Diary Of Dreams were formed by Adrian Hates the x-bass player of Garden Of delight and released their first album in 1994 Cholymelan, a masterpeice and in my opinion one of the most atmospheric dark/goth albums, a true dark diamond in music. Five years later with three more releases ( End Of Flower, Bird Without Wings, Psychoma? ) and a compilation + 4 new D.O.D songs (Moments of Bloom) the new fifth album (One of 18 Angels) is on its way. Until February 2000 when that will be released (o god thats four months) we asked Adrian Hates to tell us a little bit about his new album, his label, tourplans and many other interesting things. -John Gedeon Vassago

Tell me a few things about the Adrian Hates project, which you were thinking of starting after the release of your new D.O.D album. Will the music and lyrics be something new or closer to those of past D.O.D releases?

Adrian: I have been working on this project for many years already...I believe that you can still hear that the composer, writer, producer and vocalist is me, but it is more direct, it goes straight to the center of your being, it is more up-beat, stranger and catchier at the same time.I had planned to release the album in may 2000, but I am afraid I will not get it done before end of next year....

Is that one of the negatives aspects of running your own label, having to sacrifice time which could've been devote to composing music? Or are you content with the balance between the time that goes into the label and your music?

Adrian: It is very hard to find a satisfying balance between the actual office part and the active music part. Of course there are a lot of moments where I would appreciate more time for the composing and the experiments with music, but at this point the label needs my time and my full dedication . With all these releases that I have on the schedule, the label has a momentary priority and my personal requests must be in the backround. Music right now for me is exactly where it was located 5 to 10 years ago: in my free-time...but that´s ok, cause that will change again, one day. ..and one thing is for sure: there will always be enough time for Diary of Dreams

Will your new Diary of Dreams release (any song titles or album title) approach the "Psychoma ?" album in its sound or you are going to present something different?

Adrian: The album is called "One of 18 angels", it is darker than anything I have done so far. It has the character and soul of the "End of Flowers" and of "Cholymelan" with the productional and technical abilities and possibilities of the latest works. So far songs like "Darker", "Rumours about angels" and "Teardrops on my windshield" reflect exactly what I expected to achieve. A dark, apocalyptic and eternal feeling of human depth.

About the lyrics, I can say that they haven't been very positive when it comes to the current state of the human race. Is that influenced by the upcoming turn of the millenium or simply an observation you made about society? In relation to that, do you think we are heading for something of "apocalyptic proportions" in the year 2000-2001?

Adrian: You know, this whole millenium thing is a nice thing to play with, because human kind has fears and /or expectations towards the millenium. I always loved to use pictures, metaphors and word-paintings to express the things I write about. The whole 2000 thing is so overexagerated that it kind of starts to get to be amusing. Even though Nostradamus was right to a certain degree: there was something about 1999 that should get us to think a little more...I am not talking about the apocalypse, but if you see all the floods, hurricanes, earth-quakes, wars and enourmous accidents that happened just this year it almost seems to me like a warning!

After the new D.O.D album any new tour plans in Europe and America?

Adrian:
Nov 20th 1999 Porto/Portugal
Nov 27th 1999 Athens/Greece
Feb 18th 2000  Johannesburg/South Africa
Feb 19th 2000 Pretoria/South Africa
March/April/May a Europe tour France, Belgium, Germany
Mid May a few weeks through the USA (with Cleen)
...and further: we will tour as much as we can...

We recently had a Cold Meat Industry concert in Greece with several bands from the label in a two days festival. Have you ever considered doing a concert with bands from your label Accession Records?

Adrian: Yes, I am actually just in negotiations with some bookers, because I would love all the Accession bands together on tour. A festival like that would demand a lot of organisation and still I will see if I can manage to make it come true...

Tell us a few things about  the goth scene in Germany and how Diary of Dreams fit into it.

Adrian: We have a secure, well-balanced and steady position in the German scene and still our popularity is growing. My personal goal is of course not reached yet...

There are certain moments where you know and understand at what point you really are, like at the last Wave Gothic Meeting in Leipzig. 70 to 80 % of our concerts are outside of Germany, the reason for that is, because I like the feeling of playing in front of whole new crowds and the additional fact that it is a completely different culture, mentality and often languages that I do not know....

...and still one thing brought us together.

I am not the kind of person that spends every weekend in the clubs, I know the scene behind the curtains, and there I love it-it is fun, huge and very challenging. Of course you have people you like and others that you dislike, but sometimes that is what makes it exciting!

I am sorry, but writting about the scene in detail would be an essay....

How would you describe the ideal position for Diary of Dreams then? And where would you like Accession Records to be a few years down the line? Are you satisfied with how the label and the bands on it are doing?

Adrian: I would like both to go as far as it is possible. Always try to reach the max, but be happy where you are as well! I don't have specific ideas of how it should be like, more of a way how it should feel.

Last question : Name which artists you admire and the top 5 albums ever.

Adrian: I can't give you a top 5 or a favourite person, but I can give you a bunch of names : Kate Bush, Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead, Pink Floyd, Howard Jones, Yazoo, John Carpenter, Front 242, Kraftwerk and all the bands I am happy to have on my label.

At this point I would like to thank Adrian Hates for his time in doing this interview and to personally thank Wolf for making this possible. I am sure that the new album will make all of us proud D.O.D fans.
Diary Of Dreams http://www.diaryofdreams.com
Accession Records http://www.accession-records.com
 

Information Society
Cyberina Chats with Kurt Harland about the past, present and future
~by Cyberina Flux
A knife, and a fork, a bottle, and a cork; that's the way you spell Information Society. Most people know Information Society as a pop  band with their hits "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" and "Walking Away"  that both made 1988's top 10 charts. Some people know Information Society  as messiahs of the digital revolution. Far fewer people know Information  Society as a band that transformed from Tommy Boy Record's shining star to  frontman Kurt Harland's much darker industrial solo project with a Cleopatra release titled "Don't Be Afraid". So if you'll all gather around the phonograph, Kurt has a story to tell!

CF: There was a major shift in style between your release of "Peace and  Love, Incorporated" in 1993 to the release of "Don't Be Afraid" in  1997. You went from a bouncy upbeat style to decidedly darker  overtones. What was your inspiration for such a drastic change?

KH: In 1988, Information Society was three people. Paul Robb, Jim  Cassidy, and I. In '93, Paul and Jim reached a point where they no longer  wanted to do the band, and I still did. When I was in the band with them,  it was something that we did together - which means that it wasn't exactly  what I wanted to do or what they wanted to do. Now I'm doing what I want to do.

It's unlikely I'll be in the Top 40 now, but you'll be able to buy the album and know that you're getting something more original.

This is essentially the kind of music I always wanted to do, but which just didn't fit into the pop-oriented plan we and our record label at the time had.

CF: On Don't Be Afraid, there was an extra track entitled White Roses that was added on in a very unique manner. Tell us more about this.

KH: This is a secret that isn't a secret anymore. It is an audio recording of a 300 baud modem spitting out text. If you're a hacker type, and you know what you're doing, you'll be able to get the text and see what it says. Basically it points you to a 16 - part hunt for all the pieces of the 10th song, which has to be found. The idea behind this, however was that people would find the pieces, assemble the song, and then make the song publicly available. It's pretty easy to find now, so I've just posted the song on the website and made it easy to get, since it's easy now anyway. There was a time, however, during which there was a lot of interest in racing to find the song. It was really fun for me to watch people figuring it out.

CF: For those of you that are curious, you may download the White Roses MP3 from StarVox! (click HERE to download)

Don't Be Afraid was produced by Steve Seibold of Hate Dept. How did that alliance come about, and what do you feel was gained from it?

KH: A friend of mine here in San Francisco told me to talk to her friend Don Blanchard at 21st Circuitry records. He recommended Steven because he had done some production work on some 21st Circuitry releases. I called Steve and it seemed like a good match. It was wonderful. It was undoubtedly the best experience I have ever had working on music with another person. It was the first time I'd been in the studio with someone who was really on my same wavelength. Also, with only me "in" the band, there was a very simple power structure to deal with. Steve really understood and liked the kind of music I wanted to do, and he was able to add exactly the stuff I had trouble doing myself.

CF: In 1995 I had the opportunity to see you play at The Arcadia in Dallas for the release of the 2nd CAT Compilation. C-A-D is a group for the promotion of electronic music. How did you get involved with them?

KH: In about 1992, Jeri Beck in Houston wanted to form a little Information Society fan club. I suggested she call it Control-Alt-Delete, and that it could be more of a genre group than just an Information Society thing. She put a lot of effort into that and it really took off and was a lot of fun for a lot of people, as well as giving a bunch of musician's work some daylight.

CF: Recently you have included your brother, Kris Larson, in the INSOC live lineup. Growing up did you two ever play together or is this a more recent development?

KH: He started helping us with our live show in a technical capacity in 1992, and then started playing on stage with me in 1993. He's almost 10 years younger than me, so we never had a chance to do anything like that when we were younger.

CF: You've written for a variety of video games. I imagine with your draw to the cyberpunk subculture that this is something you take much enjoyment in. Tell us a little bit about some of the projects you've worked on, and what your dream project is.

KH: My first was a SeGa Genesis cartridge called "X-Men II, The Bio Wars". What was fun about that one is making the music different depending on which character you were playing. Later on, SeGa decided to commission a bunch of redbook audio versions (normal CD music) of the songs and released it for sale. Fun.

Most recently I did all the music and sound effects for Soul Reaver on the Playstation. That was undoubtedly my best and most enjoyable work to date.

It's very dark and orchestral and murky. It's also highly interactive; I had to compose everything to have 4-7 different modes, and the game switches the music around seamlessly while you're playing.

CF: As early as 1990 you have been an avid and vocal promoter of the digital revolution and the cyberpunk subculture. We seem to be in the middle of it now. How is it different from what you envisioned, and what do you see for it in the future?

KH: It's really not any different that what I expected. I knew that in 1990, we were at the height of it being a "cool" thing for the knowledgeable and adventurous few. I always expected it to become mundane and just as silly as the rest of the world. As the mainstream of humans moves onto something, it will grow fast and come to resemble everything else. In the future, I expect to merely see more of this.

CF: As you see it, what is cyberpunk subculture? And how do you feel it compares with the gothic and industrial subcultures?

KH: As I see it, cyberpunk subculture is an ever-diminishing small group of people who were either around doing computer stuff in the early days, or who wish they had been, losing a battle against the inevitable shopping-mall-ization of internet and computer stuff. In its heyday, I suppose, it was really nothing more than one of the more recent visions of current aesthetic stuff for younger people.

CF: What is "The Car", and why did you give it away?

KH: The Car:

My car is a 1973 Plymouth Satellite Sebring. The original 318 V-8 was replaced with a 440 V-8 from a 1977 Chrysler Gran Fury III Police HP engine in 1988. That engine was rebuilt, 30 over on the bore, in 1990. The car has a 4-barrel carburetor, a racing transmission, and a 3/4 racing cam. The wheels and tires are oversized to a total of 20% larger than spec. All the trim, all interior padding, and the back seat have been removed. The front seat has been re-padded and covered in black leather.

In 1989 and 90, Linus Corragio, a welding sculptor in New York worked on the exterior of the car, working to a notebook full of drawings I had given him. Most of the exterior is covered with expanded steel mesh.

Numerous steel tubes and some re-bar are also attached. There is a functioning laser on the roof, and 18 extra lights: one red light in each wheel well, 2 yellow lights pointing down and forward from the back bumper, 3 white lights pointing down at the trunk from the roof, 2 as headlights, 5 on the front roof rack pointing forward, and one on each side of the front roof rack pointing down and to the side. I found a deer pelvis in 1996 and attached it to the roof, and painted it black. There are two plaster skulls on the front bumper. The front bumper has been replaced with a construction of steel bars taken from NYC "no parking' signs.

Why did I create this thing? It was something I felt I needed to do. The car now belongs to my friend David King, and lives in Oakland. I still have access. David's planning on continuing to build onto it. We still use it at Burning Man. I gave it to him because I had pretty much grown out of the phase of my life that that car best represented. I felt I had become a different person. Not so different that I couldn't appreciate or enjoy the car, but different enough that I was no longer motivated to deal with the thing. David, on the other hand, was just ENTERING that phase of his life. Worked well.

CF: You've been doing INSOC for nearly 2 decades having started in 1982. What have been some of the highlights for you?

KH: I think my favorite moments have always been live shows. My best memory is of a show we did in April of 1983 in Minneapolis. We had a video appearance by Erich Zahn, two slide projectors showing advertising images, and a lucite table with lights underneath that I stood on while singing. It was in some weird "theater space".

CF: You seem to have lived all over from Minnesota to New York to California to Austria. What were you most and least favorite residences, where do you like to call home, and why?

KH: The worst: the suburb I grew up in in Minnesota. The best: my current home in San Francisco. San Francisco is the best city in America, and I know, I've been to them ALL. (tm) San Francisco is a genuine urban core, and it has Perfect Weather (tm).

CF: Cleopatra recently released Insoc Recombinant, a great CD of remixes of your work done by bands such as Razed in Black, Rosetta Stone, and Spahn Ranch. What are your plans for your next release?

KH: No plans at the moment. There might never be another one. We'll see.

CF: What's one question that you've never been asked in an interview, but have always wanted to answer?

KH: What is the capital of Assyria? Answer: Nineveh!

Thank you so much, Kurt, for letting us know what you are thinking!
Information Society http://www.insoc.org
C'est La Mort Management http://www.cestlamort.com
Cleopatra Records http://www.hallucinet.com/cleopatra/
13428 Maxella Ave PMB 251 Marina Del Rey, CA, 90292