INTERVIEW WITH BEN WATKINS FROM CHAOS CONTROL DIGIZINE

“Bible Of Dreams” is out in Wax Trax/TVT in America, while the last one was on Hypnotic/ Cleopatra. Why the change this time around? Ben:”We’re signed to a company called The Blue Room in England, and they license it to different companies in different territories. We wanted to be with TVT/Wax Trax with this album.”

When did you start making electronic music? Ben: “1982. I’d been in lots of bands. And like a lot of other people, I was bored with the usual sort of line-up and all the sort of ego problems that you get. So i really started getting into bands like D.A.F. and Suicide and al those other sort of quirky electronic bands. Then around 85 I really got into Yello and people who can really manipulate the sound and sort of create massive, almost cinematic pictures with their music.”

How long have you been recording as Juno Reactor?
Ben:”About 4 or five years.”

How did it start? Ben:”I was doing quite a lot of different projects at the time, and I wanted to see which one felt the most comfortable. With Juno Reactor, the thing I really like about it was that anyone could really be in Juno Reactor. It didn;t have like one line- up, or one person that I had to work with. That gave me a much better freedom, That’s what I still really like about it. Musically, it can go in any direction without there being anything to worry about.”

How do you balance electronics and live instruments? Ben: “It’s more like what do you get the most feedback or energy off of. And I’ve heard practically everything a keyboard, or analog keyboard can make. Samples can go on forever, you can keep on making strange noises out of them. For me it was just more interesting working with like musicians who bring a different energy to it and then manipulating them both, you get the best of both worlds. You get the live energy from the playing, and the strange harmonics that you can pick out using computers to arrange it. I do find that more interesting now, that whole mixture of the live and electronic. It’s a far more interesting area to head towards and carry on, seeing what can happen and who you can play with. A lot of it depends on the person who’s playing.”

Do you usually start out with electronics and have musicians play over basic tracks, or do songs start off with live instruments? Or does it totally vary? Ben: “Conga Fury” came about by… I met this guy named Mabi in South Africa. And he started telling me all these stories about his tracks and stuff. And we went out into desert with Robert, who owns the label, to film and record some of the bush people. And Mabi, his ancestors are bush people and he lived in Pertoria in South Africa. And I hadn’t realized that his ancesters were bush people until one day I turned around and said ‘Mabi, you’re a bushman aren’t you?’ and he said ‘yeah.’ So he started talking about living in the bush and then he started talking about a track, which is what “Conga Fury” became, sort of the dreams of a hunter. So we had sort of very visual identities when we were putting down live tracks, we were talking about animals, we were talking about dreams. Just sort of things to really focus you and kick you off. So that’s pretty much how we started, we put down basic click track, a really simple bass line, and then we got all the percussion from that and built it up a bit more and it went on like that for about a month.”

Are there any other songs on “Bible Of Dreams” that have interesting stories behind them? Ben: “Every time I immerse myself in a new track, I start to forget all about the other ones. ‘God Is God” again that was done in stages, we didn’t have the original idea until half way through writing the Egyptian stuff. And then as soon as we had the idea it all clicked in. I think ‘Conga Fury’ is the only one where we had a solid idea beforehand.”

Do you usually work on one track at a time, or have a bunch of songs in process? Ben:”I always start on one and finish it. I really hate … sometimes you can take down the desk and lose it. So I generally, if I can, like to keep it up and wait until the little bugger’s down on the tape mixed. One song can be written about four times, it’s such an odd process. Anything that I start off with doesn’t stand much of a chance surviving. It might go through three or four stages, and what I thought was the best bit is the only bit I keep and I throw everything else away. Carry on like that really.”

How do you know when you’ve finished a track? Ben: “I just feel it instinctively. Because I get bored really easily, and I feel if I can listen to it the amount of time that I do than people will find it interesting as well. But a lot of it is just a psycological adrenaline kick. There are tracks that I might have done in two days that suddenly I realize are working enough for me to be able to mix it. Others might take months.”

Usually, what parts of a song do you come up with first? Ben: “Usually a bass line, a general rough outline I do of the track. Chuck in a few basaines, kick in the rhythms, start doing the top lines. But it can also work directly from the top line, it can work from the sample, a guitar line. Anything, really, but generally it starts with a bass line.”

What’s your live show like? Is it difficult at all adapting the material for live performance? Ben: “I don’t find it difficult. We have live drums. I always find techno a bit of a …. I don’t now, it just isn’t great in the live medium. So what we’ve been doing lately is working with a lot of live percussionist.s We change it as much as possible, Lately, we’ve been starting to work with this singer called Taz. and just trying to mix it up and change it as much as possible.”

Is there any recorded material that you can’t reproduce live? Ben: “A lot! Partly to do with the sounds, and if you dont have those sounds the track just doesn’t work.”

Do you have a favorite piece of equipment? Ben:”I love samplers, the way you can merge any sound together.. I like things like the Korg DW8000, the Waldorf Microwave, I really like analog keyboards. Anything really, but those are some of my favorites.”

How do you decide what production and remix projects to take on? Ben: “The problem with remixes is people want you to give them your sound. Unless the actually song’s interesting, I don’t bother doing it. I do stuff that’s interesting, preferably if it’s not electronic already. If it’s quite rocky, or one of my favorite ones I did lately was Talking Heads and Debbie Harry. That was really good, I love working with singers. Debbie Harry’s got an amazing voice anyway.”

Would you like to work more with vocals on the next Juno Reactor album? Ben: “I think so.”

Would you want a regular vocalist, or use different people on each track? Ben: “If I could find some person who could do everything I wanted I think I would go for that. I might actually have found someone, which is quite interesting. It’s a girl called Taz.”