Ballistic Test > When I first came across your music a few years ago, you were located in the Philadelphia area of the U.S. Now you are in Vancouver, Canada so I'm curious as to your place of origin?
Wil Arndt >I was born and bred in Ambler, just outside of Philadelphia. I also lived in Newark, New Jersey for a while and spent a lot of time in New York City, too.
Why the move to Vancouver?
At first, it was a temporary move to finish up my degree, but now it's semi-permanent. There's lots of things I love about Vancouver, it's really an amazing place with lots of potential. Besides, my wife is from Canada and that makes it easier to stay, too.
When you were in the U.S. I recall that you were friends with Nathan Morris from Engrave / Novasphere / Velvet Empire and that he was even a band member at one point. Do I have my facts straight? Do you still keep in contact with Nathan?
Yeah. Nathan really supported the local underground music scene while he was in Philly. And that was a time when the Colossal Spin sound was what I consider to be more 'underground' than it is now. I needed a bassist, he liked the rough demo I had, and it went on from there. Throughout the history of CSpin, Nathan was always a major supporter, even after he left to do his own thing. He still came back to do some keys for us during those final shows in Philly.
We still keep in touch by email using secret Philly slang.
When did you start Colossal Spin?
It seems like such a long time ago. 1994 or 5, I think. It's hard to pinpoint because it sort of evolved out of previous projects.
Were you involved with any other bands before Colossal Spin?
Sort of. I played in a few unremarkable bands through high school, and always had my own thing going, too. But I never really got into making music until I got my first 4-track cassette recorder and sampler. That was when I began to realize how technology could be abused and tortured to make new sounds.
Are you the only band member of Colossal Spin now?
Yes, for now.
Any plans for any live shows? I'd love to see you come to Toronto one day.
I miss playing live, and I'm always calculating ways to pull off the new material with a live band. But, there are no serious plans to do that right now. If it happens again, it would have to be a more organic process than last time in terms of assembling the right team.
The previous live band was probably as perfect as I could have hoped for, but it was a two-year process getting it there. It meant lots of ups and downs and auditions and playing in dingy dives and hassles that eventually left me wanting to just trim down and start writing music again.
Someday, Colossal Spin will rock Toronto!
Tell us about your day job and the company you work for Mod7.
My official title is 'Director of New Media.' Basically, MOD7 (http://www.mod7.com) is a communication design firm I started with some people and a previous employer over the last year. It's great because I basically get paid to do what I would normally do for free: shockwave-enhanced websites, digital video, music composition (I do the soundtrack for our interactive titles, too), all that. It's small now, but we're growing faster than I'd like sometimes.
The down side is that, being a principle owner, I've got to do alot of administrative stuff that gets in the way of actually creating. But it's an acceptable price to pay for the freedom and the opportunity to start a company where things are done differently.
Whats the status of your Doppel Kode project? Have any tracks that you haven't released yet?
Doppel Kode began as an idea for an online, interactive 'movie' series back in 97. After I developed some soundtracks for it, I realized the musical material could easily be spun off as a side project. I worked for quite a while on the scripting and storyboarding, and started an online 'comic version' to test it out.
The actual project is not complete yet, but I have some unreleased audio tracks that might end up as an album, or something, if the right opportunity comes along.
How did you get involved with the Torn Skin "Mislead" album as a remixer?
I was asked by Keelow of Blacklight Records to be a remixer on that project, and, even though I was bogged down by other projects at the time, I thought I'd give it a go.
I basically had about 3 hours to put the remix together, so it wasn't as developed as I wish it could've been, but it was a fun experience, anyway.
You've been remixing your own tracks since the "v2.1.7" album. What do you like most about it?
I love how 'musical content', like vocals, melody or song structure, can wear anything it wants to become a new experience. The truly visionary remixer can take the musical content of one song and apply it to new styles, key ranges even tempos to create a fundamentally different flavor.
This is what DJs have introduced to the heritage of music-making: reinvention through artificial adjacencies. Things that aren't 'supposed' to go together, sound great; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, blah, blah.
One of the better current examples of this is the new Moby album. If someone had told me they'll take Detroit and UK sounds and slap them together with old recordings of gospel blues and Bayou-flavored bluegrass, I'd have said they were nuts, or they ran out of samples to pilfer! But the result is truly amazing.
And that's a point that I someday hope to reach in my own remixing. Maybe in twenty years, or so!
The Colossal Spin sound has evolved quite a bit and branched out into new directions since the v2.1.7 album. For example, "Mo Res" on Digital Assimilation was hard techno, "Assimilation" on Collapsing Structure was a surprise for its electro-pop vibe with higher-pitched vocals, and there was the odd mix of bluesy guitars and wind-howling synths in "Everything" on Positively Charged Electrons. Are you still searching for that sound that you are most comfortable with?
For the past few months, I've been into the blues, jazz, ambience, hip-hop, break beat and electronica. So that's what ends up in the music. Lately, I've been into hard core, so that's probably what the next project will sound like. I do this partially to stay balanced and aware, but mostly so I don't get bored.
After the v2.1.7 cd, I made an effort not to narrow my options anymore, just because 'they' say the masses are too dumb or unsophisticated to grasp an album of disparate styles. If that's true, then why do the 'masses' buy cds and make their own tape compilations, which are usually as 'out there' and eclectic as anything? It's just marketing BS. Period.
And even though MP3.com subscribes to this notion of tightly regimented genres and styles, I can work with it because they do it at the song level, not album wide, for the most part.
Besides, I've found that the differences between genres are so silly and ludicrous, that it's splitting hairs. When the difference between one genre and another is 'this one is usually around 120bpm and that one is around 86bpm', that's when things have collapsed to rigid marketing formulas. True genres can only be understood by hearing, not analyzation.
So if someone asks me what does Colossal Spin sound like, I'd have to say that there isn't any one typical track anymore. You've transcended and encompassed a number of different genres. Is this how you'd like to people to view your music?
Absolutely. One of the foundations of the name 'Colossal Spin' comes from that very idea: crush the boundaries, blend and mix to form a balanced, perfect whole. Even if you don't like this genre or that one, everyone can appreciate what they have to offer each other in terms of communication and expression.
What will the new album be called and what will it be like? All new material or will it contain tracks from your compilation appearances and what you've released as mp3s?
The new album is called Dueling Suzis and it will be a shock to the old skool C-Spin fans who think C-Spin is hard, heavy and aggressive. This album is quite pensive, more beat-driven, less angry, more experience-driven, less heavy-handed, more eclectic and it definitely needs more than one listen to 'get into'. In this project, you literally hear CSpin strip away it's hard-rock veneer to reveal more complex layers of dark electronica, goth, big-beat, ambient and even jazz.
There are about two or three tracks that are MP3 releases or have been heard before. And I think three have appeared in a radically different form on various compilations. For the most part, the bulk of the songs have never been publicly released and will be a treat to listen to, I hope.
Finally, any words of wisdom for our readers about who Colossal Spin is and why you do what you do?
The wicked flee, though no one pursue; but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
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