ELECTROGARDEN FEATURES

CURRENT FEATURED ARTIST
THE NINE | BNI | ESH | ESH-2008 | GANYMEDE | ABOD
MESH | RECOIL | ULTRAVOX | CAMOUFLAGE | RED FLAG | GARY NUMAN
DE/VISION | CAUSE AND EFFECT | IRIS | BERLIN | VENUS HUM

FEATURED ARTIST

MESH

        Mesh is one of those rare projects that keeps the torch lit for the electronic underground.  Their well-deserved success, currently and with more to come is the result of many years devoted to touring and refining their songs and sounds into some highly acclaimed musical pieces that have become keynote material in many clubs and personal CD collections.  Listening to Mesh invokes images, touches feelings, and their melodies have a unique quality that lends itself to a "head nodding motion" that lets others know, "Hey, this track rocks!"  We caught Mark, the lead singer and lyricist from Mesh for a brief Q&A that should offer some cool information for even the devout Mesh fans.  

EN: Hello! Lets start at the beginning. How did you guys hook up? Is there a story behind the well-known version?
Mark - We met up by chance really. I worked in a factory for a few years, and there was a canteen where I used to get breakfast. There was a poster up on the wall one day advertising a gig in Bristol later that week - the artwork just looked like it might be synth music so I went along. Turned out to be Rich in a two piece band, him on keyboards and a singer. He had all this kit on stage and was running a BBC UMI system live, which was what Vince Clarke was using at the time (and still is I think!). It was the cover of Depeche Mode's first B side "Ice Machine" that did it for me - I thought I was the only person in Bristol that knew this stuff. We got talking afterwards, and I invited him along to a gig that we were doing in the same venue a week or so later. I was programming and playing keyboards in another band, not the frontman - I had a singer at the time, but for some reason at that gig I did one track as lead vocalist, much against the advice of my stage fright. Rich turned up on the night and we got together, writing a few tracks with me as vocalist - not the musical career path I ever really envisaged but we didn't have anyone else. We pooled our keyboards and Rich had a good mixing desk and a multitrack reel to reel. Neil had also been in the same band with Rich, and before long we kind of had a band together. 

We put a few cassettes out with some of the first recordings on it (many can be found on the Original 91-93 Album) and then released the Fragile E.P on our own label "Tolerance Records" before being signed to Memento Materia.

We were lucky I guess as we have never had any change of lineup since then - we just hit it off straight away. Maybe it was the kind of music we liked that made us feel a little bit more like we were on a crusade or something, pulling us together. Whatever it was, it's got us this far.

EN: What bands were any of you guys in prior to Mesh? Any stories there?
Mark - I was in a couple of bands, one at University called "Jim's Remarkable Trousers" which was appallingly bad but good fun. We did about five or six gigs, most of them with home-made amps and speakers and most resulted in at least one glass being thrown in our direction. There was also a band in Bristol called "The Surface" which was a great time in my life. Rich was in a band called "Technique" and actually released a 7" single - that was pretty cool at the time. Neil was also in Technique for a while, but had left by the time we met up.

EN: Where did the name Mesh come from? How did you arrive at that name? Were there any other names that didn't make it?
Mark - It was just picked out of a book or a dictionary or something. It was short and looked good on artwork. Can't think of any others we rejected - you kind of know when it's right. OK, that was boring - sorry.

EN: What is the Mesh style? Is it Synthpop, EBM, or what, in your opinion? What do you think about all the naming of genres and sub-genres in the scene today?
Mark - I guess it is pop written by people who have grown up loving synth/programmed music. We try to write good songs - that's it really. The electronic side of the music will always be important, and I guess from that point we are synthpop and not EBM. EBM is the dance floor side of the scene and we just don't write tracks for the dance floor, not primarily. Sure, there will always be the club remixes and live remixes for that purpose, but if you write an album the restrictions you place on yourself to make it dance orientated are just too great for us to remain creative and true to ourselves.

Sometimes the genre labels are useful as a way of pulling an audience to you - many are made up by the bands themselves to start with, although as time goes on, the label can become a limiting factor and then it's not so easy to get away from it. The problem is, with this type of music, if you are 'Synthpop' then you are in effect Depeche Mode or Erasure or perhaps Kraftwerk. If you are EBM then you will certainly be compared to DAF or Nitzer Ebb or Front 242 - it's unavoidable. If you are 'Rock', the situation is easier of course as the genre has become so diluted that there are no more Marques against which everyone is compared. The more we go on the road and meet people though, peoples taste for such music seems to be very much broader than you would perhaps think and generally goes right across the electronic 'board' - perhaps just 'electronic' is really sufficient!

EN: Many unknown bands may feel that Mesh is pretty big in the scene and that it is sort of where the top is in the underground. Are you happy with the level of success that the band has achieved? Do you want to break into the more commercial, mainstream boundaries?
Mark - It's taken us a long time to get to this point and although we are very happy with what we've achieved to date, we still would like to take it further. It would be good to reach a state where a lot more people get to hear what we are doing - if they don't buy the records then that's OK, but at least we know the opportunity was there and it was the people that decided. We believe that there are more people that would like what we are doing (and many other bands in this scene for that matter) but simply do not know that these things are going on. The internet has certainly helped, but it's still a long and frustrating process. 

We do need the mainstream publicity certainly. I think there is really no option if you want to make a living from selling records - that has really been brought home to us this year. I don't know if there ever can be a truly successful 'underground' band - you either sell a lot of records or you don't. You can be a well known name in a scene, but if you dig a little deeper, the people in that band might be only just making a living, or have to gig relentlessly to make it pay. We have done our share of that, and we feel we have to move on. Mainstream success doesn't have to be at the sacrifice of your music or your integrity as an artist, although many people see it that way, especially in the media.

EN: Day jobs? If so, what are they?
Mark - 100% Mesh - at the moment at least. We gave up our jobs in January 2001. I was a Unix consultant, Neil was an internet designer for the Government and Rich was an Electrician.

EN: Who's who in the band? Who does what? Tell us something about how the Mesh sound comes together.
Mark - We are quite flexible in our roles within the band. We can all play and program keyboards - that includes using the various sequencers and software packages that have become part of the studio setup. That means we can always work on something, regardless of whether we are all together or not. Rich and I can play a bit of guitar, enough to get what we want onto hard disk/sampler. We all have small studio setups at home as well as our separate 'Urban Studios'. I am the singer on all of the studio work, although Rich and Neil sing backing vocals live. Neil has done all of the artwork and photographs for all Mesh releases to date (apart from the Fragile E.P), including the new album. He is also in the middle of editing video material for stage projection on the new tour in 2002.

We mostly tend to write from a musical base. We write a basic outline for the track and I take it away and put vocals on it at home. It's then a question of fine tuning the vocals and the music until we are happy with the feel and the direction. I've got a couple of these Olympus voice recorders that I always use to piece the words together. The good thing about the technology at the moment is that everything is so portable - you can take Midi and audio from one small studio, combine it with vocals from another and mix it all somewhere else. We then all work on the detailed programming to get the track into a finished state. 
Sometimes the idea's can come from rough piano or guitar tracks, and more rarely a lyrical phrase can trigger the writing of a complete track. Writing music to existing lyrics doesn't really happen for us, mainly because I never sit down and write for the sake of it, and also because the mood of the rough tracks tends to inspire the words - to draw them out.

EN: What are some of the key pieces in your recording/synths rig?
Mark - We use a PC running Cubase VST as the sequencer and hard disk recorder at the moment. It's OK although a little unreliable. Previously we used an Atari ST with Notator and a Fostex D90 to do the same job. We also have a Fostex D2424 hard disk recorder that we use for archiving multitasks of the songs. The studio has a Mackie 24:8:2 desk for mixing. 

Synth wise we have a lot of stuff, old and new. The Access Virus, Nord Lead and Novation Supernova are favorites at the moment, although we try not to use them too much as they are being a little overused in the electronic and dance scenes generally (though this because they are good!!). The TR-Rack is also pretty cool - a scaled down version of the Korg Trinity. We have a lot of older stuff too like the Roland SH101,SH2,Jupiter 6 and Juno 106, as well as a couple of Sequential Pro One's. Waldorf boxes are nice too - we have a Pulse and a Microwave. We still like to work with samplers despite the ease of use of software to do the same job - we have three Emax II's and two (fully upgraded) Esi32's which all have nice filters (more so the Emax's). There are some workhorse synths like the Roland 1080 AND W30 - good for writing mainly, but also when you need 'normal' sounds like strings and stuff. I guess we've been lucky to have access to so much gear, but then we've always kind of pooled our keyboards from our home setup's - it helps us to try to use different sound sources if possible - stops us from getting into too much of a rut. We used a couple of software synths on the new album, but again it's tempting to overuse them - they are only as interesting as the soundcard you are playing them through, although they can be rendered off and transferred to a sampler.

For the new album we also used Pro-Tools on the Mac - it was kind of essential so that we could take the material to Hamburg to mix. Pro-Tools is fantastic, but we can't really afford to buy it at the moment - maybe next year!

EN: What were some of the more memorable live shows for you? What made them memorable?
Mark - Difficult one. I guess the times we played at the Zillo festival and the Mera Luna festival (same venue) were pretty nice for us, mainly because of the thousands of people that were at the gig and I think we did some good shows. Our tours with Beborn Beton in Germany and De/Vision were the best fun we've had certainly - some great memories. I guess some of the early gigs we did in Bristol were turning points for us - getting the music into the open and out of the bedroom studio (at the time) - they will always be memorable.

EN: Do you see a difference in the fans from America versus those in Europe? Which one do you think is more susceptible to accepting your music if a major label were to step in and take Mesh to the next level?
Mark - Fans in Europe and America are similar, although because of the language problem (ie we can't speak any other language other than English!) it is sometimes easier to get some kind of communication going with a US audience. That isn't really a great issue for us though. The variations in audiences tend to be more about the city or club you are in rather than the country - you get warmer and cooler audiences, atmospheric clubs and dead clubs - that's just the way it seems to be. 

At the moment, Europe, and in particularly Germany seems to be our biggest market, although that is probably more down to promotion than interest from fans. We have now got a major label deal as of the beginning of 2001(Home/Columbia/Sony), so I guess that kind of reinforces that belief. 

EN: I think there is a new album in the works. What can you tell us about it? When will we see it?
Mark - We have now finished the new album pretty much completely - as I write this, Neil is tidying up the few remaining bits of artwork. 

The album itself was recorded in our own studio in Bristol over about ten months and mixed in Hamburg in Germany (apart from one track which was mixed at The Channel House studio in Bristol). We took Pro-Tools discs to Home Studios in Hamburg and mixed (often 110+ tracks!) over 4 weeks on their 9080J series SSL desk - an eye opening experience indeed. 

The album consists of twelve new tracks and some additional 'bits'. We feel the songs are a lot stronger on this album than ever before - perhaps a consequence of the time we've had to work on it and the experiences we've had over this last year. The production and mix are also the best that we feel we've managed to date. 

This was the first time we have used someone outside the band to mix our material, and this has proved to be a very good move in the form of Peter 'BlackPete' Schmidt. This will also be the first release on Home Records, our new German label and will be distributed and promoted by Columbia/Sony. The first single will be in March 2002 and the album will be released in April 2002. 

EN: I know the vocals are live, but when we see Mesh live, what are we hearing? What's your live show like - what's played and what's tapes/sequencer, etc.? Do you rehearse a lot for shows?
Mark - Certainly all vocals are live, and we try to play as much as the logistics of the tour will allow us. We have done shows in the past where most is sequenced (using the EMAX rack internal sequencer), and some is played live. We use another EMAX II, a couple of roland modules and some "bullet-proof" Yamaha DX keyboards for the live stuff. We also use MD or DAT in some shows with live keyboard feeds. It's really down to the situation and the cost of setting up and transporting gear. Sometimes in the past there has really been no budget for anything else. 

The tour we have planned for 2002 will be as live as we can make it - it is really the only way to inject a spark into the performance, even if there is a chance of it all going wrong (which it inevitably will!!). Of course there will be a lot of rehearsal for the new shows, and we have a venue in Germany booked for several nights to try to get the whole thing right...... 

EN: The lyrical content of the songs is often aggressive, painting a dark picture. Does that negative feeling reflect the way that the entire band feels about our world or is it just the lyricist's view?
Mark - The content of the lyrics can be dark, but there is also a kind of optimism to them that seems to resonate with many of the people that buy our records. I don't ever set out to be negative - that would be too destructive. We get so many letters from fans saying that the music has helped them through many bad times, so I think there has to be something there that does more than simply paint a bleak picture of the world. I try to be as honest as I can with what I write - sometimes more honest than I allow myself to be in my own life - it's a way of exorcising things that happen in my life I guess - maybe that's what it does for other people. I hope that is the case at least. 

EN: Who are your favorite artists outside of the scene? Rock bands?
Mark - We all have different ones I guess. Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Tori Amos, Madonna, Manic Street Preachers, Blink 182, Garbage, Everclear, Wu Tang Clan, Missy Elliot, PJ Harvey.

EN: Does the band have a favorite Mesh song?
Mark - I don't think so. We like doing things like "Trust You" and "Not Prepared" live. Some of the tracks on the new album are favorites I guess.

EN: Thanks for the chat. Cheers!