pow pow pow magazine interview
FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT - DATED 17/01/2007
They're dark, sinister, bordering on scary. They produce gloomy horror film-inspired electronic music as full of blips, bleeps and industrial wizardry as Most Haunted is full of ...well, ghosts. They have a striking gothesque stage show, marked by dark lighting, innovative playing and erotic dancers. And they hail from the deep dark south. Well, Brighton. Their name? Freudstein. Their record? Mass Market Misery, a creative electronic album as depressing, political and surprisingly tongue-in-cheek as the guys behind it. PowPowPow caught the two Freuders, Andrew and David, in the depths of their local for a chat...
First things first guys, where does the name come from? Is it from Dr Freud, or a Frankenstein tribute, or what?
It's from an Italian film called "House by the Cemetary". It has a character in it called Dr Freudstein, and he is not your friend!! He lives in a cellar and basically makes a mosaic out of human corpses (laughs). It's made by Lucio Fulci, one of my favourite directors from the 1980s. So yeah, I should imagine he got it from Sigmund Freud and Frankenstein.
A lot of your music carries a 'horror movie' vibe, almost like a theme, which is really different from other stuff around right now. Is there any reason why...?
Well, lots of bands use the horror film thing and it comes out cheesy. The way I see it, the world is very messed up, and art should be a good representation of the world as seen by the artist. Horror is a good vehicle for me. I've never consciously thought about it though - I guess it's a sound that we found. No, wait. A song of our life experience! (laughs). It's our police records combined!! No, seriously though, it is genuine expression rather than a marketing idea, that comes from a pure love of horror films and electronic music.
I want to rub people's faces in the horror of the world. There are too many people wandering around happy as pie not knowing what the fuck's going on. They say ignorance is bliss, but really, ignorance is just ignorance. The world is insane! People destroy trees to make green bits of paper and wonder where the trees have gone, you know?!
So what IS your favourite film?
A: It changes all the time.
D: The Men Behind The Sun. It's about human experiments on the Chinese by the Japanese in World War 2. Let's just say it makes the Nazis look nice. It is by far the most powerful film ever made, 5 years research, they even used a real dead kid in a scene about a kid who died...
A: I'm into tons of stuff. At the moment a lot of Japanese films... I'm into anything atmospheric. Night Of The Hunter, The Haunting. Oh, and Let's Scare Jessica To Death, a 70s classic.
Your music is quite political, and when I saw you live a few weeks ago some of the things you were saying were too. Who do you love in politics right now?
A: No one! I want them all to die, the stupid fucks!! (Laughs)
D: That old guy... Tony Benn, an old school socialist.
A: The Iraq war is just one big media spectacle...
D: Noam Chomsky as well. Target D is a big influence!!
Haha, so here's a loaded one - who do you hate in politics then? Do they inspire your music?
D: How big is that piece of paper?! All the main political parties in England.
A: Don Rumsfeld, he sold aspartame to the world. And nuclear reactors to North Korea. and to Iraq. Check your receipts!!
D: If there is evil then they are it.
Another thing I have to mention about your live show... where did the erotic dancers come from?! What's it all about?
A: It goes with the song, Sister Sleaze. It's very tongue in cheek, all about rock n roll stuff, lust etc. So when you put that into electronica it comes out very interesting! They're called the Freudettes - basically we met some girls who said they'd love to dance for us. I think too much electronica is some guy with a laptop just standing there. We're trying to get some showmanship into it, take it where it's never been before. And we couldn't afford Beyonce, haha.
Can you explain the rest of your live show then?
D: I get frustrated with bands who don't do anything.
A: Yeah, I could just listen at home rather than stand there. That said, I've never really seen what we look like live...
D: The problem is, we haven't got a big enough budget yet to do all we want.
A: Hopefully it'll expand. We have loads of live singers and musicians join us - even a live opera singer who joined us the day our bassist quit!
D: We're very lucky people want to join in and play.
A: We could have our own circus!
D: A dungeon on wheels...
A: There's just not enough that challenges the audience these days...
Ok, and how about the album, Mass Market Misery, and your music. How would you explain it?
D: Prog electro, but with pop tendencies. It's kind of a concept album, but not in the traditional sense. It's about how we're all trapped in glass prisons, looking out of windows but not living. It's kind of depressing, but not in a depressing way. It's attacking society while we're in it. The name is also a bit ironic - we hope it's mass marketed, even though we're against it!! It's about how as a human you have to adapt to society. We're trying to get people to think about what they're living in. There's a large amount of entertainment in it unrelated to the central themes though. We're a bit anarchistic in the sense that we aren't tied to any particular style, we're ambient, pop, rock, electro...
The best way to form your own opinions is by buying it! (Thus adding to the irony...)
Mass Market Misery is available through their website:
www.freudstein.co.uk
Or on Wasp-Factory Recordings.
www.myspace.com/freudsteinofficial
By Erin Young