XMH

Hi XMH! Thanks for making this interview! How are you?
- "We're doing fine, thanks."

You recently released your album 'State of Mind' and it got great reviews. Are you happy with the result?
- "Yes very. It seemed like the reviews just kept getting better and better. We consider this to be a big compliment. I mean, it's sort of a gamble and a risk when you make something that you want other people to like. And people could think what you did is utter crap, and if the public is reading reviews that you're music is crap they're less likely to listen to it. Luckily quite the opposite happened in our case and we got absolutely great reviews. And great reviews are a great result."

Please tell us a bit more about the album.
- "Looking back on the release of our debut 'Time To Play' and comparing this with where we are standing now, I think the main step forward is that XMH has grown up a lot in terms of composition and lyrics. The tracks are a lot more thought through than on our first album. We decided to really take our time in writing, re-writing, recording, re-recording and so on. Most of the tracks on the album were tested on the crowd during gigs in Holland, Belgium, Spain and England. We used the reaction of the crowd as feedback and kept changing the tracks until we felt we really had a good product. We ended up with an album filled with very danceable tracks that don't become boring after hearing them two times. And of course there are some surprising twists on the album."

You released your debut album 'Time to Play' yourself, but later got signed by Danse Macabre. How did you come in contact with them?
- "When we released our debut album 'Time To Play', there were already several labels interested in us, but we really wanted to learn the whole process of releasing an album ourselves so we could have a better position when we wanted to release a second album. For 'State Of Mind' there were some big players who wanted to sign XMH, but most of them wanted to change our sound or image. They all wanted us to look and sound like other bands. And that's something we refuse to do. Danse Macabre was the only label which gave us total freedom, which is really important to us. Bruno and his team have been very supportive and try to help us wherever they can."

With the success of 'State of Mind', Nilaihah Records signed you for the American market. What are your hopes and wishes with contract?
- "We have an established fan base in The Netherlands, which is growing into the rest of Europe (mainly Germany and the UK). But we want to go across the globe and getting on to the American market is a vital part of achieving that goal. So signing with Nilaihah is a logical step for us. We are planning on doing some gigs in the USA, but this is all still premature."

In the promotion sheet it said that your track "Komasaufen" have made some controversy in Germany, what controversy would that be?
- "The idea for "Komasaufen" actually began with Wim de Nooyer (manager XMH) and I were joking around backstage, where we came to the conclusion that "Komasaufen" would be a great title for a pounding track. But when I was working on some samples it dawned on me how big the problem actually was. So I decided to give the track a bit more serious undertone. It created some controversy because Komasaufen is a very big problem in Germany. Of course it's not just a German problem but the German media gives it a lot of attention and the samples used in the track are from a real news report about a 16 year old boy dying after drinking too much Tequila and slipping into a coma."

You have some pretty cool artwork for the album; could you tell us a bit more about it?
- "For the new album we wanted everything to be perfect and just the way wanted it. For the artwork we looked at artwork from other bands. We really like the :Wumpscut:'s CD art. So we tracked down the person responsible (Olivier Haecker) for their artwork. We told him what XMH were all about and he send us some artwork which we all thought was amazing. So then we asked him to do the CD artwork, stage backdrop and the XMH merchandise designs."

When can we expect a new release from XMH? Done any studio work so far?
- "I make music every day, so naturally there has been some studio work done for new XMH tracks. But nothing towards a new album yet. And besides, things like that shouldn't be rushed. The new album will come when we feel that the result will be even better than this one."

Summertime in Europe! Been out on any tours or got something upcoming where we might be able to see you perform?
- "The upcoming live dates are: 15.Aug.2010 Summer Darkness Festival Utrecht (NL), 22.Oct.2010 Effenaar Eindhoven (NL) and 29.Oct.2010 Leipzig (DE). We hope we can do more shows in Germany, we sell a lot of CD's and merchandise to our fans over there and would really love to come back as we really enjoyed the shows we did in Germany last year."

Any last words to our readers?
- "If you like danceable music with a rough/dark edge and live performances that are full on, energetic and in your face, dance or die attitude. Buy our album and come to our gigs, satisfaction guaranteed!"