More about The Process
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The Process is SKINNY PUPPY's barbed wire swan song -- a fitting farewell album from a band whose work has always skirted the abyss of psychosis and terror, often blurring the line between art and reality. It is the most melodic, fully realized album SKINNY PUPPY has ever made. But also the most disturbing, especially in light of its troubled birth. The two years that it took to complete The Process witnessed the angry resignation of singer Ogre, the death of synthesist Dwayne Goettel from a heroin overdose and the final collapse of the 12-year-old industrial music institution known as SKINNY PUPPY.
Picture>The album is the final chapter of a story that began back in 1983, when SKINNY PUPPY was first formed by Ogre and drummer/synthesist cEvin Key in Vancouver, Canada. "Ogre and I shared a common interest in music," Key recalls. "He had a desire to do something vocally. While he'd never been in a band before, I'd been in bands ever since the mid-70s, starting when I was 13 or so. He was very well read and articulate, which I thought was a definite bonus."
The duo released their own cassette, Back and Forth, which led to a label deal and the Remission mini lp. The latter was produced by Key and David Ogilvie, who now goes by the name Rave and who became an important member of the SKINNY PUPPY team. In 1985, SKINNY PUPPY added synthesist Wilhelm Schroeder to the lineup and released their first LP, Bites. The following year, Schroeder was replaced by Dwayne Goettel. This configuration -- Ogre, Key and Goettel -- would remain together as SKINNY PUPPY for the next decade. The trio released Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse in 1986. With its grade-B horror movie samples and grating melange of highly stressed sounds, the album consolidated a reputation that had been growing through constant and resolute touring. SKINNY PUPPY had become a pioneering voice in a new, distinctly North American wave of industrial music.
"We did what was probably the first North American tour of industrial music in the early 80s," says Ogre. "We were touring around in a truck back then."
SKINNY PUPPY's fan base grew steadily during the subsequent years, with the release of albums like Cleanse Fold and Manipulate, VIVIsectVI, Rabies, Too Dark Park and Last Rites. But the seeds of discord had already been sown. Side projects had long been a way of life for all members. Among other projects, Key teamed up with Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots to record as Tear Garden, and Ogre collaborated with Al Jourgensen of Ministry in the band Pigface. Eventually these extracurricular activities became the source of resentment within SKINNY PUPPY. A rift developed, with Key and Goettel often ranged against Ogre.
"Dwayne and I began to resent Ogre for not recognizing the accomplishments, intensity and power of his own band," says Key. "It seems like he always had to seek validation outside the band -- with Al Jourgensen and in other projects outside Skinny Puppy."
Exacerbated by drug abuse, inter-band hostilities were seething just beneath the surface when SKINNY PUPPY signed with American Recordings in 1993. Surprisingly they decided to live and work together at Shangri-La, a residential recording studio near Malibu, just outside L.A., to make the album that would become The Process. Prior to this, all three had rarely been together in the studio.
"Over a period of ten years, we'd basically gotten to the point where we did shifts in the studio," says Ogre. "But this time we decided that we'd like to try to put our energies together in one place -- which was a horrible mistake!"
To make matters worse, for the first time in their career, the band decided to enter the studio without Rave to coordinate their efforts. Their initial choice for a co-producer was industrial music vet Roli Mosiman (Swans, Foetus, Wiseblood), who ended up leaving the project after just a month and a half. Next up was Martin Atkins (PIL, NIN, Ministry), who had worked with Ogre in Pigface. His friendship with Ogre became another source of tension in Shangri-La. Key and Goettel felt that Atkins was giving Ogre's creative input greater weight than theirs. Meanwhile, it seemed as if all the forces of nature had risen against SKINNY PUPPY. They were forced to evacuate Shangri-La by the devastating Malibu fires of '93 and menaced that winter by the perilous Malibu floods. Key was badly injured during a film shoot. Still recovering from his accident, wondering if he'd ever be able to play the drums again, he was working in the studio with Goettel at 4:30 on the morning of January 17, 1994, when the Northridge earthquake struck L.A.
"Dwayne and I nearly had a heart attack when that thing hit," he recalls. "The house was like a ship on a rocky sea. All our gear was messed up. Every disaster you could possibly think of hit us."
In midst of all this, Ogre discovered what would become the album's lyrical theme. The Process was a 1960s psychotherapy cult that employed imagery drawn from both Christian and Satanic lore. Ogre began working with Bill Morrison (director of SKINNY PUPPY's videos) and industrial music patriarch Genesis P. Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) on launching an Internet incarnation of the Process. Many of the concepts and images from this project are reflected in the SKINNY PUPPY album of the same name.
But back to Malibu. The sessions came to a tense conclusion in May of '94, after basic tracks had been completed. Expressing dissatisfaction with Martin Atkins' work, Key and Goettel took the masters back to their home base in Vancouver to complete the album. What initially seemed like a couple of week's work wound up taking over a year. Ogre, who had remained behind in California, became increasingly estranged from his two bandmates. On June 12, 1995, he announced that he was quitting SKINNY PUPPY and devoting himself full-time to a new project called W.E.L.T. Slightly over two months later, Dwayne Goettel was found dead of a heroin overdose in the bathroom of his parents' home in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. A week and a half later -- when the label had begun to despair of ever seeing the completed SKINNY PUPPY record -- The Process turned up at their doorstep, completed by Key and Rave in homage to their deceased friend.
It's hard to listen to The Process without thinking of the tumultuous story behind it. But cEvin Key speaks for many in saying that the songs will "stand the test of time. I'm just proud that we were one of the biggest Canadian indie bands and probably the biggest Canadian electronic band. I absolutely feel that there has been a place for Skinny Puppy. It's filled a void for me, and I hope for others as well."