Alias Empire
Posted on June 25, 2009 by Paul Murphy
Their name may have changed but Alias Empire are the same purveyors of dance-indie electronic music in Dublin who’s critically acclaimed debut album, as Dry County, Unexpected Falls earned them the attention they deserve. As Kevin Littlewood explains to Drop-d, the band is constantly progressing, new technologies excite them and despite a few minor set backs, with people having to learn their new name, Alias Empire are set to take on the UK with Unexpected Falls and continue with work on an already highly anticipated follow-up.
Drop-d: So you changed your name due to a duplication with a Canadian band, has anything else has changed with the band?
Kevin: The whole idea with the name change and that was got to with their being another band with the same name and there was a lot of associations with rock music and country music with the name Dry County. It became a little too defining I think when people heard the name they just naturally associated with certain types of music and that. With the way that the band was progressing and stuff like that it just really didn’t sit right anymore. So I think with the new name it was more to kind of find something that maybe didn’t draw such initial comparisons to style or anything like that. The band itself is the same line-up still taking the elements that we love, melody and songwriting, and the elements from programming and dance coming together, it’s still that concept but I think it’s definitely gotten bigger and more aggressive kind of sound.
Drop-d: Has there been any negative effects from the name change?
Kevin: Yeah, I mean we had anticipated a bit of that anyway. The obvious one being that people are still kind of coming around to knowing that your name has been changed and stuff. As far as bookings and promoters and stuff like that, some of them do treat you like you’re a new band and we’re like “we’re not, we’re the same band”, it does put you back a little. People are so used to associating you with one name.
I find myself half trying to watch the visuals while I’m playing
Drop-d: You gave out a few remix EP on your website, do you see this as the way forward for bands, should music be free?
Kevin: I think the whole idea of downloading and stuff like that is here, whether people want to except it or not. I think bands have to get to a point where they just accept the fact that people are just going to download their music. Personally I do love finished products. I love holding the CD in my hand, I love the artwork and all that kind of stuff. I definitely think that there are people who still love to do that and we’ll always release physical versions of stuff. But as far as the EP and stuff you have to embrace it, you have to know that people will get music for free anyway. I think the idea of the free EP was, well the band is progressing, our sound is progressing, you have to progress with what’s happening and going on in the times. The free EP thing was an idea we had to take what was going on and put a little pack together for people to reward them for coming along and singing up to the site, hopefully it gets people interested and gets people on the site to listen to the music. Then, when the album comes out, they might go out and buy it. It’s kind of give and take you have to give people value for money.
Drop-d: Are you recording a new album at the moment?
Kevin: The thing about it is, we’re actually getting the album out in the UK at the moment. We’re working on that and we’re also working on new material, we’re working on a second album. It’s kind of split between them. Today, we’re heading over to do some recording on some new stuff, a few demos and stuff like that. Yeah, it’s good, it’s just very busy. With us it’s always that kind of constant moving on the minute we finished Unexpected Falls we were straight into doing demos, I think it was like a week or two after we had finished it, everyone was exhausted from listening to music. For two weeks we listened to absolutely nothing for two weeks, then after that it was demos again. At the moment yeah we’re working on new material, there’s a good bit of it there already so it’s looking good, sounding good..
Drop-d: You’re not only known for your music, your live visuals receive quite a bit of mention, who does the visuals and where do the ideas come from?
Kevin: Phil does, for the most part, Derek’s done some of the stuff for the new visuals. In the new live set it’s very 50-50, 50% old stuff and 50% new stuff. What we would do when we have a track put together Phil would take it back have the music and the lyrics there and he’d put together this meticulous visuals that are all correctly in time. He’s so precise and so anal about it, it’s brilliant. I love being able to talk about the visuals because I don’t have anything to do with them so I can just say that they’re fantastic. You’ll find yourself at shows and Phil would htrow stuff in that we didn’t have a clue about and I find myself half trying to watch the visuals while I’m playing, you know, people in the audience can see me half looking back at what he’s done and as I say now Derek’s doing some as well.
we used to get a lot of flack and that for using dance beats and stuff and people would ask us where our drummer was? And now it’s such an accepted thing
Drop-d: They’re working on an animated video for one of your new songs, how’s that going?
Kevin: Yeah there’s a few ideas with the next song we’re releasing. From what I know it’s going to be a track called Pins. That’s going to be the first new track to come out. We were discussing a lot of ideas, lots of talk about all these different styles of animation. The overall thing is to do a nice little animated video, the track itself has this lovely little kind of, it’s almost like an ole 8-bit computer game keyboard running through it so that’s where the idea came from to make a little kind of 8-bit animation.
Drop-d: There’s been an increasing amount of electro, genre spanning bands emerging over the last few years, do you see yourselves as one of the purveyors of the scene in Ireland or were you directly influenced by any other Irish groups when you started out?
Kevin: I’ve got to be honest, I don’t think there was anyone that we looked at over here that was doing it. I’m sure you know yourself we first started doing all that kind of stuff maybe five, six years ago and that’s when we first started to do it. Even something as simple as, and I’ve mentioned this before in interviews, we used to get a lot of flack and that for using dance beats and stuff and people would ask us where our drummer was? And now it’s such an accepted thing to have beats and all that kind of stuff thrown into your band now. At the time, no there was nobody here that was doing it. Yeah, I’d like to think that we were you know one of the purveyors of doing it if that doesn’t sound too dick-headish or big headed. We had always been in kind of guitar bands and we were really into like dance and programming and listening to the likes Aphex Twin and Autechre and all these kind of bands and electronic groups and just wanting to take concept of both of them together. And as you said there’s been a lot more since then, there is a little scene and a lot more people have embraced that element of stuff.
Drop-d: Do you find yourselves constantly experimenting with new sound gadgets and gizmo’s, is it hard to keep up with the technology sometimes?
Kevin: To be honest, there is just so much out there, I think it’s something that excites a band like us than overwhelming it. I love the fact that a lot of it is endless. For us, like, Phil and Derek would be really big, up-to-date kind of gear heads. Derek is constantly on top of what’s going on in software and synths. Usually we’d meet up, for a band meeting, and it would be like “have you heard this new plugin?” or “this new synth is out” and it’s generally always very up-to-date in what’s coming out. As far as experimenting, that’s what I like about bands, bands that don’t stay stale or just find a formula and stick to it and be like “I like that and this really well let’s do that again”. I think there’s nothing more boring than that. If you as a band can’t progress then you probably just stop if you don’t think that is room to get better, or do different stuff you’re kind of wasting your time a little.
Drop-d: Have you got any gigs lined up for the summer?
Kevin: The plan was to do the Whelan’s show and to show off some of the new stuff and push the name to those who haven’t heard it yet. Then we’re going to concentrate on getting the album done and get the first album out in the UK that’s kind of out main priorities at the moment. I’m not saying that we definitely won’t be doing any shows but we’re going to cut back on gigging until we get some of the album recorded and we get the album out in the UK. We’re trying to get the UK up to speed so that when we release the second album we’ll be able to do a simultaneous release and then tour between here and there.
Alias Empire play the Club AC30 gig in Whelan’s on Friday 26th June with support from Le Galaxie
Tags: Alias Empire, Club AC30, Dry County, Edit Makes Right, Kevin Littlewood, Le Galaxie, Pins, Unexpected Falls, whelan's
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lookin forward to seein them in the new form.
Yeah man, me too. I’ve seen them a few times but nothing like last June’s AC30, they really gave it socks, we were dancing like mad things. An Irish band who can make Irish people dance like mad things – rarer than hens’ teeth.
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