VNA - What roles do you play now as THD?

Ed - Shawn's responsible for the majority of the music.
I'm more of an engineer, sampler, manipulator freak.

Shawn - I do the lyrics and then I have Ed look at them. He's like the censor. He will look at them and say, "I don't know about this one". Then I'll go back and re-edit.

VNA - Your studio is called, "Ascent Labs".
Is your studio located a Ed's mom & dad's house?

Ed - It's actually on the second floor of their house. It's still at my parents house, because until we can find a new larger spot, it's extremely secure there.

VNA - May I ask how old you guys are?

Ed - I'm going to be 31 in July, so don't forget my birthday it's July 15th.
I want a present. (Laughs)

Shawn - I'm going to be 25 in January.

VNA - You also recorded at Acceleration in Philadelphia, how did that come about?

Shawn - That was a weird coincidence because I met a kid at a record store in Philadelphia. He told me that he worked with these people that had a hard disc studio. I gave him a tape, he gave it to them and they called us. Financially it was a dream because it didn't cost us a penny.

Ed - Except maybe for some DAT backups for them. It also gave us our first taste of hard disc recording which we now use ourselves and have been for the past three years.

VNA - Does Hard Records offer any money for recording?

Shawn - We get paid a certain amount when we give them a master tape. They pay us in advance for the first 1,500 copies sold. We don't really receive any money for studio costs. We're really lucky we have our own studio for us to do it this way. If we had to work in a real studio and do all that we do it would be like Skinny Puppy cost.

VNA - Outside In was recorded at Ascent Labs, but you had it mastered at Holland sound. I think the sound is really nice. Did Hard Records suggest to have it mastered there?

Ed - Holland Sound is in Scranton, PA, about an hour north of here. We feel there is a big improvement between our first and second CD.

VNA - One of the reasons you started THD was because you both were disgusted with the collapsing American electronic scene.
To me, in 1989 when you first started, the bands that were hot/some still are: Butthole Surfers, Thrill Kill Kult, Pailhead, Lard, Revolting Cocks, Ministry, and Fugazi, as far as American bands.
What do you mean a collapsing American electronic scene, those are classics?

Shawn - It was, Wax Trax was going down hill. Skinny Puppy put out Rabies, at the time we were like, "Rabies sucks!" We were tired of it, it was kind of arrogant how we started. We felt we could do it ourselves. We had a lot of motivation.

Ed - We needed something to do.

Shawn - We would go down to my uncle's house and play around on his keyboards.

VNA - What got you started? Did you know someone in a band?
Was it Alex that helped you get started and familiarized with different equipment?
Or had you played various musical instruments at an early age?

Ed - It was just us, we learned on our own. We'd just go to Shawn's uncles house on Monday nights and play on a KORG M1 workstation, that's really how it all started.

VNA - I really like the fact that many of your songs are danceable, especially on Mechanical Advantage. Do you go to clubs a lot, or do you find yourselves going out more for live shows?

Shawn - I don't go to either anymore. I'm totally disappointed with live shows, industrial or electronic live shows. Most the time it's someone on stage with long hair and their flying around with a guitar. That's great if your in a metal band, if your in an industrial band leave the guitars at home. I'm a little bitter about that. I go to clubs once in awhile but I work 2nd shift, so it's hard to get out.

Ed - I go to clubs and live shows once in awhile.

Shawn - We just saw Numb, Die Krupps, and Front Line Assembly. It was a good show, I guess. I was there to see Numb and Die Krupps. I have wanted to see Numb for a long time. They were okay but they could have had more of a presence on stage. Die Krupps was very good.

Ed - Plus, it was the renowned Philly show.

Shawn - Yeah, you had to be there.

Ed - Numb, the lead singer could have done better, he's new at it. He cut out a lot of the words to the lyrics and at times it made it loose its drive.

VNA - So are you anxious to see Mentallo & The Fixer and Pygmy Children?

Ed - Maybe we'll go down to that show in Philadelphia.

VNA - I heard THD is open to an East Coast tour. What about the rest of us? Will you film your performance and put it out so the rest of us can see you live, at least on video?

Shawn - You'll all have to petition Cleopatra to give us money for a tour.

VNA - Wouldn't we petition Hard Records since that's who you're signed to?

Ed - Yes, your right. With the distribution deal between Hard and Cleopatra, you forget sometimes who is your label.

VNA - Does Cleopatra give you any other support besides advertising and distribution?

Ed - Not that we're aware of. They do give us chances to do remixes and stuff, but it's basically all product and that's fine, because Cleopatra does an excellent job of getting product to the public...that is one really good thing about the situation. We always get constantly asked if we're playing live. Time and money wise it's difficult.

Shawn - We want to play live but we don't have the resources. To pay for our houses and cars we have to work real jobs and that doesn't give us time to tour.



THD continued here