Talking Romance

Techromancer
From: Victoria, British Columbia, CA

Andrew & Calli from Canadian electro poppers Techromancer took time out from electrifying the world of pop to chat to the Devil about their differences of opinion on Lenny Kravitz, the influence of video games on their music and the difficulties of hand made packaging.

The Devil: Why Techromancer? What other names did you ponder before deciding it had to be Techromancer?

Calli: Years ago I was playing a Nintento emulator on a modded Xbox and while scrolling through the games on it ran into one called "Exed Exes" which I thought would make a really great band name. When I met Andrew and we started thinking of band names I remembered that one, and it was on the short list of names for our band, too. This was way before anyone knew The XX existed, so I'm glad we didn't choose that one, because then it would have seemed like we were copying them. Anyway, since I really liked that name, and I've always loved video games I decided there must be some more gems amongst them. So I read every single Wikipedia entry that lists every name of every gaming system ever (for real. all of them) and pulled out all the ones I thought would be good names. Then we shortened the list and made this video (http://www.youtube.com/theslyestfox#p/a/u/1/EkF0xw9Crzw band talk starts at 2:15 into it) asking people to help us decide between them (at the time I was really into making YouTube videos and we couldn't decide on a name). Anyway, funnily enough Techromancer isn't even on that short list of band names we ask people to choose from in that video...I only found it after we'd made that. The video game is actually Tech Romancer, and it's a Capcom fighting game wherein "The player controls a giant robot which is used to fight another robot in one-on-one combat." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Romancer). Honestly I've never played it...we just really liked the name because what we do in our band involves a lot of us "romancing" technology into playing half our songs for us.

The Devil: Who are the biggest influences in your life and on your music?

Andrew: Life? My drumming instructor, Gary Tomlin, really got me excited about music when I was a kid. I'm really glad I got to take those lessons and got good at drumming. Those lessons ultimately set my life-course for me and got me to the place I am today. As for musical influences, although you might not hear it on the album, I'm really starting to get influenced by bands like Earth Wind and Fire and Parliament Funkadelic. Slightly more modern influences are bands like M83, Crystal Castles and The Rapture.

Calli: My mother likes to say that I started singing before I could even talk and I started playing piano when I was 3, so keyboards are like an extension of my body now. My family is also super musical and I always grew up going to concerts and singing in the car with my parents and siblings. It was just what we did. My mother trained me how to figure out harmonies by ear on car rides! When I was little and people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up I went through stages of saying "ballerina" or "marine biologist but behind those answers I just always knew I would be a musician, even when I was pretending I wanted to be something else.

As for influences for my current musical interests...not to sound repetitive but VIDEO GAMES. Their sounds just make me feel so many things at once. Excited and nostalgic all at once.

The Devil: What was the first record you owned and what was the first record you ever bought with your own money?

Andrew: My house always had a lot of records laying around but the first record that I owned was MC Hammer's - Please Hammer, Don't hurt 'em. I played that until my tape player started playing it in reverse. The first record that I actually bought with my own money, I bought second hand from a classmate. He hated it, but I loved it. It was "Are you gonna go my way" by Lenny Kravitz. I have fond memories of singing at the top of my lungs to "come on and love me" while standing on the chesterfield.

Calli: Like I said, super musical family so there was always someone singing or playing an instrument or blasting something on the stereo. My first favorite band ever was Roxette. Their album "Look Sharp!" I just loved. I went to their concert when I was 8! It was fantastic! I used to sing along to "Dressed for Success" in my living room on the coffee table pretending I was in the (non-existent) music video for that song.

The Devil: If you could remix any artist and/or track what would it be and why?

Andrew: I haven't thought about that before....but now that you say it, I'd love to remix something old of Lenny's to take me back full circle to when I listened to him as a kid. He's got all these soft rock 70's sounding songs and they'd probably translate so well to a remix. Maybe, "Sugar" or "What goes around comes around".

Calli: Sorry Andrew, but I detest Lenny Kravitz. I just don't think I can ever forgive the man who wrote the atrocity "Fly Away". The rhyme scheme in that song makes me want to kill. Sadly though, Andrew is the one who knows how to do things like make remixes. I can only do them in my head. But shit man, it's too bad no one else can hear them because they are amazing.

The Devil: What makes Techromancer stand out from the millions of other bands across the world? What makes you unique?

Calli: I'm not entirely sure we can answer this without sounding really full of ourselves but...despite bands I mention in the next question there really aren't that many bands that are just two people. Also, every other one has one person who does the music and one person who sings (Kap Bambino, Crystal Castles, Sleighbells) or the ones that are computer music with people playing real instruments over top (Anamanaguchi) don't have vocals. I guess Neon Indian are closest, but there are so many instruments I almost feel like they're a group that uses a computer as another instrument, whereas with Andrew and I I feel like the computer is the third member of our band. Also, my keytar was originally an idea I had just because it's no fun to watch a band where both members are stuck behind stationary instruments, and Andrew's gotta be behind that drum set so it's sort of up to me to do any dancing. But I can't do that standing behind a keyboard. Keytar seemed like a good way to keep playing and still move around. Also chicks dig it. Everybody digs it.

The Devil: Which bands or artists on the current music scene make your spine tingle?

Andrew: Caribou never fails to disappoint. A couple of songs on that new album are so good. Also James Blake is killing it right now for me.

Calli: Kap Bambino and Sleigh Bells are really inspiring, but I found both of them after Techromancer was already well underway. I guess I like and identify with them because I feel like they're making similar music to us. And also they're both duos! Also Miami Horror is fabulous, I really like Neon Indian and I want to be in Anamanaguchi (check out the free Anamanaguchi ep by following this link).

The Devil: Favourite song?

Andrew: That changes all the time for me, so its hard to nail down an all time favorite. I'd say my most played song on my ipod is probably 'Everybody's Down' by No Age. You can't not rock out on the air-drums on that song.

Calli: Hardest question ever! Last fm. says my most played song is 1901 by Phoenix with 91 plays, which might explain why I'm sick of it now (also apparently Last fm stopped knowing what I was listening to last July so it's wrong about everything). Itunes says it's Asobi Seksu's 'Everything is On' (102 plays) which is hilarious because it's the 17 second long intro to their album. I refuse to answer this question on principle.

The Devil: Favourite book?

Andrew: Probably after death by Darryl Reanney. You can pretty much make me very happy with any book dealing with perception, quantum mechanics and the like. So interesting.

Calli: I generally read comics more than books nowadays. Jeffery Brown is my favorite graphic novelist.

The Devil: Favourite Movie?

Andrew: The Abyss. So lame but so good.

Calli: I minored in film studies so....this is also a stupidly hard question to answer. I love really bad horror movies but I'm not sure I'd say any of them are my favorite per se. I've seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind probably 10 times, including with the director's commentary and I wrote a 10 page paper on it for a class once. And I'm still not sick of it. So probably that. And anything in 3d and/or that has amazing CG in it.

The Devil: Favourite word?

Andrew: Nerdshire - A gathering place where nerds and/or geeks are found in groups. As in, "Meet me for lunch at the nerdshire".

Calli: I didn't even know that was a thing until Andrew just mentioned it but I'll go with that too because it is awesome.

The Devil: Tell me something that you've never told anyone before.

Andrew: Due to laziness, I ate only a mix dried bananas, nuts and raisins today for lunch. I am feeling unsatisfied with this decision but will probably not do anything about it.

Calli: I think it's pretentious to judge people on what music they listen to, but I totally judge people on what technology they use. I pity people with PCs, couldn't date someone whose internet browser is Internet Explorer. Someone who still used hotmail? Dude, get gmail already! You still have an active Friendster account? Really?
God I'm an asshole. Re-reading that makes me hate myself, but it's actually pretty true. Except instead if disliking people because of it I just try to get them to see the light and use better programs/websites.

The Devil: If you weren't in Techromancer how would you keep yourself occupied?.

Andrew: I'd probably be finishing a PhD if it weren't for music and Techromancer. Bad life choice averted.

Calli: I'd be in another band, probably. This is my fifth band I think? I've been in one band or another since 2001. Also I'm a merchandiser so I'd probably just be dressing and redressing mannequins. Also cooking/baking and the internet. And have I mentioned I like video games?

The Devil: If you were interviewing yourself what would your killer question be and how would you answer it?.

Andrew: How about, what's next for Techromancer after you are done promoting this album?

Well Andrew, that's a great question Andrew. We're thinking of switching our home base from Victoria to maybe Montreal or New York. There's a lot of obstacles we need to get through before we do that, but it should happen sometime soonish. Also, we're getting close to finishing off material for our second album. The songs on "Space Duel" are actually pretty old to us and we're pretty stoked on the new songs. So we should be getting in the studio again at the beginning of 2011.

Calli: Also we need to get shirts made and sew more covers for our album. Hand making the packaging was one of my best/worst ideas ever. It looks really great and makes each one unique and personal but good god does it take forever. Also a label would be nice.

The Devil: Is there anything else you'd like to tell the Devil Has The Best Tuna readers?

We're starting to organize a Cross-Canada tour, along with possibly one or two U.S. dates for the late-winter, early spring. Keep your eyes open for tour dates! We're on facebook and myspace.com/techromancer as well as techromancer.tumblr.com and techromancer.bandcamp.com for song listening/downloads. Follow our Tumblr because we're going to be giving away album downloads on there soon!

Go Try

Check out Techromancer's Spoiler Alert a slice of dirty glam electro pop that takes you on a trip to the wild side and touches parts that only a lover should touch...

MP3 - Techromancer - Spoiler Alert
This track is published with the permission of Techromancer so please don't claim breach of copyright

Go Visit

Techromancer - Myspace : Website : Last.FM