This week’s victim to be interviewed on Metalectro is a name that shouldn’t need many introductions to the hard electro maniacs among you, Beef Theatre! The duo from Austria was caught in the Metalectro web for some hours and we made sure they answer some questions before setting them free. A name that has been featured on the blog a few times with their tracks, Beef Theatre will release their debut EP “Optimus Prime” on Mähtrasher Records soon, featuring some great remixes by Dead CAT Bounce, Wonkap, Kisbeat! and Noize Generation amongst others. Here is what they had to say!
1. Hi guys! Would you mind introducing yourselves?
Bene: Cheerz! I am Bene… I´m 26 years old, born in Schwandorf, Germany and one half of Beef Theatre!
Dave: … and i´m Dave =)! The other half!
2. So how old is Beef Theatre?
B: We started this project in early 2008 on a very cheap Casio keyboard because we both were bored of sitting around watching TV and doing nothing all day long… Soon we noticed that there was more behind it than just killing boredom and we started to intensify our efforts and producing skills, first on a Korg m3 workstation and then, about early 2009, on Sequencers like Reason and/or Ableton.
3. You’ve been rocking the Metalectro blog for a while now, are you working on something currently and how is this going?
D: Thank you and thanks for the support. Yeah, we are currently working on a lot of tracks… like always! A few new tracks are ready now and available to listen to as a preview on our Soundcloud page. So, we are talking with some labels and will release them as soon as possible. We also did a remix for Saint Pauli and we are looking forward to its release.
4. As you know you grabbed our attention with your remix on “House Of Jealous Lovers” by The Rapture, which you did some time ago. Was that the first Metalectro track you ever did? How did you come up with the idea?
B: We already loved the original and especially the crazy vocals on this track and when we found the acapella on the internet one day, it was only natural for us to remix it 🙂 We never really thought about making just Electro-Metal tracks, we would consider this development a result of our musical backgrounds… In our opinion electronic music with pumping basslines and distorted rocking synths is the new heavy metal! We produce the kind of music that we want to hear when we are going out, it’s as simple as that…
5. What would you say is your biggest achievement/highlight so far? Tell us about it!
D: I think it’s our upcoming “Optimus Prime” EP. It will include 4 tracks by us (Optimus Prime, Purple Pain, The Dentalist and Blades of Steel) and some great remixes! We are really looking forward to its release at the end of March.
6. What are your influences/music backgrounds? Have you ever played in a metal band?
B: No,to be honest none of us ever learned to play a single instrument… When i was a younger i listened a lot to heavy metal, grunge, crossover and hardcore bands like Rage Against The Machine, Pantera, Tool, Mars Volta, Refused, Will Haven, Primus, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, etc. but also to more quiet music like Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Mark Lanegan, John Frusciante, Portishead and many others. With the first albums of Prodigy and Chemical Brothers i came into the electronic music scene and when i heard the first releases of Justice, Boys Noize and Digitalism back in 2008, this kind of music totally blew my mind! I still listen to these sounds i loved as a teenager but at the moment my focus is definitely on heavy and dirty electronic sounds!
D: I am coming from the hip-hop scene but also was into harder sounds like Rage Against The Machine, etc… I also like smooth trip hop music as well as older “hippie-sounds” 😀 I think each type of music has styles that influenced me. Electro came into my life when i was watching “Berlin House”, a show on a music channel on German TV. Then Justice and Boys Noize fucked my mind and since that i am celebrating electro. Techno changed my life!!! =)
7. Do you prefer working only with computers/sequencers or do you get your hands dirty playing and recording instruments? Do you use samples and what’s your opinion on sampling and copyright?
B: We produce almost every sound we make with sequencers, vst instruments and samples… Sometimes we use a microphone too and change our voices into some kind of vocal shouts or even abuse them for making a synth line.
8. Do you use analogue equipment or do you prefer keeping everything in the box?
D: I have a Korg synth but at the moment we don’t use it cause it is much better for the workflow to work with Ableton live! There you can change every parameter much easier and faster.
9. So, what is music for you and what do you think about the way the music industry is changing? What do you think about popular/chart music?
B: We don´t care :P… But on the other hand we think it is great that nowadays you don´t need equipment worth thousands of dollars to produce music. When you have a PC, a midi keyboard, a sequencer and two studio monitors you have all the basics to make some crazy sounds… 🙂
10. Are you signed with any record label? Any future plans? (live shows, release, remix etc)
D: We were searching for a good label for our debut EP “Optimus Prime” and found a great one called “Mähtrasher”. It is doing a great job!!! For the future we are in contact with another great label but we can’t say anything more yet.
11. What are you listening to lately? Any tracks/artists you recommend?
B: We love the sounds of Drivepilot, Far Too Loud, F.O.O.L., Cyberpunkers, Dumme Jungs, Porter Robinson, Dead CAT Bounce, Wonkap, Dj Antention, Haezer, Access Denied, The “S”, Belzebass and so on and so on… There are simply too many to name them all 🙂
12. What do you do when you are not working on music?
D: Haha… Sleeping and eating? A lot of eating at the moment! =) Just kidding… at the moment i am studying MultiMediaArt in Salzburg. My subject area is audio, so it helped us a lot to make our productions sound better.
13. What do you think about the Metalectro blog and the music featured on it?
B: I love metal and I love electro… and I love how your blog gives us and other producers of this kind of music the possibility to express ourselves and to spread our sounds through the internet. Big up to your work, mate!!! 🙂
14. Anything else you’d like to mention and we forgot to ask?
D: Follow us on Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter and of course… Much love and party hard!!!