Boston's HANSEL have put out a bunch of material through D-TRASH Records, and now we celebrate the release of their next full length album, "Lorentzian Lineshaper", which was given the professional pressed CD treatment and is finding its way into the ears of the international music scene.  SCHIZOID got a chance to interrogate HANSEL vocalist Alan Fux about all things HANSEL including the new disc and more...

SCHIZOID:  You guys, your last release was the "Subatomic Particles" EP on D-TRASH.  It was a limited edition free CD basically given away to anyone who wanted it for a certain amount of time.  How did that release go as far as your expectations, interest in the release as far as getting copies and in the music.

FUX: All in all we were pretty pleased with the reception of subatomic particles. We were a little confused with the direction we were going into musically at the time and yet felt compelled to release something... we realized the concept of offering free mp3s of releases is what makes DTRASH strong, and thought we could take it to another level by giving anyone a free physical audio CD that wanted it, of course knowing that it might not be our strongest material or what not. We didn't expect it to do what it ended up doing, it really broke a barrier for us and made us realize the potential interest out there for HANSEL... our mailing list grew about 3 fold, and we were both practically in-line for bankruptcies after buying and printing tons of discs and making everyone at the post office wait 40 minutes while they processed 50+ out of country custom shipping forms on a daily basis.

SCHIZOID:  That’s great about the mailing list.  Is there a specific country or area of the world that you got more of a response from?

FUX: Not really actually, we have clumps of people in certain areas, namely: Ontario, California, Texas, Missouri, Chicago, Florida, Germany and France…. Real spread out, which doesn’t ‘seem’ helpful in the short term, but like many contagious diseases, the long term affects of being spread across the globe could have severe effects later on. Such a spread out following at the stage that we are at, is a testament to how music is so different now-a-days thanks to technology; the modern-version of word of mouth is not limited to regions.

SCHIZOID:  Between releasing that, and this full-length, what has HANSEL been up to?  How has the band HANSEL changed since that release?  Is there any kind of new way of approaching the new songs, or more of the same so to speak?  I know you guys have been involved with some remixing like on the BASTARDS UNITED remix album, and some other neat projects.

FUX: well.. HANSEL has been around for longer than many realize, and its safe to say that after living through 3 cycles now, that I understand the predictability of how we operate. kind of like following celestial patterns...

SCHIZOID:  Yeah, it’s almost been 10 years together for you guys as a band, although your ‘debut’ album really only came out in around 2002.  

FUX: Yes, we spent a long time just messing with samples, without forcing a release. At the time I think we were kind-of eager to release something, but it retrospect its almost the equivalent of live-instrument musicians learning to master an instrument before starting a band. Lots of people out there download some cracked sampler programs and have an MP3 release a month later. Our beats are bottled and aged.

Sometimes I wish we would just bust out songs quickly (and trust me, we COULD if we wanted to), but we are insane madmen who change our minds and radically alter our directions at the slightest whim. A HANSEL cycle is about 3 years, that is a year of pissing out loose beats.. then a year of assembling and reassembling those beats into proper songs (weeding out the good ones) and then a year turning them into GOOD songs. When it seems like we aren't doing anything, or aren't active.. We are really scrambling, messing with beats and what-not in our solitudes at all hours available to us, trying to make sure that when the time comes to release something, it is as good as we could make it.

SCHIZOID:  Before that EP you guys released the massive DTRASH50 release, the 3xCD set of material found on STUDIES.  There was just a ton of material on that!  Has releasing that exorcized the vaults or is there a ton more of b-sides and unreleased stuff out there?  How do you find the response was to this?  I think it's kind of funny to see an upstart 'new' band, who's releasing 3xCD box sets of their release.  You usually don't see that kind of excess (good excess mind you) until bands are "BIG" and on some major label that'll release these kinds of discs.

FUX: HANSEL is an ass-backwards band. I've always felt that we do things in the opposite way that most bands do, and that someday our ass-backwards thinking will pay off.

SCHIZOID:  LOL What kind of cash cow release containing what tracks are you going to be able to put out when you’re signed to Sony?  Ha ha.

FUX: Hehe.. I'll sit around for a day and write some acoustic songs about something hideous and tell Sony I wrote them 7 years ago. In all honesty though… we get excited when we write anything and instantly want everyone to hear it. My friends are probably all annoyed with me by now, sending them 8 versions of partially written songs daily. I guess the temptation of unleashing unused material weighed heavy on us after releasing 'respond_violence'.

SCHIZOID: These tunes that ended up on “Studies” – would you say that they were pre-Respond_Violence – or were these “Respond_Violence” b-sides?  Are there any tunes that are still in the vaults that haven’t been released?

FUX: We started writing songs in 1996... we had a massive collection of material before even starting the material that ended up on our first full length 'respond_violence' (which was written between 2001-2002) we reveled in all the unused songs. Like that they could be released as new songs someday and save us insanity (much like the insanity vested into turning Lorentzian Lineshaper into a worthy disc) but all in all... I don’t regret emptying the vaults as you say. We felt that the people who were actually into us would enjoy hearing these kinds of early HANSEL songs, and see just HOW versatile we were (and show that DHC was just one of many influences over the years), and helped propel us at the time. Studies is still a favored release by true HANSEL fans, id love to have it all re-done and pressed proper. maybe a project for a later time. However, during the execution of the Lorentzian material. There were massive amounts of newer unused things. I’m sure everyone will get a chance to hear them sooner or later. or maybe we will play our cards right this time and save them for another pro release someday.

SCHIZOID: Getting to "Lorentzian Lineshaper", I can see the main themes musically on disc.  There's the vocals, the melodies, and the beats.  Simplified that is the main elements of a HANSEL song.  I can hear that the vocal delivery is very strong.  A lot more upfront and louder in the mix.  The melodic elements sound a lot more planned out, orchestrated so to speak.  And the beats are still the type of beats/experimentation heard on previous HANSEL discs.  Was there a direct intention to work on these kinds of elements, how did a lot of these songs come up, just out of trying new stuff?  How would you guys compare this album's material to anything you've released before?

FUX: Part of what made our older disc (respond violence) strong was the naive accidental strokes of genius. Finding some nutty guitar riff and writing songs about someone being dead pretending to be alive. I mean those kinds of things just happen. and I think lots of people expect that from us, but we hate following patterns of how we operate, it leads to generic sounding things when you get stuck using formulas (and yes chaos can be considered a formula if you rely on it too much). and as time has gone by for us, we wanted to sort of try steering our music into a direction rather than let our partialness to random beats steer US. Once we committed to orchestrating this as a full length CD, we looked at what we had written so far and made some decisions that would affect how we would go on writing the rest of the songs for the disc.

SCHIZOID:  So you’d say that there was a more focused and direct approach to the writing of this disc?

FUX: Definitely. We would seek a specific sound or attempt to write something that fit the feel of what we were working on. We used to rely heavily on random chance, although things like this are just ways to keep it more exciting. And I’m certain the next CD we make, will have some other variation of our methods for assembling songs. 

The concepts we had in mind when writing Lorentzian was that this would loosely be based on our impressions of hip hop (which differ greatly than most peoples impressions of this music). That thematically it would be about atheism, human existence in a vast empty universe, paradoxes and things like that. We have also been extremely determined to master the use of orchestrating natural classical instruments, and accomplishing the same eerie and noisy chaos as mechanical sounds... this disc has a lot of classical strings, a blend of natural vs. mechanical but in a way that seemed different to us.

We managed to use mellotrons and make emotional parts and tried to find ways to present these elements in way that seemed to contradict with how people are used to hearing them. As we wrote songs we tried to make sure to simplify parts and make sure things were more audible, with RV many parts always felt muddied by over layering things that you end up not being able to hear. There are a LOT more vocals and more thought-out lyrics on this disc, probably my favorite differential element vs. respond_violence.

SCHIZOID:  These classical elements on the disc, where does the inspiration for this come.  Are there any specific classical artists that are among your favorites.  When HANSEL gets big and you have all kinds of money to record however you want, will we ever see a live orchestra collaboration ala how say METALLICA got a real orchestra to perform with them on their S&M live disc?

FUX: Experimental classical music is the common factor between mike and myself as collaborators. Before computers and rock singing, we both were intrigued by formulaic approach of classical composers, and by the fluidity of classical instrument sounds. We always thought, somehow incorporating the fluidity of classical music into our songs was what would eventually separate ourselves from other bands. I honestly couldn’t imagine a big orchestra/HANSEL performance though (at all!!), I kind of hate when bands do that. Like when Bjork started touring with some huge 50 piece orchestra, and started charging 200 bucks to her shows. Its dumb. I would love to get a couple fellows to play with us live though .. like a cellist and a contra bass player, that would be amazing. just not like 50 dip-shits in suits yawning and flipping their music sheets. I would throw my mic-stands at them and they’d all quit.

We would love to do an album someday with zero digital instruments.  Like using classical instruments, and accomplishing snare rushes by reversing reel to reel tape recordings of snares covered with old fashioned echo effect boxes. Renting huge pipe organs etc. experimenting like that with those things.

SCHIZOID: I found that on older HANSEL the vocals were more in the background – this disc they are a lot more at the forefront.  I think that does the disc a lot of credit, it helps propel the music a lot more with that strong vocal aspect this time around.    With the vocals so much at the forefront is there any kind of underlying lyrical theme with these songs?  Though it’s not completely obvious I find there is definitely some reoccurring themes that pop up on certain songs, about life and existence and questioning things.

FUX: Yeah, you nailed it. In my attempts at avoiding lyrical clichés (or using them to mock others who use them)  I ended up kind of making my own. There are a lot of themes in the new CD, the most prevalent is a realization of the pointlessness of existence, accepting that there is no life after death, and learning to be comfortable with it. I think its my purpose now to help the world out of this ancient religious rut.. I have nothing against religions, but as a whole on society it prevents progression and causes conflicts. I have never ended a friendship over religion and never will, but there are a lot of people out there who feel alienated and confused by their own skepticism, and I want to help them accept their skepticism with various ideas, if there is no life after death, then fuck it, we are all in it together.. and this is how I accept it. I am not a fundamentalist, so I am completely willing to change my ideas.. but one that I have stuck too.. and which finds itself all over this CD is the idea that Human existence is an insignificant random occurrence, and has no bearing on the formula of the universe. When the earth is gone, so will all proof of the existence of people… if a planet of beings dies out in deep space and no one ever witnesses them.. did they ever exist? Hehe.. we exist, because its possible that we might, and that’s it. The only real things that exist no matter what (in this universe) are when the universe started and when it ends.. all the possibilities in between happen in parallel because they don’t have bearing on what needs to happen for the universe to realize itself. If it can happen, it does and will and therefore there are people.. as we speak, there are infinite histories of earth with no life at all… as desolate as any other planet in our solar system. But we don’t experience those existences, since this one is needed as is, for us to be here at all and to think these thoughts.

SCHIZOID: Initially it was my impression this release was intended to be an another EP.  Then a remix EP.  Then a full-length album, with half remixes, then new material.  Then, a full-length album.  Tell us about how "Lorentzian Lineshaper" came about, and now that you're at the point you have a finished full length 2nd album to follow up "Respond_Violence" with.

FUX: As I mentioned, we are insane indecisive madmen. We realized that we needed to release something but the HANSEL cycle had not allowed the prime material to surface yet. so we tapped into all the remixes and things we had worked on in the year prior (tragedy Anne, ambassador 21, phallus uber alles etc) plus we had made a silly as hell cover song of a pat Benetar song for a compilation in 2004 via the request of hometown stomping ground-mates 'the deadites.'  There were about 3 new songs we were working on back then, but mostly just stood as lyrics with no solid beats that we were confident about.. so over time we wrote re-wrote re-re-wrote and so on.. each time this fetal-stage release began growing more appendages and features, that made us question the intention. rather than sacrifice some of this prime material for a remix EP, maybe the proper thing would be to wait until we had a solid full length release. so we made everyone wait for the collection of music to grow into something special as opposed to a run-of-mill EP. Now that the CD is done, I’m pretty confident in the decision to wait.

SCHIZOID: What exactly is a "Lorentzian Lineshaper"?

FUX: Well simply put: a Lorentzian Lineshaper is a massive proton gun that uses a Lorentzian Line Shape frequency, these are used to protect an ancient race of pre-human robot hybrids.

SCHIZOID:  You guys have recorded a cover for the upcoming D-TRASH Records tribute album to ATARI TEENAGE RIOT.  Tell us about your track you’ve made for this CD, how it differs from the original and how ATR might or might not have inspired you.

FUX: YES!  This is my favorite track we’ve produced in a long time. We listened to their version.. and its probably my favorite ATR song, and it was hard to imagine anything different enough to constitute HANSEL doing instead of just hearing ATR’s version.    Then we got a bit inebriated and had this grandiose idea of digital hardcore being the music to spark a revolution.. except what if AFTER the revolution the world had no technology, like civilization starts over. But ATR would be anthem-esk in the new world, so with or without technology ATR would survive… so our version was done to essentially sound like it is all being done with live classical instruments, even the drums we attempted to make them sound like an army of booming kicks or marching snares. Like in 1000 years, this is a performance by a futurist orchestra in a world with very little technology, playing an anthem written by ancient revolutionaries.

SCHIZOID:  Some parts of your online biography and descriptions put you very much at odds with the expectations of what a band within this is supposed to be.  What kind of pressures from yourselves, not the scene do you have of yourself when creating HANSEL material and what guides this?  I know many bands within this genre would not include certain HANSEL elements such as the sung vocals, symphonic elements, etc.  Is there any type of elements that HANSEL would not include when writing new material? 

FUX: yeah, we are the result of a musical personality crisis. Part of this, is that these elements (symphonic vocal) existed before we ever heard what other electronic dark hardcore artists were doing. We really just don’t want anyone to have any expectations on what we do and what we will do. We strive for complete and absolute musical freedom, and we want the people into us to understand this. People telling me we should write more of some song we wrote 4 years ago is counter-productive. That song has already been written, lets sit down with no expectations and see what fucking maddening thing we can craft that will take everyone by surprise. I think as time is passing more people realize that our willingness to do things on both sides of the spectrum (noisy, alienated underground elements.. and the flip side.. catchy, well produced) is really a huge mockery of both, and puts HANSEL on its own sole lonely dimension, which is what makes us interesting. I’ve started to notice more and more noise-purists and underground elitists realize our permeating sarcasm have come to embrace us.

SCHIZOID:  You guys have collaborated with a bunch of artists recently both D-TRASH Records and non D-TRASH Records, whether with remixes on your latest disc, or your own guest spots on discs, say like the new HATESTAR disc coming out on D-TRASH.  Pretend you had an unlimited budget or massive superstar power to pick who you’d like to try working with, and who, what artists would you like to call up and have on a HANSEL track.

FUX: Hehe, hmmmm… Well, Penderecki definitely - having that guy write something with HANSEL vox, would be about the most fantastic thing I could imagine being a part of. An Aaron Funk remix or collaboration would be fucking unimaginably amazing. Ohhhh and KOOL KEITH… I WOULD LOVE to have a Kool Keith CD entirely produced by HANSEL, it would be an achievement of mankind. We’d do it for free too.

SCHIZOID:  You guys have just successfully completed your first Canadian performance at the Digital Hardcore Fest 2006 in Toronto.  Tell us about your performance and the show, and also about any kinds of touring plans for this disc.

FUX: This was a different kind of show for us, in how we prepared mentally. I would say most of our past shows have been very stress-laden, worrying about this and that… worried that the drum machine isn’t working.. worrying about the laser lights aren’t lasering. Either that.. or it’s the other extreme, we get so wasted before-hand, that I forget all the lyrics. This show was more like.. whatever happens.. happens. And as a result it was very  comfortable for us to perform, and probably one of the funnest show we have played in a long time.

SCHIZOID:  What is the game plan at this point for HANSEL, now that the disc is finished.  Tell us what’s in store next if there’s anything up your sleeves for the 2007 domination of Planet Earth?

FUX: We are playing shows, I can say that for sure. We have never really done a proper tour,  And would love to at least do a bunch of smaller ones this year. That and keep making some songs.. try our hardest to avoid making people wait 3 years before our next CD.

HANSEL (http://www.hansel.org)

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