Interview: Karl Hyde of Underworld

ARTICLE BY CHRIS MOLINA

PHOTO BY PEROU

“Vision C’mon…”

After nearly three decades, Underworld continues to search, reinvent and push the conventions of art, technology and music culture through a plethora of various outlets. Their broad range of extracurricular projects (film scores, art installations, live Internet radio jams and collaborations) keep their creative palette in a constant surge of overdrive that ultimately circles back into their music compositions. Debut album (under a new iteration of the band) dubnobasewithmyheadman set a precedent for the electronic and dance scene in the early ’90s, long before the current pinup DJ influx had infected the globe. In addition, while parallel to generating tunes, Underworld also coexists with their own art collective—TOMATO—which was also founded by band members Karl Hyde and Rick Smith. TOMATO equally has been critically and commercially acclaimed for its work across multiple disciplines of visual language and is a key component to many aspects of the band’s stage presentation.

Although Underworld is mostly unsung in the U.S., they continue to be a source of inspiration among their peers, including such acts as Bjork and Radiohead, who mentioned them in a dedication of “Everything in It’s Right Place” at last year’s All Points Festival at Liberty State Park. Local L.A. band West Indian Girl also dropped a plug for the boys in an interview with The Scenestar. In a day and age where fame and fortune often distort many core values, Underworld manages to extend their sincerity to the distance, keeping themselves grounded with the utmost humble composure. From a hole in the dark, deep in Essex, England, Karl Hyde took a moment to chat with The Scenestar via conference call.

SS: Tell me about the current tour, perhaps some of the more memorable sights and sounds so far.
Karl Hyde: It’s been a really good one. We just finished up a two-year tour in Australia followed by a few months of writing and recording. Rick is really prepping and rebuilding new live equipment, meaning we can play in a far more live way and take off in directions we never could before. As this new live production develops, a whole new set of films for the stage projections are also growing. I just finished a collaboration with Mark Knight called “Downpipe.” I also went off to Australia and did three improvised shows at the Sydney Opera House with Brian Eno, which have been recorded and documented and are being processed for release.

And of course there is the new iPhone app, the iDrum. Rick has been working with Dave Spier over at GeForce using a software called “iZotope.” At the same time, when Apple discovered that we would be playing in their backyard, they approached us and said, “How would you like to do the first ever Web TV cast to the iPhone?” And as always, we dig a challenge, so there you have it.

SS: Let’s go back to the new equipment, stage setups and films. Is this something that is currently being tested with the upcoming tours in the next couple months?
Karl Hyde: Yeah, it is. Heading toward another full two-year tour with the rolling out of brand new material throughout next year and exploring several different ways of releasing material concurrently. I’m just so digging the new kit, the way things have expanded. It just means there are so many different ways we can solve problems on stage. It kinda sounds like a strange way of talking about playing, but when you are a band that improvises, new and unique situations present themselves every night, and you look at a piece of kit and want it to allow you to make lots of choices on how you solve musical problems that night.

SS: How are some of the new tracks getting integrated with the new tech?
Karl Hyde: There are brand new tracks that we alternate from on different nights. We’ll try a different version of that track, then try another two nights later, and see if we can do more guitar or less guitar. I love being with this band because it just changes every night and because we film, record and multitrack all the gigs. You never know if you’re recording actual bits of the album right there in front of people.

SS: Recently the band visited South America for the first time. What was it about Santiago, Chile, that resonated particularly with both you and Rick?
Karl Hyde: Aww... Man, it was magical actually. We had some days off, and the crew all went white water rafting and horse riding in the mountains, and left Rick and I in the hotel room, and we were just jamming on our laptops, writing and exchanging stuff. Rick went out into the streets recording sounds and working them into the tracks we were creating. I also went walking around too, writing lyrics and hooked up with a bunch of artists, a community of printers who make really beautiful art and kinda hung out with them in bars, which is kind of a strange thing to do for a non-drinker these days. But hey, what’s a boy gonna do but wander the streets of Santiago late at night with a notebook and camera? I just don’t know; there was just something magical happening at that time.

SS: It couldn’t have had anything to do with the fine wine or empanadas?
Karl Hyde: Funny enough, we ended up at the same restaurant every night, and we just worked our way through the menu. It was a pretty good cuisine I gotta say.

SS: Going back to the Brian Eno collaboration for the Luminous project, can you tell me how that collaboration was conceived and how the performance was more or less structured?
Karl Hyde: It was pure scenius [1]. Brian, Rick and I have been friends for years. We got together in the studio a couple years ago, did some jamming and recording. Then Brian was offered the opportunity to curate three weeks at the Sydney Opera House, to bring down bands including great thinkers and literary figures to give seminars and lectures. Also, he did these beautiful projections onto the sails of the opera house. Then there was this concept of bringing musicians together who were open-minded enough without ego to improvise together in front of a live audience. He and I then got together in London and did run-throughs of eight to nine hours of recorded material, then we met in Sydney for two days for rehearsals, which got multitracked, filmed and recorded with Brian, myself, a fantastic Australian group called the Necks—the most amazing improvisers. There was grand piano, upright bass and drums. There was also Jon Hopkins on electronics and grand piano. Brian and I were on all sorts really—electronics, microphones, a lot of the kits I use for Underworld—and we improvised and played three-hour-and-a-half shows. Our wish is that we could play the show around the world.

SS: That sounds like some really rich chemistry unfolding there.
Karl Hyde: It was extraordinary! We all came off stage thinking, “I’ve never been with a group of people that were so open-minded, generous and ego-less.”

SS: That key word being “ego-less”.
Karl Hyde: It is. And bringing it back to Underworld, that has been crucial, absolutely crucial, when being a member of this band. Leave your ego at home, cause when you walk out on stage, the whole point is to be generous, support one another, and give each other space, which is something that I found with Rick.

SS: It seems like you’ve really honed in on that concept being a stabilizer of the band. Is this something that has existed since day one?
Karl Hyde: I think a lot of it comes from Rick’s Welshness. It’s a very Celtic thing too I suppose. We tried the whole ego-trip thing in the ’80s, trying to be rockstars, where the frontman thought he was amazing and behaved like he was some kind of superstar, and it just didn’t work. But when Rick reinvented the band in the ’90s, we became part of DJ culture before there were superstar DJs. It was about the music, and egos couldn’t get in the way. And I think if you put those two things together, Rick’s Celtic mentality with a scene that grew out of a place for egos, that became the roots of Underworld.

SS: That is actually somewhat of a refreshing thing to hear, especially when technology and certainly pop culture can distort views, but the band has managed to keep themselves grounded.
Karl Hyde: And we saw it: dance music, money, fame, the opportunity to have more claim. And some people became the new superstars and became versions of the the rock gods we had seen before. And hey, it was OK. It made some people happy. But for us, there was nothing up that road, because we had tried it, and it didn’t make us happy. Working with Rick constantly gives the appraisal of where our heads are at, which brings us back down to earth being more realistic with who we are.

SS: You and Rick also completed two film scores in the last two years for Breaking & Entering and Sunshine. Could you describe your experience working on both of those films?
Karl Hyde: What I will say is that both of those directors, Anthony Minghella and Danny Boyle, love music and put it in an elevated position within their films. Both of them have got music in their heads before they even shoot the films. In the case with Danny, we worked very close with him. He’s like another member of the band. We’ve done five films with him. And with Anthony Minghella, he was brining us in to help with the edits, grabbing our opinions, also exposing us to the days of shooting, and coming in the studio with us to take part in what we were doing. They were both people who loved music and made you feel like you had a part to play in the process of filmmaking. We are very, very blessed to have worked with either of them, and it’s something unforgettable.

SS: In the spirit of improvisation, I’d like to try a bit of word jam with you. I’ll say a word, then you follow with any sort of response. OK, here we go. Balloon.
Karl Hyde: Bounce.

SS: Garbage disposal.
Karl Hyde: Fun.

SS: Pancake revival.
Karl Hyde: Radio pimps.

SS: Rococo.
Karl Hyde: I’m in love with the city.

SS: Vending machine confessional.
Karl Hyde: A donkey on the M25.

SS: Darren Price [2], yay or nay?
Karl Hyde: Yeah, he’s cool.

SS: So coming to Los Angeles for the Hard Festival, are there acts you’re interested in seeing?
Karl Hyde: I’ve been checking out the website and have been sort of going through them bit by bit. I hope we get to see all the acts. There’s something special happening in L.A. The area has always been sort of a stronghold for the Underworld fan base for a very long time. L.A. turned around for this band in the early ’90s when we came back and played the Mayan Theater. That was an extraordinary night for us, which was a very long time ago.

SS: That was 1998, correct?
Karl Hyde: Yeah. And we’re looking forward to being back and playing there. I think there is something very special kicking off in the States, but I definitely don’t want to tempt fate. The truth is, when we come Los Angeles, there is always a fantastic audience, great energy.

SS: One of the great things about Underworld is its ties to TOMATO. Many people are not aware that Underworld is linked to an art collective. Could you give a bit of a retrospective, from past to present?
Karl Hyde: Well, I’m an art school graduate. I did early video and installation art, and then John Warwicker, Rick and I are three of the founding members of TOMATO, which kind of came together with a bunch of musicians, graphic designers and artists. Then years later, Rick, John and I, along with Simon Taylor of TOMATO and a few other artists, are founding members of art jams, where we do improvised “happenings” around the world. We did one in Tokyo, and one in New York last year, and we do online art jams through Underworldlive.com. John lives in Australia, we live in the U.K., Simon is traveling the world, and we’ve got another member in Japan. We’re still members of TOMATO, but we call on the art jam to improvise and have these happenings, sometimes they’re online, sometimes they’re in spaces, sometimes they’re during Underworld concerts. You’ll see them as films being projected onto the inflatables. Ever since the Everything, Everything tour, we feel that we’ve been taking an art show on the road, and sometimes that is literally in a gallery or on stage with Underworld. Little by little we’re moving back into the galleries and art spaces and bringing music.

SS: Well Karl, on behalf of Los Angeles, we’re really looking forward to having you back in town. We wish you safe travels on the rest of the tour, and thanks for chatting with The Scenestar.

“All these things in me…”

Underworld will be making several North American stops throughout August. They will broadcast live from the Fox Theater in Oakland, Calif., via http://underworldlive.com/livebroadcasts.html. It will be the first-ever live broadcast of a gig to your iPhone/iPod Touch. The band will also be touching base in L.A. for the Hard Fest at the Forum on August 8th along with Scenestar favorites Crystal Castles, Chromeo, the Bloody Beetroots, DJ Skeet Skeet and more! Click below to get your tickets to see Underworld this summer at Hard Summer 2009.

August 8th: Hard Summer 2009 feat Underworld at the Forum

[1] Scenius: Like a genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes. Brian Eno suggested the word to convey the extreme creativity that groups, places or scenes can occasionally generate. His actual definition is “Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.”

[2] Darren Price: While touring in the summer and fall of 2005, the duo was joined on stage by Darren Price, a DJ and producer well-known by the band who had remixed Underworld releases in the past.

Comments

[Oscar]

Wow, this was a very intelligent interview. Good job Chris!

[Quail]

Doot Doot! Fleur where are you?

[www.gloriaabro.co.il/]

I am very happy. There was nothing in that way, because I have tried and failed to make them happy. Working with my friends gives constant appreciation that our heads are smaller, which brings me back to earth.