us just not being able to afford it. Flights around this time of year are just insane, if we wanted to come out a few months later it was like half the price. Next year though for sure!
What can people expect of a W.A.S.T.E. live concert?
Two dudes standing behind a lap top looking bored staring at some porn...haha nah we fuckin bring it live! We write the music that really gets us going so when we hear it on stage we have to react. There's lots of energy and fighting and just overall madness. Our favorite thing to do is to play live, hitting a pad and having the stage shake with this intense intense sound is almost orgasmic. If the crowd feels it then we of course react to that, but even if they just stand there in awe we still blow our wads and just have a good time. We were doing the live grinding for a while but don't want people to say we're copying our friends terrorfakt so we dont' do that as often. we've got some other shit in the works that's gonna be awesome like i said earlier, we just hope we can pull it off. But anyone that shows up and likes the harsher stuff can expect to have a damn good time.
Tyler: Violence, destruction, and chaos!
Will the music live deviate from the album versions, do you want to create a constant flow of beats in stage or stick to the album versions?
Yeah we play a lot of shit live and with that you'll hear some slight mistakes, and certain sounds will be a little off. sometimes we'll do a song almost completely different but it works. we don't' just wanna stand up there and dance to the cd. but there are times when we don't have our drummer so we can't take all the drums out but for the most part a lot of the samples and sfx are triggered live.
Tyler: Well we are certainly not DJing, so keeping a consistent tempo and beats going is in our least interest. We do change up tracks for live to keep it interesting for the fans and to give them something special to experience. If we played exactly what’s on the album, there’d be no point in playing it live. This is actually something we’ve become known for and in some cases, our live versions have gotten more popular then the studio ones and on the second disc of ASMOR, you get a few of these like the live version of I Don’t Give A Fuck.
When is a live show a good live show for you?
When the sound is good. that's like the most important thing, because even if the crowd isn't reacting like i hope they would i know its not because we sound like shit. obviously its great when they are into it and we can feed off their energy but i've played shows where not everyone seemed that into it, but the sound was kick ass so we had fun, but when the song is over they cheer like a motherfuker and i'm like oh, you guys are diggin it? haha We've also had dudes try and climb up on stage and we're like oh shit this dude is totally feelin it. then we mosh together and he jumps off. its like we have security to bum rush em or anything haha.
Tyler: When my gear is destroyed, my fingers are bleeding, and I can’t ear shit.
You already had several live members, why do you constantly change or do they run away?
I just like to spread the party. I tend to kick it with a lot of mofos and we're all into the same shit so its like why not play with us right? I like to fill the stage with my friends and just have a good time wu tang style. we aren't trying to have the limelight here or get famous off this shit, we are there to have a good time and hopefully spread that around to you guys.
We know you love to game, what is your current favorite game and for what kind of game would you like to create music?
Oh man i play so much shit, you name it on 360 and ps3 and i have it or have played it.i have a gamefly account so i've constantly got new titles coming in all the time. currently i'm playing ff13, AVP, bioshock 2, prototype, SSf4, 3d dot game heroes, cross edge, Disgaea 3, death spank man, lots of rock band.
We have a lot of parties with drunken rock band. As for doing a soundtrack well i've always had raging clue for anything post apocolyptic but that's being driven into the ground as of late. even though i'm still looking forward to games like fallout 3 vegas and rage. and I played the living shit out of borderlands. i would really love to do something along those lines or something with a serious horror element where you have to come up with interesting tones and errie sound fx. i've done a few things like that in the past and would LOVE to do more. i have hours of evil dark ambient music i've writen in the past that has never been put out, i could score a sound track to a survival horror with it. Something along the lines of silent hill or resident evil with a sort of horror trip hop would really be ideal. i recently got hit up to contribute to a new clive barker film with some music, lets hope that works out. we did a track that andy of combichrist remixed for us in the movie the collector. it was very well received so hopefully it opens up new avenues.
What do you expect of this tour?
Right now we have no tour in the works. we've had a lot shit fall through at the last minute. in fact tyler was just saying the other day that this year was year of cancellations. its true it was :(
Any last words for the readers?
I guess i want to say that i don't know how many emails I've read from people saying that we killed it in their town and they wanted to say hi at the show but we seemed really stand offish and unapproachable. well let me tell ya that couldn't be further from the truth and we love talking with new and old fans. so please don't hesitate to come up and say hi. we're pretty much the craziest on stage but down to earth in person. We have a lot of new and interesting shit planned for this band/act/project so stay tuned. And thanks to all the fans for all the awesome love and support. it really has been almost overwhelming. powernoise if you want to still call it that is a very niche genre and we know we aren't exactly radio friendly so its always awesome to hear that someone loves us.
www.myspace.com/waste