I'll begin by pointing out that there's the existence of your other band THE RAZOR SKYLINE, and now you happen to be running FLATLINE TRANSMISSIONS. How did this daring project of yours come about?

Well, Razor Skyline had gotten to the point where we weren't really doing much anymore. Karen was going through a lot of personal stuff up in Seattle and Onyx and I were down in San Francisco wanting to to do shows and record. I had been playing around with other musicians in town and worked up a few songs so I decided to take some singing lessons and try to take the helm as the lead singer for the first time in my life.I asked some longtime friends to be in the band and we just took off from there.

It's a bit hard to avoid comparisons, but your approach now seems to distance itself from what TRS, as a band, was known for. There's the vocal change, and also the erratic styles of the songs tend to be different. What new elements have you incorporated into the sound of FT?

Well, for starters, we have lots of guitar. We've also stripped down the songs to make them more rock/punk with less layers and texture. There are also less effects on everything making the recording sound a lot cleaner. I write my lyrics and sing them in a completely different way than Karen, taking my cures more from Joy Division and 80's new wave bands.

I have this strange feeling that some of your works were already completed a long time ago, and it's just recently that you've decided to share them with us. Did I somehow make the right guess?

You guessed right. The Blackest Heart has been floating around on my sequencer for years along with Happy to see me Fail. I had actually tried to use The Blackest Heart as a TRS song, but it just never seemed to work.

Where is Karen Kardell at the moment? How come is it that she's not in the picture anymore. Are you still planning to work with her again in the future?

Karen's still in Seattle. As I mentioned earlier, she had a lot going on in her life that she needed to sort out and her heart just wasn't in the band. However, I did talk to her recently and we have agreed to start working on a new TRS CD in the near future.

Please give us the recent line up of FT and are the new additions a permanent part of your musical career even after your endeavours with FT are over?

The line up of FT is Onyx (of TRS fame) on electronic percussion, Zo is on the synths and this is the first band she's ever been in, but she's doing a great job and recently Mark27, who has played in Sunshine Blind and even Assemblage 23 way back in the day, has joined us on guitar.

Let's go now to your debut release. How far is it coming along and what have been the reactions of your fans worldwide from your live performances to the exposures you're getting from numerous DJs in clubs and on the radio?

Mark27 and I just started doing some recording for the debut release this last weekend, so it's not very far along. At the moment we're getting a lot of mileage out of our demo so we're not going to rush the debut. We're going to take our time and do it right. The reactions from our live shows have been great. People always tell us we rock and to us, that is the ultimate compliment.

You're currently busy doing tours here and there, and as well handing CDs to people. Did you go through the same routine with TRS before?


Oh yeah. Except when TRS got started, nobody made demo CD's because they were too expensive. We had demo tapes that we sold at shows and sent around to labels. We also played crazy amounts of shows in the Seattle area. Sometimes we played 3 shows a week.

I remember seeing the same layout of your website for TRS and it was up for a while, did this actually take place or was I only dreaming?

Do you mean the layout for the Flatline Transmissions site? That site is totally new, designed for us by the wonderful Katie Miranda. She also does all the band flyers for shows

Are you going to release this record under Cop International? What is your current relationship with your label?

We are on great terms with COP International. We talk to Count Zero all the time and we've even asked Soil and Eclipse to do a remix of Sea of Change for us. Whether or not we'll be signed to COP, I'd guess no. We haven't really broached the topic with them, but I would say that Flatline's music is not really a fit for the label. But who knows?

Did Rob of Secret Secret invite you to perform in the Tokyo Dark Castle event? Or it has something more to do with your being in SF?

Rob originally approached me to see if TRS could play. I told him that TRS was on hiatus and asked if he would be interested in Flatline Transmissions playing instead. He checked out our MP3's and really liked what he heard, so he put us on the bill.

Name other dark outfits located in SF that you've worked side by side with including Mark Pistel of MEAT BEAT MANIFESTO and his role in FT.

Sadly, there aren't that many dark bands in SF these days. We hang out with Soil and Eclipse quite a bit and GW has asked me to do a remix for them. We ended up recording with Mark Pistel through our friend Tim Huthert who played drums in Specimen in the 80's. Mark and Tim were actually in a band together called Until December. Tim's new band Swoon recorded their demo with Mark and they put us in touch with him to record our demo as well.

You mentioned working on a video for "The Blackest Heart". What will be its theme and who will direct and produce it?

Our friend Stephan Bugaj who works at Pixar approached us about making the video. We've sat down to talk about it a few times, but it's on ice at moment as we concentrate on recording the debut album. Hopefully we'll get around to making it the first part of next year.

Lately, it's been just radio plays for you guys. Is there a concert in the works? Where will you be this halloween?

We're playing pretty consistently around the SF Bay area but we've also talked to Mike from Noxious Emotion about playing up in Seattle and we've talked to some clubs in LA about coming down there to play. As far as this Halloween, we've been asked to play a latex fashion show the day after Halloween here in SF.

The CD you sent me is just a demo. What will be the title of your album when you're done making it?

Heh, I'll let you know when I know.

Were there ever adjustments in the creative process of FT? What instruments do you use presently?

With FT, a lot of the songs were actually written on the guitar first and then the synths were added later. For FT, I've started using Reason for some of the programming and we've also been incorporating the Access Virus Indigo in some of the songs but for the most part I use the Roland JP8080, the Clavia Nord Lead and the Alesis DM Pro to write all the songs.

How long do you think FT will thrive in the music scene? I know you're still giving it time to grow, but will it hopefully be as prolific as TRS, or even more?

Noone can ever know how well a band will do, but I feel that we have great songs and a great sound and if our music falls on the right receptive ears, I think we'll make a good name for ourselves. I would like it if we could be even more prolific than TRS. I've always felt that as well as TRS did, we could have done better if we had toured more or gotten more support from the label. Having learned from mistakes in the past, I think I have a better understanding of how to maneuver in the music industry.

Tell us about the sample used in "Happy To See Me Fail". Where did it come from? This track has a dancefloor potential and it doesn't take very long to get addicted to it.

That sample was created specifically for the song. I just had a friend call and leave the message on my answering machine so I could record it and put it in the song.

The song "She Said" is my favorite on the CD. Even though, I would prefer to hear your mastery in doing synthlines, but that song really blew me away! It almost sounded like Nosferatu until the vocals came in, which proved to be original in its own right. What's the story behind that song?

That's one of the songs I wrote when I was playing with some friends around town. There were three of us jamming in a studio - guitar, bass and drums and we just kinda came up with. I later took the guitar line and added the synths and drums to it to give more of a dance feel. For the recording, Zo sang the backup lines as I really wanted to have a girl's voice in it since it is called She Said.

Probably "The Blackest Heart" is your most powerful track to date. It's just hard to believe how versatile your voice can be. Every song is unique and as well a pleasure to listen to. Is this a promising hint that the listeners are in for a lot of surprises just sticking to the band?

Thanks! That's the song that really convinced Mark Pistel to record our demo.I can promise you that there are going to be lots of surprises with this band. I have a blank slate to do what I want and no expectations to meet so I'm flirting with all the musical styles I've always loved - metal, goth, new wave, synth pop, punk,industrial, etc.

The backdrop for "Faster Than Light" has that TRS feel, minus your singing. It has garnered the most plays in your MySpace account. Its popularity could only mean that the track is without question the representative song of the band. Do you see it gracing many compilations?

It's hard to say what song is really representative of the band. That song has the most plays on myspace only because it's been there the longest. But the song that really seems to be getting the attention is She Said. That's the one that we've seen grace the most playlists.

You've flirted with a lot of electronic soundscapes with your "Journal of Trauma" album while "The Bitter Well" was torn between gothic rock and electronica. Do you plan to go all the way and finally drop the guitars?

Nope. I was a guitarist first and that's where I'll always be the most comfortable. I've always felt I'm just a hack on the synths, knowing just enough to get by.

What other dark groups out there do you wish to perform/create music with in the long run?

I would love to work with the Birthday Massacre. I really like what they are doing.

Your final message please. Thanks a lot more power to FLATLINE TRANSMISSIONS!

My final message would be to support online zines like Aborted Life cause they're what's keeping the scene alive.

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