Eat Static

Since 1991 Eat Static have always made music with a maverick spirit. They were one of the very few outfits on the Techno circuit who played ‘live’ and this was much appreciated at events such as Glastonbury. Best Dance Act awards and a Top 20 album shortly followed. Artistic freedom being the benchmark of their output, their latest release Crash & Burn sees Merv Pepler & Joie Hinton in outrageous form. The album is a technological feast, a delightful culmination of loungecore techno and world music. Barcode catches up with Joie himself inviting him to  tell us all about the Eat Static groove machine. Joie, how did you meet Merve in the first place? I was in a band and he came along to a gig in Bath we were playing, he was currently in a band called The Funeral Party and he'd heard that one of my other bands, The Ozrics needed a drummer so he sort of said "Oh, I'll give it a go" and the next day we had a bash round at someone's house and he fitted the bill, so that's how we kind of got together really and we sort of formed Eat Static about 3 years later on. What musical backgrounds did you evolve from and who were your influences when you first began the band? Well joint influences we liked bands like Can, weird musicians like John Hassell and Merve's a bit more punkoid than I am. I was a bit more Zappa style. Merve was more into things like Devo and The Dickies, a bit more grungy than me. We've got a few areas where we cross, we both like world music, lots of sorts of Turkish stuff and Indian music. This is what is displayed on your Crash & Burn album? Yeah, you can sense it all on there. But before that of course you were sort of more known as a techno orientated band but your influences don't really reflect that do they? I suppose we kind of got hooked into being a dance band at that time during the late eighties, early nineties. Techno.. yeah Acid House mate, y'know? We just started doing that but I think the influences still come out on there. Even on the earlier albums you still got the World music influence and the slightly sort of warpy edge. Eat Static have been around many years now but you have diversified, you got brought to my attention after the track you did for Front Line Assembly - Comatose remix? Wicked Did they approach you to do that remix? They just phoned up I think. That one Merve did, I wasn't on that one. Did you enjoy the Front Line track Merve? "Yeah it was alright actually" (Merve shouts). Are you a band that is regularly asked to remix for other people? Yes we've just done one for Charlie Watts, you know the Stones drummer. He does this kind of Jazz band; we've just remixed one of his tunes for an album. So what sort of angle did you put on that then? Pretty weird (laughs), it came out pretty strange. It's kind of like dirty sort of blues funk vibe on it. We've got a friend of ours playing bass from Jamiroquai. He's left Jamiroquai now actually; he's a really good bass player and an old mate of ours. We got him down to do some stupid, filthy distorted bass. And Will White who does really good scratching is involved. It's kind of like a cocktailly sort of track originally and we made it a bit more hip-hoppy, a bit of hard step drum and bass thing on the end of it as well. Done a job on it? So Charlie Watts listens to Eat Static? Quite possibly, maybe he hadn't heard any but the person who got us to do it was very keen about it, apparently we just heard today that he really likes it. He's over the moon with the mix. You must be pleased with the way the whole Crash & Burn album turned out? Yeah we're very happy with it. Do you like it? Yeah I love it. I was very surprised because I'd heard many things about you and it was not what I expected at all really? No, a little bit of a side step but fun for us. What was the reason to go so far to one side? Well we never really set out to be drastically different; it must resemble a lot of what we've been listening to over the last couple of years. A lot more sort of loungy things we listen to. A bit more back to what we like roots wise. Merve loves garage and the good old sort of sixties kind of porno movie soundtrack music. It's really funny. So you had to watch a lot of that did you to get some influences? (Laughs) He's got all the records yeah, these Italian sort of porno movie records. We haven't been watching the films. I'll take your word for that. Yeah you bet. I get the impression from the album that your trying to mix the technology of electronic music with those more conventional ideologys from all these cultures? We're just having fun with making tracks. With Crash & Burn, the way we've recorded it, it's less computerised. It's a lot more organic; a lot more manual overdubs because we're using digital multi-tracking now. It makes it a lot easier and a lot more human. Maybe that's why it's kind of less techno and a bit more organic. I think it's partly to do with that and the way were treating the technology now, it's almost like were going back to how we used to be, tape. One track in particular that stood out is Dervish Funk, where the whole ‘fun’ ethos comes over. Were you deadly serious in the beginning about where you wanted Eat Static to go? And now that you are better known can you relax a bit? I think originally we were just caught by the dance music bug really. We were just playing local parties and warehouse gigs. We didn't really envisage it becoming as well known as it has but I suppose that's just because we've perservered and carried on. Lot's of people start something up and drop back where as we still go out and relentlessly gig and still put stuff out all the time. But where does the drive and determination come from? We're trying to earn a living a lot of the time. Deep down it's just the love of it, we really enjoy it, we get on really well. It's just a nice sense of achievement when you can make a record and pass it around your mates. We love it. What was the first label that picked you up? Planet Dog I understand your on your own label now, so was the whole corporate thing getting to you? A little bit of that. We completed the contract with Planet Dog and then their distributors, Ultimate liquidated. So, a bit of bad news on that one. We were sort of liquidated on and we were owed a lot of money by Ultimate. Not Planet Dog, they're not guilty. There's all a bit of a wrangle going on now, who owns what and all that. Is it going to court? I hope not, well I don't think so. It's just unfortunate. Consequently we didn't make much money really. They phoned up one day and we were told what do you want the good news or the bad news. They sort of said we owe you so much money, like 30 odd grand or something, sorry we can't pay it bye! I think we made £54.00 off Science Of The Gods, we've got the cheque on the wall still, we haven't even bothered cashing it. The thing is, money doesn't drive us. We think that we will get a reward one day, but at the moment we’re sort of brassic, it's quite bad really. Yeah but your remixing for Charlie Watts now, that's the sort of thing you want, big names. So how's it going with your own label? Going really well actually pretty good. We've got the three albums out now and we're mastering another album tonight, Prepare Your Spirit. It was originally released as a cassette in '93. It was our first album really, re-release only cassette before. Now were putting it out on double CD with bonus tracks. It's quite ravy. Some good tunes. So why did you decide not to go to another label? We did have a go, offering ourselves around. There were a few people interested but as the music industry seems to be these days on it's dying legs or something odd going on. There were lots of people saying yeah we'll have a meeting about this and a meeting about that and three months later you haven't heard from them and therefore we just got fed up of waiting for people who were just sort of pissing us around really. I have to confess we did approach a few people and a few people approached us and then just farted around so we just said bollocks lets do it ourselves. But it's probably a good time, I saw your web-site the other day and with the whole MP3 phenomena where you can sell direct to the public makes it a good time not to tie yourself up on a contract? Exactly, it feels better that it's our label now rather than being controlled by other people. Although they never could really control us anyway. Also on the album is that track The Curious Dr Hump. Lovely, it's my favourite track on there. When you were recording the track how did you capture the whole feel of this horror B-Movie effect that comes across so accurately? The bulk of that track was written by Steve Joliffe (Tangerine Dream). He's just a fantastic musician, he's classically trained and he kind of played a skeletal version of that to us. It was just astounding, we were knocked out and it's had stuff added to it. Really, to ask how that was written you should ask Steve Joliffe what he felt. Honestly, he can knock up anything like that in 5 minutes; he's got albums in his head that he can memorise like medieval music and stuff. He's just a posh musician and a real pleasure to work with. How did you meet up with Steve then? He had some friends in Glastonbury. He hooked up with a Merve a couple of years ago and we just got him round to do stuff with us.

"I think we made £54.00 off Science Of The Gods, we've got the cheque on the wall still, we haven't even bothered cashing it. The thing is, money doesn't drive us."

It's a very intricate album in places too, how much of a perfectionist to you have to be  in these matters, is it difficult when to know when not to over -produce a track? Yes, it's just down to getting really happy with what's there. Merve's quite a perfectionist really; he sees things in the mix that I don't notice. He sort of focuses on some tiny little thing right in the distance over there that needs tweaking. There's a degree of Merve's perfectionism and my laziness that makes it happen. It's dedication and application. What position have you put yourself now because you've got expectations now above your head for what you do in the future? Erm... God knows, it's almost like we've set ourselves up now to do what the hell we want really. We've got summer coming up, we've got some gigs to do. The singles just come out so were not under extreme pressure to record a new album straight away but we will get on with one. They write themselves y'know, that's what happens. Very often people say aahh right a change of direction did you plan that? It's not like that, they're just tracks that end up on a record but at the time of making them your just working on a track, it's very much a here and now situation. It appears that we've gone completely baggy trousers on this last one but it wasn't really so deliberate as that. It's funny to play up to it a bit, because if we see a tracks going a certain way we will push it in it's extreme to where it's going, just for a laugh really.  Like Mondo A Go-Go and Love Truncheon. Having your own label your doing all the promotion yourselves, is this something you were really prepared for? The adverts for the album are done by the distributor but we did have to design the adverts. Do you enjoy that side of it as well? Errr.. I think it's a bit of a hassle. More of a hassle for Merve, he does a lot more running around with the artwork and stuff. It's funny actually because were not sure if advertising has that much effect. I know of one artist who did one album, advertised it all over the place, did his second album and didn't advertise it all and yet it still sold the same amount. It gets out in people's minds that it's out there but doesn't actually affect the people who buy it. Good advertising campaigns must help a bit though, surely. What's your biggest market then at present? At the moment our biggest markets in England for sure but were cracking Europe. We've got some distribution beginning to happen in Europe now, sort of watch this space really. We've been over there touring recently, a great gig in Amsterdam, Brussels too, Denmark we were in. Did you notice a big difference in audience reaction compared to the UK? Yeah, sure. As one would with just being in a different country. North of Denmark, bit of a Viking vibe there, they're gentler. An English gig is quite sort of manic. Gigs in England are generally a little bit more energetic than European ones apart from say Amsterdam which was just madness, really full on. But you've got a lot of really wild people living there (laughs). What music are you listening to at the moment personally, what's really invigorating you? I like Luke Vibert, he's brilliant. I like Squarepusher but I can't listen to it all the time. I really rate him. Mouse On Mars, I recommend them. A lot of exotica, 50's exotica, all sorts really. So now the album is out will you just be taking a long rest before even thinking about working on a new album? No, no, no such thing as a rest. We just did a live thing on Radio 3, Womad had got a night session on Radio 3. We've played on that, were playing at the Womad Festival and we got Glastonbury Festival. And Brighton Essential Festival, Bristol Ashton Court, after all of that some big gigs in Prague as well. As for the next album we'll just plug in and let it write itself. I know that it will be weird, they always are. We like our artistic freedom, especially now that we've got our own label. I imagine it will be even more experimental, we will just have to wait and see.

Eat Static interview, Barcode 2001 ©
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