Akanoid

Chain D.L.K.: Hi folks! How are you?
Akanoid: Good question! Alive and refreshed by the new defined us.

Chain D.L.K.: Tracks such as “Unbreak Me”, “Climax” and so on seem to suggest(along with the band name, Akanoid) some sort of anti-hero typefigure, a character totally opposed to the classic iconography of therock star, let’s say some sort of modern day damned poet. Is thiscorrect at all?
Akanoid: Kind of the right direction. Although I do intend to leave space forpersonal interpretation on different levels, we also talk aboutcertain aspects of my own character in different periods.Often enough broken, nearly destroyed but also newly born again.I often sing about experiences collected throughout my career withbands, women, companies, friends and stories that passed my way and Ithink the story is not at its end yet.

Chain D.L.K.: Have you finally heard the sound of 100 burning guitars? What doesit sound like?
Akanoid: It is the rock’n’roll guitarist’s ecstasy!And it is the rush to not stop until every note is played with fullexpression and possible tune! Pure fire with a subtle irony, the wishof finally managing to rock?!

Chain D.L.K.: You superbly alternate guitar-based tracks and dance-orientedelectro ones. What might one expect from your live set? My own twocents: Why don’t you astonish your audience by making industrial-rockwith machines and dance oriented tracks with “traditional”instruments?
Akanoid: The never ending conflict on the seemingly impossible and unreachablesymbiosis of merging the handmade with the electronic. I think wealready listened to bands that were not appreciated by the mass fornot serving the categories as expected.We’ve worked on this for very long and not just as Akanoid.Electronics can be every noise being sampled, organic sound can be amicrophoned or amped synth.We keep a mix of analog and digital, working with a band plussequencer and a guitar synth but it looks like an ordinary rock band.After all we are still doing it our way.If some day we’ll have larger budgets for our shows, we might get tosee some more extraordinary performances 😉

Chain D.L.K.: On the subject of live performances, what kind of relationship doyou try to establish while performing?
Akanoid: Since I am (I apologize for talking about myself the whole time, but Iam the the founding member, main song writer, producer and singer)quite the perfectionist, I focus very much on the technical aspects ofperforming in order to deliver a good quality. Emotion will flow withit but not always just because of the lyrics.

Chain D.L.K.: What makes a demon turn into a civil demon?
Akanoid: The demon is the symbol of the hidden and is clearly meant representthe inner wish for power and purity, underneath a well controlled andconventional surface.This for sure would have been the name of the band if we weren’t called Akanoid.It is me and musically us.

Chain D.L.K.: Who’s the addressee of the benevolent wishes in “All The Noise”(“may diabolic fortune set the fire”…)?
Akanoid: It is of course a woman. The sweetest liar that’s ever been on earth.Her tongue is like Medusa’s eyes and the voice of Lorelei in one!

Chain D.L.K.: In “Climax” (one of my favorite songs of the album) you sing “youknow this/you treat me like a lie/[…]/you can hurt me or pervertme/have a try”” and so on… Should we assume that the “you” you’rereferring to is a literary work or rather a song of a person or afantasy character? Who could be that “you” in your own words?
Akanoid: This song is very special and precious to me because the verse isabout 14 years old and the chorus came to me a few months ago. I likedthe thought and also the feeling behind it that the “you” actuallychanged, and I wouldn’t wanna change the lyrics cause of an alteredcontext.It was the lyrical spark caused by losing a great love, resigning anddealing with the thought of being alone in the dark but being teasedagain and again by a person who has no intention of letting me getaway either!The chorus would have been a wish back then and is now a reality!

Chain D.L.K.: What does “++%” refer to?
Akanoid: It is simply the name of the program on my A3000 sampler, and thissong does have a brother we will get to deal with later on… It isalso the unspeakable and unnameable declaration of love! More than100%.

Chain D.L.K.: The march-like drum-set of “Pain” reminded me of some trip-hopstuff. What can you tell us about your listening habits?
Akanoid: Guilty. I was influenced by fine British trip-hop, break beat andtechnoid bands from Massive Attack and Tricky to the ChemicalBrothers, Prodigy and Underworld, just to name the main ones. But Ialso listened to adorable dark bands like Godflesh or Killing Joke andI could name many more. “Pain” pretty much shows my interest insample-based music that has this certain analog over driven touch andwe managed to shape a well intended face for this one.

Chain D.L.K.: And what about your musical background? Any collaborative projectson the horizon?
Akanoid: Yeah, we had some collaborations in mind with Steffen from De/Visionand Maya from the Soho Dolls, but we prefer (except for a few remixesfor bands like Lowe, Intuition and Mob Research) to keep on working onbrand new material and the upcoming b-versions of some album tracks.Nevertheless it would be fun to have a nice duet…

Chain D.L.K.: Listening to “The Nihilist”, someone might imagine anything but thatyou are nihilists. Is it so?
Akanoid: At least not anymore ;-)I think this has been a part of me for a while back in the daysfollowing the period of “Climax”.If this album were a book, it would be no concept album but rather acollection of short stories that might be partially related.

Chain D.L.K.: Even if you’re quite young, it seems you have understood thatstyle-drifting should be an important aspect of the way of musicmaking in the future. How do you imagine the future of music?
Akanoid: We have revivals after revivals, recombination is the big word.But I’d say the future lies with the research and development of usingthe science of psychoactive frequencies.

Chain D.L.K.: Any work in progress?
Akanoid: We are about to finish four alternative versions of album songs andthen keep on playing a few “Civil Demon” dates while preparing thenext studio and song writing sessions.Thank you very much and best wishes to everyone reading this! Cheers, Hilton

[interviewed by Vito Camarretta] [proofreading by Marc Urselli]