1.
Throbbing gristle is so long ago now, but still people ask about it. I suppose I should be pleased that our endeavours had such an impact that even 20 years later their effects are so obvious. Still, I do remember the experiences as equally traumatic and fulfilling. As TG was pre-punk and even more radical thank punk, we had a hard ride from audiences and the media. I think that fuelled the fire inside us anyway so it wasn’t as negative as people would have hoped, (the people that wanted TG to end that is). I think from the response we hit a raw nerve in the music business, exposing its insincerity and insensitivity to both ‘musicians’ and the buying public. It was a time when music was even more spoon fed by men in suits and old rockers. We wanted to kick music up the arse and move it into the time zone it should have been reflecting. Alas we’re in the same situation again in the 90’s as we were then in the 70’s. Not surprising really as now we have a 70’s revival going on!! Maybe we’ll get a TG copycat band. I doubt they would receive the same reaction as we did though. We had a very aggressive image and we lived up to it, we never stood any shit from anyone, we were determined to deliver what we felt fitted the moment. For that reason we had violence at gigs, but it was dealt with. We hired heavy bouncers too just to add to the atmosphere and because we liked the idea that such an anarchic and low budget band would hire Barbara Streisand’s bodyguards. It appealed to our sense of humour. That’s what a lot of people ignore with TG or miss it altogether, The fact that we had a sense of humour (weird though it may have been to others). We had a great time being mischievous and irritating to whatever appeared to be the established way of doing things.
We got into some weird situations but they were great fun and expanded our horizons and us as people.


2./4.
I think TG’s style and attitude all revolved around us basically saying don’t be passive, get active. Think for yourself, decide from yourself, contribute instead of consume all the time. That’s why there were tracks like ‘Deadhead’ which was a perfect adjective for the people we wanted to spark some life into (if it wasn’t too late). As I’ve said we were aggressive but this style basically visually told people we had serious intentions and they would have to deal with us in some way or walk away and remain deadheads. I think our attitude was a much healthier one than punk which more or less said what’s the fucking use. We wanted (and still do) people to utilise the body and mind they have use of for the finite they have. Of course we’re anti control and a lot of our bulletins and tracks were about that and the consequences of control systems. ‘Zyklon B Zombie’, ‘Persuasion’ etc. We built up a network of like minded people through our mail order and made great contacts, these sometimes lead to collaborations, or not. We just made contact and for some it was enough to know other people felt the same way. Our music expressed all emotions, frustration (What a Day), anger (We Hate You), love (United), fear (Death Threats), sadness (Weeping), happiness (Hot on the Heels of Love), pain (Hamburger Lady) sex (Something Came over Me). The resulting sound was not orthodox music because we used equipment in an unorthodox way. Only Sleazy had musical training and he never played an instrument as such. We all approached the sound source with innocence if you like, no preestablished expectation of what it could do, so we’d use screw drivers or anything on the guitars and violins, plug them into whatever we fancied and then treat them some more. It was the same with Gen’s vocals, Chris controlled them and Gen responded to the effects.


When we played live we always wanted to ‘feel’ the presence of the people who came to the gig. We wanted them to participate in some way, not necessarily jump up on stage but you could sense the energy of all those people and whether it was negative or not. It’s a wonderful sensation when they all come with you. That happened in the last TG gig in San Francisco, I’ve never felt such powerful emotion, the air was so charged I felt like I was looking on the whole scene from above. It was the accumulated effort of all that were there and for me it was a last effort to project the essence of what TG was about. By then it had all gone sour. Gen and I had split up by then and TG had become too much of a cult for it to remain comfortable within its own philosophy. We were against blindly following an example, we wanted people to be themselves in their own right, we were a trigger mechanism not a ‘church’ with followers. So before the last gigs of TG Chris and I had decided to form Chris & Cosey. We collected material for Heartbeat (Manic Melody/ Put Yourself in Los Angeles) while on the TG U.S.A. trip.


3.
In the Shadow of the Sun’ was a real treat for us. We’d never done a film soundtrack before people had used recorded TG material for film but we had to create sound specially for Derek’s film. We used a studio that was in an old mortuary, a typical coincidence that always seemed to crop up with us. I can remember sneaking off and exploring the old tiled rooms which still had the body slabs with drainage channels and the green lights on the wall. It was fascinating and even more special as we were recording late at night and the darkness added to the atmosphere. Then we’d go back into the studio and add some more sounds and vocals. It was a great project and I’m sure the location added to the end result, that respectful ‘ambience’.


5.
Creative Technology Institute and Conspiracy International don’t actually function as a regular record company, it’s as you say our headquarters and we maintain control of our own works. We released material by other people on Industrial but we didn’t like the responsibility people place on you to work for them. We were never into collecting artists and works like a production line of marketable commodities, because that’s what it tends to become. It’ s a necessity because someone has placed their work in your hands and you are in the position of trust both artistically and financially. The people expect sales and profile and for us we don’t have time to do that for ourselves let alone anyone else! We always have too many of our own projects to contemplate taking on anyone elses work. That’s why we prefer collaborations because everyone is equally responsible to each other. For us that’s a more comfortable situation.


6.
I don’t quite know what you mean by key work amongst U.K. electronic music of the time, but ‘Elemental 7’ has a special place in our hearts really, and I don’t mean in a sentimental way really. It was our first video and first CTI project too and involved John Lacey who actually introduced Chris and me, it was the right combination at the right time, a totally instinctive project in its conception and realisation. Everything just seemed to flow so easily. When we shot the video, ‘Meeting Mr. Evans’ we had our son Nicki with us in his pushchair, he was just 12 weeks old. We used the pushchair as a dolly for the video camera to get a tracking shot. It was all so relaxed and uncomplicated a sort of natural progression from ‘Trance’ really.


7.
We’ve done so many videos now and I can’t say I am completely satisfied with any of them. I enjoy them all but we are always thinking even with music too that we could just do this or that to make it better. Video especially as it’s progressed so much since we began and we never have enough money to get the equipment that would fully realise our ideas. Our ideas seem to be too big for our budget, but then I think that’s sometimes a good thing, because you have to be inventive in your attempt to get the result you want and nice accidents happen which make things better than they would have been if you’d been financed enough to use expensive gear. The other good side of it is that most big bands/ art colleges etc that do have access to expensive equipment tend to use the same effects and we don’t fall victim to that trap. We’re presently getting a video board for our Macintosh so we can really go crazy and have fun then but that will be later in the year.


8.
The ‘Library of Sound’ series is an ongoing CTI project of exploring sound as and when we feel. It’s a response to the expectation of Chris and Cosey ‘fans’ really. There came a point at which we felt we had to deliver ‘song’ albums and we felt it was an unhealthy situation for us, our ‘music’ and people who like our material. So we broke free with the Library of Sound so people would know we intended to follow any direction we wished and there would be no set pattern to our output. I think this is essential in enabling us to move forward. I hate being trapped by other peoples needs, it’s unhealthy all round. The ‘Collectives’ to some extent were released to answer a genuine need for the unavailable C&C/CTI compilation tracks and to give the uninitiated a taste of our work, I think they work really well. The name Conspiracy International is not a series at all, a lot of people get confused with it. It is our label name which aptly describes our intentions to conspire and collaborate on an international level.


9.
Skimble Skamble will probably be the last C&C ‘song’ album we do for reasons I’ve already given but also because we both feel more drawn to the L.O.S. work at the moment and we were never ones to force things on ourselves. So having said that I shouldn’t force a definite no more Chris and Cosey tracks!! Maybe I don’t know, we’ll see how it flows, I personally want to use my voice a different way it needs for me to take on a new dimension and I’ve been toying with this idea for some time now. When the time’s right it’ll happen. As for defining ourselves as a group making electronic music with hypnotic elements, I never thought of us as categorised at all. But I suppose if we have to be it’s not bad. The hypnotic elements I must admit to striving for when recording because I look for that feature in music, something which draws me in. I must feel like I’ve been somewhere when I listen to music, even good muzak does that.


10.
We’ve always used imagery in conjunction with our music, even if it’s just the cover of the album, we choose visual elements very carefully. I think most people when they listen to music get a visual image, for me it’s almost automatic. When we’re recording I’m always expressing the emotions I feel from the sounds but at the same time I have a visual image that goes along with that particular emotion. Saying it’s very blue or wet or cold, I close my eyes always when I listen to a track, that way I isolate myself from external distractions and any emptiness or missing elements in the sound become apparent. But crazy as it sounds, I listen to the music visually with my eyes closed, I think most people do. They lay in a dark room, put on the music and drift, it’s wonderful. So after all that imagery is very important because a sound can define an image in your mind so it’s important to us to make sure the sound triggers the appropriate image.


11.
The Space Between was originally a collection of demo’s, doodlings and ideas I worked on in my apartment (between doing TG stuff) and later on, in the Industrial Records/TG studio at Martello Street, in east London. They would have stayed on the shelf if it wasn’t for Cosey, Gen and Sleazy, who kept on nagging me to put them out for public consumption. There was a lot of material and I was tempted to do a follow up but I just never got round to it, the thing is, some of unreleased stuff sounds dated to my ears now, so I will probably leave it in the archive.
With the Disobey Tour I thought it would be interesting to play as ‘live’ as possible, so I decided not to use any form of rhythm backing tape (DAT or cassette). I used a sampler, a synth, a drum machine, some effects and Cosey’s Powerbook for playing back some sequences. Using this sort of set-up allowed me to improvise and change the set from gig to gig. The only constant in the tour was a premixed backing video that was projected and/or shown TV monitors while I was performing. Personally I find it difficult to say how much the sound or style has in common with music I was producing in the eighties but the technique certainly is pretty much the same, apart from not using rhythm tapes. The Disobey CD should be out before the end of the year, with the possibility of a video also.


12.
We’re recording a new Library of Sound album right now. It’s called ‘POINT SEVEN’ and we’re about half way through with some reworking to do on some tracks. It’s all a big shift for us because we’ve upgraded our equipment recently which has meant a change in our method of working. Always strange but exciting. Chris is in the process of taking the studio apart and putting it back together again right now, it looks chaotic right now but we’ll be back recording in a couple of days. After the CTI album we want to put together some live C&C albums because we found some really wonderful live tapes and the tracks are totally different live to the album versions. Plus Chris is going to release his Disobey gig too and he’s doing two gigs in Tokyo this autumn which will be released in Japan. To add to that we want to put out the C&C Live Video Vol2. which will have backstage footage and on the road snippets from the USA tours we did. That’ll take a lot of time because there’s so many tapes to go through, but it’ll be a good video. We have CORE TWO in the pipeline as well but that won’t be released until 1998.