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An Interview with Tony Young of Autoclav1.1
Posted: Saturday, November 21, 2009
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

There seems to be a division in the underground industrial music scene between those artists who seem content to regurgitate tried and true musical modes and those who would prefer to do away with convention in favor of something more exploratory. Autoclav1.1's Tony Young is among the latter, and with the release of the act's fourth album, Where Once Were Exit Wounds, his second on the Tympanik label, fans of post-industrial experimentation get a taste of where he has been guiding his listeners: toward a musical landscape in which emotional content is paramount and the juxtaposition of electronic and organic sound styling is key. Of course, mixing live instruments with programmed sequences is nothing new, but Young's sonic palette merges the two extremes in such a way that there is little or no distinction between them, creating a sound that is distinctly rich, dynamic and very definitely his own. As always, elements of IDM, noise and ambient are present, but given a post-rock sheen with the added prominence of textured guitars and the ever present piano melodies, placing Autoclav1.1 above the current echelon of experimental electronic and industrial acts in terms of songwriting and musicianship. Always one to mention his wide range of influences, Tony Young now lets ReGen's readers in on his love for post-punk and metal and just how much that factors into his unique and emotional style of electronica. As well, we get a special insight into his views on society, especially pertaining to club culture, "gangsta" culture, the prevalence of guns in pop and underground marketing and the many shades of black, white, and grey that he sees existing in the modern era.

Your last album, Love No Longer Lives Here, was meant to reflect a different theme and approach to your music than your previous releases. What can you tell us about Where Once Were Exit Wounds and how - or if - it is a continuation of these themes and motifs you began to explore with Love No Longer Lives Here?

Young: Well, really what I meant was that it was going to be me, more me than ever. It's so easy to get wrapped up in styles of music you like and in all honesty want to emulate. I was so in awe of artists like Gridlock at one point that on my second album from 2006, Visitor Attractions, I wanted to just be like them. I had my own style in there, but I hadn't really shown what I thought was my own approach to writing. Love No Longer Lives Here gave me the chance to show my fondness of piano and real raw drum sounds and organic instruments folded in with electronics; so when I meant different, I meant different from what people may have expected, but what I felt was inside me all along.

Where Once Were Exit Wounds is me capitalizing on those sounds. Everyone who knows me knows inside I have a heavy fondness for post-punk such as Joy Division and a lot of metal and rock as well as my love of electronic music. I felt truly free writing this new release, just doing whatever I please and all my loves and influences show, I feel; this is regardless of what I feel people may want or expect, it is what I just felt happy doing.

Your music has always incorporated live piano alongside electronics, and your last album, as well as your most recent wave of remixes, had seen the incorporation of more organic elements such as guitar and bass. What do you feel would be the next step in this evolution of sound, and how do you feel Where Once Were Exit Wounds reflects that?

Young: The new album is just raw to me. I love that live sound you get from real bass, real guitar, and I – obviously, as everyone knows – adore piano. It just felt right adding those elements and playing those instruments live and creating the tracks with electronics along with them. It's painstaking, but it's gratifying. I did this on Love No Longer Lives Here, but even more so on Where Once Were Exit Wounds. The new album is a definite evolution of the album before it; in fact, every album is, as I grow and learn, and I still have a lot to learn. I already have ideas and a theme for the next one, but that is too soon to talk about, even if I have already written two tracks for it and they follow on but are better, if you ask me. It can only grow from here on in. If it's rubbish, I will bin it.

Your album artwork and your photography has been rather monochromatic over the years; I don't think I've ever seen a color photograph of you, and you did include the quote 'There is no grey or in between' on your last album, which you related to the album as being about the state of the world and its people, that people do go one way or the other. However, your music obviously goes in more than one direction, never purely electronic but never purely organic. How do you see yourself (as Tony Young and as Autoclav1.1) as being reflective of these monochromatic themes? In other words, beyond reflecting on the world, how do you feel that you go one way or the other?

Young: You are not looking in the right places. There are terrible pictures of me out there. In color, too. [Laughs.]

I do see everything in black or white. Everyone who really knows me knows I call a spade a spade and I am straightforward and honest; there's no bullshit with me, really, even if I struggle to add tact into it. I am quite matter of fact about most things. If it's meant to be, it is meant to be. People confuse Love No Longer Lives Here as a terrible experience I had with an ex, but it's about the world and being how people are, as you have rightly noted, I wouldn't waste anyone's time with such issues.

It's as simple as this: things happen, sometimes good and sometimes bad. People are as they are, and yes, things upset me and these songs are about how these things I feel relate to people's feelings, and in a lot of respects when people write to me, it appears to be a correct response to their emotions, so I have got it right. Either way, it's my opinion and take on everything. If you get it, you get it; if you don't, then so be it. I am a very emotional person with my feelings and very open, too, and happy to express those emotions without any fear of what people may think. Whether people like it or not, in their own way they do the same with the way they carry on. It's just the denial and fear of opening up and being honest about the torment they are causing, which is a shame. I honestly believe there are more people in the world who are unhappy with life than are people dancing in the streets harping on about just how great everything is. Yeah, that sounds pretty depressing, I know. But I like to think there is always something good to look forward to out there. I try to express that in my music. Look at it this way: every song is about something different, so they will sound different and all aim towards their own goal.

'Exit wounds' are normally associated with gunshot wounds, making the album title Where Once Were Exit Wounds a rather disturbing title while also bearing a connotation of healing or perhaps scarring. As your last two album titles, Broken Beats for Broken Hearts and Love No Longer Lives Here, both seem to bear this feeling of despair and lost love, to follow with Where Once Were Exit Wounds almost seems optimistic. What are your thoughts on this?

Young: I like guns! [Laughs.]

No, seriously, it's not meant to be disturbing, but a really interesting take on it there from yourself. It is about scars left over and moving on, not from relationships, but from general life experiences and what they leave behind. I like to think it's a rather happy album, actually. Every album has a concept; my debut, You Are My All and More was about the fact I was crippled with grief at losing my cat. I was devastated by the loss of Frank; he meant more to me than anyone, and now people have him in their CD collections, which is all I could offer him when he went. Broken Beats is a remix album, and I liked the title, nothing more, which I guess is pretty shallow of me. Visitor Attractions, which came before the remix album, was about people who latch on to other people for their own gain, and Love No Longer Lives Here is about the world, as we have discussed, and their apathetic approach to life.

The new album is a breath of fresh air for me, emotionally speaking. It simply doesn't matter: be yourself and be true to others. They can think what they want, because if you are being honest to yourself, you don't have to justify yourself, because the doubters do not matter. I do like the guns thing, though. There are people I would happily shoot and feel no remorse for, not one little bit. There simply are too many people in this world who do not deserve to be here; I wish they would drop off the face of the earth, but I am not going to spend too much time over them anymore. It's not worth it, not for me and not for you. There are people out there I love to bits, they know who they are, and there are people out there for other people who deserve better than the cards they are dealt; they should be proud of themselves for being themselves. It's rare that I meet genuine people, but I always tell them when I do, for what that's worth.

As far as guns are concerned, in the last decade or so, there does seem to be an oversaturation of gun-related imagery in underground music; it's toned down in recent years, but for awhile, it did seem like you couldn't see a band or artist's promo imagery without an abundance of weaponry. As you've said, you like guns, but what are your thoughts on the presence of guns in so much of today's musical imagery? If you had to comment, what do you think is a motivating factor in the plethora of gun and weapon-related imagery today?

Young: I was joking about guns. I suppose they are fun to fire on a range or something. I haven't seen anything with guns in for ages, actually; in fact, I can barely remember any. I don't know, you are more likely to see some underground rap artists with guns than electronic artist, and that's all down to 'gangsta' culture. They have always done it, so fair play to them if it works. I think anyone utilizing guns from our circles would look like a complete tool. It is all a gimmick, though, and it appears scenes always need them or some subgenre to be created. It's like all this terror EBM bollocks, that was all 'let's be horrific and scary,' when in reality they sounded shite, looked shite, and just were...well...shite. A load of imps running around screaming with preloaded bleeps and beats. All I have to say to that is fuck off, you talentless shit. All of this genre slicing and jumping and chopping and turning has really filtered out a lot of quality out there. It's rare I go to a club now and hear anything I personally think is of any class. They have to rely on the same tracks over and over. But hey, what do I know, right? I don't even write club music, and personally, I wouldn't want to. It's too fickle. Well, maybe just industrial club music is. There is more to life and music than that small side of the electronic scene, and I feel that's where you are coming from with these questions. There is a whole world of electronic music out there, and it's usually better.

This is your second release with the Tympanik label, along with your numerous remixes for your label mates. It seems that many in the style of post-industrial, especially on Tympanik, are opting for the use of more organic sounds. As you've stated that the use of real bass and guitar creates a more 'raw' sound and stems from your influences in post-punk, rock and metal, to what do you attribute these other artists incorporating similar sounds and motifs in their music? In other words, besides possessing a wide range of influences, as I'm sure many of these artists do, why do you think more and more artists are going for this more 'raw' and live sound?

Young: Well, it's hard to speak for others, really. But then, if you look at it, a lot of the older artists in the early electronic scene did use a lot of homemade instruments and whatnot. It was very D.I.Y. There could be the factor that a lot of the artists we are discussing here are also from the older end of the spectrum now. I mean, I am currently 35, and we listen to music that shapes us as we grow up, and I would most likely say that a lot of people in the electronic scene actually listen to a lot of organic music.

On a bit of a side note, it seems that there are still people in the realm of electronic music who seem so hell bent against anything other than electronic instrumentation, and it seems to move in cycles. For a time, it was almost a sin to use guitar in electronic or industrial music, and then it turned around to where any band that doesn't use at least one live instrument is maligned for being 'unreal' or 'fake,' and it just keeps spinning round and round. What are your thoughts on these changing cycles in electronic music?

Young: It's all very hypocritical, isn't it? To be honest, I stand in clubs and just watch these day-glo disasters chew their faces off dancing to cheap dance music that they incorrectly tag as EBM, and realize that everything they have is shallow. I think on the older end of the spectrum, the instrumentation you mention hasn't ever been knocked by the older crowd or those who have been there longer. It's just kids; they are sucked in by the tragedy of Access Virus copycat plug-in bands. Sorry, but all these bands just sound cheap and 'B' division copies of themselves, in my opinion. None of them are daring, and none of them try anything new, no matter what they say, and they know it. If I go to a club nowadays, I usually end up hanging out with the goths; you can't knock 'em, as it's better than the mildly retarded Ministry of Sound reject rooms that crop up everywhere.

With electronic music being more and more prevalent in both the underground and the mainstream, and being by nature driven by technology, what your thoughts are on how the advances in technology have benefited electronic music as a whole, not just what you create, but for others? Obviously, the music comes from the person and not the box, but placing so much emphasis on the emotional content of your work, how do you feel that the progression of music-making technology has worked for or against music in the modern era?

Young:That's a tough one. In some respects, before technology moved along, before the dawn of super fantastic music production software, I would say all of the older artists in the scene probably did their best work. Not from what the songs sound like, per se, but more from the effort put into making these tracks. It must have been pretty hard. It's all too easy with modern technology just to get some preset loops and play for all these modern toss synth bands that can now pump out 4/4 tripe all day long trying to be Covenant but falling flat on their arses. I will tell you who loses when that happens: the fans. Still, if they get sucked in by that crap, then who is to pity them?

For myself, yeah, it is easier. I do use modern music programs – I use Logic, I use Apple Mac – mainly because they are informative and beautiful to work with. But I do make it hard for myself, as every layer of music is played live and recorded as such as piano and whatnot. That's all me recording and playing. The software just makes the whole process of production better when it comes to making those sounds you recorded mix well. So yeah, in some respects, modern technology has made things easier, but doesn't mean to say it made music better, depending on who you are listening to.

On Where Once Were Exit Wounds, you have a different variety of guest collaborators. ESA's Jamie Blacker returns to contribute guitars and even vocals for 'Do You Feel Disposable?,' and you have members of Riotmilloo and Xotox contributing, and even Rachel Haywire does a spoken vocal on 'When We Woke Up.' How did these different people come to work with you on this album, and how did you find that their approaches to making music affected yours for those particular tracks that they added to?

Young: I did want some guests on some tracks, as it's fun; Jamie made the most input with the guitars and vocals and we like meshing stuff together now and again. The spoken word thing is actually used by both Rachel Haywire and Riotmilloo; I wrote some lyrics and then wanted a softer, warmer female voice to just read them out for the opening track, and Rachel kindly offered her voice. In French, I guess the lyrics sound remarkably different, so I added Emelie's (Riotmilloo) version of the lyrics after she recorded them to 'If Not Something, Anything.' With PRXS, I asked Lorenzo for some bits he wasn't using, and then I added these to a track I was writing, and it was a gift for him doing such a swell job as my promotions and tour manager for Italy. With Xotox, I asked Andy if he had some spare noises, and again I incorporated them into a track already half-written, mainly because he is a top friend of mine and I have heaps of respect for him. So really, you could say the only one with any influence is Jamie on the track he appeared on, as it dramatically added to the track. The other inputs were me formulating and adapting them to fit what I already had.

The tracks on the new album seem to be of shorter length than on the last album, with most of them shorter than five minutes. Is the length of a song ever a conscious consideration for you from a compositional standpoint? How much thought actually goes into this aspect of your process, and does it ever affect your mindset in terms of the composition itself (i.e. the instrumentation, layers of sound, number of tracks, etc.)?

Young: Some people actually thought a couple of tracks I did were too long on previous releases, and while they obviously don't understand the nature of the scene I tend to reside in, I did think of this subconsciously. In reality, though, I write a track and it ends when I feel it should end as I work on it. I did want a little more impact, as I was heavily influenced by the composition of early artists; you won't find many long post-punk tracks out there. It's a fine line between doing something massive and majestic and being a boring twat. In my opinion, an album ends when the story is told, so I don't think about how many tracks, etc. It just happens as it happens.

Similarly, the new album seems much more rhythmically straightforward; that is to say that while there is still the juxtaposition of ambience and rhythm, the beats and percussion enter into the mix more prominently and with less apparent build-up than on previous releases. They seem to kick in much sooner, almost abruptly in some cases, and are exceptionally danceable. As we talked earlier about your disillusion with the club scene – or at least the 'kids' in that scene – how was the more beat-driven and rhythmically upbeat approach on this album a result of that, if you feel it was at all?

Young: There are a lot of complex tracks on there, and I haven't abandoned that; I just wanted to mess with what I love, and many have spotted the post-punk influence and style that appears within the electronics and stuff. I do believe I managed to keep the melody and piano and overall emotional states while being more direct with it. If you hear anything that goes remotely dance on this, it's short-lived and glues parts together before kicking things off, and the best thing about the abrupt parts is that live you can still see it coming, and I feel I haven't meandered about before getting to the point, and as such, it is a different album in a lot of respects. I still have my slow numbers. Fuck the kids...with a hammer. [Laughs.]

Just above the text for Rachel Haywire's spoken word, the liner notes contain an image of an ouroboros encircling a pentagram with several runic symbols. What is the significance of these symbols for you and how it relates to your approach to your music, particularly with regard to Where Once Were Exit Wounds?

Young: You spotted that. I wondered when anyone would mention something as, it partially appeared on the album before. I am a spiritual person in a lot of ways, but the pentagram symbol I personally see as very earthly. In fact, for me, this is the epitome of a symbolic representation of humankind rooted to the earth, and while I feel it's important to have a spiritual reference to follow in life, I also believe it's important to enjoy life while here as best you can in the face of all adversity. Yeah, OK, let's throw the Satanic thing in before you mention it, as it is a pentagram, but what is Satan? We all know those followers don't see Satan as some cloven-hoofed, red-faced, pitchfork-wielding maniac, and let's get this straight before we go on: I am not a Satanist, but I would state a lot of my views – just by pure chance – follow that route to the letter. I have exactly the same feelings regarding the issues surrounding love and hate and a whole host of other things. I have my own feelings that I feel that symbol represents for me personally, so I use it.

I am well chuffed about you spotting the ouroboros, the dragon or serpent swallowing its own tail; it represents the individual constantly recreating itself in a cycle. I deem this reflectivity as representative of me recreating and constantly evolving what I do. Yeah, OK, I am spouting claptrap again, ain't I? I am such a cock sometimes. [Laughs.]