Photo Credit: Marjorie Becker In June of last year, we wrote an article about an 8-bit re-imagining of the classic Nine Inch Nails album ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ created by an artist by the name of Inverse Phase. The post became a huge hit, and we were recently able to talk to Inverse Phase about the project. Inverse Phase actually began recording his ‘Pretty Eight Machine’ record with the help of donations via Kickstarter. He managed to raise enough money to bring the project to life, even receiving complimentary messages from Trent Reznor and Rob Sheridan. We wanted to know more about Inverse Phase and ‘Pretty Eight Machine,’ and he provided us with some intriguing answers. How did you come up with the idea of creating an 8-bit version of ‘Pretty Hate Machine’? The idea for Pretty Eight Machine came as a somewhat random idea … a few friends and I were at a convention, talking about how there had to be some Nine Inch Nails chiptunes out there. When I didn’t really find much of anything, I decided to write a few minutes of one and surprise them the next day. Upon playing it, they asked where I found it, told me it was really good, and … “coerced” me into doing more. Hahaha! So, I decided to arrange a few important chunks of the album to see if I could really pull it off, and when my friends and I listened to the results, we pretty much knew it had to happen. I didn’t have the money to do the licensing/etc on my own dime, so off to Kickstarter I went. How much money did you earn and how essential was this fundraising to the creation of ‘Pretty Eight Machine’? I raised about $3,600, and at this point ALL of it will have gone to licensing and materials…well, that and a laptop battery for my performance/composing laptop I use on the road. Kickstarter was really what encouraged me to finish the project. I actually got very little support from the NIN community (“You’re destroying my favorite music!” “Chiptunes suck!” “You mean you’re actually going to sell this?”). Surprisingly, I also got very little support from the general chiptune community, too (“Why NIN covers?” “Kickstarter? More like BEGSTARTER!” etc). The people that really ended up pushing the project to succeed on Kickstarter were, again, my friends, fans, and other acquaintances / supporters that didn’t hate my guts. If the Kickstarter hadn’t succeeded, even if I knew it would’ve gotten as much press as it did, I would’ve still done the album, but I probably would have had to back-burner the album a lot more than I already had. With my current ongoing contracts (I’m currently working on four game soundtracks) who knows when I would’ve gotten to it. How did you get Rob Sheridan’s permission to mimic his artwork? Getting a hold of Rob Sheridan … well, I got lucky. My art doesn’t actually use any NIN IP/trademarks/etc, but I just wanted to do the nice thing and get in touch. I’m a fan, not an a–hole. So I sent an email to him detailing what I wanted to do and a rough draft of the artwork, and then pinged him on Twitter once or twice to let him know. He just replied on twitter and said, “Yeah, absolutely.” Super nice guy. Married now, too! You mention on your Bandcamp page that you hope that Trent Reznor and Rob Sheridan would enjoy the project. Have you gotten any feedback from either of them? So, when I was making my initial contacts towards the beginning of the project, my contact at Rebel Waltz said he would love a few copies of the CD when it was finished, and he said he’d get a CD out to Rob, Trent, et al. Then the album came out. I actually didn’t know what Trent or Rob thought. Even when Rob very kindly tweeted out the album at first, it was very matter-of-fact, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I guess he wanted everyone to decide for themselves. But since then, I’ve heard from both of them! Again, Rob’s pretty active on Twitter, so I caught him at the right time, and he mentioned that he enjoyed it (I sent him a download code). Through crosstalk from The NIN Hotline we also found out he’d pick it up on vinyl if it ever became available. Chiptunes on vinyl is kind of an amusing thought though, since it’s digitally created. So, the same arguments made FOR vinyl actually work against me. I had pretty much given up hope hearing from Trent, but about a month after the album came out, he sent me this incredibly down-to-earth email. He had just gotten out of working on some stuff in the studio and had really nice things to say; my jaw is basically permanently ajar. Seriously brought some amazing closure to an already fantastic release. You also mentioned that ‘Pretty Eight Machine’ was produced during a turbulent time in your life. Would you mind telling us about what was going on at the time? Sure. Before the Kickstarter, I stepped back from a major part of my life: doing volunteer work for a large video game party/rock concert called MAGFest , and then shortly thereafter I lost my day job due to some major layoffs. Granted, this was the kick in the ass I needed to say, “Okay, maybe I can go full-time with music,” but then, after the Kickstarter succeeded and completely unrelated to all of that, I had some personal issues which led to a bit of an emotional breakdown. Oh, and there was that earthquake in Virginia while I was away from home, and my water heater at my house exploded. I just felt really trapped by a lot of situations that all hit me at once. So, I ended up moving myself to another state, it took like four months, and I left some close friends behind in the process. All of this was of course happening while working on ‘Pretty Eight Machine,’ which was already well-behind deadline, not to mention I had my other game music deadlines to meet. It was a rough patch for sure. Stream ‘Pretty Eight Machine’ in the player below and check out Inverse Phase on Facebook and Twitter . To buy a copy of the album, click here . Listen to ‘Pretty Eight Machine’ ?
Posts Tagged ‘album’
Inverse Phase Discusses His 8-Bit Nine Inch Nails Tribute ‘Pretty Eight Machine’
Buckcherry Singer Josh Todd Talks ‘Confessions,’ Seven Deadly Sins, New Film + More
Photo by Stevie D. Buckcherry have a busy year ahead of them with the release of their sixth studio album ‘Confessions,’ which drops Feb. 19. They are also in the midst of a U.S. tour with Kid Rock that runs through early April. Loudwire had the privilege to speak to frontman Josh Todd about the new album and the things in his life that influenced its theme of the seven deadly sins. We also discussed the film project he is working on to compliment the new disc. Check out our interview with Josh Todd below: You’ve said that ‘Confessions’ is based on the seven deadly sins, and I’m wondering if you can expand on that and also tell me what the album title means to you personally? There was a point in my life – when I was a youth, when I lost a family member and I acted out in my grieving process through the deadly sins so that’s kind of what the story’s about on the record. I think the seven sins are timeless and that everybody struggles with them in their daily lives all the time – it’s something that we’ve been throwing around for a long time, [guitarist] Keith [Nelson] and I as far as doing a record. There’s a lot of people who’ve done it but we wanted to do our take on it and I feel like we really did it justice. As a lyric writer, I wrote all the lyrics — it was really challenging for me and fun, as well. When I sit back and listen to this I’m so proud that it’s part of the Buckcherry catalog. The record makes me look at the seven deadly sins in a different way – when I listened to ‘Sloth,’ I didn’t expect it to be so soulful. When thinking about specific sins, did you already have a certain direction in your mind that you would go with them? I’m glad you brought that up about ‘Sloth,’ because nobody’s really talked about it. That was the hardest song for me to get through. When you look up sloth it relates to suicide and my father committed suicide when I was 10. It’s about how I felt when that happened – when he actually called my sister and I on the phone that night before he did it. I can’t remember what he said to me because I was just too young to process it. He was just saying goodbye and I didn’t know what that meant, until the next day. It was heavy and I struggled getting through recording those vocals and Keith worked with me and was really sensitive about what I was going through to get it out, but I think it turned out to be really beautiful. There are songs named after the seven deadly sins, but there’s a total of 16 tracks on the record. How did you choose what other songs would accompany the theme of the album — such as ‘Nothing Left But Tears,’ ‘Water,’ ‘The Truth’ etc. I wrote a short film to go along with the record and we’ve had such a hard time with the funding and we’re still working on that. The original idea was to have the record be the soundtrack to the film and we wanted to incorporate some of the elements like ‘Air’ and ‘Water’ and that’s why those are there. ‘The Truth’ coincides with the love interest in the story and it’s a real beautiful story but I also wanted to write songs that were memorable and mean something to somebody else not just me and what I was focused on at the time. That’s part of the challenge with writing songs – you want to take enough of your personal experiences so that you can get excited about performing it every night and you can go back to that place and get motivated because you have to sing your songs thousands of times. What did you notice about writing a screenplay that differed from writing songs for you? I’m a really big fan of storytelling and writing and I read a lot of books and I’ve done some acting and I’ve read a lot of scripts. Maybe about six or seven years ago I took a swing at writing a screenplay on my own, and I wrote a comedy actually, and Stevie D., our guitar player read it at one point and was like, “Why don’t you ressurect a character that was in the comedy?” and make it about this film. At the time I was just writing a screenplay based on my life so I just combined the two. What’s the progress on the film project? We got a great director, his name is Billy Jayne and he just directed both of our first two videos ‘Gluttony’ and ‘Wrath,’ and we introduce the character in the movie. His name is Gilby Stretcher. He basically is me in the movie as an adolescent 17-year-old kid. It’s going to be good, it’s a beautiful little journey about a kid that comes home from school and finds his dad dead and acts out through his behavior and the seven sins and then finds a love interest. In the end, he forgives his father and his this girl that he’s down with who’s the complete opposite of him. It’s really cool. If you had to choose a well-known actor to play you in a biopic, who would it be and why? Let’s see I’d like a young Leonardo DiCaprio. He did ‘Basketball Diaries’ and I think he’s just a great f—ing actor. I’m a big fan of his and I think he’d do a good job. ‘Confessions’ is the sixth studio album for Buckcherry. How was the recording process of this album for you? This record took a long time and it was aggravating at times – a lot of writing and re-writing, we just put a lot of work into it. I think it’s going to pay off and I think it’s our best record, honestly. As a whole, as a body of work, I think people will take us a little more seriously than they have in the past. We did it again with Keith [Nelson] who produced it with Marti [Frederiksen] and that’s how we’ve been doing the last two records so that was familiar which I like. I like having Keith there because he and I have a long history and I can talk to him in ways that nobody understands. What is one of your favorite tracks off the record and why? Probably the one I’m most lyrically proud of and spent a lot of time on is ‘Pride.’ I think that’s a very cool song for us and really off the beaten path. It was more poetry, that song and I’m a big fan of The Doors and Jim Morrison. I wanted a song that was poetry and the verses are like that so I’m proud of that song. Buckcherry’s ‘Confessions’ drops on Feb. 19. The album is available for pre-order in a few cool bundles through the band’s merch site or digitally via iTunes . [button href=”http://loudwire.com/buckcherry-josh-todd-new-single-gluttony/” title=”Next: Josh Todd Digs Deep Into New Single ‘Gluttony'” align=”center”] Check Out the Video for Buckcherry’s New Single ‘Gluttony’
Black Sabbath Finish Recording Album, Plot Tour + Offer Tony Iommi Health Update
Tim Whitby, Getty Images It’s official! Black Sabbath have completed recording their upcoming album , ’13.’ Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler announced the exciting news to Eddie Trunk in a video interview (seen below) at the NAMM convention, in addition to offering an update on guitarist Tony Iommi ‘s current battle with cancer. In the interview, Butler spoke all about all things Black Sabbath. “We’ve finished recording it,” reveals the bassist of the album. “Tony’s back in England putting down a couple of solos. Then we start mixing it in Febraury and it will be out in June. The provisional title is ’13? — unless we can come up with something more constructive. I’ve written most of the lyrics. Ozzy comes up with the titles and then gives me an inspiration to write the lyrics. I think we’ve got 16 songs and I’ve written 14 sets of lyrics.” Butler also updated fans on Black Sabbath’s touring plans. And guess what folks? They’re going all over the world! “We start at the end of April in New Zealand, then we go to Australia, then Japan,” begins the bassist. “June, we’ll be promoting the album, then July and August [is] USA. Then October is South America and Europe in November and December.” Black Sabbath were planning on touring extensively in 2012, but the lymphoma diagnosis of legendary riff master Tony Iommi stalled the heavy metal band’s plans. However, Butler has good news to spread about Iommi’s health. “[Tony]‘s doing well; he’s really responding well,” Butler assures. “He has to go and have his medication every six weeks. But yeah, he’s really coming along well; he’s really doing well.” As for who will be drumming with the band, that is still not determined. After original drummer Bill Ward left the outfit over contract disputes, Tommy Clufetos filled in for the few shows that Sabbath played last year. However, Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk plays on the actual album. “We’re not sure yet; we don’t know. ‘Cause I think Brad’s got commitments with Rage Against the Machine. So it’ll probably be either Tommy or Brad, depending on their commitments.” So does that mean Rage Against the Machine might be touring in 2013, too? Fingers crossed! But getting back to Sabbath, if everything goes to plan, 2013 should be an incredible year! Watch Eddie Trunk Interview Geezer Butler [button href=”http://loudwire.com/black-sabbath-tony-iommi-thankful-looking-forward-next-year/” title=”Next: Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi ‘Looking Forward’ to 2013″ align=”center”]
Brian ‘Head’ Welch on Possibly Joining Korn for Full U.S. Tour + New Album: ‘Anything is Possible’
Rick Diamond, Getty Images Former Korn guitarist and current Love & Death frontman Brian ‘Head’ Welch has slowly been working his way back into the Korn camp ever since his surprise appearance at the 2012 Carolina Rebellion Festival, where Welch performed ‘Blind’ with the rest of Korn. Now, with Head set to join Korn at Rock on the Range in Ohio and several European dates this year, the possibility of Welch’s permanent return to Korn is becoming more and more real. Along with Welch’s surprise ‘Blind’ performance and Korn’s new tour dates featuring the guitarist, fellow strummer James ‘Munky’ Schaffer told us during a Loudwire exclusive interview that he wanted ‘Head’ back in the band eventually. In a new interview with spoken with Rolling Stone, ‘Head’ shares his excitement for his upcoming tour dates with Korn, along with his desire to return to the band. “Everyone is broken in this world,” Welch tells Rolling Stone . “There’s so much divorce, hate and unforgiveness. For people to see this [Welch touring with Korn], I think it’s just really uplifting. I never thought it would happen, and I’m not sure they did either. The fans just love it, because a lot of the fans back in the day were like, suicidal, and from broken homes and abuse. They looked up to us like their family. And to see their family split up was hard on them. To get it put back together, there is a joy around the people who care about it.” When asked about the possibility of a full-on U.S. tour with Korn, Welch seemed open to the idea while remaining realistic. “We’re going slow,” Welch says. “We’re hanging out when I’ve got time, but I’ve got my album out, and they’re busy doing their stuff. But I’d say anything is possible right now.” Finally, when Welch was asked about recording another album with Korn, the guitarist simply states, “Again, I’d say anything is possible.” [button href=”http://loudwire.com/fan-granted-wish-to-spend-a-day-with-korn/” title=”Korn Meet Fan for ‘Make-A-Wish’ Foundation” align=”center”]
Bad Religion, ‘True North’ – Album Review
Epitaph Bad Religion are to punk rock what Iron Maiden are to heavy metal. Along with both groups brandishing unparalleled quality within their genres in over three-decade-long discographies, both Bad Religion and Iron Maiden are storytellers at heart who paint vivid visual pictures through their music. Fans are able to immerse themselves into the worlds birthed by Bad Religion with even greater intensity than their own personal realities, which is a testament to how many pairs of eyes Bad Religion are able to lend their fans for short bursts of multidimensional insight. ‘True North’ refers to the most perfect precision of one’s own moral compass, a theme that repeats itself in different forms throughout the band’s new album of that name. As Bad Religion’s socio-political foundation remains steady and without a crack, the band bursts into the album’s title track with a distinct old-school sound. ‘True North’ is an example of a perfect Bad Religion song: short and concise with profound lyrics topped off by a power chorus harnessing their trademark multipart vocal harmonies. The infinite perfection theme of one’s moral compass starts with the declaration of “ Keep searching ’til the end ” within the album’s opening track. The thesis continues into the standout anthem ‘Robin Hood in Reverse,’ which addresses the controversial laws that gift corporations the same rights as singular human begins. The line, “ Here’s the church, there’s the steeple / Open up the doors, corporations and people / Wait, what did he say? / What the f— did he say? ” forcefully tackles the subject of greed, which resonates further in ‘Land of Endless Greed’ and ‘Dept. of False Hope.’ ‘True North’ gets increasingly personal while orating topics such as the individual’s own conscience in ‘Popular Consensus’ and ‘In Their Hearts is Right,’ the latter of which seems to challenge the religious argument that the moral compass is directed by God rather than natural instinct. Bad Religion’s scientific and secular views are carried further by vocalist Greg Graffin in ‘Crisis Time’ with the lyric, “ Keep yourself in line / There’s no design .” Musically, ‘True North’ bears Bad Religion’s classic stamp, so expect no shock or surprise in the construction of the record. They’ve still got those rich vocal harmonies, guitar leads with plenty of distorted bends and choruses that will get stuck in your head for days. The album will fulfill both casual listeners and those searching for lyrical wisdom while clutching a notebook and magnifying glass, which has been Bad Religion’s M.O. for well over 30 years. ‘True North’ isn’t just another notch on Bad Religion’s bedpost. Much like their 2010 LP, ‘The Dissent of Man,’ their latest album is masterfully directed and offers a wealth of depth along with a spotlit entrance for both longtime fans and curious newcomers.