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An Interview with Eric Powell of 16volt
Posted: Sunday, October 08, 2006
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

When Eric Powell founded 16volt in 1991, it was his mission to combine the raw energy of punk with the heavy beats and searing electronics of industrial dance, a combination that aided in the style of music commonly referred to as coldwave. Following in the footsteps of Ministry and KMFDM, and alongside other luminaries of the style like Die Warzau, Sister Machine Gun, and Acumen Nation, 16volt's story steadily became one of simultaneous success and ill fortune. Releasing four albums in the '90s, collaborating with such people as Dave "Rave" Ogilvie (Skinny Puppy), William Tucker and Keith "Fluffy" Auerbach (both of Ministry), Chris Vrenna (Nine Inch Nails/Tweaker), Bryan Black (Haloblack/MOTOR), Jared Louche (Chemlab), and Raymond Watts (PIG), Eric Powell gradually became one of the unabashed heroes of the industrial rock scene. Unfortunately, in spite of the band's success, they faced a plethora of issues with their record label, which resulted in 1998's SuperCoolNothing being the last album of new 16volt material, though the album would later be re-released in 2002.

During this time, 16volt's fortunes shifted considerably, but the fans remained staunch in their allegiance. After supporting KMFDM on the Sturm & Drang tour in 2002, 16volt went into hibernation, leading to rumors of a breakup. The removal of the band's Web site and MySpace pages, as well as a Best Of album released by Cleopatra Records in 2005 (which also contained a live CD of 16volt in concert during the Sturm & Drang tour) seemed to confirm this supposition. However, in 2006, the rumors were silenced when new 16volt material emerged on Cracknation's Escape from Earth and Glitch Mode Recordings' Hordes of the Elite compilations. 16volt is back at last, signing to Metropolis Records for the early 2007 release of their new album, FullBlackHabit. Eric Powell took some time to speak to ReGen about the circumstances surrounding the band's silence over the years, bringing to light the nature of the beast that is the music industry, what other projects he's been working on, and just what fans can expect from the first new 16volt album in over eight years!

16volt has recently signed with Metropolis Records to release FullBlackHabit. What was it about Metropolis that you decided to sign with them?

Powell: Well, I have known Dave for a long time and the label just seemed like a good fit for me at this point. The industry has changed so much, and what I want to get out of the industry has changed with it, and Metropolis fits the bill. The distribution is great, they have a cult following built in, and they do great online promotion.

Not counting the soundtrack to the PlayStation 2 game Primal and the re-release of SuperCoolNothing, FullBlackHabit is the first new 16volt album since 1998. Why so long between releases?

Powell: Well, to answer that I need to go back a bit. After the release of LetDownCrush, I had fulfilled my contractual obligation with Re-Constriction. We had just come off a nine-month tour that took us around the USA multiple times and had really built up our following. We were getting interest from a lot of different places, majors included, so I felt like it was a good time to up the ante on the label front. We took a deal with the now dead Slipdisc Records, with distribution and promotion to be handled by Mercury/Polygram. During the making of the record, several people from Mercury really liked what they were hearing and had decided to really step up the promo. We had a meeting with the V.P. of radio at Mercury, for example, where he let us know that he liked the record so much and thought 'Keep Sleeping' would be such a hit that he was going to take the release to radio personally. We had the entire Mercury publicity department gearing up for a big press junket.

It was all a big thing for us, and as we kept going in with stuff, Mercury was becoming more and more involved. We had actually begun talks with them about making a move to go up to Mercury directly and removing Slipdisc from the deal. So we finished the record and turned it in. Mercury and Slipdisc both wanted us on the road before the record came out to start getting our chops up, so we headed out on a small-scale headlining tour. By the time we made it to Chicago, things were getting sketchy. A few of the tour support checks from Slipdisc were bouncing, and that's never a good sign. We also started hearing rumors that people at Mercury were bailing out and going to other labels. Then the blade dropped. Seagrams bought Mercury/Polygram, and the team we had in place there either left or was let go. The Slipdisc investors backed out once this happened, leaving Slipdisc with no funding. We were left with the only choice: take the crew and band back home and try and figure out what was going to happen to the record.

When we got home, we found out that Mercury wasn't going to drop us. Instead, they were going to release the record. So no tour support, no radio, no promo, no press. We wanted to get dropped! So we began the task of shopping the record to other labels. By this time, Seagrams had moved the distribution of the record over to Island, so now SuperCoolNothing was on Island. Slipdisc was out of the picture but still owned the masters, so we spent about six months trying to find another label to buy it out and let us get out and promote it. All the labels were interested, but didn't want to buy used goods.

About this same time, we had a falling out with our management, and they turned around and filed a $250,000 lawsuit against us, so now I was making monthly payments to our lawyer to get through it and I was at home doing showcase shows for labels every Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. in clubs around L.A., trying to get someone—anyone—to take this great record and help us give it justice. We started getting more and more pissed off about it, and heartbroken, and disheveled. It was a slow, painful six months, and I threw in the towel. I couldn't take having all this work, my heart and soul, pouring into it, 24 hours a day, to have it all turn into that. I just couldn't do it. Seeing our record out there, seeing the critical and band acclaim, and knowing that no one knew it was even out, was like having a sword shoved into me repeatedly. We'd get a call from someone saying, 'Korn loves the record, they are going to try and help,' and it wouldn't pan out. 'Tommy Lee is going to cover "I Fail Truth" on Ozzfest; this should help.' Nothing. Just seeing Methods of Mayhem play my song every night to 300,000 people, them thinking it was Tommy's writing...

You weren't getting paid for that at all?

Powell: Nothing. It was like a denial amusement park, and my life was the biggest, hardest, roller coaster. I just had to end it. So I woke up one day and told myself that I didn't need all this, told myself, 'You can have a normal life, go to work, do something else.' I remember standing on Las Palmas Street in L.A. telling Kraig, 'I am done, man, with music, that's it,' and him looking at me, like, in a pathetic way, saying, 'You'll be back, bro.' And in all honesty, I thought it was over. I thought I was done and I looked at him like he was an idiot. There is no way you could get me to put myself into being destroyed again. I put all my gear in storage, which in one way was nice, because I had a dining room table finally.

After about a year, it started. I started missing my headphones. So I eventually pulled some gear out and began tinkering. When I closed down ops at 16volt, a few people were left in the dust: Mike Peoples and Servo. So we had a falling out. I had heard Mike was playing a show and I knew that they had been working on new music this whole time, so I decided to go down and make amends and see how he was doing. It was a really emotional meeting. We both shed some tears, and we decided that we would meet soon to play each other's new material. It was a freaky day, our independent work sounding like we were in the same room. We decided it would be fun to do a reunion show.

By this time, SuperCoolNothing had reached a big following with a lot of L.A.-based bands, and we thought it would be fun to see who came out. We booked a night at The Viper Room in L.A. People flew in from New York, Japan, Chicago... It was like a who's who of rock music: Incubus, Sevendust, Tommy Lee, Korn, Snot, I forget who else, but it was a lot of rock people. It really made us feel like we could do this again, and being in that environment, at the club, the gear, the stress...it was like seeing your mom after being away for too long. So a few months later, we slowly came around to 'We are back!'

Right after working on Primal, we got the offer from KMFDM to go out on tour; 34 shows in 36 days is right up my alley, so we said yes. We used the money we made on Primal to get a tour bus and a crew and gear and go.

That was the Sturm & Drang tour in 2002?

Powell: Yeah. It was the best time I have had in my life with this band. It felt like things had come together; all the hard work and heartache and ups and downs, it all had a purpose, and I had finally gained the respect of my peers and idols. When I started doing this, my goals were to be on Wax Trax and to go on tour with one of the big four (Ministry, Skinny Puppy, NIN, and KMFDM). So here I was, in a bus playing sold out shows and partying with KMFDM every night. It felt really good, and the reception out there was awesome. We had people in some cities there just to see us. It was really cool.

I remember hearing from friends who got to see you that 'the opening act' was one of the best they'd seen.

Powell: We have always been the underdog. Some think the name is cursed. So during this tour, we started to get some label interest again. It was 2002, and rock music was still going pretty strong, so during the tour, we started having problems with our manager. He didn't make it to some label meeting in New York, and that was the last straw. We got into a huge fight. They threatened to take us off the tour and recall our bus, and all this shit. Thankfully, KMFDM was like, 'Fuck them! Ride with us.' So we were okay, but literally the day after we got home, we fired them. We started seeking new management (most labels will not talk directly to bands, so you need real representation). So we settled on a new company, much bigger than we were used to; they manage Peter Gabriel, Goldfrapp, The Dandy Warhols...they had serious connections, and we had serious interest. Within about two weeks, we signed with Capitol Records. We started working right away with an in-house producer and with Bon Harris from Nitzer Ebb.

What became of that?

Powell: We spent a year working on three demos. They slowly started turning us into 'Capitol's Linkin Park,' and they started whittling away at the band so they could turn it into their own product. 12 months into this deal, I was told that I had a choice: fire Mike and Servo and get a new band—they wanted to add another singer—or that was it. I said, 'Fuck you! We are done!' By this time, they had slowly destroyed our chemistry, the egos of each member were turned to shit, and we just couldn't do anything. We got chewed up and spat out. We started shopping again with one of the most respected attorneys in L.A., the guy who does Tool, but I felt so dirty. It felt wrong. I lost my path, I lost my motivation, I felt beat up; actually, I felt hate-raped. I needed to go away. At this point, people were like, 'Man, you just can't win here, huh?'

It's pretty sickening how much this happens to so many good musicians in the industry, getting mistreated by the labels who should be supporting the artists.

Powell: Yep. So we did a show at The Whiskey with some big rock band. I can't even remember who it was, and it was no fun. We were all bitter and going through the motions, and I remember sitting in the back of the gear truck, asking Mike and Servo, 'Is this what we want? Are we having fun? What do we stand for? What are we doing this for?' That was our last show.

You mentioned 16volt's involvement in the soundtrack to the PlayStation 2 game Primal. How did that come about?

Powell: At around the same time as the show at The Viper Room, I got an e-mail from a fellow at Sony asking me if I would be interested in working with them on the music for a new PlayStation game called Primal. As it all turned out, we were able to do 12 songs in the game and recycle a bunch of SuperCoolNothing, which for us was great because we knew that it would finally get out there, four years later, which is a great sign in a way, to know that music we recorded four and five years earlier was still very relevant. We also ended up being characters in the game during the opening cinematic, so we had to get skinned by Sony. We also got to do E3, which was really fun.

On the Web site, it's stated that several 16volt alumni have returned for FullBlackHabit, including John 'Servo' DeSalvo, Mike Peoples, and Kraig Tyler, as well as a few other guests.

Powell: No, they aren't going to be on it. Even though we all have mutual respect and admiration for each other, after all that we have been through, playing with each other would just bring back a lot of that. Mike has a new project in L.A. called Superno. It's kind of like Pink Floyd, I guess. I have moved up to Portland for awhile, and Servo is back in New York. He is tech-ing for Bauhaus. So this record is mostly me. I co-wrote a few of the songs with my longtime friend Tyler Drøne, and Bildeaux from OHN did some great additional programming. There are a few other guests, too.

Prior to the Best Of release in 2005, you began work on Ringer. What was the purpose behind Ringer?

Powell: I got a call from our ex-manager, and he had an idea: a 'supergroup' doing something totally different than you would expect from them. So we put together a great lineup: Carlton Bost (from Deadsy) on guitar, Paige Haley (from Orgy) on bass, Mikey Cox (from Coal Chamber) on drums, Kraig Tyler (from Virus23, 16volt, Chemlab, and Crazytown) and me on vocals. So we got a studio and started jamming. Two separate groups quickly formed.

I didn't know Kraig Tyler was ever in Crazytown.

Powell: Yeah. After 16volt, Kraig went on a world tour, so that added a lot of salt to my wounds, although I was really happy for him. Seeing my roommate and best friend travel the world playing everywhere, driving a Mercedes and having his rent paid, made me a little bitter. Anyway, Kraig and I are of the same ilk, work-wise. We write music with a recording console in front of us, the tape rolling, so to speak. The rest of the guys like to get into a studio and jam until something comes out, so it ended up me and Kraig all the time in a recording studio in Hollywood and the rest of the guys in a rehearsal studio in Burbank. We just weren't all on the same page, and before you know it, Kraig and I had written a record. The name of the band was called Ringer, and it was named so because we were all the ringers from our bands.

It was a complete departure from 16volt, Deadsy, Coal Chamber, and Orgy, but only Kraig and I fell in love with it, and the other guys went off to do other stuff. We loved it because with 16volt, we'd spend two days on a kick sample and with Ringer we spend two hours on a whole song. It was simple, easy, and the emotion of it wasn't angry. It wasn't dark. It was upbeat, romantic, happy even, for fuck's sake! I needed that.

Is Ringer still active?

Powell: No. We did about 20 shows in L.A., and I felt like we were becoming too much of an 'indie band.' I wanted to be more electronic, and it wasn't working live, so we decided to just stop it where it was, which in a way is really, really cool. It's like a little gem that will never be tarnished, completely honest, innocent, and trapped in time, without any dark baddies to fuck it up. We did it, it was really fun and good for our soul, and that's it.

You also released a track on the Positron! label compilation Komposi003 as Graphic. What more can you tell us about Graphic?

Powell: I started doing some hard electronica in my 'off time,' and I started working with my longtime friend, Bildeaux. I called it Graphic. But I started to notice that some songs had a more 16volt sound to it. The songs started to seem like two things. At the same time, I stumbled on the MySpace 16volt page that a fan had put together, and there were a lot of old fans on there saying how much they missed it and stuff. I got a fan mail from someone who told me that my music had saved them, that they were going to kill themselves, and that my music got them through it. It was one of the heaviest things I have ever seen or felt. It gave me purpose.

Is that what inevitably drove you to continue with 16volt?

Powell: Yeah. In one sentence, this kid validated my whole life, so in a way, he saved me too. It was like an epiphany: I need to do this, even if I will never be able to live off it or do it as a full career. I am here to do this. So at the beginning of this year, I had a full album of new 16volt, and I have half an album so far of Graphic. I have gone back to do 16volt a few times and kept writing. I have probably done 20 or so tracks for 16volt, so I will have a lot of free B-side downloads next year. And that brings us back to the start of this: Metropolis. The record will be coming out next year with a full national tour. This, to me, is the best 16volt album. It has elements of LetDownCrush; it's heavy, but it doesn't go as rock as SuperCoolNothing did. It's all in all a great coldwave record. I was a little bummed to not have the record scheduled until next year, but that's when Metropolis wants it out.

Speaking of coldwave, 16volt is among the few bands responsible for ushering in coldwave. As one of the heroes of the genre, what is your view on the scene today?

Powell: I think it's smaller than it has been in the last 15 years, but I also think it's growing again. Music is cyclical; it will come back around.

Especially in the underground.

Powell: Yeah, people get bogged down in the underground and need a breath of fresh air, but then they get sick of the air and need to come back the fuck down. But I see it getting bigger in the next few years, and it helps when bands like 16volt are making new records. But look at the labels and how the whole industry has changed. Tower records going bankrupt? That's phenomenal. Anyone who doesn't think downloads have affected music is high.

They certainly have affected the music industry.

Powell: In a negative way, but some of that is on the labels. They didn't prepare. Labels like Positron! are better suited to deal with today's 'consumer' than fucking Warner Brothers is. It's crazy!

It's always been my impression that the effects wouldn't have been so negative had the labels spent more time utilizing the new technology to their advantage instead of fighting it. I've found it especially interesting how so many of the bands from that era have started their own labels too—Positron!, KMFDM Records, Cracknation, etc.—and they're all consumer-friendly, like you said.

Powell: Exactly! They had a lot of people warning them, too. That's out of necessity, but the thing about going online is, what do you need a label for? Really, the only thing an indie label offers now is brick and mortar distribution and promo and the built-in fan base. Some bands, like Cyanotic, will make more money doing their own label, but for a band like 16volt, I need the staff. I need the people in the label promoting. I don't have the time or desire or expertise for it, but I think bands like Cyanotic and Drøne show you that it's still viable.

Promotion is a pretty big undertaking, even for a 'street team,' which usually starts out small and requires a lot of time and devotion and rests on the love of it.

Powell: Coldwave isn't going away, despite the fact that I ruffled a bunch of feathers online saying that it isn't. There are a lot of new kids coming up now; they are the future of it. The old big bands are grandpas now; the Chemlabs and the Volts and the Crack kids, we are the new adults of the Midi Ghetto. The Rabbit Junks and the Drønes and the Cyanotics, they are the youth.

Besides appearing on the Cracknation Escape From Earth compilation, you also made an appearance on Acumen Nation's What the F**k? as a guest vocalist on "The Wreck Of Us." How did this collaboration come about, and will you be working with the Cracknation again in the future?

Powell: We actually just had a tour about to be booked. I don't want to name the other band involved, but they pulled out at the last minute and it killed the tour. Jason and I are planning to do something sometime next year because I want to go out and hang in truck stops with him again. He's a good guy. We have a lot in common: work, family, music, the conflict of trying to be a dad and an industrial superstar at the same time. It's hard to be all industrial when your kid is saying, 'Daddy, I love you.' Changing diapers will take the industrial right out of you, so you've got to compartmentalize like the FBI does.

FullBlackHabit marks the third 16Volt release in a row to make use of the three-word album title, after SuperCoolNothing and LetDownCrush. Is there any particular reason for this type of album title? What significance does the title FullBlackHabit have to the music?

Powell: I just like that thematically; it has a cool flow to it, the three-word title. The meaning of FullBlackHabit is split; a full black habit is what a nun wears, but to me, it's about things we do that we know are wrong, but we keep doing them.

Is that what you feel 16volt represents for you, like what you were saying before, that it's something you need to do?

Powell: Yeah, it is, but at this point, I don't think it's bad for me. Although it has been in the past, I think I have come to peace with it and we have an understanding.

As your first release as 16volt was in 1993, how would you say the sound of 16volt has developed over the years? What sort of changes in your writing and recording process have you gone through?

Powell: A lot, actually. On the sound front, I think I have developed my own style much more, and while I have gone to different sides of the coldwave spectrum, more rock on SuperCoolNothing, more electronic on Wisdom, I think there is always a common thread. As far as writing goes, It's a lot different. I have the gear at home now to record a studio album, so I don't need to go to a studio to record. That makes it dangerous in a way too, though, as I am not working against the clock.