Darkening sounds
Band of Pain
m[m]How did Band Of Pain come about as a project?
Steve I was a member of the rock band Splintered and I felt the need for a different outlet for ideas that were not suited to the band, so I started my own thing.
m[m]What scares you?
Steve Friends re-united.
m[m]What stands out as some of your favourite horror
films?
Steve “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Thing”, “Halloween”, for good old fashioned horror fun. For realism, “A Short Film About Killing” and “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”, and for sheer repulsive value “Salo”. Although, I wouldn’t really say that sitting through either of the last three is necessarily enjoyable, and nor is “Salo” a horror film, horrorBLE film possibly…,.
m[m]What are some of your favourite soundtracks?
Steve Again, Carpenter’s stuff (Halloween etc), Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell’s incredible “industrial” sounds they made for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (unfortunately, it’ll never be released as a soundtrack, as the original tapes don’t exist any longer; it was a good few years ahead of its time though …) Away from horror, I look to films that might use music that I’d never normally listen to, but is perfect for the movie. “Withnail & I” springs to mind…”American Beauty”…”Pink Flamingos”…
m[m]Any recent horror movies you've enjoyed?
Steve Hmmmm… I’m sorry to say, but I’m a bit of a sentimental old fool on this subject and I’m often heard whining drivel like “they don’t make ‘em like they used to anymore”. Didn’t mind “Saw”, but that’s not recent anymore is it?
m[m]How did you come about writing the soundtrack for Sacred Flesh?
Steve I was commissioned to do it after Justin of Cold Spring was contacted by Nigel Wingrove. He sent (I think) “Reculver” to Wingrove and he dug it, so asked if I’d be up for doing the soundtrack to his flick.
m[m]Have you had any more offers of soundtrack work? And if you could what film would you have liked to have scored?
Steve One or two, but for one reason or the other, it didn’t happen. I did get a phone call from Universal Studios in Hollywood asking if they could use my stuff for the trailer to ”Red Dragon”, but I think they just used music from the film in the end. To answer the second part of the question: “Eyes Wide Shut” because the soundtrack was shit.
m[m]How do you record stuff? Is done at home or in the studio- what's your set up?
Steve I have a small studio at home, using a 16 track Mackie desk, an Alesis ADAT recorder and a whole array of rack mounted stuff… 
m[m]Has what you use to record and make sound changed
over the years?
Steve Yes, but I do find that I always go back to my old favourite bits of kit. I could probably manage with much less, but I love gadgets!
m[m]You seem to pick your samples very mindfully of building creepy atmopshre with out sounding cheesy. Do you have a large library of samples, or will you hear something and then see how it can fit into a
track?
Steve Usually I build a piece of music round the found sounds rather than the other way round. That’s why they sound like they should be there. Wherever we go, I’m always poking a DAT mic around to get sounds, (pisses my wife off no end) so over the years, I’ve built up a decent library of my own field recordings.
m[m] How did you come about meeting and working with Merzbow?
Steve I was a fan of Merzbow, and I believe the first contact came as a result of Dirter, my label, and Cold Spring joint issuing the “Elektronots” picture disc in 1995. After that I approached Masami about this idea I’d had for a 3 sided 10” release, which he liked the sound of and this became “Pinkream”. I them sent him a copy of the first “Slugbait” CD, which was a UK noise band that I had formed with Richo from Splintered. He seemed to like it, so the next obvious step was a Slugbait/Merzbow collaboration. We’ve worked on and off together ever since in various ways.
m[m]Talking about collaborations, is there anyone else you like to collaborate with?
Steve Loads of people – too many to list really. For the near future though, I’m really hoping that me and Stephen Meixner can get the wheels of our Intravene project back on, and get the second album finished.
m[m]What are you top ten albums?
Steve I can’t possibly answer that. I will say though (if I must) that at this time I am mostly obsessed with The Rolling Stones circa 1972 (only that period), and my favourite group is The Gerogerigegege. That will have all changed by the time you put this up on the site though.
m[m]Where do the eerier images of Oil wells on the front of Reculver come from?
Steve They are second world war defence forts just off the coast of Kent near my home.
m[m]The track title Dr. Tumblety has flown (track from Reculver album) relates to Jack the Ripper case? Are you interested in this and true crime generally? Tell us what the address 3445 South la Brea Avenue (track
from Reculver) relates to?
Steve I’m as bored/interested in the Jack The Ripper case as the next man. I just liked that headline and thought it was a good track title. I do have a morbid and juvenile interest in true crime, it’s fair to say.
“3445 South la Brea Avenue” is an address that appears, or is mentioned, on the insert of the magnificent first Faust LP. It’s one of many nods towards that band that I’m guilty of.
m[m]What happened in November 1970 (track from Que Amiga)?
Steve That was when they found “Genie” (or “the wild child”). This has to be one of the most moving and fascinating cases of the last 100 or so years. A friend of mine recommended I read the book about it (“Genie – A Scientific Tragedy” by Russ Rymer). It very quickly became something of an obsession, so I thought I’d do a track for Genie. It upsets my daughter when she hears it, so I guess I must have got it a bit right. It’s one of my personal favourite Band Of Pain tracks actually; I don’t think I’d change a thing about it. 
m[m]Have you ever considered playing live? Would it be possible? And what kind of stage show would you put on?
Steve This is something I’m asked about a lot. In fact, Magnus from Fin De Siécle Media, who has just released the Through The Past Darkly collection has offered me live shows in Scandinavia. I’d love to do it, but only if I could come up with something worth seeing. To me, there is no point in plugging in a laptop and sitting on a stage pressing buttons, I refuse to do that. I have discussed this many times with my long time friend and collaborator, Stephen Meixner. I was fortunate enough to have seen his old band, Contrastate, at a Theatre in London and I was very impressed with their live show – emphasis on the word “live”. After we spoke at length about the logistics of a live Band Of Pain concert (which I would have enlisted him as part of), it became obvious that a hell of a lot of rehearsal time and preparation would be needed to pull off the kind of thing that I wanted. He lives 70 miles form me, and we both lead very busy lives. So at the moment, it seems that things are against the live idea. Who knows though, it’s not something I’m ruling out.
m[m]What's next? I've see from Cold Spring’s site you’re
working on a new album, when is this due? And can you
give as any hints what to expect?
Steve Next is an LP I’m working on with Merzbow. It’s a split project with Merzbow one side and Band Of Pain the other. It’s going to be a picture disc vinyl only release on my own Dirter label. I’m very excited about it - should be out in October…The new album for Cold Spring is about one quarter done, and is taking far longer than I would have hoped. This is down to a few reasons. The first being my fussiness and the fact that I discard over half of the stuff that I record. Sometimes months after I have finished the piece, I’ll go back to it and decide that it’s bollocks and put it in the bin. The second is the simple fact that there rarely seems to be enough hours in the day to fit everything in. Can’t really tell you too much about what to expect until I’m further down the road with it as a whole. I think it’s safe to say that’s it’s not a calypso record though!
Thanks to Steve for the interview, you can find more about band of pain here. (error : the first picture not the secound is taken photo by Karen Pittis)