Future Noise Interview
The collective known as Future Noise have been around since 2002 promoting doom and metal madness in the Manchester area. With bands such as Ramesses, Bongzilla, Charger, Raucous, Beecher, Total Fucking Destruction, 5ive, Electric Wizard, Lazarus Blackstar, Capricorns, Atavist, Unearthly Trance and more recently Acid King & Khanate playing for them, the main protagonist behind the moniker, Dave, kindly answered a few questions about past, present and future (noise) events.
Hi Dave, hope all is well, firstly, can you give us a little background info on Future Noise, what made you start & who else is involved in the collective?
Hello Lee good to hear from ya’, back in about April 02 we just got a bit fed up of not being able to see various bands/tours in Manchester that reflected our taste in music. We already had a few ideas of bands we wanted to drag up/down, but finding supports locally took longer than we thought, until watching Beecher & Ripley on the same bill, these guys blew us away. It kind of snow balled from there with local/northern based bands, the word spread fast from the likes of Narcosis, Levien, Archer and Year Of The Monkey, we always knew we’d need help from locals plus it pisses me off that some of the support slots on larger, more well known bills aren’t offered to decent local bands, especially when the cities music community is built up from their constant support and passion for their genre of music, I think in the last year this has got a lot better but it’s still not good enough!
As collectively speaking, FN always been myself & Paul as to what we want to do, we take all the risks money wise but are heavily supported by Steve K, Tay (Raucous), Gary Wilmot (Ex-Ripley) Charlotte Morgan, Creely (Raucous) plus various bands and people who without their help we’d have failed a long time ago.
You put your first gig on in 2002, can you tell us who this was with, what the support was like and did you think at the time you’d still be at it today?
Well, we set up three gigs at first, Incoherence (Blackfish Records) and Beecher being the main support in August, the bands were awesome, attendance was terrible!!!! Felt like I’d wasted some amazing bands time and effort, but it makes you work even harder for the next one, especially being on Friday 13th!!! This was with Mistress, Unsanctum, Ripley and PSP, total change this time around, a lot more people turned up, what a gig. The third was with Khang, Ripley and Levien, another good night!!!!!. I think after the first gig I thought if all three go as bad as this, we wouldn’t make the year let alone still be doing it today.
And do you know how many gigs in total you’ve put on to date?
No? A fair few, I’d ask Paul but old age and dementia are setting in fast, there’s no hope hahahaha…
You generally put them on in Manchester, mainly at The Star & Garter, are there any plans to expand Future Noise to other venues/areas of the UK or are you happy to stick with what you know?
The idea was to bring bands here (Manchester), that’s not changed, there’s plenty of other people putting on gigs in their own towns/cities, plus physically promoting somewhere else isn’t that easy unless it’s tour. The Star & Garter is a great venue and run by people who care what we’re doing and go out of their way to support us. We did the Electric Wizard/Capricorns/Lazarus Blackstar gig at the Jabez Clegg, for purely the reason of venue size and the chance to use an 8000K PA and for Paul to tell us that the cast iron drain pipes are rattling outside says we did the right thing hahahaha!!!!!
Over the few years you’ve been active, the bands you’ve been putting on are now starting to get bigger and more well known, is this purely down to you getting in touch with various bands and offering them gigs or have you now surpassed this and bands now get in touch with you?
Yeah I suppose some bands are bigger than when we first started but not that bigger perhaps, just more well known or on larger record labels. We mainly get asked to set up a date as part of UK/European tours which is always exciting. You never know what’s around the corner so we don’t agree to do everything we’re offered, only the stuff we enjoy and have no intention of just churning out gigs because we can, how can you put your heart & soul into stuff you just don’t personally like. Yeah we still contact bands, there’s always support slots, so please send us your demo/CD or LOVELY vinyl!!!! But word of mouth/recommendations are a massive part of getting involved with various gigs, which is very humbling from some of the past shows we’ve done.
And what about Agents/Record Labels? Are you in touch with any and do you find these a help or hindrance?
Agents??? If you constantly get fucked about by one, don’t deal with them again, the ones we deal with are normally GREAT!!!! There heavily involved with this type of music. You also find a lot of bands/labels also sort out their own tours, it’s much better dealing direct, more personal, friendly. If your honest with people, then everybody involved will do there up most to sort stuff out, especially when unforeseen problems occur. Acid King’s euro tour was just a fucking joke, total lies and bullshit, they proved there one of the hardest working bands around and still made and kept promises to a lot people, read their tour dairy on their Myspace site, shocking & funny. We always get helped out by labels when asking for various promotional stuff and info labels like Rise Above, Calculated-Risk, Hydrahead, Parastic , Superfi , Psychedoomelic and House Of Stairs put out some amazing stuff.
The last couple of gigs you were involved with (Khanate & Capricorns) were in association with The Roadhouse (a live music venue in Manchester), firstly can you tell us how they came about, how the actual gigs went and will you be working with The Roadhouse at some point in the future?
Fairly simple really, we contacted The Roadhouse when we knew the Capricorns were touring and playing up here. We got the chance to sort out a gig for them back in April so returning the favour of helping out with extra promotion and support was just something we really wanted to do. They also asked if we’d help with Khanate, which was great. Both gigs were good, Baroness were just amazing plus Manchester based Atavist, who played with Khanate, are a band to keep an eye on! The Roadhouse have already been back in touch about getting involved with some more stuff and hopefully we’ll have some influence over the choice of support acts, which is a major part of getting involved really.
Your also spreading the Future Noise wings a little by helping out Manchester Doomsters Raucous with gigs and general help with their PR, do you plan to expand on this and help other bands?
On a friendly basis, we got to know various members from their Ripley days, so it just kind of naturally carried on and when they were ready to start gigging, we did their debut with 5ive/Ramesses and it worked perfectly with their blend of Neurosis meets Iron Monkey, an honour to do!!!. We just spread the word through the normal Future Noise ways, be it pigeon, flying carpets or piped ferret, it all helps. Yeah it’d be great to help out some other bands that we enjoy of course, so please, if you’re in a band and think we might be able to help out, then drop us a line!!
You’ve also released a CDR by Ripley, is this your only release to date and are you planning on expanding on the Future Noise label with other releases?
Yes it is, seems ages ago, well there is currently talk/plans of doing a spilt release with Roadkill Records (Manchester) for Raucous early next year. These guys have been working hard writing and playing on some amazing bills with Unsane, Mono, Red Sparowes, Beecher/Mistress tour and even GWAR hahaha plus a support slot with Pelican on 19th Dec in Sheffield, not bad for there first year, more info at www.myspace.com/raucouspimp.
You’ve also started up a distro selling the usual CD’s, LP’s etc at Future Noise events, can you tell us why you decided to go down this route, an idea of what stock you currently have and is this something you would like to pursue further by extending it to mail order?
There’s two reasons behind doing this one, it’s great getting packages full of vinyl & CDs from around the world plus we’re able to help out some small independent labels. Some of this stuff isn’t that easy to get hold of or it just costs to much. Two, putting on gigs is expensive and at times we struggle to cover the costs, so by selling Records/CD’s we can provide some extra funds to keep everything going. As with regards to stock, it’s a mix of limited Vinyl to CD’s which includes stuff like Torche, 27/Bug, Stonewall Noise Orchestra, Wall Of Sleep, Tractor/Geisha, Electric Wizard, Eternal/Thy Grief Eternal (Pre-Electric Wizard), Witchcraft, Grand Magnus and Circulus, a fair whack of Rise Above releases at the moment, the hordes normally descend on us when a large shipment arrives, junkies all of um’!!!!!.
And what about the swanky Future Noise T-shirts you recently got printed, can you tell us who came up with this idea, where the artwork come from and how are they selling so far?
Hahaha swanky they sure are, you should know as your purchase was most gratefully received! It was just an excuse to have something designed by the guy/girls at the Malleus ArtLab (Italy), their work is just amazing, to have had something designed by them is great, they’ve worked for some amazing bands QOTSA, Electric Wizard, Bongzilla, Bjork, Nebula, Monster Magnet, Tomahawk blah blah blah and as I’ve always had an interest in screen printing since studying it for a couple of years. As for sales, we’re doing a lot better than we imagined, we ended up ordering twice as many as we expected due to a big demand in pre-orders, so thank you if you brought one!!!!!! Your helping to promote us and also keeping Future Noise alive.
And lastly, with the end of the year drawing closer & closer can you tell us what the plans are for Future Noise during 2006?
It sure is, there seems to be some exciting stuff possibly happening next year, as before, the Raucous release, we’ve also been asked to arrange two dates for Ufomammut (Italy)/Malleus guys in the UK, I’m hoping this comes off as Ufomammut are awesome!! Kind of like a cross between Pink Floyd, Neurosis and a spaced out psychedelic Electric Wizard, the new album “Lucifers Songs” sounds great and we’ll have a few copies coming in very soon hahahah. Possible date for Zatokrev (Switzerland) plus we’ve been asked to get involved with a heavy monthly club night sponsored by Terrorizer Magazine coming in February, extra promotion with various gigs/promoters/venues and we should also be helping out the Red Sparowes when they tour the UK next year, so it seems we’re going to be fairly busy.
OK Dave, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions, please use this space for any final words/thoughts/plugs…
I can speak for everybody involved and say a big thanks to everybody who’s supported and stuck by us over the last few years, especially to these bands/people:
Raucous (go watch um’), Profane (buy their new album “The Day We Scorched the Sky”, Gizeh Records), Atavist (buy their album when it’s ready, Invada Records), Slug/Jamie & the t’witch crewe, Ian@rock666.com, Roadkill Records (Manchester, Oldham Street), all@The Star and Garter, Cris@total-rock.com, Will@Riseabove, Kunal@Superfi Records, Mark@Psychedoomelic. Also check out these bands, Thade (Includes the Viking sticksman from Ripley), Beecher, Narcosis, Red Right Hand, Archer, Lazarus Blackstar, Ramesses, Electric Wizard, Unearthly Trance, Capricorns, 5ive, 27, …as the tide consumes, Charger, Black Eye Riot, 3 Stages Of Pain, Taint, Art Of Burning Water, Birds Of Paradise, Mistress, Thread, Ufomammut, Baroness, Acid King, Witchcraft, Dove, Floor, Grand Magnus, Tractor, Geisha, Wall Of Sleep, Zatokrev and buy Torche’s Debut album. And finally…….Thanks to all the people who turn up again and again “ITS YOU WHO PAYS THE BANDS!!!!!!!!!!!”
Thanks for the interest Lee and all the help you’ve given us as well.
Ta – Dave & (Paul)
Check out the latest goings on with Future Noise at: www.future-noise.co.uk
Interviewed by: Lee Edwards
