TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION




Interviewed May 5th, 1996




by Virtual Night Angel



VNA - Hi Ed, Hi Shawn. Shawn, it's nice to hear your voice.
Thank you for the hand written letter and lyrics. I really appreciated it.

Shawn - Everybody gets hand written letters because my word processor is down.

VNA - That's cool, it's more personal than a typed up form letter that some bands will send out to everyone that writes.

Shawn - Totally, stuff like that is really lame. You write to a band that you really like and you get some Xerox fan club bullshit back, it's ridiculous.

VNA - I've been a fan of yours for two years now, but THD started in 1989, plus you were previously in the band, Teknition.
I am very happy THD is now available through Hard Records and Cleopatra.
Why did you sign to Hard Records as oppose to an American Independent Label?

Shawn - Who else wanted us?

VNA - I don't know, did you approach a lot of other labels?
Or were you waiting for someone to approach you?

Shawn - Hard Records was the only label that actually showed an interest, so we signed with them.

Ed - We got a really good review in Side Line magazine.

VNA - Yeah, I'm familiar with Side Line and have made some friends on the internet that write/work for the magazine.

Ed - We made it into their top five demo tapes of all time. Hard Records saw that and contacted us for more material. They liked it and signed us.

VNA - I have not seen your Hypocrisis CD at my favorite import store, and am wondering why it's not also being released on Cleopatra?

Shawn - That's a good question, and we'd like to know, too.

VNA - That really sucks. You'd think Cleopatra would want to release all the quality material they can get their hands on.

Ed - At the time I don't think Cleopatra was interested in doing EP's but now it seems like they are. It may be old material to them now.

VNA - Why don't you also sell your CD's on your web page on the internet? Then I'd just buy the Hypocrisis EP directly from you?

Shawn - Because we don't have any.

Ed - We're lucky if we get copies for ourselves. We have to ask for them all the time.

VNA - You don't want to get them pressed yourself and sell them?

Ed - It's a lot of money, plus we won't be able to buy other toys.

VNA - Your equipment list is huge!
Was there another member in Teknition?

Shawn - It was Ed and I and Alex Kane from G. P. C.
That was five years ago.

Ed - Alex use to run a tape distribution kind of thing. There were two bands, one on each side. There was a booklet and some type of really interesting packaging. Some of the bands featured were:
Mentallo & The Fixer, Non-Aggression Pact, and Kevorkian Death Cycle.

VNA - What does G. P. C. stand for?

Ed - General Purpose Cassettes. They are long out of print and we're not sure where Alex is. Last we heard he was working in Delaware for a software manufacturer.

VNA - What were your roles in Teknition?

Shawn - I did the lyrics and the vocals and a little sequencing. Sequencing was a whole group event. Someone would put in one track and somebody else would do another.
There were some handles, we all had made up names.



Virtual's Interview with THD continued here