PYGMY CHILDREN INTERVIEW
By Virtual Night Angel - Friday, January 12, 1996
Thanks Pete and Brian for responding to my mail and making
this interview happen! I'm very greatful to have had the opportunity to
get to know the Ropers, who are the admirable musicians of
Pygmy Children and brothers from Baltimore, Maryland!
Since the interview I have seen the "Recoil"
video which must get on a cool compilation for everyone to see. I recieved
some great pictures from Pygmy Children's recent photo shoot and got some
pictures of their visit to Chicago Trax! Also, thanks to Pygmy Children
and Thomas Thorn I spoke to Keith "Fluffy" Auerbach, who's produced
and engineered with Pygmy Children and so many of our favorites!
VIRTUAL
Tonight, is one of America's favorite T.V. programs (and mine), The
X Files. I thought it would be interesting to find out if you guys like
the show and if you, Brian has an opinion on the existance of Aliens?
BRIAN
The times I've watched the show yeah, it was pretty cool. I can't say
I set Friday nights aside for X Files-it's pretty cool, one of the better
shows on T.V. Yeah, I would definately say I'd have to believe in aliens
because all the people, I mean there's so many people that I see here they
have to be from another planet or something.
VIRTUAL
Pete, what's your view on Aliens and life on other planets?
PETE
Yeah, well pretty much, if you get in that contemplative mood where
you just sit on the ground and stare up at the stars and look around. There's
gotta be something else, there just can't be us.
VIRTUAL
Pete, my aka (Mayor with a mohawk) what are your political views on
mind-altering drugs used for recreational use?
PETE
My political views, well I heaven't ventured into mind altering drugs.
If that's what floats your boat, then that's the sea you can sail on. I
have no objections to it, so I have nothing against it politically and my
whole philosophy is do whatever the hell you want, but at the same time
take responsibility for your actions.
VIRTUAL
I like that answer, you have my vote for mayor!
Do either of you believe in GOD?
PETE
I would have to say yes, in some sense. I mean, it kinda goes back to
the alien question, there's gotta be something, a higher power. I'm not
really religious or anything anymore, that's what happens when your raised
Catholic. Yeah, I'd have to say I believe in god.
VIRTUAL
Brian, do you feel pretty much the same way?
BRIAN
Yeah, pretty much the same thing. I don't really get into big organized
religions, I don't know. It's almost they have become almost their own sort
of government in their own political selves, it's just a big bureaucracy,
but hopefully there's something bigger than us. A reason for being alive,
so that when we die, we're not just going to be in the ground and having
worms crawling into our bodies.
VIRTUAL
What does Pygmy Children mean? Was it like, yeah we're both really short,
or is it meant to mean something special, like some sort of tribe?
PETE
It wasn't because we're short, we're both over 6 ft. tall so that's
kinda hard. We just liked the name, the way it sounded, it didn't have some
big significance, we could look into it and add significance to it, but
that's all after the fact. The whole reason why we chose the name is because
we liked the way it sounded.
VIRTUAL
Yeah, I definatly think the name, "Pygmy Children" sounds
cool, I was thinking maybe it was a cult influenced name.
PETE
It has a tribalistic sound to it.
VIRTUAL
You have three Cd's out now, "Malignant", "Facedown",
and "Deconstruct."
Have you considered being on any movie soundtracks?
BRIAN
Actually that's funny because when we were recording the first two CD's,
the studio that we recorded at is called, "Hit & Run".
Steve Carr, the engineer, he's like, "Your music would be really good
in movies."
VIRTUAL
Brian, What kind of movies do you like?
BRIAN
Kind of bizarre ones, I like a lot of David Lynch stuff, we're listening
to the Blue Velvet soundtrack right now. Eraserhead is pretty freaky, any
early John Water's movies with Divine in it, is pretty good in a tasteless
sort of way.
VIRTUAL
Have you ever saw a movie and had to re-write it's soundtrack? Did you
ever then go and create a piece or scene from that movie?
PETE
No, we pretty much just watch movies recreational, like take a break,
watch a movie.
BRIAN
It's funny because Maz at one of the shows, came up to us and said he
was listening to our music, he asked, "I was just curious if you guys
had anything to do with the movie, Hardware?"
We were like no, it's a cool movie, but no.
VIRTUAL
Would you, Pete, like to share any New Year's Reslutions concerning
your music, or anything?
PETE
I rarely make New Year's resolutions.
VIRTUAL
There's always personal goals.
PETE
Personal goals, just try to keep making music and expanding what we're
doing, never get content. We're working on the new album, we resolved not
to use any sounds that we programmed before that were used on "Malignant",
"Facedown" or "Deconstruct". We don't want to use the
same sounds for our new stuff. We want to push ourselves further and rebuild
the sound constantly.
BRIAN
It's just way to easy to go back to using sounds that we have all ready
been using. We want to create new sounds, challenge ourselves, create sounds
that haven't existed before.
PETE
A lot of the stuff we are doing, we are getting away from any sort of
pre-programmed sounds, like in a drum machine. On "Deconstruct",
we use very little, some of the Yamaha drum machine, the kicks are nice
and the high hats, but everything else we program our own sounds. The other
sounds are samples we made with a drum kit, various things-whatever we had
around and processing it, making it sound cool.
BRIAN
Actually we did do some funky stuff with running some sounds from the
RM50, which is the Yamaha, we ran it into the moog we have and put it through
the filters and you can totally distort it.
VIRTUAL
Brian, what is the greatest piece of technology that you came in contact
with in 1995?
BRIAN
Big Question. The biggest piece of technology is what's in my hand,
the cordless phone. (mass laughter)
VIRTUAL
What criteria does a song need to be a complete Pygmy Children release?
PETE
The song starts, it picks you up it carries you where it's going. When
we're working with this sort of equiptment, like a sequencer and stuff,
a lot of things happen at random, something happens and an idea will spark.
Then you just get so excited and keep moving and then create the basis of
the song. How do you know when the song is done? Well, you just do, you
know, there is no formula. Some songs need to be sparcer. Maybe something
more needs to go on. It depends on the tone of the song.
BRIAN
For us as Pygmy Children it has alot to do with the way we work. Sometimes,
one person will come up with the basis, then he'd say, let me do some stuff
and it will sound so much better and he'll give it back to me and we'll
go back and forth, eventually getting to a point that adding anything else
would be superfluous.
PETE
Like Brian will create an intro and I'll totally change it, then he'll
change it again and it goes through all these different metamorphosis, to
the point where the first idea is no longer there but the idea and it's
presence are. It's like two parents giving birth, it has characteristics
of the creaters but the end results are a different thing.
VIRTUAL
Are you two actively on the internet surfing the world wide web?
PETE
I've checked out some stuff, and met some people in the Cyberden chatroom.
Not actively on a daily basis, but it's something I'd like to get more into-but
it takes time and all.
VIRTUAL
Is there a location of a site where we can dowload sound files of your
music?
PETE
BRIAN
I know Peter Stone from Cyberden had a sound byte available of "Shock".
Cleopatra, should have some, too.
VIRTUAL
Do either of you have home computers?
BRIAN
We have two Macintosh computers.
VIRTUAL
Is computers a big part in making your music?
BRIAN
Yes, definatly. One computer is basically set up with a fax modem, for
online services. The other computer is used for sequencing, sound editing
and graphics.
PETE
Brian did the art for Under The Noise's new album which will be out
any day now-by the way, it's really very fucking cool.
VIRTUAL
Brian, what are some of your favorite programs, or something you can
recommend for inspiring musicians?
BRIAN
For Sound Editing we're using Macromedia's Sound Edit Pro and Passport's
Alchemy which is pretty killer. For sequencing, we're using Master Tracks
Pro 6. We were thinking about moving into the hard disc recording digital
realm with Digital Performer, but that hasn't happened yet, probably wait
until I get another computer.
PETE
The cool thing about Master Trax Pro, the software sequencer is very
straight, easy, down to earth, you can do all your recording, lots of cool
fades, we like it the best, we're so use to it. We rarely use the manual,
we just figure out how to do it by doing it.
VIRTUAL
I had thought that Brian did all the music and Pete was responsible
for vocals, but I've found out through the Terra Industria interview, that
Pete also plays drums and piano.
PETE
We both pretty much do everything, the way we work is just passing the
ideas back and forth. If I just did it myself it wouldn't be the same. The
same is true if Brian did all the music. Different stuff goes on because
we're totally different people.
VIRTUAL
What key equiptment do the two of you utilize?
BRIAN
We use both of our samplers pretty much to their extreme potential and
the microwave synthesizer a lot just because it's an analogue/digital hybrid,
really fat sounds that we can't get out of any other machine we've come
across, been able to find, or afford to buy yet.
PETE
It's a really nice machine, unfortunatly it's no longer available in
this country, you have to order them directly from Germany. Unlike a lot
of other synthesizers it's fairly simple to program.
Now we use Unisyn to generate patches.
BRIAN
Which is a sound editor and librarian.
BRIAN
Back then, when we got started we were so naive. We first started sequencing
with the onboard 16 track sequencer on the EPS sampler which was extremely
limiting, although there's a lot of cool things you can do with it. Once
we moved to sequencing on the computer, it was much more free.
VIRTUAL
Pete, I love listening to Pygmy Children, it's so intense musically
with your great lyrics and awesome vocals!
PETE
We've always tried to make really intense powerful music without using
the "g" word (guitars), I mean it seems to be the thing to do,
throw in quitars to heavy up the mix. "Unilateral Dischord", is
a song that uses a fuzzy crunchy kinda guitar sound that is just a sample
from our moog that we ran through a bunch of filters and distortion pedals.
We want it to be dramatic. It's good to have moodswings in the music.
VIRTUAL
Brian, how do you achieve the distortion in Pete's vocals? Especially
on your "FACEDOWN" single, track 2, Facedown (bootstamp), i.e.
rack mounted effects, petal effects, built in sampler, megaphone?
BRIAN
The distortion is done in a lot of different ways, most the times the
vocals are recorded totally dry and we run it through, so many different
things, for Facedown (Bootstamp) that was run through a combination of an
A.R.T. effects box and also a guitar distortion pedal.
VIRTUAL
How many layers do you usually have in your songs?
BRIAN
Anywhere from 16 tracks, up to as many as 30 something.
PETE
No, no, on the version of "Core" (Resistance) on "Malignant"
we use 53 tracks. It's broken up with all the different musical patterns.
BRIAN
That's kind of deceptive to say we use that many tracks there's not
actually that many different things going on, it's just different layers
of the same sounds just placed in different places. Just to kinda isolate
them to give them different effects in different parts of the song.
VIRTUAL
"Malignant" was recorded by Steve Carr at the Hit & Run Studio
in Maryland, what did he all do for you, i.e. did he mix it to the right
levels, running the mix board, or did he just press the CD's for you?
PETE
He just kinda stood there, he just basically does pop music and he just
set the levels to dat and when I was singing he hit record. He's not familiar
with this type of music so he pretty much read a magazine, he's a nice guy
though.
VIRTUAL
Then it says you recorded "Deconstruct" at the same studio?
BRIAN
That was a change of plans because we went to Chicago Trax to record
with Fluffy and first we were having midi sync problems, we couldn't get
our gear to sync up with the time code on the tape. Then we had a couple
pieces of machinery just totally freak out on us. We lost every sound that
we had programmed from recording on the microwave, then one drum machine
crashed, every patch started to disappear so we had to come home and rebuild
everything and at the point we had a really limited budget. We couldn't
afford to go back to Chicago to do the recording, so we did the recording
locally but went to Chicago to do the mixing.
VIRTUAL
Did Cleopatra get Fluffy to produce and mix "Deconstruct"
with you?
PETE
Yeah, well what happened was like September of 94', Brian Perera from
Cleopatra asked us about two people we could have worked with either Fluffy
or Jürgen Engler of Die Krupps. I'm not super familiar with Die Krupps,
but we said, Fluffy it's a go. It seemed obvious to us.
Pictured here, producer/engineer Keith "Fluffy"
Auerbach.
BRIAN
And also we didn't want the tapes just going somewhere, without us being
there, and having someone mix without any imput from us.
PETE
When we went to Chicago we all mixed it. It wasn't that just Fluffy
did everything, we all worked together. Room A was incredible sounding.
As opposed to costing $1,000 it all ended up costing $3,000 for the "Deconstruct
CD".
VIRTUAL
How could someone like me get in touch w/ Fluffy?
PETE
Fluffy c/o Chicago Trax
VIRTUAL
See Brian after a tiring day, sleeping with Fluffy's dog Angus below.
VIRTUAL
What's this about Reid and the deal of the century?
PETE
Reid is the owner of Chicago Trax studios. When we first got to Chicago
he kept on telling us, "You guys are getting the deal of the century!"
So it's really just an inside joke.
VIRTUAL
Do you know how many CD's have sold accross seas?
PETE
No, we don't know yet. I hope it's doing well.
BRIAN
Compilations to find: "The Industrial Revolution Vol. III"
on Cleopatra, there's gonna be a remix of "Intensify" that George
Hagegeorge of UTN did that's really good. There's "Wired Injection"
on Cleopatra that features "Recoil". "Digital Space Between
Vol. II" has a version of the song, "R6".
VIRTUAL
What merchandise (T's, stickers, posters) are available and is Cleopatra
helping you out with that?
BRIAN
We are now creating T-shirt designs which will be out soon.
PYGMY CHILDREN CONTINUED