Oops!

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

An Interview with Andy LaPlegua of Combichrist
Posted: Sunday, August 10, 2008
By: Matthew Johnson
Assistant Editor

Combichrist started out as a side project for Icon of Coil front man Andy LaPlegua to indulge his more aggressive and experimental tendencies. That seems like a long time ago. If Combichrist's debut album, The Joy of Gunz, garnered its share of club play thanks to the infectious EBM bounce of 'Intruder Alert,' it was sophomore album Everybody Hates You that made Combichrist ubiquitous. Now you can't go to an industrial club anywhere in the world without expecting to hear the infectious samples and aggressive, techno-inspired beats of 'This Is My Rifle' or 'This S*it Will Fcuk You Up.'

Taking Combichrist from a one-man studio project to a full band, complete with two drummers, LaPlegua followed up the album with a series of successful tours, both as headliner and at one point in support of KMFDM. Third album What the F**k Is Wrong with You People?, released last year, built on the project's impressive live presence by incorporating a more vocal-driven approach that still retained a penchant for raw techno synths and memorable samples. This summer, Combichrist has released a new EP featuring remixes of 'Sent to Destroy,' a hard-hitting preview of the next full-length album, and wrapping up a European tour, with more shows, including a spot on this year's Goth Cruise, to come. In an interview with ReGen, LaPlegua speculates on the secret of Combichrist's success and offers a few hints about what is to come.

How did Combichrist first come about? How long did you have the idea for the project in your head before you started working on The Joy of Gunz?

LaPlegua: It's kind of hard to say. The idea has been there for so long; I mean, the idea was there longer than Icon of Coil, but originally the project that turned into Combichrist was called Hudlager, and that was around long before Icon of Coil, but it was all experimental. In the beginning, it was electronic grindcore, basically. It turned into something I did every now and then, and eventually it was time to release something, and I changed the name to Combichrist from a comic book strip thing that I did a while back. I thought it was a fitting name for the project.

It was called 'Hudlager' before?

LaPlegua: Yes. 'Hudlager' actually means 'skin storage.'

Combichrist is at this point probably the biggest project that you've done, in terms of club play and live shows. Did you have any idea it was going to get this big when you first started?

LaPlegua: No, not at all, and I wonder if that is one of the reasons why it did become like it did, because I always did what I wanted to do, and I never tried to do anything. Combichrist was always something I did for myself, and I think maybe people can see through all the shallow music that exists these days. Maybe that's the reason why it actually became this big.

So they picked up on it, that you were doing it for yourself?

LaPlegua: For the music, yeah, not for the fame or anything else, and I think maybe that's why it's gone this far.

A lot of Combichrist fans aren't necessarily into a lot of other techno body music or power noise or whatever you'd want to call it. What do you think it is about your music that really resonates with people?

LaPlegua: I don't know. I think it's the same reason; I'm doing the music for the music. I'm not doing Combichrist because I want to do industrial. I'm not doing Combichrist because I want to do EBM. I'm not doing Combichrist because I want to do rock or anything like that. I'm doing it because I like the music. If I would have any rock influences, or if people from the rock scene like it, it's just because that's the energy I kind of put into the music. I can see people outside of the scene catching up on that, you know?

A lot of the themes in Combichrist's music are pretty over the top in terms of aggression. To steal one of your own lyrics, 'what feeds your anger?'

LaPlegua: There's a lot of stuff that feeds my anger, but I never get to a point where I really get angry anymore, because I have that outlet through the music. Of course I get angry at situations and personal conflicts, but the music is kind of like my personal shrink, where I get it all out so I don't have to go and explode in somebody's face. Not that I would ever step away from a brawl, you know, but it's like a personal outlet. It's really like a movie character, the whole thing; it's a character, and I can live out my aggressions through that character.

You mentioned that you had gotten the name from a comic book you had been working on a long time ago, and at one point there was talk of a Combichrist comic book actually being released. What's going on with that, exactly?

LaPlegua: I did a first issue myself, but I never released it. It was all based around the Everybody Hates You album. I started the second issue - I don't know why I started the second issue before I released the first one - but I started the second issue, which was kind of based around the What the F**k is Wrong with You? album. I just never had the time to really wrap it up, but we are working on The Gene Generation; The Gene Generation is doing a comic book, and the fourth issue of that is going to be spun around the Combichrist character. If that goes well, we'll probably do a spin-off into its own comic book. We'll see how it happens.

Are you yourself a pretty big comic book fan?

LaPlegua: I always was, and I still am, but I have no time to follow up with my addiction to comic books anymore. I don't even have time to listen to music anymore. And when all is said and done, all I want is silence. Or moaning.

You have a new EP out. What surprises does this EP offer to fans that haven't heard it yet?

LaPlegua: For people that really know Combichrist, there are no surprises, and I think that's the best thing about this EP. I think that it's exactly what people hope it is, and I hope that it's exactly what people hope it is.

As your album and EPs have come out and the Combichrist sound has progressed, it seems more and more driven by lyrics, whereas The Joy of Gunz was almost entirely sample-driven and instrumental. Do you feel like you're more of a songwriter, or do you prefer the role of producer?

LaPlegua: It's a mix, but the more we took Combichrist live, the more I felt like it was the right thing to do, because that's what we added live, and I felt like that's what was missing when I came back in the studio. We went out with Everybody Hates You, and we did it live with vocals, even though most of the songs on Everybody Hates You don't even have that many lyrics. When I went back into the studio to work on new material after Everybody Hates You, I felt that the vocals were missing, because that's what we brought to the whole thing live, and that's where we really got our live sound, I think. I didn't try to change the music; I just tried to get a little bit of that vibe we have when we play live. I tried to get that into the music.

Your fans are really devoted, and you have something called the Combichrist Army. For those people who haven't enlisted yet, what is the ultimate mission of the Combichrist Army, and what benefits do you offer to enlistees?

LaPlegua: The whole Combichrist Army is based on a very simple thing. I don't want my fans to just be fans. I want my fans to be a part of what I'm doing, because they already are a part of what I'm doing; if it weren't for my fans, I wouldn't do what I'm doing. This is kind of my way to stay in touch with people and have people participate in something around Combichrist. I know people are having fun doing it, so you can go to the Combichrist Army Web site, and it says everything right there, how to enlist and everything.

Now that the EP has been released, where will the troops be deployed next?

LaPlegua: Hopefully people are already waiting for us to come to Europe. We're going to Europe, and we're going to stay there until mid-August, and then we're coming back to the USA, work on a new video, go back into the studio, finish up the album, and then we're going to do South America. We're doing the Goth Cruise this year, too. I've said this a hundred times, but I wonder if the people who set that up know what they have in store for them.

Do you think people are going to be running, screaming, and jumping over the side of the boat?

LaPlegua: I'm just thinking 400 Combichrist fans with free alcohol for a week in the middle of the Caribbean. I can see there being a lot of drunk sharks, look at it that way.

Do you have any other plans you can give away? Can you give us any details on the upcoming album?

LaPlegua: Not really! I'm working on it, and 'Sent to Destroy' is definitely a taste of that album. That's the direction I'm going. It's a little bit of what I did with Everybody Hates You, a little bit of what I did with What the F**k Is Wrong with You People?, but 100 percent Combichrist.

What about your other projects, like Panzer AG and Scandy?

LaPlegua: It's something I'll need to deal with when I have time. First, it's Combichrist, then it's all the other stuff. Whenever I have time, I'll definitely do something with the other projects, but at this point it's 100 percent Combichrist. I don't want to compromise anything just for the sake of doing something else.