RS: So for your new live shows, you're DJing on laptop and have
live drummers as well?
Uberzone: I have a little V-drum set and then I have a drummer
playing a V-drums kit and then I have a laptop running Ableton Live
with a controller keyboard and a trigger finger that I can play parts
on trigger samples. Then basically I have CDJ 1000s and a DJM 800, so
we play samples, triggers, and scratches for that.
RS: When you tour for the new album, do you see yourself having
a similar setup?
Uberzone: Similar, my ideal set up would be to carry this current
line up and then potentially add an MC at some point. I'm going to
have a vocoder and a couple of things I'm going to be adding to the
equation, but the last set format that we've been doing that for the
past five years has become sort of comfortable and I felt like we
really needed to throw some other things in to the equation to kind of
bring a little bit more to the focus for the live show. I wanted to
add a vocoder and be able to play a few more keyboard parts, so I
thought it was essential that I could pull myself away from playing so
many of the drums on stage and it would help me out with the addition
of Alex because now he's holding down the back beats and I can play
fills and then do the vocoder parts eventually. It's one step at a
time and the vocoder and all that stuff's coming in the next round of
shows, but I want to make sure that I have everything stable each set
of the way.
RS: So it's a changing lineup with you running around the stage
doing different things and some improvisation as well?
Uberzone: Exactly, and that was an important element with Ableton
and with the new technology, we're able to do stuff on the fly. I
wanted to be able to go over to the laptop as tracks were playing and
just determine whether I wanted to change the set order or even extend
a section. I'm trying to make all the tracks and all the sections of
the set modular in addition to all the other changes so that I can
change things on the fly and I can change the arrangements of the
songs as well.
RS: What was actually in your head as you were writing the album?
Uberzone: Just to go in to the studio and play with my keyboards and
have a really good time and laugh while I rediscover the joy of
writing music – to really try and get the same feelings that I had
when I started writing music all those years ago which was just me
there in that environment finding the things that I specifically
enjoyed without thinking about anything else from the outside world.
RS: So there's no label pressures and you're doing this on your own terms?
Uberzone: Nope, and that was one of my specific strategies when I
changed my whole industry profile and sort of extricated myself from
the deals and stuff that I was in back in the early 2000s. I wanted
to make sure I got everything back under my control.
If you're a solo artist like I've always been, and you don't have that
second guy to turn to at three in the morning and 'say what do you
think of this,' you have to be very careful of your perceptions and
the influences that you pick up on your own without having somebody
else to bounce stuff off of. I'm just a sensitive, artistic person
that takes everything in like a sponge, so I've got to be very guarded
and careful about what I'm listening to and how I'm being influenced
if I want to try and maintain my art with the intention that that it
started with.
RS: So what does this record sound like that you have coming up?
Uberzone: It sounds like Uberzone. What I mean by that is Uberzone,
when it started, the initial impression that I had when I was going in
the studio was about music throughout my life from Kraftwerk to
Depeche Mode to Public Enemy and all the different stages that I've
gone through, what were the common threads that stitched between all
of those things and the thing that were very important to me. When I
did Bots and the first singles, they were basically a product of me
going to a club called Metropolis in LA and listening to all the
records that were being played and thinking to myself what am I
wanting to hear on the PA that I'm not hearing right now - what do I
want to hear and mixing that with all the things that I kind of grew
up with. Through the years when you get in to the music industry and
you're able to write and work with guest artists, you get so excited
about the prospect of doing things that you don't think necessarily
about why you're doing them or whether they work with within the
bounds of the project. So I think I needed to readdress what Uberzone
was and realize that this project was started and borne of those
initial ideas, and return to that. This record's pretty banging and
it's no holds barred, so it's back to a lot of the original ideals
that I had for the project with of course all of my new ideas and the
fresh outlook for the future.
