1. First, could we start with a small band presentation ?
We're Interlock, we're from the UK and we play cyber metal. We've just released a new single / EP, the ‘skinless remixes' disc, in France and mainland Europe. I'm Hal Sinden, and I'm the male singer.

2. You realesed your first album just last year, and you already now publish
this "Skinless Remixes", why so short ?
Well we believe it's actually about the normal amount of time that people leave to release singles from an album, and although the track on the EP has different female vocals on it, it is definitely part of ‘crisis//reinvention'.

3. What can you tell us about this "Skinless Remixes" ?
All of us were fans of the way bands like Nine Inch Nails & Pitchshifter released singular songs from an album and featured remixes of the piece by prominent artists of the time as additional tracks. We had decided when we first signed with Anticulture Records that we'd release a single from the album anyway, but it provided us with a great chance to showcase our involvement and influences in electronic music. It's been really interesting to see how different people / publications have dealt with it as a release - some seem to think it's our new album (!?), others have even thought that it's actually us remixing one song loads of times and a few people have honestly struggled to accept that a metal band could still release what is technically a single. However, the most important response has been from our fans, who tend to be open minded people anyway and have appeared to understand it immediately. The remix by Wake which we've put up as a free download has had a lot of hits, many people have even put it on their myspace pages, which is great to see.

4. How do you manage to mix so many influences in your compositions ?
Simply by having 6 members who come from such different places in metal. We tend to discuss new music a lot in places like the tourbus, we all recommend bands and acts to eachother regularly, so there's a lot of cross-pollination. The most important thing we've ever constantly adhered to is that we won't deny a particular style of music if it's relevant to the song, whereas many other metal acts won't think of bringing in a genre to their sound because it doesn't initially appear ‘METAL' enough etc.

5. What are the bands that influences you, I guess many...
Personally, I've not been able to stop listening to Psycroptic, they really appeal to my technical side. I'm also really getting into a lot of Sicboy, Machinochrist (also on Anticulture Records) and I've just found that despite being very hyped up; Yo Yo Ma is actually a brilliant cellist.

The rest of the band are split so many ways with their personal tastes. John [guitars / programming] is into a very wide range of music from Will Haven to BT, Syan [bass] is our doom metal representative, Christina [vocals] is definitely our blackest metaller, Matt [drums] is into Killing Joke in a big way.

6. And what did you make create/mix the brand new metal style ?
2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
3 hot dried red chillies
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon of cardamom seeds (taken from the pods)
3 inch stick of cinnamon
2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

5 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
10 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 medium onions peeled and sliced into rings
3 tablespoons water

1 inch cube of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1 whole bulb of garlic, peeled
3 tablespoons water
2 lbs of pork shoulder, diced and trimmed of excess fat
1 tablespoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon turmeric

Grind well, making sure the spices are infused into the meat, cook lightly for around 45minutes then allow to stand in a cool place for about a day. Serve with basmati rice and a spinach/potato curry (saag aloo).

7. Some title have been remixed by "John Callaghan" and "Shane Cough", why them,
and did you apreciate their work ?
John Callaghan has known us for quite a while, a few of our members were aware of the music he writes and quite frankly - the guy is exactly the right side of insane. He's really worth checking out if you're open to some very diverse approaches to electronic music, and what that man can do with vocals is just bizarre. I thought what he & Purple Stuart did with ‘skinless' was amazing, it's certainly one of the darkest treatments on the EP.

Shane Cough are doing some great things with the format they've chosen. Interlock will always be attracted to people accepting electronica as a necessary component in new music and Shane Cough have done that brilliantly. The way they handled ‘skinless' was well considered and they brought out some aspects in the song that we would never have thought of using, which is the criteria we set for all our artists on the EP.

As an overall note, we're all really happy with the way the remixes turned out. For myself, when we were first discussing the idea of a remix EP, I was concerned that we'd have 8 tracks of just “doosh-doosh-doosh-doosh…” with some distortion on the vocals but instead it's worked out as 8 completely independent and separate insights on what an act or person has heard when they've listened to one of our songs. My absolute favourite being Miocene's version; Ben is a quiet and underrated genius.

8. After the coming out of your first album, what are the feedback you had about
it ?
It's been great. What's been so fascinating is to see how places like France and Germany have taken to it, which took us all by surprise as for so long we hadn't known anywhere near enough about the continental metal scene. The sales in France alone have been really pleasing and we're regularly being approached by listeners from over there (thank you for speaking English to us! Our French still isn't great).

We were in a strange position in releasing something like ‘crisis//reinvention', when you consider that the current trend in the UK is very notably for stripped-down thrash and screamo vocals. So many people are returning to the most basic forms of metal, so coming out with an album full of very full, busy and electronic-laden music was quite a gamble on our part. What I think it's done is quietly attached itself to a lot of metalhead's latent appreciation of stuff like techno and other less typical genres, it's hard to be 150% into just one type of music all the time, and that's what we're here for. The reviews have been great and the fan feedback has been great, we also now have an even clearer picture of where we need to take Interlock beyond this point.

9. Hal has been elected "most shaggable male artist", did it seriously change
something for Interlock ?
Change? No. I don't think I'd be happy being responsible for negatively altering a band's identity purely because of something like looks. I mean, of course I'm happy about it, who wouldn't be? But when i

t comes down to it, it's a compliment that has provided a little bit of media attention which can never be a bad thing. Maybe it changes what some people expect to get from us, or when they see us, but you need only come to one of our shows to see that we're about so many different things.

There are some people who just won't let go of it though, which is a little off-putting sometimes. For instance, we've done interviews where we're there to discuss the band or a new release and questions keep being asked about the voting, sometimes continually. It's not like I'm walking around with a t-shirt that says “Most Shaggable Male Artist 2004/2005' (although I do have it tattooed down my penis) so I'm not demanding a reaction 24/7. However, I do consider it my passport for a night with Christina Scabbia, so if anyone has her phone number…

10. What are your projects now ?
If, by that, you mean priorities, I'd say it's definitely to make sure we get further abroad. We're so eager to get out to other counties in general, but then we're also all quite excited about writing new material. We almost forgot how enjoyable it can be, and the new stuff is sounding punishing.

11. Is a tour planned ?
Yes it is, we're currently in talks with Sybreed, from Switzerland which will mean we should be in Europe around November time, we hope. They're great, I honestly can't enthuse about them enough, we're so glad to have found a band that we feel are on such a similar wavelength, musically. Once most of mainland Europe is done, we'll most probably head back to the UK with them. We're also speaking to a few European booking agents which may mean we could have some French dates this Summer, but we'll definitely be compiling some dates for the UK anyway, possibly with some key UK cyber acts and maybe a Scandinavian one…

12. Which country would you like to go on tour, and why ?
Ultimately, I'd have to say the US. I know that sounds really typical, but it is somewhere I reckon we'd do well touring in. There's a lot of resentment for what America has done to the world lately, but there are at least some good elements to it and one of those is the fact that the industrial metal scene is alive and thriving over there, despite the fact that the hardcore / emo scene is having its phase.

13. And with which bands ?
We did some investigative work lately and found some amazing acts in Europe that we'd absolutely love to perform with. For instance - Dagoba, Zuul FX, MXD, Raunchy, Hacride and many others. There'll always be the larger bands that would be great to gig with (Lacuna Coil, Mnemic etc.) but for the time being we've got a lot of interest in bands that are on similar levels to us.

14. Our website is called "Spirit of Metal", so my last question would be "What
is the Spirit of Metal" for you ?
75cl Bison Vodka, 75cl Chivas Regal, 75cl Green Chartreuse, 75cl Captain Morgan and tiny bit of ice for good measure.

…and possibly not being afraid to do what others have never considered doing, but heavier.

15. Thank you very much for precious time, last words are yours !
Thank you very much for posing such considered questions, it's always great to be challenged in some way with these things, so cheers! For anyone who likes what we're doing - keep your eyes glued to the website (www.interlock.org.uk) as we've got a new street team coming up soon and some great new live dates. Stick with us, we'll show you the way forward.