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An Interview with Geoff Lee of Modulate
Posted: Sunday, September 07, 2008
By: Matthew Johnson
Features Editor

As DJ Echo, Geoff Lee has been a fixture in the UK industrial club scene for years, but it's his role as a producer that's brought him worldwide attention. With the release of the Skullfuck EP in 2006, Lee's Modulate project became a club fixture throughout Europe and the USA, with tours supporting Combichrist and VNV Nation following soon after. Building upon that success, Lee has been busy over the past year, remixing the likes of scene stalwarts Soman and Neikka RPM as well as such promising newcomers as SAM and Schallfaktor, not to mention plenty of touring, a resident DJ gig, and work on his own music. With Modulate's debut full-length album, Detonation, out later this month, Lee catches ReGen up on what he's been up to, regales us with a few choice moments from the road, and fills us in what tracks are blowing up the dance floor these days in his DJ sets.

You've just released your first full-length album, Detonation. How has your sound evolved since the Skullfuck EP?

Lee: I think the main difference has been a shift from perhaps a more industrial sound to a more 'Modulate' sound, in that sense a chunkier, more dance floor sound. 'Skullfuck' was pretty much the oddball track around the Dystopia demo era of Modulate, and because of how things worked out, the oddball became the defining track, so I suppose the rest of the new material has moved slightly more in that direction, but there is still a lot of variety on the album. There are certain things that have become Modulate motifs, if you will - the big booming kick drums, the way I mix tracks to be quite bass-heavy, the sense of dynamics - they all kind of came about while I was putting this album together. I suppose I found out what Modulate is about and where I wanted to take it, so in that sense I have a clearer vision now of what Modulate is. It has developed its own sound, cut its own path. 

As a DJ as well as a producer, how would you say the industrial dance landscape has changed in the two years or so since the release of Skullfuck?

Lee: I think, surprisingly, things have shifted to a very open playing field. The futurepop/trance side of things has done quite poorly in recent years. The big guns all seemed to falter with their latest releases, and I certainly didn't expect that to happen, but it has opened the entire scene up from my perspective to new things. The big shift for me seems to have been toward the TBM/industec/whatever-you-want-to-call-it side of things in quite a big way. The big floor-fillers now are SAM, Soman, Seb Komor, Nachtmahr, [x]-Rx, Noisuf-X, Kloq etc.

Do you think the scene is moving in a positive direction or a negative one, overall?

Lee: I personally think it is moving in a positive direction musically in that things have been blown open again, people are taking influence from outside the scene instead of the very insular feel of a few years ago; things went a bit 'cookie cutter.'  But there is certainly a feeling of transition, and that is going to cause some degree of turbulence as the vacuum is filled by new acts, or not, as the case may be. Talking to various labels, they are all struggling with sales figures. Whether that is down to endemic downloading or whether that is down to a general lack of good music in the scene, I don't know. I'd speculate a percentage of both. 2008 hasn't been the greatest year for releases, say compared to 2007, which seemed absolutely packed with big club tracks. So overall, I'd like to say the scene is moving forward, but it feels somewhat deflated at the moment; a couple of good labels have stopped putting releases out, online retailers have been struggling, but then here in the UK, my club night, the Wendy House, recently sold out 1700 tickets on its 10th anniversary, the Infest festival sold out, and I've heard good tales from friends visiting European festivals, too, so there is plenty of scope for optimism, but it's been a fairly flat year in terms of big releases so far.  

Are there any new artists you've heard recently that you're particularly excited about?

Lee: As mentioned above in the big tracks that are rocking my dance floors, perhaps not known to too many people at the moment, but I particularly like SAM, [x]-Rx, Kloq, Nachtmahr and Noisuf-X. I love what I've heard of Seb Komor's solo stuff, too. The last Soman EP has been huge, though I don't know if Kolja counts as a new artist now! But a new release, certainly. So it's mostly been that big chunky industec sound that has really been perking my ears up recently. And a little more Leftfield, Keef Baker's Redeye and Autoclav1.1's Broken Beats for Broken Hearts.  

You've also had the chance to go on some pretty extensive tours, both in Europe and North America. How does the live Modulate experience differ from what we've heard in the recordings, and how has your live show evolved after two major tours?

Lee: We always put a hell of a lot of energy into the show, so that's one thing you will always get from our performances. As a few people have said, we are damn difficult to take photos of, because none of us ever stay still! We have expanded to a four-piece now, with myself and Gregor Beyerle playing live keyboards, then Rhys Hughes runs the laptop, chopping things up in Ableton, adding live effects and glitched up percussion layers over the mix via various MIDI triggers, so that gives us something of a rawer, punchier sound live. We have also got our own VJ now, with Owen Brown from Alternative Perspective running our video projections, so the live show has definitely developed and moved up a level. We might not always be able to do a show as a four-piece because of logistical reasons, but that is our ideal live lineup at the moment that we've been playing shows in Europe with recently.

Tell us about some of your best live experiences. What about some of the worst?

Lee: I think in the USA, maybe Tampa, Dallas, LA, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Philly and Atlanta were amazing shows for us. They were real 'wow' moments. The crowd reaction blew us away on so many occasions. Most shows were really good, but they stand out in particular. In Seattle, we had a slam pit going from the first song, which was unexpected, but we like that a lot! Chicago was crazy, the line went all the way down the block, then snaked round the corner and just carried on. To see that many people there for you as an opening band is just amazing. Detroit we played the Motorpop festival with a bunch of other bands, and the reaction we got was insane. The stage manager asked if we wanted an encore! Mid-bill at a festival? That doesn't really happen too often. In Philly, Mike Saga went on stage about 15 minutes before we were due on, we were sat in our dressing room getting ready, and we heard this 'Are you guys ready for Modulate yet?' and this deafening scream from the crowd. For a few minutes we felt like the Beatles. Amazing show! Then Atlanta, last night of the tour, I have no idea what happened. The crowd want batshit crazy. First song again, slam pit going, the audience was deafening. We were completely blown away by that reaction. Coming over for the first time you have no idea really how popular you are and how the audience will react, but it was absolutely amazing.  Sure, there were some bad shows, things not turning up on the rider - no drinking water for a bunch of dehydrated bands when it's 105 degrees fahrenheit outside, your bus driver is asleep and you are in the middle of nowhere is not good. Or things running way behind schedule, nobody turning up, shows even getting cancelled. One show there were about 12 people on the dance floor for us, maybe 20 or 30 in the venue. I'll be honest, we didn't want to play, but we still gave the same show with the same energy.  Some guys came up to us afterwards, 'Hey man, I'm a big fan, we couldn't make the show you played at on the weekend so we drove six hours to come see you, great show, we really enjoyed it,'  and so you realize no matter how crappy things might look, there are still people who have made the effort to come and see you. We played a festival in Holland recently that wasn't amazingly well-attended, but it was one of the most fun gigs we've ever played; sometimes it just clicks between you and the audience and you look up and everybody in the room is dancing. And then maybe next time you go back and play there, there are a bunch of people that went, 'Hey, Modulate were really good, you should go see them.'  There was one show on the VNV tour where the sound guy, thinking we had left our computers on, went and turned everything off. We leave them powered up after sound check so we are ready to go.  We walked on stage expecting them to be on, crowd cheers and I'm staring at a blank screen. Sure, there were the occasional technical hiccups, but we have a backup system for most things if it gets really bad, so there aren't any real horror stories I can give you. You get used to the ropey back stages, though we did find a dead scorpion in our dressing room once; that kind of freaked us out a bit. Or venues that are hotter than hell in the middle of the desert in midsummer with no air conditioning, and then you are under stage lighting. We played one place, and the bass was so loud bits of the ceiling were falling down! But we are professional and can and have managed to deal with all manner of things going wrong around us; you deal with it as best you can and try and make sure the show carries on.  

Now that you have a fair amount of experience performing live, do you still do DJ sets as well? Has transitioning from the DJ role to the role of a performer taught you anything new in terms of working a crowd?

Lee: Yes, if anything I'm playing even more DJ sets now. I think the two are very, very different disciplines. As a performer, all the focus 100 percent of the time is on you and what you are doing on stage, so there is a visual aspect that isn't really there as a DJ hidden behind a booth. As a DJ, the focus is less on you as a performer and more on what is coming out of the speakers. For a band, we do plan out sets out in advance, and everyone works from a set list. We could in theory change the set around, and we have done on rare occasion, but generally we'll make sure it's a set we think will work in advance. In a DJ set, I don't really plan a set out; I'll just read the crowd and go from there. You only have your own music in a live set, too, so you are limited in the options you have; you have to think about things a little bit more carefully. Both Ronan and Andy were great in that respect and in the advice they gave me about how to arrange the live sets. I think a live set has much more of a dynamic to it, more tempo changes; what you are doing is trying to sequence a fixed choice of tunes into the best order possible. Sometimes both you and the audience need a breather, whereas in a DJ set they can just go to the bar. People tend not to want to do that at a live show. Often in a DJ set you want a nice flow going through things, whereas in a live show the sudden jump to something very different can be hugely effective. There is a section live where we often go from a track at 140 BPM to 120 BPM just to give everyone a chance to catch some breath!  So no, I don't think playing live has really feedback into the DJ-ing. Playing live has feedback into playing live a lot, though. You do shows, you learn things, you become more comfortable in that environment, you try something new, keep it, don't do it again, it's a constant process of trying and feeding back.

You've also done a number of remixes in the past couple of years. Who have been your favorite artists to remix so far, and why?

Lee: Each remix is very different. I think obviously the Faderhead mix is one of my favorites. When I heard the original, I loved the vocal line there, but I wanted to make it more of a club track; I wanted something more DJ friendly, so I asked Sami if I could remix it. He replied with typical honesty, 'I don't really like Modulate at all, so I'll probably hate it, but if you really want to do it, OK." I had a really clear vision of what I wanted to do with it, so I did it anyway, and as it turns out, he loved the mix.  Being asked to remix 'Divine' by Soman was a bit daunting, because it is such a classic track. I didn't want to mess with it too much, because with a track that big, everybody knows the original already, so I tried to keep what made it work in the first place intact, but also put my own spin on it. I was really pleased with how it turned out, and from the crowd reaction I got when I played it I knew it worked really well. I was also really pleased with how the 'Hardbeat' Trauma mix came out for SAM. When I first heard it I was a little bit, 'What do I do with this?' but I saw all these layers building up and building up, so I tried to exaggerate that and put it into a more 12-inch style DJ mix. So I made it build and build and build, and it carries on building for about three minutes, with more and more layers, until it is bleeding at the seams. Each mix is different, and I treat each in its own context. I don't sledgehammer the Modulate sound onto a track. I listen to the track and work out what it needs or what it is the person wants me to do with it. Sometimes they will say they want a club mix, or sometimes they will give me complete freedom to do as I wish. Sometimes that will be very sympathetic to the original version; sometimes I will program an entire new production from scratch. It just depends on the track and what I think it needs. 

Are there any plans to release a remix companion to the Detonation album?

Lee: I am not sure it will be a companion as such. Possibly. There are certainly remixes in the pipeline, though I'm not sure where and when they will be released yet. At present, we are just looking at putting some releases out as a DJ promo with a view to releasing them later.

What about tour plans? What's next for Modulate after the album is out?

Lee: We are looking at a U.S. tour in spring 2009 already, so if people are interested in booking us, then please contact BPM Talent, who are our booking agents in the USA. Then possibly some dates in the UK and Europe nearer to Christmas, and we are looking at a lot of festival shows in Europe in summer 2009.  Then we are back over in the USA for the Gothic Cruise in October 2009.

Do you have any other thoughts you'd like to share with Modulate fans or with the scene at large?

Lee: Look out for our album when it is released on September 23! And please buy a copy, because downloading really harms the smaller bands and labels way more than the big guys. We are working on next to zero budget, and things like flying over to the USA for tours, work permits, merchandise, pressing CDs etc. all cost thousands of dollars that need to be fronted, and that money has to come from somewhere, i.e. CD sales. A work permit is the same cost whether you are Coldplay or Modulate. A flight to the USA costs the same whether you have sold a million copies or a thousand.  So comparatively speaking, our costs are much higher. So if  you like our music, please support us by buying CD.