In Person Interview with
Blayne, Brittain, and John of
March 30th, 1996
Pictures provided by Travis Baumann, director of Insight 23's video
(left-right John Whatley, Blayne, and Brittain Alexander)
1. Virtual: How is Jared responding to your debut CD, "Obsess",
out on Fifth Column? What is Fifth Column doing to back you up on this tour?
Blayne: Jared's done a lot. He's spoken and supported the album quite a
bit. He's told us that he's very fond of it. We've definitely come to know
that Jared's hands are tied when it comes to label activity.
2. Virtual: How long is your contract?
Blayne: We have a three album deal with them, well, four albums total. That's
not counting options for both us, and them.
3. Virtual: Who was in charge of your booking for the upcoming national
tour? Will you be teaming up with other Industrial acts?
Blayne: Wade
John: Wade Allen from Christ Analogue
Brittain: He pretty much put the whole thing together.
Blayne: He's done a phenomenal job.
Brittain: Yes, he's done a really good job. He has got a lot of contacts.
I don't know how he does what he does.
John: We met up with him on a previous tour and got along with him so well,
everything clicked. After being around him it was a natural thing for us
to go out on another tour. Yes, we will definitely be teaming up with other
industrial bands.
Blayne: We're playing with Christ Analogue the entire tour.
John: It's a double-bill, but we will be playing with Mentallo & The
Fixer, Zia, Armageddon, Apparatus, and a bunch of other bands.
Virtual: Do you mean Armageddon Dildos?
John: I don't know if we are playing with them for sure or not.
Blayne: It's up in the air.
Brittain: Plus, we're also looking into playing with Acumen while on the
east coast.
Blayne: Hopefully we'll do something with Ned's current project, who use
to be in 16 Volt.
4. Virtual: What kind of advertising can we expect to see to promote the
tour?
Blayne: There will be posters. That is pretty much decided by the club owners
and promoters. We're doing quite a bit through a promoter from Denver to
New York.
5. Virtual: When exactly does the tour start? Where is the first venue?
Who else will be performing that night?
Blayne: The Fenix in Seattle, Washington on April 11th.
Virtual: Do you know who else you'll be playing with?
John: I think there's a few other bands that night, I'm not really sure.
Blayne: We don't really get a listing of everybody that's on a bill unfortunately.
A lot of times what they'll do is set up a show and the locals in the area
will open. We've been getting e-mail and phone calls from different bands
across the country saying, "Yeah, we'll be playing with you",
which has been really, really cool, but other than that we don't have a
listing.
6. Virtual: I've seen Insight 23 play at The Roxy, and Martini Lounge here
in Los Angeles. Have you played much out of LA?
Blayne: Yes, we've probably played more outside of California, than we have
in California.
John: We've played Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and up north in
Sacramento, and San Francisco.
Blayne: We like it out there. We don't play much out here because the scene
is so screwed up.
Virtual: I wish you played Los Angeles more often.
Blayne: We want to, and we will. It's just right now, since we're concentrating
so much on promoting it's become easier for us to promote elsewhere. Where
there has been a generated response, where people have said, "We really
like you guys, come play out here". So it has been better for us to
go out to other places than to play at home right now.
7. Virtual: Your live performance is very entertaining and your live sound
exceeds the CD. Have you completed any new tracks that you plan to perform
live?
John: Yes.
Blayne: We will be doing two new songs on the tour. "Revolution X"
and "Enemy Mind".
8. Virtual: On tour, will it be the three of you or do you plan to add an
engineer or additional live members?
John: It will be the three of us, but we are bringing in an additional sound
engineer, who does sound for Christ Analogue, Rob. He'll be doing our live
sound which will be a lot better sounding then the past.
Blayne: He did our sound for the last tour and it was great. The difference
was immense.
9. Virtual: Was it difficult for you all to get time-off from your employers?
(John, congratulations, I heard you started your own CD ROM company. What
is it called?)
John: It's called, "Interactive Perceptions".
Brittain: I pretty much quit. It will work out for the best, I've been wanting
to get out for awhile anyway.
Blayne: When this tour came up we were like, this is it, this is our intention.
It was a unanimous decision, we were going to do whatever it takes. I gave
my thirty-day notice and basically quit. They want me to come back, so I'll
end up going back.
John: I'll be working from the road.
10. Virtual: Have you done many interviews and where can we find them?
John: GEAR Magazine.
Blayne: Which we still haven't seen yet. We also just did a live interview
on KSPC, Thursday night, a two hour one.
John: We have interviews set-up across the tour.
11. Virtual: Do you have any friends or relatives you plan to stay with
in other states while your on the road?
John: A combination of friends we've met on the internet.
Blayne: Ex-girlfriend's
John: Just anything we can find, hopefully new aquaintances.
Blayne: That's what we're really hoping for.
John: Our special new friends.