Soft Boy from Metal Express Radio (MER) had the opportunity to hook up with Spider from the band Powerman 5000, to talk about their 2009 release, Somewhere On The Other Side Of Nowhere (SOTOSON). SOTOSON, for fans of “alternative” forms of Metal, may be viewed as one of the best releases of year … it’s a great album to dance to with its deep, smooth bass tones, Marilyn Manson-like guitar power chords, funky keyboards, incredibly easy to follow lyrics and catchy choruses, and overall Techno Metal beats. Back in the 1990’s, Powerman 5000 registered Platinum selling records, but none are as good as this self-produced SOTOSON gem. It’s heavy, it’s original, it has attitude, and most importantly, it’s fun. Check it out, if you’re game for something off the beaten path …
When MER hooked up with lead singer and bandleader Spider, here’s what he had to say …
Metal Express Radio:
First I wanted to say I have a 7-year old son, and he’s just starting to get into music … right now he pretty much is curious to learn about bands that I really get into, and because of that, his tastes are basically emulating my tastes. Recently, I popped SOSOTON in my car stereo while he was in the car, and he was immediately into this CD. In fact, he demanded a copy of it for himself!
SPIDER:
You know, I have kids too, and I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that your son is into the SOSOTON CD. Actually, I often use my son as a sounding board for new material. I’ll run a new idea by him and ask what he thinks. Sometimes he’ll be totally into it, and other times he’ll say something like, “Ehhhh … I think it could be cooler.” But kids are brutally honest, and really, the first “language” that kids learn is through music. With my kids growing up and watching all of these crazy kids’ shows, you realize pretty quickly that music and songs are often the highlights of those shows. I realized pretty quickly too that when you hear a lot of these kids’ shows’ songs, they stick in your head and “haunt” you for hours afterwards – even after just hearing them one time! After a while, I was thinking, “hey, maybe they’re onto something here,” and actually, I’ve kept that thought in mind a lot over the years when writing. I think the average music fan very much has that “young attitude” when they listen to music – they want something that’s cool to listen to, but also like songs that are easy to relate to and have melodies and lyrics that stick with them right away.
MER:
At MER all of the Crew Members put together a Top 10 list for any given year, and I’d have to say a number of people may be surprised when SOSOTON shows up on Soft Boy’s Top 10 List for 2009 … I’m sure if my son was to put together a Top 10 List, SOSOTON would hands down be Number 1.
SPIDER:
That actually means a lot to me … we have fans today that first saw us when we toured in 1997 with Ozzfest, but we also have a lot of new fans in the audience, and I’m always blown away when I look out there and see really young kids getting into the music. When I see them, I usually try to make an extra effort to go out and talk to them in some way, and to ask them how they found out about Powerman 5000. Most times it seems to be the power of the internet … they’re mucking around on U-Tube or MySpace and stumble across something that interests them. They find this “weird” band out there and like what they hear … so I just get psyched up when I see young kids get into Powerman 5000. It reinforces to me the relevance of what we’re doing …
MER:
Give us some background on Powerman 5000 for those readers who may not be that familiar with your works …
SPIDER:
The band has actually been around for a long time … I started Powerman 5000 in the early 1990’s, believe it or not, when I was living in Boston, Massachusetts (USA). There was a very unique thing happening musically out there at that time, actually, and many were out there chasing the Grunge bandwagon, and there were a million Nirvana knock-offs at the time. Then here we come with a strange blend of Heavy Rock music with a blend of Rap lyrics … back then I didn’t view myself as that good of a vocalist, but I thought I could get by with rapping the lyrics and screaming the choruses. At that time, we were really early in the industry with this type of sound … there was no Rage Against The Machine or Limp Bizkit in the mainstream … and we became pretty popular pretty quickly because we were offering a sound that was so unique. We slugged it out in the clubs for years … I guess it was for 6 or 7 years … and were putting out independently released records back then … just slugging it out the old fashioned way until we were able to drum up some label interest. Finally we signed to Dreamworks Records in 1997, and we moved to Los Angeles. Our most popular release was in 1999; a record called Tonight The Stars Revolt, which sold about 1.5 million copies … and that changed everything for us. We went from this “weird” underground band with a relatively small following to getting tons of radio play across the country and spots on MTV … success levels that I never imagined would happen for this band. I guess I imagined this band to be something like it’s settled into now … a band for the “weird” kids … a band for the nerds and the freaks that go to comic book conventions. I always knew we’d be accepted by kids into Metal music too, but felt we’d always be placed somewhere outside the norm, and it was so surprising to see the type of success that we had back in 1999.
MER:
Personally, were you in any other bands prior to Powerman 5000?
SPIDER:
This was my first real band. I grew up in a small town outside of Boston, and was initially into Punk Rock … bands like The Ramones, The Clash, and the Sex Pistols. I also got into a few Hard Core bands like Black Flag and The Misfits, and I just became this “freak” in my town – and that made me want to make music. Early on I was attracted to music that had energy and passion and a message … I never aspired to be the world’s greatest singer or a guitar virtuoso. I just wanted to communicate with people, and Punk Rock and other music just “spoke to me,” and making music along those lines seemed achievable … it wasn’t like “Oh God, I’ll never learn how to play like that” because the music didn’t have any mystical or overly technical qualities. I was part of the world’s worst Punk Rock band in high school, and we’d play talent shows and get booed off stage, but really, Powerman 5000 was my first attempt at a real band.
MER:
The 2009 release by Powerman 5000 is entitled Somewhere On The Other Side Of Nowhere … what does that title mean?
SPIDER:
It functions on a level of how we approach a lot of what we as a band like to do. We do have science fiction overtones in a lot of our work, and we like how science fiction “functions.” It’s generally ripe with social and political commentary, but on the surface, it’s just mainly a really fun ride. So SOTOSON is very much in line with what we were about … it could be this really trippy 1970’s novel, or if you want to dig into it deeper, there is plenty of meaning you can infer into that title. I like to have both aspects in our music: a fun ride, if that’s all you want it to be, but also to include opportunities to dig deeper into the lyrics to find meaning of whatever sort you’re looking to uncover.
MER:
The recording quality of this album is absolutely superb … there’s incredibly smooth and room-filling bass and every instrument and sound included in each song just seems to pop out as if it’s completely alive. Who produced this album and how was your sound achieved?
SPIDER:
The amazing thing about this record … and I think of this because we’ve made records for major labels and spent up to $500,000 for each album … this is the FIRST record we’ve made that was completely put together by the band ourselves. Our guitar player recorded each part completely in the box of our rehearsal space using $200 microphones and some outdated version of Pro Tools that he downloaded for free somewhere. SOSOTON really is a testament to the choices you make and the make-up of each person in the band. We literally didn’t spend a dime on this record … other than the endless hours and blood sweat and tears, of course. I don’t want to make it sound like it was an easy task, because it wasn’t … there were a ton of choices and decisions to be made, and a lot of trial and error behind what sounds mesh well together and get the point across. Metal fans often think of Powerman 5000 as very Poppy … which is true to an extent … because we’re not trying to compare or compete to the latest Death Metal band that’s garnered credibility. We think we do pull ideas, though, from a lot of different genres … some of them Metal and some of them from bands that may cause my credibility card to be pulled … but that’s the beauty of producing your own album. You can do whatever it is that you want … but you have to be patient and you have to have someone like we do who has a pretty good idea on what to do … and I think we proved that you don’t have to spend a million dollars to produce a top quality sounding album.
MER:
Regarding your song titles and topics … “Do Your Thing,” “V is for Vampire,” “Supervillian,” “Show Me What You Got” … is there any special meaning or thoughts behind what you’ve written?
SPIDER:
There are a couple things that have always come into play when I write songs. First, I take it upon myself to sort of serve as the “mouthpiece” for the disenfranchised out there, if you will. I’ve always had a connection, I feel, with the kid who gets bullied at school, or the weird kid that doesn’t fit in with everyone else … and I tend to write from that approach, and that’s actually a big motivation. With that comes how much difficulty so many of us have dealing with the realities of our own worlds. We included a quote in the booklet with the CD from H.G. Wells: “Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of nature” … to me, when I read that quote, it means we just have trouble figuring out how to exist in our own world. So many of the songs I write go along the lines of non-conformity and the inability to fit in.
MER:
What can concert-goers expect when they consider going to see a Powerman 5000 show?
SPIDER:
We always put a lot of pressure on ourselves to deliver a great live show, and some of the best complements we get are from people who were skeptical about coming to see us in the first place … maybe just went to tag along with a friend … and at the end of the show told us they were completely sold on the band. We put on a very “physical” show, and I make sure that I take a lot of time to talk to the crowd … I always hated bands that set themselves apart or have a feel of being very distant. My main goal is to get everyone loose and “involved” in the show, and to try to break down barriers some people may have … and try to get everyone at some point to let go and throw their fist into the air because they finally got into the show. As far as what we play, we try to play something off of each album, and as you can imagine, we have been playing a lot of material from the new album. We have robots on stage with us, of course, and everyone seems to love us doing that.
MER:
You’ve already completed a tour in support of SOSOTON … so what’s next on the agenda?
SPIDER:
Historically we’ve always been slow in putting out new material. We always have aspirations to put out a record every year or close to that … but it ends up being 2 or 3 years each time before a new record happens. So, we’re going to make a concerted effort to release material more quickly, and we can do that now … maybe by just throwing out some digital singles along the way. We just want to be more productive with the flow of material, so I envision that we’ll be doing a lot of writing in the near future, and I’m sure there will be another leg of touring with tons of shows.
MER:
Any final message to your fans out there?
SPIDER:
Well, of course, I want to thank all of our fans for their support, and I want to thank everyone too for such a warm reception for our SOSOTON record. We’ve really been blown away at how so many people are really getting into it. So with that, I guess I want to close out my comments by saying if you’d like to hear some cool Robot Metal, then check out our Somewhere On The Other Side Of Nowhere … release! I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Check out more about Powerman 5000 by visiting their website.
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