Interview with J. Scott G. and Shriekback frontman Barry Andrews

Interview with J. Scott G. and Shriekback frontman Barry Andrews

4 February, 2008 | 1.05PM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: j scott g, libra rising music, shriekback

J. Scott G., formerly one half of Deepsky, has recently remade the classic Shriekback monster ‘Nemesis’.

We asked him for his inspiration, and he did us one better and talked with Shriekback frontman Barry Andrews himself about the remake of the song.

Here’s what J. Scott G. (pictured below) had to say about why he remade the song, followed by his conversation with Barry Andrews.

-

I remember growing up with ‘Nemesis’ in the 1980s.

That chorus was so damn catchy, I couldn’t get it out of my head!

This was definitely around the time I started hearing bands like New Order, Depeche Mode, OMD and The Smiths, so all of this music was magical to me.

I knew at 10 years old that I was going to be making electronic music the rest of my life, and tunes like ‘Nemesis’ were a big part of why.

A few years ago, I took a shot at doing a bootleg remix of it, but it didn’t really come out all that well.

Then, about 6 months ago, I was talking to my label partner John, and mentioned wanting to take another crack at a remix and he was like, “Well why don’t you try getting a hold of the band and see if they wont re-sing it for you?”

Well thanks to Myspace (God bless Myspace), I was able to hook up with Barry and get him to re-cut the vocals for me.

The result was wicked and we’re all really happy with it.

The remixes that Burufunk and Delimn did are amazing too.

Let’s hope this goes No. 1 again!

Here’s my conversation with Barry Andrews (pictured below).

-

Many listeners from today’s generation don’t know much about the true origins of electronic dance music. Please give us a little bit of history about Shriekback and how you feel you and other electronic bands from your era have influenced dance music today.

We were part of the first lot of bands after the punk explosion to look around at the smoking wreckage and start to build new stuff.

Pre punk, there had been dance music or rock music — two very distinct churches — and the use of electronics was very different in each — with the exception of Pete Townshend’s classic synth sequencing on ‘Baba O’ Reilly’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, Alex Harvey’s deep down throbbing on ‘Faith Healer’ and from the other end of town, Sly’s hysterical moog on ‘Nutbush’ and Funkadelic’s mighty bass synth on ‘One Nation Under a Groove’.

Rock used synths and keyboards like guitars, or instead of an orchestra (think Manfred Mann’s Earthband and The Moody Blues).

Dance, aka Disco, used them to create texture, groove and sometimes basslines.

We started seeing what would happen if you mixed and matched.

We had drum machines going through vocoders, songs all in one key (like some funk tunes once were), dub reggae production perspectives, punk sensibilities and very long tape loops.

Culturally, I guess, we all got loosened up at that time.

Permissions were granted: white kids got to play black music (refer to The Clash, PIL and the Slits), and girls got to form girl bands where they wrote their own songs and played instruments.

It’s strange to relate, but white guys started dancing (usually badly, and invariably drunkenly, but dance we did) and from this odd phenomena came music that white boys felt okay dancing to.

‘Blue Monday’ by New Order, of course, being the daddy of ‘em all.

‘Nemesis’, in its turn, stateside, was a floor-filler at college discos.

How weird is that?

Tell us a little bit about ‘Nemesis’ and how that song came about.

‘Nemesis’ was an attempt to do a metaphysical pop song.

‘Apocalypse Now’ had come out a couple of years before and, I thought, raised some interesting moral issues: what about the choice to deliberately do evil?

Not with pseudo pragmatism (ends justifying the means) or bogus religiosity (they need to be purified) but for the hell of it.

Of course, ‘Apocalypse Now’ was based on Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ where the bloody amorality of nature is contemplated with the epithet: the Horror..the Horror.

Anyway, that all sounded like fun, plus I wanted, being a 1970s boy, a big Gary Glitter football chorus but with a twist.

“Parthenogenesis” meaning reproduction with a single parent — it struck me that only certain microscopic creatures and the Virgin Mary had achieved this.

And there was Nemesis the Warlock from the English comic 2000AD the Arch Deviant.

With a magnificent sculptural head like a harpoon, what’s not to love?

A lot of (particularly American) punters found all this Goth and sinister, but I always thought it was hilarious. Still do…

How do you feel about ‘Nemesis’ getting another shot at today’s dance floors?

I never understood how anyone danced to our version, which is possibly the least groovy thing we ever did.

This generation may have a less demanding task, thanks to Scott.

What is Shriekback up to these days?

We’re still fully functioning.

We are signed to Malicious Damage records (http://www.maliciousdamage.biz/) and have, so far, released two original albums through them: ‘Cormorant’ (2005) and ‘Glory Bumps’ (2007).

We also have some fab Advent Calendars for the End of the World (containing ‘Glory Bumps’ on vinyl), if you’re interested.

• (2) Comments
• (1988) Views
• Check out 'Nemesis 2008' on Beatport