Paul: The new album has a lot of guitars. A lot of people that I've talked to seem to be fairly disappointed with the album. I tend to disagree with them. What are your opinions on the album that you made? Bill: Well, you know... I think when we set out to do this album we thought it was going to be that kind of scenario. It was like we were probably going to pee in a lot of peoples parades because we did add guitars. It's kind of like a weird catch 22 thing because I think for a better part, it's a lot of these electro-purists that we've been dealing with for the last few years. The problem with that is as a band, Frontline's audience was always such a definitive crowd and a pretty streamlined kind of audience and we couldn't get other people to listen to our music and it was always just past up as a hardcore electronic dark music that blah blah blah. I guess that at a days end, we felt that as a band we were starting to stagnate with what we were doing. We felt like It was pointless for us to continue on if we're going to just stay at the level we were at. So, for us it's better to lose old fans, but gain new ones. From doing all these interviews and that, I found out we lost old fans, be we're also making a lot of new fans by the kind of magazines. We've been doing interviews for Korang, Metalhammer. Again, it's a different audience and I still think it's a pretty Frontline kind of album, I just think we put new kinds of elements on it. We just didn't want to write the same record that we'd written for the last few years. For us it's kinda like we're not a big enough of a band that we have to worry about changing our style too much because I think the next album is going to be more drastic of a change that this one. For us to go back to what we were doing is easy enough, but wasn't enough of a challenge for us anymore. We want to move on to a natural progression. It was still kind of an experiment. Once we used guitars in the first song we thought we definitely like this. Also, it's sort of more representative of the kind of music that we're listening to now. Rhys for the most part only likes to listen to bands like prong and Carcas and Pantera and that kind of stuff. That's sort of his main interest now because things change & times change & music changes and we don't want to be an old techno band slashin' out out there. Our tastes have changed too. Paul: The last album sold, from what I hear, about thirty thousand copies in the States alone. How well do you expect the new one to do? Bill: I don't know. It is really hard to say. To me, selling that many records is kind of a failure because it's not really a lot of albums. Paul: Well, when I heard that stat, I was quite impressed. Bill: Really? We were pretty disappointed. thirty thousand records. Nine Inch Nails sell that many records in a week. Paul: Well, that's Nine Inch Nails. Bill: Yeah, well that's the thing. We're at the stage in our careers that if we're not going to advance and stuff like that, it's pointless to do this kind of music for us. Why keep at this same level. If the new one does less than that, so be it, but at least we know we tried as artists to do a record that we wanted to do and not what everybody else wanted to hear. It's easy enough for us to churn out a techno album cause we've be doing it for long enough, but we did an album for the first eight months and it sounded like a typical Frontline album and we though this is okay, but it's not really what we wanted to do so we just shelved it and did another album and this is it. So, this is more what we wanted to do and not what everybody else wanted us to do. At the day's end, you've got to live with yourself and that's the way we thought we'd be most true to ourselves and to our feelings as to the kind of music we wanted to do. Like I said before, If we were selling eighty thousand albums worldwide, which is what we did if you count Europe and everywhere else. I still don't think that's that big a deal considering we've been doing it for five/six years. I guess you don't know until you go out and try different things. you live by the sword, if you play by the sword, you can die by the sword as well, but that's sort of the way life is. Paul: How's the response to the album so far? Bill: I've never done this many Canadian interviews as I've been doing this time. I've been doing four days of Canadian interviews and I think in St. John's, Newfoundland, we're at number two and we've done three days of Australian interviews and a lot of them have been for metal shows and stuff. We're sort of treading in new territory. I find that we're doing a lot more press this time. It's all new to me. We're getting a bit of a backlash from people who don't like the new album. A lot of Journalists that I've been talking to in the last few days are saying "Yeah, well I've never really cared much for any of your music before, but we thing the new album is awesome." You can't please everybody. It's kind of like the Nine Inch Nails thing. A lot of people don't like him, but look at all the people who do. So, at the day's end, I don't think Trent really cares because he's still successful at what he does. So who's to say what's right and what isn't as far as success goes, but it seems to be going good so far. I guess time will tell. Maybe other people just aren't used to the sound and maybe it will just take a while and they'll go wow, you know? Paul: Along with the guitars, I think the programming is a lot better. I think I'd have to say I like Millennium more than Tactical Neural Implant and that CD was one that was constantly in my stereo. And along with the new ground with the guitars, there is new ground on "Victim of a Criminal." How did that come around? Bill: You know, on our last tour we were listening to a lot of rap. Some real sort of gangsta rap and heavy kind of stuff and we like some of it so I think we've taken some influences from that as well so it was just one of those songs when we wrote it cause I always do the lyrics last. When we wrote the song, it didn't lend itself to my trying to do vocals on it and now that we have Delerium on Nettwerk, they have this rap band called P.O.W.E.R. from Oregon and I met the guy Dave and I just had asked him and it was kind of like an experiment and when he did it and we listened to it everybody here really liked it, so we just kept it. Again, I thought this might piss a lot of people off or a lot of people might not understand where we're coming from with a song like that. But it's sort of where our headspace is at. It's something new for us and again, you can't expect everybody to like it, but for us as musicians, it was a challenge and something new so we just went with it. Paul: From what I understand, there was a video put out at the beginning of October. Bill: Right. Paul: I haven't caught it yet. Could you describe it? Bill: For the most part, it just looks like a landscape or like a planet that is been sort of ravished by what have you. It's just a desolate planet. There are basically just a few people that are left and they're being hunted by this ultimate kind of wizard kind of guy who's got control of what's left which isn't much and he can destroy people with his thoughts, which is sort of what Millennium the album is about. A reflection of society and how the mental state is going to be the only common ground or piece of mind you're going to have and how people try and control that even more. That's sort of what the video's about and that's sort of what it looks like. Almost like a Road Warrior kind of thing. Paul: I noticed with the new album that it's more apocalyptic as a posed to the dark cyber future that Tactical was. With Tactical, you had the video for Mindphaser, which hit number fifty-eight on MuchMusic's top two hundred. Do you expect any response like that with the video for Millennium? Bill: No... No, I don't think so. Mindphaser was one of those videos. Even when it was being done, I could see it and its like this video like when you strike a deal with the devil, it's going to come back to haunt you. When you do a video like that, it's always like what are you going to do that's going to be better? The only thing left to do better than that is to get a bigger budget and do like a new sci-fi thing that's going to have every special effect that you can get in Hollywood, but we don't have that kind of money, so that's just not going to happen. So, I think Mindphaser is going to always be one of those videos that comes back to haunt us. People are going to go well this video's good, but it's not as good as this one. But, the thing is we did it and it's out there and it was good for its day but I don't think the new one is going to have the same impact as that one did. Paul: How did you come about using Gunhed for Mindphaser? Bill: That was the producer. That was just contacts. It was just a string of phone calls and handshakes and stuff. Paul: Moving on, I hear that the new Intermix should be out in the next few months, correct? Bill: Yeah. It's all finished and the artwork is done. The have it now and it's been mastered, so it will probably come out in January or February or something. Paul: Is the sound similar to earlier intermix projects? Bill: I think it's by far the best one. It's got a lot of tribal stuff on it. Like chanting and stuff. I'm just really into that these days. It's a lot of that mixed with electronics. The songs are really long because they have a lot of long intros and ethnic stuff on it. Again, Totally different from the first two. Program wise, I think it's by far the best one. I think that with the new Frontline album too. I think it's the slickest sounding as far as all the right things are in all the right places. I think the same goes with the new Intermix. Paul: Where do you get your criteria for sampling, if there is one? Bill: Hmmm. I think it's just personal preference. I think that after doing it for an extended amount of time that I just know the feel for watching films for sampling. It's like having an ear for music. You can tell if things are going to work right away. Call it a sixth sense or whatever, but I know right away if I hear something. I know we should get clearance to use it. I guess experience has had a lot to do with that. Paul: Noise Unit. A lot of people are craving another album after Strategy Of Violence. Is there one on the way? Bill: We haven't started anything. It's funny that the Strategy Of Violence one is about two--two and a half years old and it got released in Europe and a lot of people didn't even hear about it until Cleopatra re-released it here. It's on charts now and I'm thinking that's really weird. It's kind of an old record and people are still liking it. I guess pending if we have time [we'll make another album]. Paul: Has there been a similar response to the Total Terror re-releases? Any charting? Bill: No, we tried to make those pretty clear as far as that the only reason we ever released them was because last time I went to Europe, an Italian company released them on a bootleg and did a really nice job on the packaging and stuff and we thought this kinda sucks cause I never really wanted to have them released. The were just a cassette and that's what they should've stayed. I felt that if they're going to sell a certain amount why should they make all the money and profits, so better us release it and put an infoline on there discrediting that cause we don't believe you should do that. Sampling certain things is one thing, but taking a full product and releasing it and making money off it is a total no-no and that's the only reason I released it. Paul: You mentioned earlier that the next Frontline album is going to be more drastic of a change. How long are you planning to keep each project going? Other than Will being no longer, all of the projects seem to be together. Bill: Hard to say. Everyday we wake up and we have new ideas and a new way we want to do things so it's really hard to say at this point. A year is long time and a lot happens in a year, so who knows. In a year from now, we could be sick of it all. It's really hard to say. Paul: What's your standing on all the different labels that you guys are signed to? Bill: I prefer having different things on different labels because each label treats it as its little priority or whatever. I just like dealing with different people because everybody seems to be specializing in one kind of thing and if you have it all on one label it gets lost in the shuffle and it just sort of happened to work out that way. I just prefer it that way. ....But listen, I've got to go, I've got another interview to do here at one o'clock. Paul: Well, thanks for calling in and I wish you the best with your new album. Bill: Well... Thanks. You know, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. The nice thing about what we do is we can do whatever anytime. We'll see. Bye Paul. E-mail