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- Hello Lol, and thanks for spending time answering
our questions...
- For a start, let's get back to the time when
you were playing with the Cure.
You were one of the few who pioneered new wave. What
were the first synths you played on ?
Lol : Well It's been a while! I loved my Juno 60, its
great sounds made it worthwhile exploring, unfortunately
its gone now:-(... Also although not strictly a synth,
the ensoniq Mirage was a great keyboard. It survived
many mishaps ( a full glass of beer inside it, floppy
drive hanging out etc.) on the road and still worked
fine every time, the only drawback was, it was kind
of complicated to sample on and place samples........horrid
hexadecimal!!
- There was a typical punk and pop influence in
the Cure, but also an obvious electronic one, where
did that come from?
Lol: We grew up listening to music from a great many
different sources including for instance Can etc. There
was always a natural affection for anything unusual
in The Cure and many of those influences had an electronic
nature.
- What made you switch from drums to synths ?
Lol: Around the time of "Pornography" we
started to investigate the new drum machines, we had
used a Boss Dr Rhythm for example. I was fascinated
by what you could do with electronics so it seemed a
natural progression to move over to the electronic side
of things.
- Last month, two French bands toured with a compilation
called a tribute to the Cure*. During the concerts,
the two most wanted songs were "A forest"
and "One hundred years", which are two pieces
you were involved in.
Did you know about this project, and what do you think
of this type of tribute?
Lol: Well I didn't know about this particular project
(There are a few such projects I believe!) I am always
flattered and grateful to have taken part to people's
life and to have created vocations!
*Imaginary songs edited by Mudah
Peach.
- You are about to release a new project
named Levinhurst, with your wife. Can you tell us more
about it?
Lol: Levinhurst is myself on electronica and my wife
Cindy (Vocals). We have been joined recently by Dayton
Borders a multi instrumentalist from California.
Frankly, it is the very first time since my time with
the Cure that I have really enjoyed making music again,
it reminds me of the time and my life at the beginning
of the Cure.
Right now we are very busy recording our debut CD for
release in the summer, after which we plan to tour with
Levinhurst.
- Listening to the two downloadable songs on your
website, we can hear a lot of influences. What did you
listen to during the '90s? And what are your current
musical influences?
Lol: I am a great fan of all the new electronic music.
I really like stuff like Monolake for instance. During
the '90s I revisited a lot of favourites as well as
the new stuff, Kraftwerk for example, they are the masters
!
- On a more technical point of view, you told us
that Storm was now part of your studio. What do you
appreciate the most in it? What are your favourite modules
in Storm?
Lol: I LOVE STORM! It has some features that you don't
see elsewhere which is really a strong point.
I use it to compose, laying out parts and trying out
new ideas is easy especially with the Kepler module
with which you can easily structure a song. I think
the new shadow module is very cool and unique too.
On the effects side, the dual delays are great for instantly
adding a new feel to static parts, especially if you
use it with the sequence filter, which is even more
wonderful!
- You told us you have worked with Storm for your
next releases. To what extent is Storm involved in this
project? Are these tracks going to be part of Levinhurst?
Lol: Absolutely, it will be part of Levinhurst songs.
It is being used right now to make parts for songs:
mostly bass grooves and chord structures but not limited
to just these parts, it's all useful!
- What are the main features you would like to see
integrated in the next versions of Storm?
Lol: A drum sampler with the ability to load your own
samples and with some modulation and editing capabilities
for this, some kind of onboard loop editor with ability
to set different loop points would be a good idea too,
but really there are already a lot of possibilities
with STORM!
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