Transcript of interview with The Fader magazine, April 2007

1. Can you tell me a little bit about Climax Golden Twins and Ben's work in Degenerate Art Ensemble? How did either of these groups influence the mission/sound of Wizard Prison?

Ben: Degenerate Art Ensemble is one part art rock band, one part theater collective/cult, one part Butoh dance troupe, led by Joshua Kohl and Haruko Nishimura. Butoh is a modern dance form from Japan - a mix of playful and grotesque imagery performed in white-body makeup. To western audiences, it sometimes seems painfully slow to watch. I 'played guitar' in the group, but half or more of this playing was geared toward making weird sounds and playing things that sounded like something besides a guitar. I also played some circuit bent instruments I made, and played a cassette tape through my guitar pickups. Most of the time I was responding to visual cues from a Butoh dancer or a film, within the context of one long conceptual work, not a string of tunes like a 'normal' group. My favorite pieces were Rinko, Razor Stitch and Nymph. We made records of Rinko and Razor Stitch with Scott, which I am very proud of - we used to practice in his studio space so I guess it was natural that Scott and I eventually hook up and play, being like-minded sound gourmands. DAE were recording a record called Lookaway Popeye in his space and in his control room he had the Guide to Black Metal, which I could not put down, and I think it was at that point where I said 'let's hang out the minute you get some time'.

At first, Priz started as a sound exercise for us - we were all set to go through this book called Electronmusic which has all of these listening/recording exercises in it. One exercise is to record an hour's worth of audio somewhere, take it somewhere else and listen to it - I think this is the only one we did right Scott? We basically said 'forget the book, let's just do this every week - but we'll make the sounds'. We both have worked on films in the past, so Priz has naturally become a multimedia group - we react to visuals we project on our prison, which I guess ties into my DAE time. I also build software that reacts to things we do onstage.

Scott: When I lived with Sun City Girls, a friend brought over the first double 7" of Climax Golden Twins. I listened to it and thought it sounded like Big Butter (band from Clovis, CA). I wanted to work with them on that alone. In 1995, I moved into a house with Jesse Paul Miller and Linda Peschong. It was an art house. I set up a recording studio in the basement, Linda did photography and Jesse did sound art, painting and sculpture. I started recording CGT then started playing on the records and then live. I left the group in 2005 and thought that I didn't want to play music anymore. Shortly after that Ben got a rehearsal space in the same building as the Sun City Girls compound. We saw each other socially before that and as Ben pointed out, we were both intrigued by this book. I went over to the space one night just to blow out the tubes and the deal was sealed. Our first record "The Early Years 1972 - 2005" was recorded in that space. I think there is very little influence from the previous groups other than they put us together and we feed off each others magick. The circle closed recently with the return of John Vallier to Seattle. He had been in LA for 8 years. He was the drummer for CGT early on. John and I had always got along and liked to play together, so the Priz became a trio at that point.

2. The story of Wizard Prison that's written in the liner notes — can you explain where these characters came from and how the general "plot" of the album was developed?

Ben: Scott has this awesome voice he does with 'the soapdish mic', which sounds somewhere between the Residents guy who sings Hello Skinny and a record played at quarter speed. Our friend Clara named him 'Gogon' which has stuck. I record a lot of Shortwave radio sounds here in Ballard, and while weaving these sounds into the vocals, the story just kind of rolled out. I myself feel like I'm counseled by the beautiful sounds in the shortwave ether, so that rubbed off on the story too.

Scott: it was important to have some sort of mysterious story that tied all the songs together. Since Gogon appeared on quite a few tracks, it made sense that he would be the focus of the record. To tell his story...whatever that may be is food for the mind.

3. The concept of "wizards in prison trying to get out" — can you elaborate a little on what this looks like, specifically, on stage? Are you guys dressed as wizards? What other performative elements to you utilize to get this concept across?

Ben: Luckily Scott had a big wire prison-looking grid with a scrim attached to it, which we could project on. We obscure our faces and bodies in a wizardly way and play behind the projections at present, occasionally bleeding around the edges of the prison to peek at freedom. The look of the prison depends on the size of the stage - sometimes, it looks like a glowing swirling escape pod has landed on the stage. Sometimes it's more like a wall between the band and the audience.

Scott: it was really important to me that Wizard Prison shows be events. I wasn't really interested in playing "songs" from an album. If we were going to play live it had to be visually entertaining as well as aurally engaging. Ben introduced me to C-Sound and an emulator of a EMS VC3 synth. The sounds were very unique and the emulator drifts like a real analog synth. The last cut on "II" is the first time we recorded these instruments. We were so happy with the results and the esoteric nature of the instrument that we felt it should be the basis for part of the live show.

One night, Ben started projecting a Stan Brakhage film while we listened to the VCS3 experiment. I had a vision of this type of film projected on top of us. I always thought we should play behind prison bars, but the film concept took it to a new level. So now, not only do we make music, we make films too, to go along with the live show. The live set is basically "Sunn Kill Moon" live. What's cool about it is that the VCS3 is unpredictable and therefore the music is unpredictable. We're bound to it, trying to control the outcome. So we are imprisoned visually (behind a scrim and bars) and aurally attached to this instrument. It's like a Doctor Who episode gone horribly wrong. The second part of the set is guitar based and changes according to our ideas each show. It's mostly influenced by Earth or Sunn O or Xasthur or Leviathan. So you get 2 levels of darkness. You got yr black metal and your deep electronics wrapped in this prison shroud, glued together by abstract film. It's something to see for sure.

4. Given your illustrious background, how much of Wizard Prison is an attempt to do something different/experiment in ways you're not otherwise given to? i.e. Do you see this project as a sort of release?

Ben: I think this is specifically a Scott question, but I see it as a release too.

Scott: Many of the groups that I've recorded in the past have given me space to experiment in the sonic painting that I do for them, but none of those groups are _my_ music. I think I was just looking for a group that would allow experimentation in several mediums. I like weird theater, I like weird films, I like weird music and I can do all of these things through Wizard Prison. I tend to think of Wizard Prison as an art group. I'm referring back to the event idea of live shows. I like the idea of subjecting an unsuspecting audience to what we are doing...much like going to an art gallery to see what's on display. I like the idea of giving people multiple things to overload with. Here's our music, here's our films, here's our theater. Do you like the color?

Wizard Prison is a renaissance band of sorts. We dabble in several disciplines yet we exist outside of the art industry and outside of the music industry and outside of the film industry. It's in this void that we DO exist and THAT is the prison.