FRONTLINE ASSEMBLY: CORPORATE KILLERS Bill Leeb has reached self-actualization. The prolific member of the electro-industrial duo Frontline Assembly has come a long way since the beginnings of FLA around 1983. Since then, Leeb and partner Rhys Fulber have taken Frontline Assembly from small beginnings and built it up to legendary status, simultaneously spawning a number of active side projects with something for everyone. There's Delerium, Intermix, Noise Unit, Synaesthesia, Cyberaktif (with Skinny Puppy's cEVIN Key), Will...the list goes on. It even gives Al Jourgensen a heap of competition. Although Jourgensen has seven side projects or so, only one or two are active at any one time. All of Leeb and Fulber's are active almost always, sometimes even putting out a release within months of each other. And during all this, they are still assembling compilations such as "Organism" and producing bands such as Fear Factory and most recently in a soon-to-be-released band vs. band 6- track release, Die Krupps. By 1990 FLA had become a highly respected and recognized standard of industrial music along with bands such as Front 242, Ministry, Skinny Puppy and so forth. During this era, industrial music was in its heyday and WAXTRAX! had just released a milestone in music of this genre in the form of FLA's "Caustic Grip," as a follow-up to "Gashed Senses and Crossfire." FLA's afterburners then kicked in, blowing through with the "Virus EP" and breaking the music barrier with 1992's "Tactical Neural Implant," which became regarded as the definitive FLA album and the standard of comparison for all their releases to come. The ball gained momentum and the band became extremely busy, releasing albums from all of their other side projects. 1994 saw FLA providing an aftershock for their fans, with the intimidating and challenging "Millenium." This album dared to fuse live and sampled heavy thrash guitars with the digital purity of electronic body music--a feat not tried by many bands. Purists were faced with a challenge of their open-mindedness, not only because of the guitar, but also the single rap--and controversy arose in the industrial world. "We kind of have a new idea of how we want things to be in the future," said Bill when asked what the whole philosophy was. "You can never can tell if it's going to alienate you from some of your fans, but we want to be harder [and] true to the cause. We really want to do what we feel is going to be something different and new instead of putting out the same thing over and over, because that kind of gets boring for us. If we get into too much of a groove, it's not challenging anymore, and it gets harder to try and find something new to do for us, even if it meant using a guitar. I mean, at least for us it was a change." FLA continued to be extremely busy, releasing another EP ("Surface Patterns"), another Intermix release ("Future Primitives"), another Noise Unit project ("dEcodEr"), and if that wasn't enough, one year after "Millenium," another full-length FLA album--"Hard Wired" --and a single for "Circuitry" with a CD-ROM track (accidently included on the domestic version). The brilliant "Plasticity" EP soon followed in the wake of critical appraisal of "Hard Wired." One would think that by putting out so many releases and so much effort, one would burn out or eventually come to a stop. Apparently, Leeb and Fulber have not shown any signs of inertia loss. At times they have so much completed work that different side projects are released within months of each other. "I think that's usually the record company's fault," says Bill. "Sometimes we get things finished and then they put them all out at the same time. But now...except for some remixes for other people, we're just doing Frontline and Delerium just like last year because I think some of the other stuff is really what you would call...survival." Leeb laughs embarassingly. "If you want to do it full- time, you have to support yourself. In one hand it's great to be able to do different variations of some of our stuff and our music...but at the same time like I said, we've got to survive, so I guess over the last five years, that's probably why we do all those different things, or a bit of both." The process for coming up with new songs is never a simple one. Alot of the releases, like the last Noise Unit, are merely outtakes that never made it on the last Frontline record. But when releases are in the works, the approach is mever shotgunned. "We usually just concentrate on one project," notes the Vancouver musician. "We keep everything pretty seperated. We get a thing going and then we stick to that until we think we're finished with it." Leeb adds that the general direction is established up front and focus lies in the way the sound will go, the different categories it will stay within and so forth. All of these contribute to the general assembly of a Leeb/Fulber project. But sometimes musical work ends up at the wayside. If a project goes a bit off track, Bill and Rhys may just stop and try to refine everything with new material. Such was the case in 1993 when the pair had enough music for a whole new album, then decided it wasn't what they wanted to do and consequently started over to make "Millenium." According to Leeb, these outtakes will probably never see the light of day. "There's no need for it. We've got enough stuff out there now, it wouldn't [make a difference], [the outtakes] probably would sound kind of dated now, like from three, four years ago." "Hard Wired" not only sports FLA's trademark ability to sculpt sound, but it portrays an even more refined FLA venture into encompassing their art. The songs seem awfully rich and faceted and you can take apart each song and find that they are made up of numerous intricate component parts. The guitar, as opposed to "Millenium," is toned down a bit because the band just didn't feel like having the guitars up front this time around. "We wanted to experiment, we wanted to use them in a different way this time, and I think we went from one extreme to the other. With 'Millenium' we really wanted to have them up front and this time we wanted them to be part of the whole entourage. I guess you learn things as you go along. I think I like the concept of always using them but probably on "Hard Wired" it's a little more conventional, I guess that's the way we're going to try and keep doing it in the future. Keeping the guitars less and less obvious." The album is, however, one that Leeb and Fulber are definitely proud of. "If I go out to a record store nowadays," offers Bill, "and I look for a record or music in our genre, I just don't see any record near the way "Hard Wired" sounds. Bands have done that in the past, but no longer exist or anything--we've used more samples on this record than on any of our others. Almost every song is a wall of samples...we were kind of experimenting." Bill sums up his thoughts on the album by saying that "It's got our trademark and it definitely has elements from albums all the way up to 'Millenium.' I just think that in that way it's the most complete-sounding record out of all [of our others]. It's not too much one way or the other and actually I think it's the best sampling we've ever done in the way we textured and layered it and so I think in our genre I don't think there's really that much stuff out there that really compares to that. Bill goes on to note that Frontline, as a band, feel that with this album, their past works, and their future ventures, that they'd like to stay away from the trend of straight fashion techno music and the idea of the standard garage band. It all has to be meaningful to him. In order to put it all into perpective, Bill draws an analogy to the cult sci-fi movie "Blade Runner," saying that FLA as a band is like that film. "They just don't make many movies like that, even though, I think, to me, it's one of the coolest movies. It never did that well at the box office. I guess I compare ourselves with that kind of thing. I guess we're becoming more of like a cult band. People have been calling us the pioneers of this whole thing. I mean, I guess that's worth something in itself as well, right?" Apparently, it's a position Leeb doesn't mind filling. He is more than comfortable with the notion of being this "pioneering flagship" of the electronic experimental music that he represents. "I would rather have us be innovators and do something different from other music because that's where we started and I think from what I see there's definitely enough people into that to make it worthwhile for us to do that, and at this stage there's still interest enough to inspire or to create all that music." With the sudden popularity of underground music rendering that term just plain ironic, and the homogeneity of the sounds of so-called "alternative" music and its so-called "industrial" counterpart, it's always good to know that Bill and Rhys have that philosophy and calling in life. Leeb doesn't think there are many bands around that try to do the sort of thing that FLA does anymore. "The WAXTRAX! days were over when everybody jumped on the bandwagon. But, I think now we're going to try to take it a bit further within what we like to do with it whereas everybody else has gone into the whole indie rock thing. If there wasn't a few bands like us, I don't think there would be any of this electronic industrial music hardly around because I think alot of the straightforward techno music is just club fashion music, white label things that DJs play that most people don't even know what it is." This sudden explosion of popularity for the music is a concern, however. "Usually things that get too big just end up burning out. I just hope that electronic industrial music stays as it is. Occasionally one or two bands break through and make it into the bigger zone, but I hope it just sort of stays subdued." Leeb furthers his thoughts. "I think maybe that a huge reason for the popularity is, of course, the technology." So what are the advantages of being in a position in the musical world that Frontline Assembly is in? A cult band has a number of advantages in its own right. One of these most important things to Bill is that, "In some aspects the longevity of the band lives alot longer. You can go back and listen to things and they can still have some sort of importance where other stuff once you've heard it so much you just don't ever want to hear it again." Of course industrial music has always been frowned upon by traditionalist musicians for being so electronic. The genre doesn't get as much acknowledgement as it should because it is stereotyped as being too easy. You just program here, press buttons there, and go. But Bill is quick to point out that this is NOT the case and in many ways, the music of FLA is more difficult in many ways than traditional rock music. "We spend alot more time than alot of these four-piece garage bands that hammer out songs...FLA is alot more time-consuming and tedious and once you set a certain standard and you do anything even half less, people will just jump all over you so you have to really be dedicated and really like doing it and I guess I still don't think alot of bands that have come up like us have not nearly gotten enough credit like whereas a four-piece band that writes a silly little song becomes hailed. I still think that there's that gap, I think one day it will definitely close. I think that people will be even more open-minded to the whole genre of music and how it's created but I guess nobody ever said it would be easy, right? So I guess that's just the way it is, y'know?" Maybe so, but the process that Fulber and Leeb go through is not an overnight thing. "I think it's a year, kind of 24-hour basis," thinks Leeb. "I'm really into the whole multi-media thing. I draw alot from the news to movies or whatever. I think everytime I see something that interests me, I sort of characterize it somewhere in the back of my subconscious, and the same with sounds and things that I hear...I just collect all of them and basically when I come back I usually have a pretty good idea of what kind of things I want to do with the music and the song. I think it's a whole year sort of thing, but usually I just collect alot of songs then when we're ready to go in we sort of have a theme then we just start writing. "We usually start it on the groove, with the bassline on a drum program, then the samples go on last, then after that, the vocals go on very last. We never write the lyrics until the music is done. I think sometimes the music sort of dictates the type of lyrics that are going to go in...I think it's like a growing thing, always go with learning, you're always seeing things." Bill takes a moment and thinks a bit more. "I don't know how many images a day register in the back of your mind, or even when you're watching television and you're seeing 50,000 images in one night. I think it somehow all affects you whether you know it or not and it just sort of comes out one day and you just let it be spontaneous so it doesn't sound contrived." The FLA trademark of shapely sound is a testament to that. "It's always a lengthy process, layering sounds. We do that with samples too, we just layer samples on samples until we get one kind of particular sound. I mean, that's half of our thing, half of Frontline, is creating the sounds that are different from the ones you buy in the store and stuff like that." There is of course, some competition, and some inevitable comparison, maybe even some complaints. Most recently, especially with the break- up of Skinny Puppy (which Bill was an original member of), Leeb has been accused of stealing Puppy basslines and there are some that say Puppy's cEVIN Key taught Bill everything he knows. But, Bill takes these accusations quite smugly. "If you listen to any of Skinny Puppy's songs, there isn't one Frontline song where the basslines are anything reminiscent of Puppy's. If anything, I think that if there was one thing that I always found that lacked was that. I think everything else on their product always sounded really good but I always found that the one real boring thing that never had much interpretation and life was that. That's one reason why I left because...why should I bang my head against the wall trying to get my ideas in mind out there, but somebody else has got theirs? But that's my favorite part of the whole process..I just think ours sound so different, every song...I just can't see the resemblance. I mean, I had to learn everything on my own in actuality. But, whatever, I guess people can say what they want, but I think once you understand music and you start listening to it, you'll see that they're just complete opposites." FLA's US shows went over as well as they did on their sold-out Europe tour dates. The Frontline Assembly show at Cabaret Metro on April 20 was by far monumental. The stage equipment was covered in tarps and camoflauge netting, with a stage-sized banner in the rear depicting the "Hard Wired" cover and the words "Front Line Assembly" in "Millenium" font. There was a full drum kit off to the right rear, a set of toms near it, diamond plate sheet metal in the center, and to the right were the keyboards, samplers, sequencers, and drums that would make up Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber's primary domain. After an excruciatingly long wait, the lights finally dimmed and the 3x2 video monitors on either side of the stage kicked in playing the trademark FLA blipvert-style footage as Bill and Rhys sauntered onstage at 2:30am. The pair went right to work, opening the show with a very effective mood-setting "Mortal" before they even walked into view onstage. Mood set and ready to play, Devin Townsend and FLA's live drummer (sorry, don't know his name and he was hard to see behind the crash cymbals anyways) joined Leeb and Fulber onstage and without delay, careened into "Vigilante," to which people around me screamed uncontrollably when they heard the Michael Douglas samples. It seemed as if they jumped right into that hardcore beat without warning, and they did it at precisely the right time. One of the things that struck me the most was that the guitar on the "Millenium" album itself sounded way too fast to be played live, yet Devin proved me wrong. He is an extraordinary guitarist and I was wholly impressed to see him play so quickly, consistently, and accurately with all those chord fingerings being made out so skillfully. Bill, as much as he did last time out, looked the psychopathic Fido Dido cartoon character strutting up and down the stage with microphone in hand, standing tall with his Hi-Tec SWAT boots, a vest that looked as if it was out of a Japanimation flick, blond carrot top, and what looked like racing shorts. Although it seemed a bit like the rigors of touring were taking a toll on him at first, he almost immediately overcame the fatigue with his charismatic performance. His vocals were as strong as his presence onstage, and this, coupled with the images of a tattooed-black- BDU-clad Rhys Fulber hunching over his keboards banging his head to the beat of the music made for a feel all too real. FLA took the audience through many a song from their latest albums "Hard Wired" and "Millenium" and even the title track from their new EP "Plasticity." FLA seemed to have no qualms about playing songs from older albums either. "Resist" from "Caustic Grip" was incredible, musically violent, and just plain evil. 1992's "Tactical Neural Implant" received quite a bit of play as well, including a sleeper surprise in "Bio- Mechanic," and a welcome surprise in "Gun." In fact, "Gun" was one of the best songs that night, especially in the intro segment which found all four members of the live band pounding away a drums, toms, sheet metal, and other percussion in near-tribal manner. "Surface Patterns" was a nice little romp midway in the show, and "Circuitry" again gave Bill a chance to pound on metal. Other songs of note included "Modus Operandi", (which even live, sounded excellent with that swirly, underwater vocal effect), "Liquid Seperation", and "Millenium," which was completely successful in getting the already- excited crowd into a bigger tizzy. The crowd itself was actually better than most have been recently. Yes, there was moshing, but not as irritating as the pits have gotten as of late, and body passing was moderate. Alot of this was due to the fact that the majority of the crowd was either riveted to the live act or lost in their own world of dancing, or dealing with the intense heat. There was almost never a true break inbetween songs, all the idle times being taken care of by Rhys' sonic manipulations of chord droning and samples, with Leeb's assistance, and the show ran all the way through until a close at 4am, culminating in an encore which included one of the best versions of "Mindphaser" that has ever been heard, especially with the rearrangement and refurbishing of the samples and the bassline. It was used to close the entire show, and it did it with great effect. Long after the song ended and his bandmates left the stage, Rhys stayed behind in the lowlight, sculpting sound and samples, chords and moods before finally letting them play out and fade away. We all pretty much agreed that although this was the only encore, it was a brilliant way to end the show, instilling that last eerie feel into the system, so that you couldn't help but stand in awe at the end of it when the lights came back on. It was definitely a signature ending. The only disappointing parts of the show was the absence of "Iceolate", "The Blade", and "Barcode" which would have been a real treat, and at times the samples were drowned out a bit here and there or the sheet metal couldn't be heard. But you can't have everything, and all of this was outweighed by the fact that you ended up completely drenched in sweat from all the dancing, the energy, and the adrenaline hit. Frontline Assembly definitely made another mark and showed no signs of ever letting up, and it's certainly one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. Definitely not to be missed by fans both old and new. What does the future hold for FLA? There's "Organism," which is a compilation of bands that FLA felt were really good and needed exposure to help out those particular bands, or even bands such as Haujobb, which Leeb really respects. The new Delerium album is also in the works with Lisa Gerard of Dead Can Dance doing the vocals on it. And what does Bill see for the future? The rise of technology as a culture and its integration into our cultures. "Everybody has a computer now, nobody is afraid of it anymore, whereas 15 years ago nobody wanted to see it except just a bank teller or people weirding out about it and so..." Bill pauses at the thought then continues, "I'm sure we're just gonna become a cashless society with a microchip and somebody can basically just come in and veto your whole existence. I know that sounds kind of scary, but I think that's what people are striving for, is for that streamline, leaving no paper trail. I think lifestyles will be more radical. For people in school that come out, I mean, the opportunities are not there, it's becoming more of a dog-eat-dog thing and so I think that alot of times maybe all this kind of music is just kind of starting to fit into society and blend in where it used ot be a more scary and ominous thing. I think now it's just fitting in, and not even being that radical anymore just because of how extreme people have become and the problems and situations of our lifestyles...I guess people get used to things. "Everyone is used to seeing murder and death and decay 24 hours a day that it doesn't even matter to anybody anymore, it's like 'whatever,' and I think we've all become so numb to everything because we've seen it all, so where do you go, you know? Once you go through that extreme it's gotta be really hard to have any kind of shock value anymore. So I think all of that has a definite factor playing in the scheme things." If that is the case, and the world gets as dark as that, Frontline Assembly will definitely be doing the soundtrack. Dedicated to Gnat Hammerstrom. boNes E-mail