They Scare Me

Submachine



Co-Written With Dylan Ellis

Before and After. They scare me. And if it be fear what draws me to their resonance then I say “HELL YES”. Crazy crowd before/after shock tactics. The percussionist put the voodoo back with the voodoo wielding skeleton shaman, when once asking this Percussionist what was it was like going into the audience and playing amongst the “pogo’ing” madness of what the band summon from the audience whilst playing, some other intruder answered on his behalf and replied with “it’s like being reborn” but the percussionist look wasn’t one of reincarnation It was more of an Adrenaline high initiation. Now tell me who’s got the voodoo.

What is this music, who ‘are’ these people why do they scare me. Oh sweet oblivion, they keep on coming like they are the soundtrack to the four horses of the apocalypse and a ‘set of pins’ to make the musical hoodoo that scars the mental sad sacks out there. “So where the Fuck are the stage crew” are the likeliest chants you will here at intervals in-between the heavy bass’d songs that are thee fastidious given from Mr Evil D and the oh so righteous percussion of Storm’s Skull dolly ensemble that accompanies Pat Riot’s sweet-sweet tappity tap don’t go back dexterity on the drums. Huey voodoo gruff-voice-man interaction with the audience man, Mr Flee jamming with what should be a banjoree-man. These two sure know how to arouse spectators using their “orator skills”, along with all their other-worldly guitar rhythms. Thus one can say steadfastly have Submachine gathered a following waitin’ and a wantin’ – yes I do admit I am one those.

So these guys have painted faces and dolls on stage while they play, yes dolls in living form and plastic. Enter the realm of “blue’s en vogue”. Are they invoking the performance art realm while ritualistically kicking it up and having a good time and nailing it six-love as they habitually cause pandemonium PsYkOVoOdOoBlAcKnOiSe style. They scare and scar me, the substance be the music, the eye may cut my thoughts but this is Submachine, one thought provoking “hell-of-a-good-time” cluster of musicians doing the voodoo.

So we got to shoot these real live wires for their fifth birthday and an amorous amount of voodoo sneaks out. We had cake and delight and a whole lot of disordered discordance which I do believe is prevalent in their music as well as in their core performance on and off stage. When listening to their recording this discordance of whatever genre they may be can be heard so here’s to submachine happy five years and may you guy’s helter skelter for ever more!
So now you know why they scare me,


~Gen Twoco







The Making of the Album :


While in Production Stages of their recording we spoke to their Producer Dylan Ellis who had this to say about “the whole get go” of how the recording went down:
When the guys first got in contact with me I was already neck deep in a lot of work and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to take on the project. I had seen them live a few times and I knew they were a band that I really would enjoy working with, so we had to make some tight plans to make all this magic happen. Huey Voodoo had already recorded a few tracks in his studio so we only had 6 new ones to lay down.

If you have seen SUBMACHINE live you know they are an explosion of raw, beautiful chaos, a band that tears the stage apart completely in a psychedelic fit of musical glory. It would be a challenge for anyone to take this amount of primal energy and do it justice on a recording. Let alone to do it in just four days.

It was obvious to all of us that recording it live in studio would be the best way to start capturing all this insanity on a recording, and then overdub vocals and any other production layers thereafter.

Day one: Set up, sound check Rock out!:

I knew that to get the best out of them as a band we had to make sure that everyone could see and hear each other clearly, which would be a challenge as each sound had to be separated to ensure an easy mixdown, so we started off by setting up specific environments for each element of the music. We put up partitions in the live room separating the drums from the percussion and the guitars, The sound of the bass was so huge we had to set Evil D in the control room with me, we were running 26 mics so they all had to be placed perfectly to avoid bleed or phasing issues. Once this was all set up I had to make sure that the drums and percussion were in tune with each, other which took roughly two and half hours to do before we even got levels, so time was going quickly, the heat was definitely on.

When we were finally good to go the tracking was pretty much easy going from there, the band was well rehearsed so it was just a matter of getting the rite vibe and feel in the performances. We occasional had to re-tune some toms and we took regular breaks to keep well hydrated and stamina up, We worked long and hard and. It was exceptionally tiring work, on a pretty hot day so by the end of it the guys were knackered... and because most of them play in more than one band they all had a gig to go to straight after. An early night was not in the cards for anyone.

Day two: more awesomeness and picking the best bits.

Day two ran quite smoothly. We laid down some fresh takes of each song and it was clear that we had a lot of good takes to choose from, so we all sat and went through everything we had so far and picked out the best bits

We then did a few extra layer of guitar to beef things up a bit and by 6 o’ clock we had everything we needed and called it a night.

Day 3 (split into two evenings) Guitar, Percussion and vocal.

We started the overdubbing process with every percussion toy you can imagine, if it shaked, rattled, hummed, rolled, cracked or pinged we used it. Storm, Pat Riot and Huey Voodoo brought the magic to the table until Storm’s hands were blue from the royal beating he inflicted on the tambourine.

We had some amazing moments of inspiration and brilliant performances a very good evening indeed.

The Following evening Mr Huey Voodoo was up first to put down his distinct flavour a couple of hours and good takes until we stopped so not to burn out his voice, and Evil D and Mr Flee took over with the backing vocals and chaotic rants.

Day 4 (Split into two evenings) more vocal, last bits of chaos.

We continued with Huey Voodoo’s vocals until everything was down and rocking, and did some reggae freestyles with Evil D, another good night of recording, and at the end Huey and Evil D enjoyed a good cold beer for work well done.

The last little bits that were left were capturing some of Mr Flee’s guitar scrapes and some of Storms signature tom throws. In a no time at all everything was down and we were all pretty chuffed that we got all the Voodoo awesomeness down onto a recording, all that was left was for me to move to a new country and start the mixing process.

~Dylan Ellis



Original Feature For Vixxen Magazine 2010 June.

Photography by Abel Scholtz.