Oops!

It looks like you don't have flash player 6 installed. Click here to go to Macromedia download page.

Syndika Zero

L1f3g1v3r: Before [syndika:zero] came out, I did a brief stint as Victim:1313, and that was kind of a more straightforward terror EBM band. I did use a pitch shifter on my vocals. I kind of scrapped it after a while, because I used to hang out with black metal guys, and they'd be talking shit on me right now for using a pitch shifter. I did one show as Victim:1313, and then I started writing material that was more power noise, and that kind of turned into [syndika:zero]. Originally it was just supposed to be instrumental power noise, tongue in cheek, more or less because I was pissed off with the current state of the scene, at least around where I was. I was like, 'You people are just replicating each other. I want to try to do something different while at the same time being critical of the scene as a whole,' if that makes sense. Eventually, I started thinking, 'I'm more serious than this project puts off,' so I started incorporating more of what Victim:1313 was into [syndika:zero], and the first track that brings that across is 'Deceit.' From that point, I scrapped all the previous tracks other than 'Blowtorch Lobotomy.' From then on, I just kind of persevered and pushed forward; I worked two full-time jobs for over a year to get better recording equipment and purchase better software that was necessary for me to pull this off live while still making the recordings sound clean. I spent six to eight months prior to distributing the demos just perfecting the sound and making sure the material was solid, because I didn't want to come across as half-assed. I wanted to make a strong impression early out. In January 2007, the first demos was received by Ben Arp of C/A/T, and I told him, 'If you like the tracks, I'll do a remix for you.' He got back to me later on, and we did a remix for 'Shoot to Kill' which is still unreleased, but from what I hear will be released soon. We're currently also working on a remix for 'Point of No Return' for his upcoming CD, and that will actually be an alternate mix where I am doing the vocals.

Your album, The Example, combines elements of power noise as well as the more clinical and intricate programming of groups like Haujobb, with an almost IDM feel coming from all the ratchets and whirrs. Who are your biggest influences in terms of your rhythm and synth programming?

L1f3g1v3r: Definitely, like you just mentioned, Daniel Myer. Enduser is another one. To be honest, also Akira Yamaoka from Silent Hill. The first Silent Hill soundtrack had a lot of rough elements to it, but it wasn't your straightforward power electronics or noise album; it did have rhythms thrown into the background, little glitches here and there, and I was like, 'That's pretty cool! Let's see if this works!' I also listen to a lot of underground hip-hop and whatnot, and from the hip-hop side of it, listening to the way that they would sample loops, I liked the way that the loop would cut. You could definitely tell that they sampled from vinyl, just by that really rough cut at the end of it, and I was like, 'How can I make a beat using an element like that instead of a straight four-to-the-floor super clean pristine sound?' I wanted to cut it up a little bit.

There also seems to be something of a hardcore punk influence in your vocal approach, because it's very raw and doesn't rely on a lot of processing or vocoders. Who are your favorite vocalists?

L1f3g1v3r: Andy LaPlegua from Combichrist would be one of my main vocal influences, just because I really didn't like Combichrist until I saw them live. When I saw them live, just how in your face it was, especially without having that overly vocoded raspy terror EBM sound, it was just raw, just brutal, and you felt everything he said. Another band that influences me heavily for vocals would be Heaven Shall Burn. They're a metalcore band from Germany, and once again, not a lot of processing. Killswitch Engage, death metal bands like Vehemence, and then some of the older black metal bands—Mayhem, Immortal—were just raw. The newer side of black metal, like Dimmu Borgir, started using all this processing, and to me it robbed it of its anger. What are you trying to express to me, that you can vocode and process this 20 times and make it clean? Sure it sounds evil or whatever, but I never wanted to come across as evil.

'L1f3g1v3r' is an interesting stage name, especially since so much of your music has to do with murder, crime and violence. How did you pick your stage name, and what does it signify?

L1f3g1v3r: I kind of disdain the whole nickname facade that many people use, but a lot of the music extends from issues and things I've had to overcome throughout life. A long time ago, I was doing sort of power electronics and dark ambient project called Systems of Redemption. This was back when I was in high school; I was like 16. I did one album, which was self-released to friends and people I knew locally. I was working on another album at the time which was actually going to be called L1f3g1v3r, and I was going to use EVP recordings—whether or not you believe in that—and I always believed that in a sense you were injecting life into the album. Due to the things I had to overcome in my personal life, I found out that music was my only way to express myself, to not let myself go back to the darker places, and I began to realize that the persona I embodied in this project wasn't myself anymore. I could be someone else, so 'L1f3g1v3r' was born from that point on. When I meet people at shows, I do introduce myself as Paul; I'm not shy or reclusive. But as far as the music is concerned, and in the studio, it is L1f3g1v3r.

Speaking of the themes on the album, you really deal with crime in a lot of different ways. Serial killers have always been a popular subject in EBM, but you look at things from a grittier, more streetwise aspect. What is it about crime that you find so fascinating, and how does that play out in your music?

L1f3g1v3r: Around me, there was a lot of crime growing up. On the street I grew up on, I got to see drug raids happen almost every week. As I began to read up more on serial killers and true crime, I began to see that through criminals and the publicity that our world gives these people, it's kind of an embodiment of the darker side of humanity. Without facing these issues directly and without confronting these things that happen, you're never going to change anything. A lot of people talk about world peace and protesting the government, but you're never going to change anything until you change people on a base level, on a person-to-person basis. I've always believed that by putting it right up in front of your face and going 'Here, look at this! This is what the world consists of,' that's the only way to get that issue across. I also feel that the music embodies the anger I've felt toward a society that's slowly destroying itself and tearing itself apart while saying 'We all have to live together in harmony,' which I don't ever believe will happen. That's me being a pessimist.

So in order to make any positive change, you have to deal with things on a concrete level, instead of dealing with romanticized abstractions?

L1f3g1v3r: Exactly. You can't point at the sky and say, 'Oh, that was just one evil person,' or 'It was the devil,' or 'It was god's will.' I grew up in an extremely evangelical family which tended to do that, and a lot of arguments arose. People can just be bad, and until we accept that fact, we're never going to be able to find out what's causing this.

You've recently had the chance to take [syndika:zero] on the road. How did that go?

L1f3g1v3r: It's been hands-down awesome! Every show we've had, we've had our technical difficulties; we tend to break shit. When we played Sadisco in Arizona, we went through three microphones. They ended up handing me a wireless mic, and I looked at it and went, 'Are you sure?' They nodded 'Yes,' and we pulled off the show. We played with Alter der Ruine and W.A.S.T.E. on two days as well as playing with Alter der Ruine at the Blacksun Festival, and they've been such a big help to us. They've established us with their management, which is Missionary Promotions here in the USA and which is also linked to Mass Movement in Germany. We've got an upcoming show June 7 in Las Vegas. June 23 we're going to be opening up for Dust Is Noise and Accessory in Portland, and never in a million years would I have believed that we'd be opening for such acts.

Apart from breaking a lot of equipment, how would you compare and contrast your live show with the way your music is presented on the album?

L1f3g1v3r: We try to stay as true as possible to the album. We don't do a lot of improv, but on instrumental songs like 'Enter.Syndika' or 'Blowtorch Lobotomy,' I do percussion while Cin, the other half of the band, lays down all the samples and loops. For 'PSA,' we share duties on keyboards and synths; she'll do all the drum loops, and then I'll handle the synths, and it's just knobs, knobs, knobs like crazy, adding as much modulation as I can.

Do you use mostly hardware or software?

L1f3g1v3r: In the studio we use a lot of hardware. It's almost entirely hardware. I do use Fruity Loops to do all my sequencing and my tracking. Then I use a Mark of the Unicorn MIDI Express XT to control a Korg Triton, a Roland Fantom-X, a Korg MS2000R, and a Novation A-Station. That's where I get all my core sounds. What I do for samples is I have a portable DVD player that I've hooked RCA cables to, straight into my mixer. I like doing my tracking with software, but I like the grittiness of the hardware filters. I do use a lot of VST effects, and that's where I do a lot of my tweaking.

You mentioned that you have some remixes coming out. What else is on the [syndika:zero] agenda now that album is out? Have you started working on new material? Do you have more shows lined up?

L1fg1v3r: We do have more shows lined up. We're in the process of planning a major tour in the USA for 2009 with a major act. Dates should be finalized probably before June. We have begun work on the second album; at the moment, it's called Blindness, and this album will have another theme which will kind of steer clear of the true crime elements. It's going to be a double-disc with the album as well as a remix album of The Example called Chaos Exemplified. Every track on The Example is going to be remixed by various bands, and we currently have several bands on board. We're also talking to record labels right now, so that will be released through a label.