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

EMPIRE STATE HUMAN

  Very much alive and kicking, Empire State Human is a band of unique flavor and musical influence. After many years in the scene, Electrogarden is very happy to bring the world up to date on what has been happening in the last few years and highlight what the future holds in store for this terrific outfit from Ireland.

EN: Where do you see male fronted electronic bands going? These days it's all girl singers is electro?       

Aidan: I think that commercially, the image and sound of a girl singer makes alot of sense and has probably got more of a chance to break the charts and appeal to a wider audience. Although, I do feel there has been a tiny shift back to male fronted electro recently, especially with the likes of Sam Sparro and his "Black And Gold" song. It was mentioned to me before that there could be an element of homophobia from the public too, in that when they hear a male voice over an electro-pop song it's assumed he's gay. It's all debatable of course. We love Robyn's "Whos That Girl" song, so once the quality is there we don't mind what sex the singer is. It's natural to want what's best for yourselves but healthier to accept what's wanted also.

EN: ESH formed in 1999. Your break into the synth scene was in 2002 with the release of "Pop Robot". 2008 sees you announce work on a new album called "Audio Gothic". What differences can we expect?       

Aidan: We always try to make each new ESH album better than the last one. To improve the song writing or the production or both if possible from album to album. That rule in our opinion, has been kept since 2002's "Pop Robot". For "Audio Gothic" in 2008, we decided to write loads of songs and really quality control the album and makes sure each songs was worthy of inclusion and that each production was as excellent as we could make it. Time will tell whether we achieve that goal. Some of the news songs that people have heard are "Ghosts In America, "Camera, "Audio Gothic", "Melancholic Afro" and "Seeing Stars" and the responce has been quite positive. We've also re-recorded "I Work For The Government" and "Leap Of Faith" and we're very excited at the results ourselves.

EN: Aidan is one of the scene's great singers. It seems that the ability to hear great singers in the scene is reduced. How do you feel about this?       

Aidan: Thank you for the kind comments on my singing. I do try to make every effort when recording, and singing in a studio particularly, as it's one of my favourite things to do. There are many great singers out there, once you're willing to look for them. The scene though seems to favour singers that sound like Dave Gahan but I tend to listen to singers such as Scott Walker, Johnnie Ray, Billy Mackenzie, Elvis, Dusty Springfield, Timi Yuro, Tony Bennett as examples of how to sing. I myself get inspired by singers of that quality.

EN: You recently worked with Wolfgang Flur from Kraftwerk fame. How did this occur and are there any more guest surprises in store on the next ESH album?       

Aidan: Sean from ESH, was asked to record Wolfgang's recent DJ set here in Dublin and on the night did a really great job and got on really well with 'Wolf'. Dave Ball (Soft Cell) and Anni Hogan (Marc and the Mambas) were also on the same bill and it was a great opportunity to mix in these circles. Some of the video work Sean did for Wolf and Anni is currently up on You Tube. We'd encourage everyone to check it out. We are hoping that anni Hogan will play on a track for the next album. Also, we may work be working with the female singer of an Irish band called Alphastates. Keep an eye on http://www.myspace.com/empirestatehuman for all things ESH.

EN: We'd love ESH to get a European record deal. Do you think this will happen anytime soon?       

Aidan: This is something we'd really love to correct and to obtain an EU deal for the next ESH album. All I can confirm, is that we're going to make every effort to secure a deal for "Audio Gothic" here in Europe. It's just turning out to be very difficult for bands to get the right deal these days. I refuse to think it's because we're not good enough, it's just we've not had that real break through yet. We'll stay focussed and we'll stay positive.

EN: What inspires your songs? They sound so different and diverse and the themes and lyrics are always intriguing.       

Aidan: On the first few ESH albums we were very interested in concept album approaches. For the last album "Cycles" and next one "Audio Gothic", we're much more interested in keeping the attention and inspiration to each song, instead of an album concept. In 1999 we deliberatly tried to write about all things sci-fi or futuristic and were heavily influenced by film. We do still love film but I think we're now looking for other themes, that appeal to a wider audience and also maintain the essence of what ESH is all about to us. It's a balance that does require effort and patience though. But we're willing to give it that.

EN: You've gone through some line-up changes on the last few CDs. How does this affect the band itself and how you work?       

Aidan: ESH part one were made up of - Aidan Casserly, Lar Kiernan and Brian O' Malley. ESH part two were - Aidan Casserly, Lar Kiernan, Sean Barron and Warren Kiernan. ESH part three are now - Aidan Casserly, Sean Barron, Lar Kiernan and Lyndy Lou. This is just something that happens to us, and line up changes seem to be part of every new stage and album we go through. None of it is intentional, but more to do with the circle we're involved in and those we meet and life changing matters. Brian O'Malley went to concentrate on a now very successful directing career. Warren Kiernan came in for the last album "Cycles" and returned to DJing under his Warren K monicker. Lyndy Lou has recently joined us and she is the latest member to fit into our little band. It affects us in the same way it would any other band. You have to get to know someone new and then to involve them in all things musical from that point onwards. We're all still friends with Brian and Warren and that will never change.

EN: You had a #1 dance hit on iTunes dance charts in 2003 with "Theme To Halloween". What did this feel like?       

Aidan: It felt really great at the time! It seemed that we were achieving something at long last, seeing ESH rise up the charts week by week. Even John Carpenter's publishers contacted us to say well done. "Alpha & Oemga" was the album that "Theme To Halloween" featured on, and with it hitting #1 it boosted the sales and cleared the money owed on that release. It really put us into the black so to speak. Nowadays, it doesn't have any lasting affect on us other than it's something we're proud of talking about. Some people in the synthpop scene and forums said it was a novelty thing and that it wasn't that special at all and only happened because people were looking to download the music because it was Halloween. All of that could have been true, but yet again the synthpop scene shot itself in the foot by dissing us and that achievement of getting a #1 on the iTunes dance charts. It's a real pity that there's so much back stabbing and undermining in synthpop. No wonder it's a dying scene and sound.

EN: Any more plans to executive produce more tribute albums? I really loved the one you did for Dead or Alive.       

Aidan: No there's no more plans for tribute albums. Believe it or not, it's a lot of hard work and it involves lots of emails and listening to some really terrible versions of songs you love, before the magical mixes arrive in through your inbox. I'd say over all we achieved a quality collection of covers for "Rocket: a tribute to Dead or Alive" and thankfully the DOA fans mostly loved it, as did the reviewers. But it's not something we'd undertake again any time soon really.

EN: Your original score for the film "Screwback" was an impressive film debut. Any chance this will get released on CD? Any Plans to do more film or advert composition?       

Aidan: There aren't any plans for our original soundtrack to make it onto CD I'm afraid. It's not always possible for every thing a band like us does to end up on CD or even released. We have been lucky in that we've about 130 tracks already on iTunes and that's something we're really proud of. "Screwback" was probably the hardest and most condensed music recording we've ever had to do. The results are excellent and there's plenty of character to the pieces we did and the movie is better because it our work in it. We can hold our heads up high, knowing we far achieved the objective with that project. Whether we get any further offers remains to be seen. We did complete music to a Sony PlayStation 2 advert, but since that, we've solely focussed on our own songs and albums instead. We got a fewe remix offers from it though and they were fun, although we don't remix other artists anymore and don't want remixes done of ours by other bands.