Feature: The Legendary Pink Dots
As promised we are beginning to preview some of the material from the upcoming Drop Dead Magazine Issue 5. Bellow is part of the interview with excellent The Legendary Pink Dots. To get more photos and the complete interview please refer to the Issue 5 out soon.
The Legendary Pink Dots
Interview by Atrocious Lyre
Photography by Bill Ellison
Drop Dead Magazine - You’ve just released your twenty fist album, Plutonium Blonde. What struck me about it was that since you seem to be a poetic band it’s interesting that the in-sleeve doesn’t have all of the songs listed nor are the lyrics of all the songs printed. Is there a mysterious reason for that?
Edward - I would have personally quite liked to have all the lyrics there. The label didn’t have the kind of budget to make the booklet we would liked to have seen. That happens quite often. I just chose the most significant lyrics. I’m a bit sad that Torchsong wasn’t there, but that’s sometimes how it goes really.
Drop Dead Magazine - Does everyone in the band live in Amsterdam or The Netherlands?
Phil - We all live in The Netherlands. Actually it’s around a town called Nijmegen that most people live, and Edward lives further south in Holland.
Drop Dead Magazine - Do you have a Pink Dots studio that you all share?
Phil - We have multiple studios. We all have a studio in our own houses, and we put our works together in a variety of those studios. Recording comes from working in a combination of them.
Drop Dead Magazine - It sounds like you’ve reached a sweet spot with your music. Does that resonate with you?
Phil - Well, there is a great cohesion between the members at the moment. Edward and I have been at the top of our song writing skills at the moment. Work has been great. Everyone’s input has been excellent in this record.
Drop Dead Magazine - Does Raymond record The Dots as well as do the mixing and live sound, or is he doing the post production and the sound exclusively?
Phil - Obviously he’s our live engineer, he’s the recording engineer at times and most of the post production and mixing.
Edward - Together…
Phil - Together with actually Edward and I mainly.
Drop Dead Magazine - How did the two of you first meet?
Edward - It was actually a ways back in the end of the seventies. Through a mutual friend of ours, Tony Stringer. I was going to college with him and we shared very similar tastes in music. In particular Van der Graaf Generator. Phil was his friend and he introduced the two of us together. There was this passion basically for the same music really. Sort of like pulled us together, and you know, were the foundations of a friendship which you see endures right through all of these years.
Phil - I used to drive over to his house once in awhile. We’d both play our new records and new music we’d found to each other. Edward’s mother would make us endless cups of tea. We were very young then but it started a passion in music that has lasted all our lives really till now yeah.
Drop Dead Magazine - Is My First Zonee about a cell phone?
Edward - Yep.
Drop Dead Magazine - Have you ever gotten scabby hands from cell phone use?
Edward- I watch which cell phones I touch.
Drop Dead Magazine - Most keyboard bands are anti guitar and LPD seems to be anti drums on the whole.
Edward - That’s not true. You know I think drums can add a really great side to music. I’m not anti any instrument actually. I think all sounds are equal. It’s just the band that we are, and we chose the line up that really works for us. But it certainly doesn’t exclude drums. I mean for a long time we worked with Ryan who is a really fine drummer, and we miss him without a doubt. But you know when he wanted to go his own way…you could replace a drummer but you could not replace Ryan and that’s why we decided on the course after he left that we have done. But we can’t be anti drums. If you’re interested in music you shouldn’t be anti bagpipes, you shouldn’t be anti guitar or anything.
Phil - Drums are rhythm and it’s always in our music. Sometimes from computerized drums, hand drums or naturally in the music rather than from any specific drum sound. But it’s all rhythm and it’s always in music.
Drop Dead Magazine - Do you have an agreement as to the percentage each musician contributes creatively?
LPD Photo by Tom Surber
For the answer and a lot more please check out Drop Dead Magazine Issue 5 coming in Spring 2009
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