What ever happened to The Front Line Assembly tour?

RHYS: "I don't even want to get into that. It just didn't happen. The relationship between Bill and the label kind of deteriorated, and now Front Line got dropped from Roadrunner, probably for that reason. There's a new Front Line Album being made right now, for a new label in Europe. I've sort of re-aligned my status after the whole thing. I'm working on the album, but not writing. I just kind of let Bill do it and I do other stuff, programming and making sounds. I'm trying to let Bill do most of the created work because I'm putting together a new band. "

What us your new band like?

RHYS: "A little more organic, not all electronic. Lots of electronics, but I'm into real drums and lots of guitars. I want to go more in that direction, and Bill wants to stay pure electronic. I'm more interested in live band.

Did fan reaction to the last album have anything to do with the decision to get away from using guitars in Front Line Assembly?

RHYS: "That's probably Bill's decision. I like it, that's kind of the direction I'm probably going to stay in because I've been working with a lot of guitar bands lately. Bill's into more of the pure electro sound, and that's cool. We're still going to work on Delerium stuff together, and we work on the Front Line together, it's just that I try to let him run most of the show creatively. I don't know if I'm going to tour with him or anything, it's all still open. Me and Bill are still friends, it's just that I want to do different stuff."

Is there any truth to the rumors about a Delerium tour?

RHYS: "I don't know. We're not too excited about that, really. Because a lot of times with bands I like, you're into a record and you see it live and if it's not cool it kind of ruins your whole perception of it. So, we don't want to play live unless we can put something together that is totally happening. And a lot of times happening equates with money. So I won't rule out the possibility, but even if we did we wouldn't do a lot of shows. There's a lot of interest in Canada, and San Francisco and Detroit. We sold a lot of CDs in those 2 cities, but that's about the only place. Nettwerk doesn't really get good distribution in the US, but I think something is being worked out to get us better distribution. In Canada, it sells really well, we get heavy rotation on the video channel, and it's almost main stream here. You hear it on the radio all the time.

What was it like working the new Fear Factory album?

RHYS: "I did all the keyboards and mixed it. It was great, we're friends. I just went to upstate New York and recorded all the keyboards and sample with them. We had to remix the whole album because the producer kind of botched it so me and Greg Reely went down to LA and we mixed the whole album. And now it's done, and it's quite the thing in Europe."

You seem to have had a big effect on their sound.

RHYS: "It's totally part of their image and sound now. We're all really good friends so it's great and we want to see everyone do well. They are starting to really explode in Europe so I'm happy for them."

They seem to be the opposite of bands like NIN and Ministry, who start out with electronics and then add guitars.

RHYS: "Dino's guitar playing, it's really hard to play like Dino, and the drummer's a freak. It is all real, that's not programming, and he plays like that live. That's why I really like that music in a lot of ways, it doesn't have as much gimmickry."

Will your new project sound at all like that?

RHYS: "It will be a lot more diverse, I think. I'm really into orchestral, epic ambient kind of stuff. It won't be anything like any of that stuff. It will have elements of all that, but it won't be like ...... I don't know, it's hard to explain."

What's in the immediate future for you?

RHYS: "Finish this Front Line album, and there are many possibilities. There's Die Krupps remix possibilities. Biohazard, believe it or not. And I don't now, it changes all the time, new stuff comes along very quickly. Fear Factory remixes are going to happen, but I don't know when, not for a while. I don't know, it's hard to say. The Front Line Album is quite a lot of work, we'll be doing that one for a while."

How is the new Front Line album coming along in terms of sound?

RHYS: "It's kind of more like 'Caustic Grip' in style. It's very electronic, very electro sounding."

When will it be done?

RHYS: "I don't know, the songs are really dense with like a million sounds on them. It takes a bit of time."

Do you have any formal musical training, or are you self-taught?

RHYS: "A bit of both. I can read music if I really think about it. I know the notes and stuff, I used to play music all the time in school. I consider myself a musician, I know lots about music."

Doe you ever find yourself having to ignore things that you've learned through formal training?

RHYS: "It depends. I used to play drums, orchestral percussion, so maybe it's a little different. I used to deal with rhythmic things, and I started playing keyboards just because you can write songs with keyboards and not with drums. That's how I got into it, most of my keyboard playing is self-taught. I can play ok now, much better than I used to be able to."

Are you happy with the current state of the equipment, or do you feel limited at all by it?

RHYS: "I'm pretty happy. I just got a new sampler, so I'm totally happy. My new sampler is amazing, so I'm pretty thrilled."

What type of set-up do you use?

RHYS: "We've got tons of stuff, lots of keyboards and modules and stuff. For the Front Line, we're doing basically everything out of my new sampler. It's got a large memory, so we just sample big chunks of stuff rather than use tape. We're not big on using tape, we try to use it as little as possible. Intermix is no tape, Delerium is just a little. Vocals are usually the only thing we use it for."

So you're not using direct digital hard drive recording?

RHYS: "It takes up too much memory. We don't have one of those machines. Too much memory, too much money."

What are you feelings on remixes? You don't seem to do as many for your songs as other people do.

RHYS: "People over do it. The odd remix is cool, but people go way overboard. They microscope on songs and do 20 remixes and it's not necessary. The odd remix is ok, but not 200 for one song. I think there should be a limit of 2 per song."

Has anyone remixed one of your songs in an unexpected way?

RHYS: "This guy did a remix for 'The Blade' in England. His name is Justin Robertson. he's like a really trendy DJ and he did a remix that was a dub, almost reggae thing, we couldn't use it for Front Line at all, people would totally freak out. It was really dub and happy sounding with all this rasta stuff, pretty weird. It wasn't that it was bad or anything, it just wasn't suitable for Front Line. We had some guys to some Delerium remixes but we didn't like them so we didn't use any of them. They were alright, but really house music and I can't really relate to it."

Are there any particular bands you'd like to do remix work for?

RHYS: "I don't really think about it. There's bands I like, but unless it sounds like shit and you can hear there's a cool song, then usually it's like 'yeah, that would be nice but I'm not going to worry about it.' Sometimes I get records, where I think it's really cool but sounds horrible, that happens. I usually just don't think like that. Usually I think, good songs, they're fine, unless people want to change it. I did that for a banded called Machine Hear. I didn't change the songs that much just because they were fine, and it was metal so it's not like I was going to do techno breaks. Usually I try to do remixes to suit what the band is, while some people do the remixes the same no matter who it is. Like the Orb, for instance, will just mutilate stuff and a lot of times I like to do mixes to suit the band."

Wasn't there supposed to be a Front Line Assembly home video?

RHYS: "Yeah, we were going to. That was supposed to happen with Roadrunner but now everything changed so I don't know what the deal is any more. I've started to pull myself out of the affairs."

The Delerium videos haven't been shown much in America. What are they like?

RHYS: "'Flowers Become Screams' looks like an obsession commercial or something, it's all black and white letter-boxed in the desert with the models. It's this guy with this weird looking woman and this story, we're not in it at all. It looks really nice though. And there's one for 'Incantation' that's in the same vein, kind of tribal kinds of stuff. They look nice."

Are they shown a lot in Canada?

RHYS: "They play it heavily, 'Flowers' used to get played five times a day. 'Incantation' was about twice a day for a while and we had ads on the channel for a while. Up here it does good."

Is it a big annoyance to you that Delerium aren't getting as much exposure in America?

RHYS: "I don't really worry about it. It would be nice, and it's coming, it's going to happen. I know they're putting stuff together so I'm not to worried about it. It's just starting to happen in Europe too, I think. Nettwerk do a really good job in Canada, but they're not big enough to fully do the rest of the word so they're getting this other thing sorted out."

Several Nettwerk artists are licensed through larger US labels. Do you think that will happen with Delerium?

RHYS: "Yeah, I think that might be in the works for Delerium."