COLLIDE - COUNTING TO ZERO

COLLIDE - COUNTING TO ZERO

– Interviewed by Oz

Dark, sensual and extremely captivating, Collide have provided some evoking and emotive sounds over the last decade, with their distinctive electronic beats, guitars, ethereal soundscapes and kaRIN’s voice! Oh that voice! A series of successful albums, collaborations, with the likes Dean Garcia (Curve) and the great Danny Clarey (Tool), as well as hits on some major movie soundtracks in the past. 2011 sees Collide return after two years of hard work, “Counting to Zero” has been released. The countdown is over here I find out about the album, tours, their working relations and their T-shirt competition...

Your new album “Counting to Zero” has just been released, September 27th 2011, can you tell us a bit about the concepts behind the new album?

kaRIN:  For us it is not about dictating a concept...it has always been about just trying to make something that we would like ourselves...that is hard enough.
Statik:  The concept is called, trying to make decent songs.  I think the songs naturally kind of go together, because it’s just us doing the song writing.   I think they go together anyway...I guess we’ll have to see what everyone else thinks.

How does this album compare to your previous albums?

kaRIN:  Hmmmm...I get so lost in the process that I don’t really think I can be objective on that question.
Statik:  It’s way better.   If you liked any of our last albums, you’ll love this one.  If you didn’t like them, you’ll still love this one.  If you loved any of last albums, you’ll love this one even more.  Did that make you want to go get it?

The album release date falls on Statik’s birthday, was this planned or just a lucky coincidence?

kaRIN:  A bit of both.  I think it will be a fabulous day to let the universe line up though.  I like that.
Statik:  We thought it would be a good way to get in a two for one celebration.

What has been influential to you guys on developing this album?

kaRIN:  The drive to make music takes all of our time and energy...but it is something we are almost addicted to.  It’s just a thing.  There is no confusing when you are an artist of whatever type...it is just what you do.
Statik:  As with any of our albums, we don’t start out with many preconceived ideas.  We just try to keep evolving, and not repeat things that we’ve done in the past.  Hopefully that comes across.  I guess the other constant that I have, is that I don’t really want to sound too organic.  I love to tweak sounds, and make things sound more electronic-y than acoustic-y.

You have had guest musicians on your previous work, such as Danny Carey for Tool (two headed monster) is there anyone who has come on board for “Counting to Zero”?

kaRIN:  Yes...Dean Garcia who was in Curve and who we did The Secret Meeting with.  The fabulous and talented Scott Landes and Kai Kurosawa who also play live with us.  The amazing Kevin Kipnis of Purr Machine and Danny Carey...sort of.  I will let Statik explain that one.
Statik:  For one song, “Letting Go”, I took the drums that Danny played on “Somewhere” from our album “Some Kind of Strange” and edited them so they would work on this new song.  It was fairly difficult, as they were in different tempos and completely different time signatures.  I had it in my head before I started working on it, and I just thought that it would work.  I played it for Danny to make sure he was fine with it, and he was, so that was cool.

Can you tell us any of the track names?

kaRIN:  Here they are:
1. Bending & Floating
2. Lucky 13
3. Mind Games
4. In the frequency
5. Clearer
6. Counting to Zero
7. Human
8. Tears Like Rain
9. Further From Anything
Slow Down
11. Letting go

You have your fans donate to the making of this album, was this down to the world's recession or something more to give back to the fans (giving named credits in the booklet)?

kaRIN:  A way to meet in the middle.  Music has changed so much that it seems that people no longer need a physical CD, so we made an offer for them to be part of the process and have their names listed in the thank you credits.  For us, it really touched our hearts to know that people did in fact really care about our music enough to help in the process.  I have to say the whole thing really meant a lot to us and helped us continue.  There is something that is very uninspiring about knowing you are spending all of your time and energy working on something for a couple years and then to release it and then have people take it for free, so it helped to get that out of the way a little and kicked us into high gear to get the album finished.

You have also asked fans to design a T-shirt for the new album release, what made you decide to embark on this task?

kaRIN:  I love to work with other people’s creative energy. 
Statik:  That, and the fact that designing t-shirts is something that I don’t really have any huge  creative ideas for.

Can we expect a tour to follow with the album's release?

kaRIN:  I don’t think so.  The making process is so consuming to us.  We have been working almost non stop for 2 years.  After this release, we will probably plan a nap and then spend a moment catching up with life.
Statik:  Not that we didn’t like playing live before...it just still seems like a lot of work.  I don’t want to co-ordinate the whole thing.  I just want to come along as a player.  If someone can make that happen, I might consider it.

Where would you say is your favourite place to play and why?

kaRIN:  In our entire 15 year history as a band, we have only EVER played nine live shows.  The ninth was recorded live on our DVD "Like the Hunted".  We knew that we did not really have the time to play live, so we captured the whole thing on a live DVD.

Statik:  I liked it when we were rehearsing in our own studio.  We didn’t have to clean up and put away everything when we were done.

A little off topic but can we expect anything more form “The Secret Meeting” project?

kaRIN: We would LOVE to..but really it is Dean’s hands.
Statik:  Dean said that hopefully we will start something this year, so we are hoping that will be true.

What is coming up next for you guys?

kaRIN: A nap, then probably a remix album...then another nap.
Statik:  The remix album might come before the nap, we’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.

Thank you for your time!

Oz