Music that comes from the heart is a truly beautiful thing. Finding the fine line between being true to yourself and making something that your fans will rock to and a label will support is probably one of the harder things about being a workingmusician. With their debut album Light the Fire Ekotren has stuck that balance right out of the gate. Playing full on balls out Metal with catchy melodies and hooks and lyrics can appeal to most anyone. Where some bands seem to write to leave themselvespoised to jump on whatever the next big thing may be its obvious that Ekotren writes from the heart, and its that from the heart style that has won them legions of fans all over the country and a spot on the road with IllNino. I got a bit of net time with John Sheldon before the guys head back on the road. So sit back and enjoy dear readers.

You tend to pay a lot more attention to melody than most Metal bands. Why do you feel having a good melody is so important to your music?

Melody is music. We believe it’s as important an aspect as anything else we put into our songs.

Over the last few years EkoTren has undergone a few lineup changes. Have those changes made you a stronger band on Light the Fire than on your previous Ep's?

We could not have made the Light the Fire without the current lineup.
Every member has played a crucial role in where we are today. If it wasn’t the five of us, it wouldn’t be the same music it is now.

When you first started the band you had Chin on turntables, but he eventually switched over to keys. Why replace turntable with keyboards?

Steve felt the need to progress musically, feeling he was limited with only turntables.

EkoTren is a interesting name. How did you come by it?

It’s an offshoot reference to an obscure headache medicine; one of the previous drummers came up with it and it ended up sticking.

When it comes to writing songs, do you prefer to take a collaborative approach? Or just let one person handle the writing duties?

Every member writes their own part, 100% collaborative.

You're one of those bands that seems to be on the road constantly, was it difficult to finish Light the Fire with such a hectic touring schedule?

We finished up the album and literally hopped on tour a day later, touring ever since that point. So technically, one never interfered with the other.

This year you're going to be touring with Ill Nino, how has it been touring with them?

The tour hasn’t started yet, but we’re sure it’s going to be an amazing time.
It’ll be our first time meeting them.

All of the songs on Light the Fire are pretty bad ass, but the one that stands out in my mind the most is Chupacarbra. Why write a song about the mythical goat killer?

We didn’t want that song to be too serious, because of the song’s heaviness, but still something with a gnarly premise.

As a band you guys are definitely pretty fuckin brutal, but when you really sit down and really get into songs like Nothing Left, Become and Falling, they are just as heavy emotionally as they are musically. Do you find it difficult to still write things that come from the heart and still embrace the spirit of Metal? Is there ever the pressure to just stick to the formula of the day and just write chaos and destruction?

We write what we think sounds good, and embrace our own bands’ spirit.
Our formula is writing what you’re good at writing.

Is there anything you want to add before we wrap?

Our new album the Fire” comes out in stores Feb.19th.
We’ll be on the Guerrilla Carnival Tour with Ill Nino, Bobaflex and Droid kicking off January 31st at the Agora Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio..go to myspace.com/ekotren for all of the dates and come out to a show near you!

Serial killers, they pre occupy the darkest corners of our minds. They frighten and fascinate us. The knowledge that anyone walking down the street could be one. Watching, waiting, plotting finding new places to hide the bodies. Buying industrial sized bags of lime at the local home depot. The image of the lurking mad man is something that is ingrained into our collective consciousness. Wondering what's going on in those twisted evil minds when they catch another one. So many artists have taken the idea of the lone killer and made it their own. Flooding our thoughts with the ripping and tearing of flesh. Few artists have been able to pull it off better than it-clings Vs Pneumatic Match in their album The All Too Logical Decent into Madness. Its vicious and visceral words making you wonder what the man on the park bench with the lecherous grin is really thinking. Bringing to mind images that are are just as disturbing as anything put on film. Recently I got some net time with it-clings Vs Pneumatic Match. Talking to them about the albums slightly tongue in cheek aspects making it even more delish. So sit back and enjoy dear reader.

From the Mind of it- clings:

When you were writing this album, did you plan to write such dark and scathing observations on society at large or was it just something that just developed?

it-clings: In a way I found this question, the first one, very difficult to answer, and in truth I took way too long to answer these interview questions.

On a basic level, whenever I write anything I don't look to force something into it that I wouldn't feel belonged. I suppose when it comes to music there are many musicians who write great music but don't have anything worthwhile to say and so end up thinking ?We
should put some sort of political message behind our music? To which they forcibly inject a deeper meaning. Usually its very notable, and yet at the same time no one really cares, so they allow themselves to ignore it. However, I'm not a musician, and don't attempt to be one. I just write words, sentences and paragraphs.

The All Too Logical Descent into Madness was actually written to be a concept album, and I think I was wrong in keeping this idea to myself until now. In keeping it to myself I was thinking that people would recognize it and be intrigued with it. However, people are too used to not paying much attention to the content of the music they listen to.

All of the tracks on this album are written as a persons inner monologue. Did you have a particular person or character in mind while writing? Do you find it difficult to write songs in the forms of monologue?

it-clings: What I find sort of amusing is that the original concept of The All Too Logical Descent into Madness was actually to do the unthinkable and to approach the most overused idea in the entire industrial music genre: A concept album based upon the serial killer. It's an idea
that I have personally mocked in others for quite some time. Its so utterly cliché and boring, and yet this is what I decided. I think it was because I was listening to a few albums and I just couldn't believe how tripe the lyrics and the imagery were, and the idea to attempt to counter this with something better intrigued me.

So I matched together some ideas that had been running around in my head with the extreme viewpoint of a psychopath, with the hope of making exaggerated points about things.

on the entire album you manage to keep the vocals pretty intense how did you manage to keep up the intensity level to your voice throughout the album?

it-clings: Simple: Record the lyrics days and weeks apart.

Did your work with Pneumatic Detach on composing the music for the album?

it-clings: Pneumatic Detach was entirely responsible for the music.

How did you come to the idea of using spoons as a torture device? I would have thought the unholy spork would have been more effective in inspiring fear.

it-clings: I've always thought that knives and sharp things are too easy and too simple. The spoon is an infinitely more terrifying item because it really takes effort (both physically and mentally) to be used.

In recent years a lot of Industrial music has made a transition into something that almost strictly for the dance floor, what do you think about the dance trends sweeping the scene now?

it-clings: People want their music heard so it seems natural for them to play music that is easier for people to listen to.

Is it-clings -vs- Pneumatic Detach going to be a one time collaboration or are there plans to work together again in the future?

it-clings: I have already worked with Pneumatic Detach on his previous album Vis.cer.a and there are plans for a new track to appear on his next album, but as for a whole album collaboration with him, at this point in time, I don't think that will happen.

I let someone listen to the album and they said you're lyrics were disturbing, actually they said you sound like a serial killer that hasn't been caught yet lol, how do respond to people who are disturbed by your writing?

it-clings: Well apparently that person was very perceptive.

the combination of the words and music on this album create such powerful images in the minds eye, I cant help but wonder if there are going to be any videos or anything shot for the album?

it-clings: Apparently there are some plans. There is a live video of How Terrible it all is on You Tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBFqlt3uRYw


From the Mind of Pneumatic Detach

How did you come to work with it-clings on this project?

Pneumatic Detach: It-clings had joined in on a few tracks for bands here and there and had been working on a concept for a full-length album. I believe the original idea was to find several artists to take the spoken word pieces and create music to go with the words. Because we had worked on other tracks before, it-clings was talking to me through email about the idea, as he wanted me to be one of the contributors. He sent me a few audio examples to see what I thought of the concept he was working on. Having worked on a track for the Revelation compilation, I felt that having many artists contribute to this would create too varied of a style in the tracks, and that it may not have the full effect that I thought it needed. I had always wanted
to do a soundtrack for a movie or video game and this was my opportunity do just that. So I suggested that for this release I do the audio for the entire CD. Instead of taking the track like a remix and sampling the voice to go with the music, I wanted the words to be
the focal point of the CD. Basically It-Clings is the star of the show here, and I wanted to create the best audio support for the words that I possibly could. So I suggested the idea and he accepted. The writing of the CD, both the words and the audio, went very fast back and forth which was great because it helped the tracks to flow right out naturally.

All of the music on the album is a perfect match for each of the songs, did you compose each track specific to the lyrics? or did you already have something in mind before seeing the lyrics?

Pneumatic Detach: I went into this without any ideas as to what the audio would sound like. To me this wasn't a Pneumatic Detach album so all that went right out the door when I sat down to work on this project. Basically Squid sent me the recordings of the vocals, most of
them several-minute pieces in 1 take, which was impressive considering his going into a drunken state to produce the works. I think that made them feel natural and not contrived. From there I would basically loop the vocals and sit back and see what kind of vibe the words were giving off; most of the time his words would have a pattern to them. I would tap along until I figured out the rough tempo of his piece and then setup my app to that tempo and start creating rhythms and sounds to support the feeling the words were disseminating .

Was the entire album created electronically or did you try to work in some organic instruments?

Pneumatic Detach: Because I wanted to look at this like a soundtrack I wanted to make as many custom sounds as possible. A lot of times the rhythms would be set up with the words and I wanted to get more of a direct connection to the words, so I wrote down a few ideas of what I
needed then put together some field recordings. For example a lot of the background voices were recorded by me walking around with a small tape recorder with a condenser mic while we were out talking to various people. The effect in the track "Maybe These Wounds Won't Heal
Anymore" when Squid is digging at his arm and tears out the bone was created by breaking pasta under a condenser microphone to give that cracking feeling.

You also did work on the photos and design of the album, how did you come up the photos used for the album art?

Pneumatic Detach: Basically the concept for the art was Squids idea to go along with the words. Squid sent me the cover pictures he wanted to use and I created other textures for the inserts and compiled the layout. The printed version came out way darker than expected so a lot of the inside work was hidden.


I asked the same question to it-clings, but how do you feel about a lot of Industrial music being more centered to the dance floor these days?

Pneumatic Detach: Well it's like most things, people look at what's the trendy "formula" and go with that because they want to be liked. I mean, no one wants to do something different, uncool or against the grain, people want to sell Cd's and be liked by everyone right?. I
guess most people want to go out and dance around so, I guess, that's what is the easiest to sell to people. Most people don't want to have to think about anything, they have to think about work and bullshit all day long and just want to get wasted and blur the whole thing so I
guess it makes sense to me as much as it's polluting the system with cookie cutter acts. In that regard I've sort of lost interest in a lot music that's coming out of this genre these days.


Of all of the songs on this album which was the most fun to work on?

Pneumatic Detach: I would have to say the last 4 or 5 ( fact check titles) tracks on the CD were the most fun to write, that's more when things got really dark and fucked up so I more so got into the vibe that was going on there more than previous tracks.

How do you react to people who may find this album un-nerving and disturbing?

Pneumatic Detach: I laugh. I mean going back to the soundtrack scenario look at how many people go to see horror movies. For example let say "Saw", the content of the movie is pretty fucked up and I don't think anyone wants to live in that movie but they still pay to
watch it. This album is along the same lines. I find it funny when people find it disturbing, as if it's an unexpected bad seed in their flow of perfectly predictable electronic music. That right there is exactly why we did this fucking album. To be honest the most fucked up ICvsPD track ever written (sonically my favorite) will be released on the next PD album in 2008, I expect us to get some flack for that: "How could anyone say those things, I'm appalled - thats offensive."


The combination of the words and music on this album create such powerful images in the minds eye, I cant help but wonder if there are going to be any videos or anything shot for the album?

Pneumatic Detach: Actually we have been approached by an Amazing director from Italy (http://www.pacciani.com) to do videos for this release but I can't comment right now one way or another if there will be a physical release. Alessandro will be doing an audio remix on the
next full length PD release in 2008 if nothing else occurs.