Biomechanimal

Biomechanimal has had their debut album in the works for the past two years, now. With plenty of time to allow the fruits of the labor to bloom, they now have an IndieGoGo campaign (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/debut-release-for-biomechanimal) set to help get the funds necessary to get the final product they desire. And, with that being said, I was able to sit down and have a chat with Danny and Matthew of Biomechanimal talking about anything and everything relating to the project.

Alright, as a simple, shit introduction, tell us who you are and what you do.

Matthew - "I am Matt, I am in Biomechanimal, I'm the frontman, the producer and the vocalist and I occasionally play keyboards."

Danny - "I'm Dan, I do live drums and live synths."

As far as history of the band goes, you guys started in 2012, I believe, right?

Matthew - "Maybe. The start of the band is kind of funny because I'm not quite sure where we stopped being my bedroom project and started being a band. I was left/kicked out of a very, very small electronic act. I was using my internet moniker at the time, which was Biomechanimal, and I had a lot of spare projects, and so I was like, "Okay, let's do some more under that." So, what essentially became the renegade 2.0 EP was leftover projects I never got to put into this other band. At some point I asked Danny if he'd like to help with the songs to a live point. And I guess that's when the band started. That would've been about two years ago now."

Danny - "Yea, I was with Hybrid 6 at that point. You saw me in Southampton. And you caught me after the show."

Matthew - "No, no, no, it was Combichrist, wasn't it?"

Danny - "Maybe. I think so. Yes, actually it was. I was in Hybrid 6 at that time and then you turned around and were like, 'Do you wanna be in the band?' and I was like, 'Yea!' And then nothing happened for like a year."

Matthew - "It took a while to get the ball rolling but when it did it actually did."

What lead to the Renegade 2.0 EP release? Did you guys, after a while, sit down and record songs together?

Matthew - "Basically, we were sitting on - because we've been sitting on about an album's worth of material for the last two years, now, slowly adding to it because we're all busy people. We eventually chose three songs that we liked. The first song we've ever done, the song that at the time people thought was the best sogn we've ever done, and the newer song we've ever done. So we thought it would be quite a nice introduction to what the band was going to be about at the time. So that was Renegade 2.0 which was at the time our title track, Broken Wings which was picked up after that song, and Stars Are Wrong which was our best produced songs. We sat down, got all of those to a position we're happy with and then we went to record it with Dreams Divide. I mean, the biggest problem we had with the band was the complete lack of funds. I'm a university student, Danny's been moving up and down the country, and the other guy in the band is in university. So, we don't have an awful lot in the way of top end gear that we could record an album to a degree that I'd be happy with. I've got a microphone of course, but it's not one that's good enough for me to make what I would call a top tier quality album that I would like to make. So, we wrote the songs, we drove down to...Where was it Danny? Where does Dave live?"

Danny - "Salisbury."

Matthew - "Salisbury. So, little town in the middle of nowhere. We sat down for a weekend with loads of bottles of booze and just recorded this EP."

Danny - "It cost us two bottles of Prosecco for that recording session."

Matthew - "And then we went home, finished editing it, and put it out. I mean, it's really not the best thing we've ever done. The quality is kind of ass, but it got the message across."

Danny - "I like it."

Matthew - "Ehhh, I like it, but we've got a higher bar now, I think."

I was the one who reviewed it on the site back when it came out and an 8.5 out of 10. I still got the CD up on my shelf and I sometime blast it. I thought it was great, to be honest.

Matthew - "The CD actually made it all the way over to you?"

Yea, I got it.

Matthew - "Ah, that's amazing!"

Danny - "That's awesome!"

It was from Nick that I got it from, because he helped you guys out. Anyway, you said you lacked funds for the band, yet you were able to get Renegade 2.0 on CD. Was that from your personal pocket or did you have help from elsewhere?

Matthew - "Our own funds."

Danny - "Yea, we all just handed in our pockets for that one."

Matthew - "We each put in a certain amount of money, plus we made the money back again. So, the EP funded itself in a day. It wasn't a big issue."

You also had the whole remix album go out for Renegade 2.0. How long did that take to get together?

Matthew - "We essentially held a remix competition. So, we said, 'Does anybody want to do this? Best ones will go on here.' And then we just sat on it and waited for things to start flowing back in again. It really only took about two or three months to get the whole thing properly finished. But, we sat on it for a while longer just so it would tide people over for a bit, because we knew we weren't going to be able to release anything for quite some time. So, the later we released it, the more time we would have to release the next thing that we do ourselves. So, it was just a special present for fans to say, 'Thank you for waiting. There'll be something else, but, in the meantime, have this.'"

Let's get to the big thing, the new album that's been two years in the making. Since you said that the quality on Renegade 2.0 was ass, are you going to go back and remaster any of the tracks from that EP and put it on the new album?

Danny - "We've already did one track, didn't we? We've already gone back to Broken Wings and really reimagined it. And I'm miles happier with the new version of Broken Wings than the beginning; I still like the old version, but the new one I go mental for when I'm on stage."

Matthew - "It's a lot more us, the new one, I think. We're two years on, we have a more refined sound. I remixed it. We'll probably keep Stars the way it is. We're going to re-record the vocals for everything, I think. Just so we have that same quality throughout the whole thing. But, Stars we'll keep the same, Broken Wings has a new version. I think Renegade 2.0 we'll just leave on the EP cause that's the title track. So, we'll leave that there and take the other two and slightly rework them. Broken Wings has been reworked quite a lot and you can listen to that on our SoundCloud."

I don't think I saw a title for the new album anywhere on the IndieGoGo page. Do you have a title planned for the album?

Matthew - "Yup! We've got something. Should we announce it, Danny?"

Danny - "It's up to you, man."

Matthew - "It's gonna be a self-titled album. So, it will be 'Biomechanimal', the album, essentially. It will be everything that Biomechanimal has been and pointers to what it will be. We thought the best thing would be to call it Biomechanimal. It went through a couple of name changes. It was originally 'We Are Renegades'. Because, when we were still sticking with the whole renegade theme, but we've kind of started to move away from that a bit."

Danny - "I still like calling our fanbase renegades. I'm sticking with that one."

Matthew - "Yea, that's stuck. We actually did the album art for We Are Renegades and we're going to be using that for the single as well. We've not announced that, either. We will be doing a single for this album as well, which will come out probably a little while before. Because that's almost ready to go. It just needs vocals recorded and a remix. But, that will be 'Wasteland'. We finish with it now when we play live sets. It's really popular, I hear. We think so, anyway. There'll be one rare track, Wasteland, and then the remix. Just a quick single, and a month or two later we'll put the main album out."

Do you have any idea who you'll be wanting to do the remix?

Matthew - I preferably would want Mangadrive. He's on our label, and I've been talking to him a bit and I really like him. If we had more funds, we'd probably look a little bit further. Someone like Comaduster, perhaps. But, the guy's very busy and we'll try and find talent we know we can easily get our hands on. Somebody that can easily work on it quickly and get it out without much bother to them."

I didn't know you were on a label, now. Which one is that?

Matthew - "CRL Studios. They're an online distributor."

Oh! I've heard of them. How'd you get signed to them?

Matthew - "It was quite some time ago, now. Basically, I am really close to a guy named Gerry Hawkins who you might know from Cryogenic Echelon or his new project Avarice In Audio. I remember when he was first starting out Cryogenic Echelon and he was asking for remixes in much the same way we asked for them a few years later. We did a remix for him and we got on really well. We just kept chatting and him and I have stayed friends for such a long time now. When it came to us looking for a label, he said, 'Oh, well, I'll put a word out to our label.' And it just so happens that I know a few other people on the label, as well. They all put in a good word for me and we got it. We're still looking for a physical label if you'd like. Someone who'd be able to do CDs in the US or the UK or Europe. And we're still on the lookout for someone like that. So, CRL isn't an end-all, but they've been so supportive of what we've done, and they've done everything they can in terms of distribution and promotion. I love working with them."

I actually read a few complaints online, various forums and stuff like that, about digital only labels and how they can support you, but they can't really help you get physical material such as CDs. Do you find that to be a problem, or no?

Matthew - "The only real experience we've had was with putting our own CD out. We printed them out and we sold half of them in twenty four hours. So, we've had no problem with our own distribution. I mean, we did it on a relatively small scale, but we still have no problem with it. We promoted it ourselves, we pushed it ourselves, and we managed to break even so quickly. We would like to scale up a bit with the new album, maybe we'll have more problems then with the whole economic situation at the moment. But, personal experience, Danny, it's been alright, hasn't it?"

Danny - "Yea, it has. I think the only real reason we want to get involved with a label for physical distribution is to get it out to a wider audience."

Matthew - "Especially across the pond, yea."

Danny - "And also, by the time we finish selling all the album copies that we have it would be nice to basically have someone to give another box of five hundred right away. Just basically keep the ball rolling while we can focus on the things that we have to do. That's the only thing wanna get involved with a label for. But we're doing alright ourselves."

Matthew - "It would be nice, because then we could delegate the pressure to someone else. But, so far, it's been alright."

Do you have any labels that you're actually looking at to send the material in to get your CDs printed, or no?

Matthew - "We pretty much blitzed everyone with the EP. And we heard next to nothing back. We hear so many horror stories about all these different labels but we're not really sure what they could really do for us anymore. I mean, we hear horror stories about all these different labels that I can't really say on radio. But, anyway, maybe Infacted, Noitekk. I would like to go to Alfa Matrix, but we don't have a female in our band yet, so I'm not sure if we're really allowed."

Danny - "AnalogueTrash and AntZen are ones that I've been looking at myself."

Matthew - "Yea, there's also that one Pete Crane, Shiv-R's new label, Blind Mice."

Yea, I've been working with AnalogueTrash and Blind Mice very well. I like those labels.

Matthew - "Yea. They're a smaller label. So, like Juggernaut was. It's a toss up. Why work with a small label when we could do it ourselves? And have CRL back us up for the rest of it. Or do we want to shoot for a big label and probably not get in. It's a very hit and miss question. We still gotta work on what we wanna do yet. But, the benefit of the IndieGoGo is that we have time. So, we'll have time in between to record and actually get it printed. We can afford to get it printed now but we have two months of the IndieGoGo to finish it. We'll have time to throw these MP3 files out to people and see if we get anything back. It's worth a try."

You said that you have the funds to get it out now. Are the additional funds from the IndieGoGo going towards getting the album professionally mastered?

Matthew - "Mhm."

Danny - "Just go, 'Mhm'."

I think that's the most detailed answer I've ever gotten in an interview.

Matthew - "Danny, do you want to take it?"

Danny - "Yea, basically, the vocal work is pretty much the only thing missing from ninety percent of the album tracks now. And the money's going to be going toward getting a professional studio mic, getting it mixed and mastered. But that's going to be a very small amount of the actual required funds. The rest of its going to go on, if we can get over the five hundred pound mark, on T-shirts and merchandise, giving back as much as we can to the fanbase for providing the funds to get our album out. Just getting a really, really decent physical product into the fans hands out there, as well as extra little bits, such as doing a show in a city with all this merch that you guys have helped us get. We can get the album out now, but to get the album where we want it to be will take the remainder of that five hundred. And anything after that will be put straight back into the hands of the fans."

Matthew - "I think people kind of have it wrong when it comes to IndieGoGo. They think that if it fails, the money will come back to them. That's not how it works. If an investment fails, an investment fails. And that's exactly how it'll be with us, although hopefully it won't fail."

Danny - "Stay optimistic, man."

Matthew - "The more you invest in us, the better product we'll give back to you. What else am I gonna do with the money? I'm not gonna go do opiates or whatever."

Danny - "So down the roots of Psyclon 9."

A lot of bands are starting to do cassette releases and vinyl releases alongside the CD. Are you guys planning on doing any of that, or no?

Matthew - "I'd like a vinyl. I'd love to do a vinyl. I don't think realistically we're gonna get that far. I might do one for me, personally. If it manages to do fantastically well, sure, we'll do a vinyl release. I don't think cassette releases are really our thing. I understand why the whole witch house thing is doing it, as that's part of their whole ghetto/grunge kind of thing. For us, though, I don't think it's as important. CD release is the important as that's the format that people buy the most. After that, T-shirts, things like that are more important, I feel."

Danny - "I'd like to see pants."

Matthew - "Pants, apparently. Thongs. We'll do that, that's easy enough."

Danny - "Hot pants!"

Matthew - "Hot pants as well, yes. In terms of other audio, I'm not sure it's as important. On the Bandcamp we will have lossless downloads as well. So, you'll be able to download that losslessly as well. You'll be able to get the 'Wow". If you want the highest quality possible, better than CD quality, sure, you'll get to download. It will be nice to do a vinyl release and maybe, maybe if we hit above the seven-fifty mark, we will do that. But, we need to see how the IndieGoGo goes. I mean, if it goes past a month, and we hit the seven-fifty, we'll put a new goal in place and do even better."

Would you be able to use excess funds to help pay for travel costs so you could go out and do live shows?

Matthew - "Yup, pretty much."

Danny - "It'll basically be like a free show to wherever the fanbase will be putting in the most money. It'll be like, 'All of you guys that put in all this money, we'll be doing a show at this location and it'll cost nothing. Just get down here and go.'"

Matthew - "Or we could use it to take part in one of those pay-to-play gigs - which I happen to hate. But, if the option comes to us and happen to have the funds to play with a massive, massive band, then we'll try and take it, I think."

Danny - "We'll buy onto a tour or something and it will be quite a bit of fun."

Matthew - "We know quite a few people who've done it. And it sucks that it exists and it's horrible that it does exist, but I've seen why it exists. So, hopefully we'll make the money back from merch or whatever. But, either way, it'll be giving back to the fans to play in more accessible locations. London is good for us, and anything else is a bit of a mission for us, but we'll do it. We'll take more shows so long as they're worth it. But, having extra fund obviously makes everything easier for everyone involved. It takes less pressure from the promoter paying us up front. And while we do get paid up front it's still nice to have a safety blanket if you'd like."

I think I've covered everything concerning the IndieGoGo. Let's move on. Are you currently active in gigging? I know you guys are kinda scattered right now.

Danny - "We've got a couple of shows coming up cause we're always trying to get more shows in. Within reason. I live up in York, which is about two hundred miles, give or take, away from London. So, I'm kind of getting around the northern part of the UK trying to get as many promoters and shows in the pipeline as I can. But, obviously, we're quite busy with day jobs and Matt's got university. It's quite difficult to find the time and the money to go. Our schedule consists of two shows in London a month apart, but nothing in between. There's a couple of potentials, but nothing's really set in stone."

Matthew - "We don't really want to become that band that plays every show that people start getting bored of you. You'll get some people that enjoy you every single time, and those people are the best. You know, we love them. It comes to a point where you have to spread yourself out a little bit. Just so it makes it more worthwhile for when people do come to see you and, also, promoters are more likely to book you if you show a little maturity with the shows you take. And we've turned down a couple of shows recently because of this reason, which is awful, cause they were shows that would've been great to play. But, you know, you got to pick and choose. And, it's lovely that we have the option to do that, but it's still a lost opportunity one way or the other. We would've loved to play the Pretty Addicted show with Telemark. But, what can you do? And, with work schedules, I work weekends, it's quite difficult for me to try and sort things out. We've had to turn another show down recently in Cardiff."

Danny - "Oh, is that one not working now?"

Matthew - "There's no way I could get the time off. Work schedules and life schedules...You gotta fit the band around that. And it can be done, and we do make it work. It's just...What is free time?"

For future plans, you have your single coming out, you have the full length coming out, do you have any ideas as to where you're going to head after all that?

Danny - "We wanna do overseas."

Matthew - "Let's go to Europe."

Danny - "Yea, do an overseas show. Either Europe, or over off in the other direction if we can get a show in America. But, yea, the next direction is either a big festival or a European show. Both, even."

Matthew - "A festival in Europe, please."

Danny - "Yea, Wave Gotik Treffen."

Matthew - "Amphi, whatever."

Danny - "Oversea shows would be the next sort of goal for us, really."

Matthew - "People have been waiting for this album for way too long now, we've kept putting it back and putting it back. So, once that's out we've finally crossed that milestone of the debut album, and hopefully people will start taking us a bit more seriously. The live repertoire we have has been absolutely fantastic. We've got a bit of a reputation now being a fantastic live band. But, then again, to back that up people don't have much to go on. We want something more solid for them to take away or for other people in other parts of the world to hear in order for them to get interested enough. Word of mouth can only go so far."

Danny - "The amount of times we played shows our band's fans have come up to us asking, 'Have you got any albums to buy?', and we're like, 'Not on us, sorry!'"

Matthew - "Sold them all out now. It's a good problem to have, but what can you do?"

Alright, I've covered everything I can think of. Do you have any final messages you want to put out?

Matthew - "Ooohh, final message."

Danny - "Just thanks for everything, to everybody's who's been involved in the whole process of getting this album off the ground. To everyone, fans, people behind the scene, and everything, just a massive, massive thank you."

Matthew - "Nikki, Jason, James, you and Liam, definitely. Yea, just thank you to everyone who's helped get us this far. We're really sorry it's taken this long to get it off the ground. Massive thank you to everyone who's invested in the IndieGoGo. People keep coming to do that, please. This is what's going to make that happen. We need you. This is our big cry of help to you. We can make this happen but only with your help. So, let's make this happen, guys."