Ronny Moorings proved to be a quietly charming interviewee. He is polite, gracious and intelligent, with a soft-spoken manner that is very appealing. He has none of the rock star attitude you might find in someone who's been in the business as long as he has. Mr. Moorings holds himself with an understated confidence that puts one at ease when talking to him. Nevertheless, we were a bit nervous having him up to our humble studio, particularly since we were not as well-prepared as we could have been. Both he and Antrome were very patient and cooperative with us. They graciously donated two CDs and posters to our listeners, as well as provided us with a copy of the new cd single for our show library. The following is an edited transcription of our conversation from the show.
JUSTIN: Tonight we have a special guest in the studio with
us.
RONNY: Hi, I'm Ronny Moorings, from Clan of Xymox.
JUSTIN: And we also have Antrome, from Tess Records, in
the studio. So...
RONNY: Fire! You're still trying to get your breath from
running into the studio, right?
JUSTIN: Yes, the joys of caffeine! So, tell us what's been
happening with Clan of Xymox... The last thing I remember you
doing was as Xymox actually, with the album "Phoenix." But I
saw on the bio sheet that you'd done a few albums since then.
RONNY: Yes, well, that was just basically Xymox
experimenting with a new direction. The most important thing is that
now Clan of Xymox signed to Tess Records, which is
based in Santa Barbara. We just recorded a new album, called "Hidden
Faces" and a sneak preview, of course, is this ep, "Out of the
Rain."
JUSTIN: And when was this released?
ANTROME: Two days ago, on the 8th.
JUSTIN: And when will the album come out?
RONNY: This September.
JUSTIN: We'll be looking forward to hearing that. So
what made you decide to change the name back to Clan of
Xymox?
RONNY: I think it's for the same reason that, when we dropped
"Clan of" when we signed to Polygram Records it signified a
certain change for the band, having left an independent label for a
major label. For the same reason, we stuck the "Clan of" back on
Xymox, because we signed to an independent label, where we feel much
more at home. For me, Tess represents the same style of label
as 4AD in the early days when we signed with them. I feel that
this album is the logical follow-up of the "Clan of Xymox" and
"Medusa" albums. Therefore, we actually wanted to make some sort of
distinction between the Clan of Xymox and Xymox
releases.
JUSTIN: Right. You can really hear the difference when you
hear the two, from the early Clan of Xymox material and the
later Xymox material. I'm sure part of that was the producers
you worked with.
RONNY: Yeah. I think we just drifted a bit into a certain area
and we just reversed course.
JUSTIN: Do you find that you feel freer working with
an independent label, compared to the time you spent working with a
major label?
RONNY: Oh, the thing with major label is that you have major
budget, so you tend to over-spend your time in the studio and I think
it takes away some of the spontaneity of it. I think that if you know
what you want to do, there's no point in hanging out in the studio
for six months or so. The studios are never really the nicest
environments to stay in, so I appreciate a more reasonable amount of
time. Also major labels tend to want a producer who will do the job,
but also make it so that the music can be played on the radio, which
sometimes doesn't necessarily complement the band. Certain things
should be a bit rougher and not so clean.
JUSTIN: How did you feel about the production you
recieved from Polygram as opposed to your time spent with
4AD?
RONNY: That's actually kind of funny because Ivo, the
boss of 4AD, suggested that we should work with Pete
Bowles - it was our choice to work with him - and in those days
he was notorious for his production of Simple Minds, but he
also worked with Gene Loves Jezebel. And we thought, 'Well,
we've never worked with a producer before; we should try that." He
has some sort of crispy sound and I think that now, in retrospect, I
would have had it a little bit more... rougher, tougher. Like John
Fryer's production basically; but he wasn't a producer, he was
mixing, we needed another mixer then... I don't know, it's just a
different approach. The label seemed to be happy with their producer,
and if we would have said 'Well we want to have this or that person'
they might have put up a fight with us, I don't know.
JUSTIN: You're working with some fairly well-renowned
producers on this new album, aren't you?
RONNY: Yeah, we worked with Dave Allen on this song you
just heard, "Out of the Rain." He's produced Sisters of Mercy
and The Cure, to name a few. We chose him for the reason that
he worked with those bands, and I like the sound on those albums,
so... If you work with a producer, you have to first admire their
work, so that you feel comfortable. Other tracks were done with
John Rivers, known from Dead Can Dance - you've played
already some songs from Dead Can Dance... He produced all
their albums. Obviously he has a great ear for sound and he mixes
very well. I also had experience with him from the 4AD days, he
produced one ep.
ANJI: Who are you working with on this album? I mean,
is it all just you doing the music and vocals?
RONNY: Well, it's the same as always. The vocalist sings the
song that wrote the song. On this new album, there's a girl singing,
Moinsa. She's in the band, for the same reason that
Anka, who used to be my girlfriend, played the bass and got
one song on the album [Clan of Xymox]... now it's
Moinsa. Basically it's the same structure as with Clan of
Xymox. She sings a heavier song, much too heavy for me. But she
could handle it, so it's great.
JUSTIN: So do you have a tour scheduled?
RONNY: We're working on it. Just to give you some idea, we're
thinking around October somewhere.
ANJI: Do you enjoy playing live?
RONNY: I think I will now. You know, I haven't done it for
awhile. If you do it too much, you tend to get really boring after
awhile. You're taken away from a normal life, and you lead a kind of
unreal life on the road. Sometimes that gets to you, but as I haven't
done it for awhile, I'd like to have a bit of that again.
ANJI: Like you said, you can't spend all your time in the
studio.
RONNY: Yeah, you need to vary in life, and that's one of the
variations.
ANJI: How long have you been working on the material
that you recorded for this new album?
RONNY: Ahh... I've spent actually, three years writing the
material, so there's actually a little bit more material than there
is on the album. I'll keep that for later. Otherwise it would be a
double album!
ANJI: Well, what a comeback that would be!
RONNY: Yeah, OK, but we've got 14 tracks on the new album
already, and some tracks for the ep.
ANJI: I noticed that the ep has got a sampler of styles on it.
The first is a nice solid pop song, and the second is more of an
industrial dance number and the last is a really nice ethereal
instrumental.
RONNY: It is almost like a sampler of things to come. Clan
of Xymox tackles different kinds of music, and we thought that if
we put 3 different styles of music on the ep, then you'd get some
idea of what's going to happen.
JUSTIN: We just heard "Going 'Round '97." Would you
tell us why it's "97"?
RONNY: Well, "Going 'Round" was a song which appeared on our
very first-ever ep on our own label, which was a long time ago, and
it was also a limited edition, so not too many people got to hear
that song. That's the same reason we rerecorded "Muscoviet Mosquito"
for "Lonely is an Eyesore" for 4AD's label.
JUSTIN: So that was from the first ep?
RONNY: Yes, from "Subsequent Pleasures," so's "Going 'Round."
There's a slight change of attitude on that song, same as
"...Mosquito" at the time. So, that's why "'97," 'cause it's a new
version from '97.
JUSTIN: Wow, that's fascinating, I love "Muscoviet Mosquito,"
but I didn't realize that ep existed.
RONNY: We actually rereleased it in '94, because it had been
bootlegged so heavily that we had to release it in order to hamper
bootleggers and also to bring in the proper quality as we wanted it.
We called it "Subsequent Pleasures" as well, and stuck some extra
demos on it, to show people why we'd gotten signed to 4AD. So
it was some sort of, like, history booklet, and also for the fact to
celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the band.
DACH: I have a question, if I may... I'm curious as
to what prompted you to change from a U.K. label to an American
label.
RONNY: Why? I think I answered that earlier on, but basically,
we felt that we would have a wider distribution in America.
Especially at that time it was crucial for us because we (?)ended on
40(?) on the import charts and people were bugging us that it was
very hard to get our material. And actually, it still is -- from
4AD -- it's going at these ridiculous prices, like $25, which
I think is too much to pay for records. So that was the argument to
sign to the American label. At the time, it seemed to be a sane
decision.
ALL: (laughs)
ANJI: I understand that you have a lot of promo
things planned for the next week or two?
RONNY: Yes, we're doing some interviews, some release
parties...
ANTROME: We're doing give-aways locally at Helter
Skelter, and then in San Francisco and so on. We'll be giving out
copies of the new cd single, Clan of Xymox t-shirts that were
just pressed yesterday - so they're not even on the market. We made a
limited amount of them and when these are gone, they aren't going to
be remade. It's a special edition t-shirt which is specifically for
"Out of the Rain." Later on, when the full-length album comes out,
we'll have t-shirts for "Hidden Faces," which will be mass produced
and available for years. So, we'll be giving away some of those
limited edition "Out of the Rain" t-shirts and some really beautiful
Clan of Xymox posters.