Harbingers Drum Crew

The Harbingers Drum Crew visits the Signal for a chat about who they are and what they do. Rob, Alex, and Jude discuss the logistics of the band, its origin and purpose, and their love for it.
Featured Songs:
Harbingers Drum Crew - Live at Cabaret Voltaire 


Void Signal Intro/Outro courtesy of Processor.

Visit https://www.harbingersdrumcrew.com/ for more Harbingers Drum Crew.

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Transcript

Hello again and welcome to void signal, i am your host Brian Prime. This week’s episode is a chat with three members of the Harbingers Drum Crew. A core of drummers who get together and put on incredible performances.They caught my attention over a year ago as being a unique sonic experience and i’ll try to explain why.
If you’ve never been out to a live show with drums, it’s a distinct difference between with and without. I love electronic music, and it can be amazing without a drummer, but to have someone in the room who is using violence on an object to make this fantastic, loud sound - it brings a lot of energy to a room. The limb through the air and then the strike and the vibrations go out through the room, you feel it as well as hear it.
Now imagine another one and turn that feeling up some notches. two people putting their limbs to the purpose of noise, and now another one, and another, and another. Each person banging, and striking, and hitting, beating a tattoo for your pleasure, the displacement of air, the warmth of bodies in action, and a tremendous amount of synchronous effort. Thunderous vibrations that make you lose track of your heartbeat. The drumming itself resounding through everything around you and speaking to a primal thing in you that makes you excited – can make your emotions swell in you for reasons you don’t understand. And maybe that makes you dance, or sing, or just smile and move, that’s okay. Animals dance, animals sing, to varying degrees of quality, all of’em are accepted.
The Harbingers Drum Crew bottle up and distill an experience into a thing that lives. That’s different every time, but the demonstration is always incredible. So here’s a chat with some of the lovely folks from Harbingers Drum Crew. Go see them if you get the chance and find more information on harbingersdrumcrew.com/

One last thing and you know what it is, void signal is ad free and powered by people, i am that person and every dollar helps. Please consider visiting voidsignal.net or patreon.com/voidsignal and subscribe for as little as two bucks and get hours and hours of content. voidsignal.net also has links to void signal merch that features the crazy SICK Void Signal logo. You can also just hit my buttons, share my things, or subscribe to void signal on different platforms. The small stuff helps a lot and I appreciate it just as much. 
Okay, that’s it, our time is at an end. See you next week, or subscribe and we’ll talk more.  Stay Safe, stay loud, and take care.

Prime: [00:00:00] So, Okay welcome to void signal. I'm your host, Brian prime. I'm joined for this episode by some members of the Harbinger's drum crew. This has been an interview long in the making. I reached out to you a long time ago to be like, you're doing a cool thing. Let's chat about. the things you're doing.

So thank you for finally making this work and I will have you introduce yourselves, like just give me a name to go with your voice so we know who you're talking to and what is the Harbingers, you can also use that chance to tell me what is the Harbingers drum crew and what do you do in it.

Alex: Okay my name's alex. I lead the band musical director we'll talk about exactly what that means as we go on. But yeah, I basically point at people and they play drums Okay 

Rob: Yeah i'm rob. I'm one of the drummers. I get pointed at by I hold about 70 drum patterns in my head and we'll play whatever he tells me to play 

Jude: And yeah, I'm Jude.

I also get pointed at by Alex, [00:01:00] and I am also a drummer, so I play bass drum, and I've not been there as long as these guys have been. I've been there for about, not two years, but yeah. So I drum, but also Rob and I do quite a bit of gig planning and trying to get people to pay us to play drugs.

Got it. 

Prime: Great job of issuing those to me. And you've, okay, so you mentioned you've been doing it for two years. How long has this been going overall? 

Rob: So we're literally just about to hit nine years. Yeah. Oh 

Prime: wow. We're like 

Rob: double figures next year. That's come up quick. Of course, the pandemic sort of took us out for two years.

Prime: That doesn't 

Rob: count. We don't, we're not counting those two. It doesn't count for anything. 

Prime: I mean, nobody was doing jack shit during that time, so it's, 

Rob: yeah. Exactly. Well, I had a kid, so I was raising a child. Yeah. People were like, I'm so bored, I'm so bored. I'm like, do you want my child? Your kid's really bright.

So, when? 

Jude: Yeah, great job. 

Prime: Okay. [00:02:00] What prompted you to put this together? To just be like, I want a big drum crew of people to get together and bang on shit. 

Alex: So it comes from essentially slamming together all of my favorite things, which is always the best way to create new things. I find agree.

I've been playing drums since I was like 13 years old. . I played in samba bands mostly. So Brazilian bakar kind of deal. So loads of drummers. That Brazilian traditional style of music. So I got, I'd been doing that for the longest time. And then I moved to Edinburgh and found out there's this abundance of really good drummers are just looking for things to hit and people to tell them how to hit things better.

So I gathered a bunch of the really best ones and made them into this thing. And instead of playing traditional music maybe brought up on I Made them play the music that I like Which is metal it's industrial. It's all the kind of things that your podcast is about my friend. [00:03:00] Yeah And yeah ever since then we we play clubs around edinburgh.

We've traveled around quite a lot now and it's worked out really well and it's getting better and better over nine years So 

Prime: yeah it is a thing to behold. Honestly, I mean, it was something that even from the moment I, saw the videos of some live performances, I was like, wow, this is like the the energy.

I mean, it's not often that I can watch I'm gonna gush for a second, so just allow me. Oh, please do, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Here I go. But I, I watched the YouTube video of some of the live performances and I was, it's not often that a YouTube video will be like, I think of being there in the moment and the feeling of the energy in the room.

Because I mean, I've been on this podcast and in per in private as well, a big proponent of Oh, this would be so much better with a live drummer. Because I feel like so many bands and performances, like it's, you're putting some violence in the room, like it's a kinetic energy.

It's a, like a thing in this room is being [00:04:00] struck by somebody and it's, it. Puts so much sort of energy into the space. So that watching a video of the drum crew, I'm like, I get chills. I'm like, Ooh, this would be amazing. This room full of people banging these things at the same time. Like it feels so energetic and alive and primordial.

I can only imagine and nine years of doing this. What and okay. So you mentioned moving to Edinburgh where were you before then? 

Alex: I grew up around Manchester in England, but I've lived here about 12 years now, which was a very good move. I moved up essentially because of Edinburgh Fringe, which is one of the best things in the world, where artists from all over the place come and try out their new material generally.

So it's a really creative space, and certainly there's other festivals around it. focus on drumming, and I think that's one thing we can talk about as well. Yeah, 

Rob: so in, in Edinburgh there's a really incredible, quite underground community. [00:05:00] Back in the 80s, some there was like a hardcore industrial band called Test Department.

And they, some of the guys from that got together with the School of Scottish Studies here and whatnot and they brought back an ancient Celtic festival, the festival of Beltane. They wanted to turn it into this big ritualistic yeah, ritual theatres, community based celebration.

And it was very much taking cues from the the criminal justice act and the rave culture of the time and whatnot, that was all pulled together. And it's been, there's been quite a strong underpinning of that. Within Edinburgh, people getting together every year and celebrating these these festivals.

And drumming is a massive part of that. And that's what has pulled together a lot of us. We've come through one of those festivals. This band originally started as a bunch of people drumming as part of a festival. And then when the festival happened, we decided, well, this has been incredible, so let's just keep this going.[00:06:00] 

And while we're at it, let's make it as heavy as we can possibly make it. Let's take this expectation that someone has when they see a room full of drummers, they expect to hear a samba band, all like good time Brazilian beats, but let's just absolutely destroy them with Like blast beats and amen breaks and yeah.

Jude: We refer to ourselves as Samba's evil twin. Yeah. We're a big group of people with drums on, but it's your eardrums experience different things as far as, but I think there's something really nice you were saying there about, seeing a video and seeing what the energy is. And as a drummer, I can not tell you anything that's more cathartic than drumming as a part of, 20 people and, you're all friends and you bring this energy and it's really cathartic.

And talking about the pandemic, I think it's talked about this. It was really awkward coming together after that and Rob was saying earlier to me that, that was a time of don't really know how to be with [00:07:00] people anymore. But we know how to do this coming into a room and going, hello, putting your earplugs in and drunk for three hours.

And it is still being together, even though you're not verbally talking to each other. You are really being together. And that's something really powerful. Yeah, 

Prime: and you mentioned catharsis. I mean, like it has to be, I mean, that is what I would imagine is man, it looks so good to beat this shit.

Like so much healing goes on. It feels like I'm letting all those energy out. I have an outlet for it. It must be pretty nice in that respect. 

Jude: Yeah. And I suppose as well, as a group where we all have different backgrounds. Some of us, I suppose, like work in IT or, teaching or whatever.

So for me myself I'm a therapist, so I sit with people every day in, in, in a real intense space and to be able to go drumming afterwards is, I guess, the balance. Like without that, I don't know, I don't know what I would have to do instead, so it's really powerful in that way. I think it is something like that for everyone that is in [00:08:00] the group.

It's a real kind of rebalancing and the way of being together is really great. Yeah, like you said, Yeah, 

Rob: it taps into something that is you used the word primordial earlier on. It does tap into something that's hugely primal and it affects the people in the band. It affects people walking past as well.

Like we've played on the streets of Edinburgh and we can go from people just pittering past with their shopping bags to, within ten minutes, there's a crowd of two, three hundred people who just cannot walk past this. They're like, I need this. I need this in my face, in my ear. 

Prime: Yeah. Relatable.

Understandable feeling to have. Cause I experienced the same thing just through a video. This is a thing worth paying attention to. And it grabs you in such a, And I mean, I've said this before to you of I can go to almost any sort of a live show of almost any kind of a music because if it's got a good beat, like [00:09:00] it's, if it's got a person banging on some shit, then it might be good.

Like it might be at least fucking acceptable. In your case, it's like, actually good. So let me ask you that question though. So the currently the Harbingers is a live iteration only kind of a thing, and there's a lot of you and you're tied to this geographic location.

What does, how does that impact the future of what you want to do with this? 

Alex: So it's an interesting question that because of the live element of it and the experience is really the thing it's not so much about the patterns that could be any patterns it's the experience of being in the room.

It is a hard thing to translate into recorded mediums media. We've certainly found that every time we try and record it, every time we try and film it, and you've seen the YouTube videos and Captures 10 percent of what the actual experience of being in the room is so The best way to [00:10:00] experience what it is We do is to be in the room with us at a show and obviously that means More people should come to the shows, but that means that Record it is really And it's something that we've done some recording, we've tried it, and it never quite does it.

It never quite does the thing. It sounds roughly like the patterns, but it's missing a very key element. And what that element is probably the amount of air being pushed through the room, physically moving you when you're in the room. And it's something that you're just never going to be able to record.

But yeah, that's something that we're looking to we're looking to find a solution to that. 

Rob: Yeah, because there's something about with the live performance, the way that we play, we don't have, we don't have traditional songs in there. Here, we're going to play this song, it's going to last for five minutes and 24 seconds, and then we finish and we'll move on to the next 

Jude: one.

Rob: We just have a whole cache of different patterns, some of which go together, some of which are in the same time signature and whatnot. And basically, What will happen is we [00:11:00] will start playing at the beginning of a gig. Alex has, I think you've described it, as a DJ with a gig bag full of like records and samples and all.

Jude: Yeah. 

Rob: And we'll just, we'll bring it all together in the moment. So it's very much like this has happened. There's been, there have been times where we've been on stage and we've mashed together, Alex has mashed together one pattern with another pattern. And we've never done it before. It's never been mixed that way.

So it's brand new and fresh and exciting for us in the moment. And I think the audience kind of picked up on that. We tried it. We recorded all of the different patterns. We have gigabytes worth of stems of recordings of different drum patterns, but to sit in a room and try and mix that into some, into something that sounds like us and has the same kind of energy as us.

But without the drummers there to feed off it just doesn't work, does it? 

Alex: We should maybe explain the mechanics of it a little bit to what we're actually doing to make this happen, because [00:12:00] it's not obvious if you don't know what's really going on here. So, let's take it from the beginning.

Let's imagine DJing, but instead of turntables, you've got groups of live drummers, okay? So we've essentially disassembled some drum kits. We've got a row of kick drums, so we've got people with a kick drum tied around their waist to DJ. Like how it handles, begin it with two hands, so we've got bass drums, we've got floor toms, we've got kick snare drums, and we've got marching snare drums.

And cymbals as well, we've got a percussion section on top. So, we've all learned, let's say a couple of hundred drum loops. Right? We all know these patterns off by heart, and each one of them has a name, and each one of them has a hand signal. So, imagine DJing through sign language. So, I basically think of, I think of a tune I want to play, I think of what it might sound like.

Out of fragmented drum, a signal too. the drummers in [00:13:00] the band and the sections grouped together. I am hearing in my head and then they play it, which is amazing. It amazes me every time. But the reason that people get the reaction that they do is because I'm doing it like a DJ. I'm not doing it like maybe a band for I'm reacting to what the crowd are reacting to.

So I'll try something and if they like it, I'll develop it and I'll build more on it and have that kind of. area, and if they're just not going for it, no one's moving, no one really cares, I'll try a different thing and see if maybe that's the direction. The result of all of that long explanation is that everyone gets the gig that they want, and I can't.

I've never seen anyone do it. I've never seen anyone do it. I'm sure there are others, a similar maybe out there and I would love to hear them if, but this idea of figuring out what the audience want and then writing it live so that they get it and people come to [00:14:00] us afterwards going that is amazing. I never knew existed.

That's exactly what I'm into. What are you? That's my favorite. I don't know what that was. I love it. 

Jude: Yeah. 

Alex: Yeah, I hope that explains it. No, it 

Prime: does. Because in the videos I can, there's, I'm like, okay, so, there's a conductor, and it comes across as but I would say I would use the word conductor over DJ, not to disagree with you, but DJ makes more sense, but just as as an outsider.

Somebody's just observing it. That's what it looks like. The conductor 

Alex: is absolutely part of it. But with conductors in like orchestral settings, the music's kind of written first. And the conductor is guiding players through that. Whereas the way that we do things, we're writing it on the fly.

Prime: Yeah. I don't foresee you being up there with one of those little tiny conductor's wands. That's ah, that's like. 

Jude: You joke, but I'd love whatever. 

Prime: Okay, noted. [00:15:00] 

Alex: Christmas is a 

Prime: coming. Yeah, there you go. It's right around the corner. Gotcha. And it makes sense too that it would be a thing that can't exactly be reproduced or captured.

But I mean, so on that note I mean, like you said you've done a lot of recording of of performances and playing and everything. Gonna release any of that, like anything any of those performances will be shared maybe? Yeah. Okay. 

Alex: I think so, yes. I think once we're happy with it, we will.

But we're still figuring out the best way of doing it. I, imagine recording a drum kit just in a normal studio setting. It's quite a complex thing under normal circumstances. Now times that by 20 drum kits and you've got quite a physical task to do. It's difficult. It is difficult.

Yeah, nonetheless, trying to record 

Prime: 20 drum kits that are meant to play together. So, yeah, because then you're now we have to think about space and getting them all right. Yeah, it's a lot of logical things. [00:16:00] I hope I'm looking forward to when you overcome that. And then I can enjoy. I can enjoy the Harbingers myself as much as I wish whenever I want to.

It's okay, so, this is what's the next thing that you have on your horizon that is coming up that you're, like, super pumped about? What's the next step for the drum crew? 

Rob: So we're heading into winter so we just had the festival season, and we did a bunch of really cool stuff this summer including, well, we got booked to go and play for a whiskey distillery on Islay.

They do a whiskey festival up there once a year and they really wanted an industrial drum corps. So we went, we were essentially a house band for a whiskey distillery. And, got sent away with lots of really nice free whiskey, which is about as Scottish as it gets over here. Yeah. It doesn't pay the 

Prime: bills, but okay.

Very well. Thanks. 

Rob: Yeah. Yeah. But so yeah, on the immediate horizon, we've got Small club gigs and happening and there's something happening on the 19th of this month It's an [00:17:00] introducing night where we're headlining and we've got a couple of industrial Outfits that are supporting as well one called mrs.

Fright house Industrial terrorism kind of I think they're quite bizarre and out there and I'm looking forward to hearing them 

Prime: fun 

Rob: We doing roller derby. 

Prime: We doing roller derby. Oh yeah. There's 

Rob: a, there's quite have fun. There's quite a strong prolific like roller derby community here in Edinburgh.

They've asked us to come and play as they're like, halftime act nice. It's, yeah. Yeah. So that's always a bunch of fun. Like a load of folk on roller skates and, 

. 

tattoos and great hairstyles. Yes, definitely. Yeah, 

Jude: we have on and off seasons and sometimes we do a lot of local gigs, sometimes we do them just free of charge.

And then Rob was saying, I live on the West coast of Scotland and it's the biggest kind of industry in the whole of the country, which says a lot because it's Scotland. And that was, three days of, [00:18:00] travel and performing and things like that and that was really amazing.

And last year we had a gig, which was the weirdest gig we've ever had, which was we did an opening tour scene for the Traitors, the US. Yeah. Yeah. And the 

Rob: award winning. And the award 

Jude: winning first. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't know that until two weeks before, so, or three weeks or something like that, so that was a really big thing that we did.

We were not allowed to talk about it for about eight months. It's like a pain of death, but yeah, so sometimes really big things just suddenly come up, and then we can do the really local stuff in between, so that's the rhythm that we're doing, that's really nice. 

Rob: It's funny because we can go from supporting or playing on the bill with And doom sludge bands and we supported Haseeko when they came to Edinburgh about four years ago, and that was just random and bizarre.

And then sometimes these corporate things will turn up and we'll make a decision then and there is this Like it's the Scottish whiskey industry. We all like whiskey. Let's go [00:19:00] with that. But then, recently an entertainment company in Bahrain got in touch and well, we want to bring you over free.

And I did, no, that's not our vibe. That's way beyond what we're into. There's a values thing there as well. So, yeah, we because this isn't our bread and butter, we just, we're just having fun and we get to choose what to do. And Yeah, you get to choose the cool gigs. 

Alex: Yeah, that's a wonderful position to be.

Yeah. Yeah, you pick the 

Rob: good one Yeah, and because we're all acoustic as well We could literally just if we fancy it turn up in the street and play a 45 minute set Yeah, 

Alex: that's a really strong thing actually because then I don't busking we're like a 130 decibel acoustic band, so I don't know what.

Prime: Yeah, I know. I think that's cool that like you that it's, you're picking and choosing. I was going to say like the logistics of getting people together must be a bit of a struggle at times. I mean, you almost have to have a dedicated [00:20:00] person to do that. I'm just like, you are a staffing person in addition to hitting this drum when you can.

Rob: Yeah, Jude and I do the gig booking, and we are like chief cat herders.

Jude: There's something about getting 20 hippies to the other side of the street, that does make you age quite quickly sometimes. Sometimes 

Rob: I think we're doing well if we can get 12 drummers in a room 

Prime: for a 

Rob: performance. I totally agree. Well, we can, we hit our full stride any less than that, it doesn't work.

But yeah, it's very rare that we'll get all 22 people in a room together. 

Prime: Congratulations. I admire your determination and effort. As somebody who also has to schedule musicians, I No kidding. 

Jude: No kidding. 

Prime: Yeah that is a struggle. I admire your patience, it's 

Jude: nice when it comes together. I think when we went to Islay it was both different vehicles and ferries and camping and [00:21:00] all of that.

Oh my gosh, but it worked. Yeah, 

Prime: a lot of moving parts to this it seems. 

Alex: The real trick was letting someone else do it all for us, because when we, right, it's. Everything they got a coach and they picked us up and they drove us the entire length of scotland. Wow and Wonderful experience that came out of the clear blue sky I was thinking we were just over briefly, but that gig came out of absolutely nowhere.

I don't know how we got that they just 

Jude: youtube 

Alex: apparently youtube. They know what some of the same as you 

Rob: I don't watch the traitors or if that's in your sphere of experience over there, but apparently it's a big deal I've never heard of it Before it came, but they wanted a kind of like a ritualized sort of hunger game style like ceremony for the the series.

It's like a reality television show based on a Scottish castle and they wanted some drummers and so they googled Scottish drummers. But they made us [00:22:00] look 

Alex: very cool. They did. We stood in front of this castle. Drones flying around us, Phil. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely one. Show the family.

Yeah. 

Prime: I did see part of the clips from that on your website, and I was like, whoa, this is some this is cool. Looks incredible. Yeah. 

Alex: Good shit. I can't deal with how many people have seen it. I keep looking up how many people have actually watched that now, and it's 

Prime: Yeah, I mean, I do have to say it is a point of, I mean, it does prompt me to be like, yeah, totally definitely record a full performance or something for us to watch.

Because I mean, these things are coming to you and happening because, myself included not that being on voicing all special, but it's, but of, I, I see the thing of this is the drum crew. This is what we do. And I'm like, I want to be near this. I want to be closer to this come to me and be involved.

So it's understandable that at least for me is to find it on YouTube and be like, [00:23:00] this is a rad thing. So it makes sense. 

Alex: If you want to get some local duckings where you are, we, no problem. 

Prime: Yeah. I'll jump right on it. I get on that. A hard sell. Hey, can you fly over 22 people from, how hard can it be?

It's just some plane tickets. God. 

Jude: I might not do the logistics for that 

Prime: one. Oh, okay. All right. Great. I only hate that. So that's awesome. Okay. 

Jude: So, 

Prime: signed from. The Harbingers you mentioned being a therapist, Jude, and what you all come from different walks of life, teachers and all kinds of things, but what is aside from the Harbingers, what's, is there something that you are hoping to accomplish in like the remaining couple of months of the year?

We don't have much time left, but is there something this year that you're hoping to get done maybe?[00:24:00] 

Rob: Like outside of Harbingers? 

Prime: Yeah. I mean, I'm not trying to dig in your personal life, but just I'm like, I'm just curious. Is there something like with that before the end of the year that you're like, Hey, aside from this thing I do that I love, I've also got this thing I'm pumped about. 

Rob: Man we're about to hit a Scottish winter, so I just want to make it through to January.

Prime: is so Scottish Winter, I've never experienced one. So, you've seen Game of 

Alex: Thrones, right? Winter is coming, basically 

Rob: it's dark. It's of, 

Alex: but 

Rob: winter instead of, there's about 10 minutes, there's about 10 minutes of daylight every day, and you're never there for it. , 

Prime: okay? Some cannibalism happens, maybe.

Rob: Yeah, it's not quite as bad as that. 

Prime: We 

Rob: do that. Anyways, 

Prime: we do that. Okay, that sounds right. Okay 

Jude: there's We talked about the belting fire festival Celtic festival there is an autumn equivalent which [00:25:00] is sewing which I think has been branded as halloween in many places, but another old celtic festival which will be on the 30th october a lot of drummers that are part of our crew as well that are You Be drumming there performing there.

So, that's a big number of things I mean, that's something i'll be doing. I don't know what you guys You just be miserable So there's stuff to do there's stuff happening in it sure a lot of it

Prime: Okay, Alright, so, when it comes to, aside from Harbingers what I mean, I don't know I, I mean, this is such a big part of all of your lives, it sounds that, aside when you're not doing your regular thing, like you're doing this kind of a thing what do you each hope it, It goes on to become and grow into.

I mean, I know the goal [00:26:00] is probably likely something along the lines of ah, let's just keep going and it gets as big as it gets. But is there a certain stage or point to it that you're Oh, if we made it to this, I'd be content with that. 

Alex: See, I think it's evolved as it's gone on.

I think at the beginning as with all projects, you think this will maybe last a year, maybe two, we'll get as much done as possible in that time. But then it's evolved through that and it becomes such an integral part of our lives, certainly mine. I, we rehearse once a week and it really is the highlight of the week because it's the therapy side of it.

It's that you get to blow off all the steam from all the other things in your life, but also. Once a week, you get three hours where you get to listen to all your favorite music, with all your favorite people. And, I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm getting older, but, That, I'm, I, my needs are simple now, and that is what I want.

That's what I want. Every week, I get to do my favorite thing in the world. With my absolute favorite people [00:27:00] in the world, I'm gonna beat that. That's great. I'm happy if that just continues as is. And if other people hear about it, brilliant. I love that. And I love the fact that you found us and other people are gonna find us as a result.

Rob: It's interesting that we've been going for almost 10 years and it exists as it is and it's incredible that we keep finding it. But there is room there for development it, it can get as creative as the people who are in it have time and motivation and inspiration. There's absolutely room for us to introduce an electronic element.

Absolutely. And, move away from being fully acoustic, but like actually pull in some industrial electronic influence. There's probably room to put. Some kind of vocal on it. There's room to make it incredibly visual. And involve fire and pyro and and a light show and everything.

Basically like we could just keep on going towards those things and we'll get as far as we get. [00:28:00] 

Jude: There is a common kind of how do you make things better in Edinburgh is you set fire to it. I think maybe slightly different is that we all have a career. We all have a life. We all have things that are also important partners, be it kids, be it.

Hobbies is that actually I don't necessarily want it to grow so much that I would need to give up other parts of my life to to do it. So it's almost like it finds a bit of a balance where we do what we do really well, but also way that it doesn't take away too much the rest of the balance and I think we're finding ourselves in such a privileged position where we can say no to things that we don't feel like we align with and can say yes to the things that we do really want to do as opposed to needing to say yes to things that we don't really want to do and I think that in a way I think is for me really important and you know I think setting shit on fire is always great and you know something that I think would be awesome would be to collaborate with other [00:29:00] artists and that would be amazing.

A lot of really good metal gigs that come up to Glasgow usually in Scotland to collaborate with one of them. I think that would be awesome. I don't necessarily think we want to go on tour because yeah it's hard enough to get people to one, one side of the country. So yeah, but if that makes sense, it's there about it balancing out.

And 

Alex: that's 

Jude: a really good place without it being a stretch, 

Alex: yeah. I think the collaboration side of it is the perfect option for that, because we get to do the thing we do but bring people in to do the extra part every time we have collaborated with people. Who was the metal band we played with a while ago?

They were brilliant. And the name escapes me off the top of my head. Yeah, but every, we played a live show with a metal band. It was brilliant. And I think we've talked about electronic artists coming in. I was going to say, Always fancy working with a rapper as well. It'd be great. 

Prime: Oh, that would be amazing too.

But that was something I wanted to [00:30:00] interject is that your sort of style and what you do lends itself so easily to so many different things. Of like a metal band, or an electronic artist, or industrial, or whatever. Right.

Alex: That's right, we played with Polly, live drum and bass DJ. That was good. Nice. 

Rob: Yeah. 

Alex: Yeah. 

Rob: Yeah, so many of the the industrial artists that I listen to like the percussion and like the clattering of percussion is so much a part of it. That we could absolutely start to take on that sort of form.

If there were artists for us to collaborate with. 

Alex: I hear you've got a few people listening to this, if anyone fancies it. Yeah, let's have a, let's have a chat. Let's talk. 

Prime: I was actually going to bring that up. So, on that note, I was going to say that I've caught I've Arden sphere live twice and Scott Fox does a fantastic job of transitioning his music to the live arena by having a bunch of drummers on stage of, you have hands come up here and beat this.

So it's [00:31:00] it was not quite the same, but it was still a chance to experience industrial music with drums, like a lot of drums, a lot of people beating stuff in a room. So yeah, I'm very excited about that kind of a. I will cut this, but I will go ahead, excuse me, and just let you guys know that I did send a link of your video over to Jamie Blacker from Electronic Substance Abuse.

Aw, yes! He was a big fan. Was very impressed and said that he will be in touch, probably. He's just got some stuff on his plate right now, but I was like, Hey, these people are near your country. Yeah. That's 

Rob: incredible. I saw that he followed us on Instagram the other day. The little boy inside me went, Woohoo!

Prime: Yeah. Yeah, I sent it over to him and I was like, hey, these people do a thing. So, I don't know how much sway I have over him or anything, but he was interested. So, yeah, I mean, as a fan, it's a thing that I want to see too and want to experience. It's let's take this cool thing and What can it be when it [00:32:00] interacts with something else that's cool?

Like I was, I want to do that all the time. So I'm always like, hey, what's your email address? Hit up my homie blah blah blah for a remix or whatever. So, never sometimes it's oh, I want you to do this because it'll help you. A lot of times it's I want you to do this because I want it.

So. 

Jude: That's a good enough reason. 

Prime: Exactly, right? Ah I have these powers of persuasion. I will make this thing I want to have. Great. But no, absolutely. Collaborations are, sound amazing. Is that a thing that you've is there a limit on I don't know what the hell I'm trying to ask here.

What just what are, is there anything you would like, I, well, okay, one thing I do want to turn around to, before my mind escapes me you mentioned the visual component, and I wanted to comment on that before it got too far away. But there is a great visual element of not only is there all these people in a room drumming a thing, but you have a bit not a [00:33:00] uniform, but everybody's dressed similarly.

These people are together and you've done such a great job of Sort of providing a visual style to what you're doing so that it's very identifiable. And I think that's one of the things that really helps sell it, especially in the videos, is that not only here's all these musicians who are doing this cool thing, but they are together.

It's a unit. It's a group. It's a band. It's a band it feels very cohesive Anyway, my point in bringing that up was just to say, good job it's great. 

Alex: Yeah. That's really good to hear because it, it is a difficult balance. We want, we didn't want it absolutely identical.

Everyone wears the same, black boiler suit that kind of idea. But we wanted to let everyone express themselves, but within the bracket where everyone looks like they're on the same team. It's a tricky thing to get right. If 

Rob: a few years ago I discovered crisis wear over the states where and I just fell in love with their entire catalog. I'm like, could we make the band look like 

Jude: that? 

Rob: Yeah. 

Alex: Yeah. They send us [00:34:00] some stuff. We work quite a lot. 

Jude: Yeah. And then at the same time, take, 'cause I'm very cheap, so I just made something myself that looked the same as crisis work.

So, and then some of the guys wearing the kind of. It's basically kilts, but made from cotton, black cotton. Yeah. It's not, it's nice though. Cause it's part of the kind of, you wear what you feel comfortable in, but it does, it's nice to hear that it looks like, it looks slightly different.

Rob: Yeah, job 

Prime: done. 

Jude: Yeah, nice one. Thank you. 

Prime: Yeah, for sure. This is a feedback 

Alex: session as much as anything. 

Prime: Oh yeah, for sure. I'm full of feedback. I love telling people bullshit about my thoughts. So, yeah, no, I saw that on your website of Crisisware. Cause I was like, wait, the same Crisisware?

Cause I literally had a Crisisware business card on my desk. Cause from from running into them at Dark Horse Fest. They had a booth set up and everything. Yeah, I'm such a sucker for sort of industrial fashion [00:35:00] kind of stuff. Fancy tech pants and things like that.

Well, this pants, these pants have Five straps on them and stuff I don't know what for. Just great stuff. Yeah. 

Jude: Yeah. I don't 

Prime: know what these are for, but who cares? What 

Jude: are you strapping? What's being strapped to it? 

Prime: There's so much safety on these pants, you don't even know. Look at all these straps.

And waterproof, too! Woo! Yeah, nothing is gonna happen to me. Look at all these straps. I just, who cares? It's just the coolest shit. So, yeah, I'm That's 

Alex: the 

Prime: industrial operation that people don't talk about. Health and safety. 

Jude: Yeah, 

Prime: that's what I say. Yeah, go to I'll go to the club wearing some like bright orange, some yellow, like those are working class colors.

Yo, like

Rob: check me out. I'm very highly visible. 

Prime: Yeah. Everybody can see me like, hello, look at all this orange. 

If in an emergency, you may find me, I will assist you maybe but [00:36:00] not professionally, but that's okay. Okay, well, I don't want to keep you too long. We are at 40 minutes and I do want to put the last question of the show to each of you.

What is something that you have been enjoying recently? And your answer can be anything, a book, TV show, movie, just what's something that you're jazzed about? 

Alex: Oh, I'll take that because that's literally what we were talking about just before we turned the microphone. I just finished watching the show Chaos on Netflix and everyone needs to see it.

Prime: Okay, 

Alex: Jeff Goldblum. Love him. 

Prime: Oh, 

Alex: yeah. That's my recommendation. I think everyone should watch it. 

Prime: Okay can you give us like a ten second, this is why. 

Alex: Oh, here is why. Jeff Goldblum is Zeus and it's a modern retelling of the god Zeus. But done by someone who really knows their stuff and does a really good job of it.

Can't recommend it highly enough. Best thing I've seen in years. 

Prime: Okay. All right. That's fun. 

Rob: I went to a festival a couple of weeks ago down in Bristol, in England. Called Arc Tangent. It's like a [00:37:00] heavy music metal left field festival. music nerds. Like it's a very strokey beardy kind of metal like post rock like really weird left field electro punk kind of stuff.

And I discovered some incredible music there. I saw Author and Punisher. He's always amazing. There's a band called LLNN, or I think they're Danish, like apocalyptic metal, but they've got a side project. Called John Connor and it's like apocalyptic Terminator industrial kind of stuff and that made me very happy Yeah, just really like lots of do me sludgy stuff 

Prime: I love the description of beard strokey stuff, of cause there, as a person who's been to a Godspeed You Black Emperor show, I am, there is certainly some [00:38:00] times that you hear or see performances that you're like, there's no other action it doesn't matter if you have a beard or not, you just assume the beard stroking position of what 

Alex: is this?

And you can't see this, Rob's stroking his beard right now. I was 

Prime: stroking mine as well across the waves we have connected to stroke our beards at the same time. 

Rob: But yeah, this festival, the headliners were Explosions in the Sky, Meshuggah, and Mogwai. So that gives you a flavor of the festival yeah, basically, I'm, Like a little teenage boy all over again discovering all sorts of new music, so that's good.

Prime: Yeah, that reminds me real quick, the The Fountain soundtrack with Mogwai and Kronos Quartet. And it's arranged by Clint Mansell from I mean, he was in Popolite itself, but it's The soundtrack for that movie is just such a beautiful blend of strings and piano and rock and, 

Rob: I remember that, yeah.

That's good. Did you say The Fountain? The [00:39:00] Fountain, 

Prime: Yeah. 

Rob: Yeah, I learned a great deal. I only thought about it for years. Darren Aronoff, one of his best films. 

Prime: And it's gorgeous to look at but just, I mean, even before the movie came out I remember hearing part of the soundtrack and being like, I need to hear this a thousand times.

Just beautiful and well constructed. Gorgeous, yeah, for sure. But yeah, but you mentioned Mogwai, and I was like, oh, they did this fucking thing that was so good. Yeah. Good choice. 

Jude: I was gonna, I was gonna say in terms of books, I've just finished A Little Life, which is 700 pages. Fucking misery.

I still finished that. 

Prime: Sounds pretty big. For a little while. 

Jude: It's described as trauma porn. But I was dedicated and then kicked the book down the stairs when I finished it. So, not that. I'm seeing soil work later in this year, which is a Swedish metal band. [00:40:00] It's one of the first bands that I start listening to.

Gosh, maybe 1920 or something like that kind of metal. Been revisiting some of the older albums. That's been really nice. Sometimes when you listen to music that you listened to when you were, 20 years younger, you tap into older self or younger self and that was really nice. Yeah, so it'll work.

They're awesome. 

Prime: I know the name, but it's one of those that like, I've heard this name, but I could never pick out a song. 

Jude: Some of it was, I think, one album that was produced by Devin Townsend. 

Prime: Okay. Yeah, that's a name I know. I've I saw him open for Avatar. Here in the States which if you've not heard Avatar great Swedish metal band very an incredible performance, like just one of those bands that like, I was there for one of the openers. And I had never heard the headliner and was like, ah, this will be [00:41:00] cool, I guess. And they melted my brain and I immediately had to go catch the same tour like 30 days later just because I was like, this is a band to see.

And I dragged a person with me to see them who was like, I don't know who this band is. And I'm like, you will. 

Jude: It 

Prime: just, it's great to find Bands that just are so trans, transcendental that like their live show can just be appreciated by, anybody from any walk of life. I feel like that's the appeal of The Harbingers is that yes, you're inspired by industrial or tribal or these things that are not maybe mainstream, but that it has such a broad appeal and such a universal, again, primordial sort of a draw to it of well, of course you're going to tap your feet or move along to it because you're a human and we got your fucking number, buddy.

Like you better get to dance. I'm like, it makes sense in that respect. 

Jude: It is neat because I think often the most enthusiastic people in our audience are either five years old or they are like 60 year old women that have [00:42:00] never liked this kind of music before but they go just this is amazing.

So it's not people maybe that you expect to get really enthusiastic. It's people that it really speaks to, but in a way that they don't quite understand. And it's like the joy of seeing when someone comes up to you with just puzzlement in their face going that was great. Who are you? That's great.

That's a question as well. Yeah. What are you? Who are you? Yeah, 

Prime: good question. Don't have an answer. Nice. While I was just answering the question myself the thing I've been enjoying recently is I'm getting ready to go to Wasteland Weekend at the end of September here. In the Mojave Desert.

A thing that would be amazing to have the Harbingers at. 

Rob: Absolutely. It's a post apocalyptic festival in the desert. I am all over that. Let's do it. 

Prime: Yeah. Let's do that. That sounds great. So I've never been camping before, and so I've chosen [00:43:00] this as my first experience. The middle of the Mojave Desert.

Wow. A very inhospitable. I also, 

Jude: Yeah. 

Prime: I mean, it sounds amazing. I love Mad Max shit and post apocalyptic stuff and a festival in the desert. Great. You gotta be in costume? Awesome. But, I was also reading okay, so in addition to Mojave Desert, crazy hot, it is tarantula mating season. 

Jude: Oh yeah.

Prime: Yeah. 

Jude: Jojo. Okay. 

Alex: Yeah, it'll be nice to see in your 10th first person on it. Yeah. 

Jude: We 

Rob: have 

Jude: time. 

Alex: Yeah. Thank you. 

Rob: Do Tarula have a meeting call. And do you know what it sounds like? So you know what to stay away from? 

Prime: Oh that's a good question. I don't, I hope they do not because that sounds awful.

I don't know of a way to make tarantulas worse other than making them make sound. So, I'm pretty, I mean, as a person who's not stoked about spiders this was disturbing information to hear, but my ticket's already bought, so we're already going, so it's, it'll be fine, probably I mean, I'm not sleeping on the [00:44:00] ground, so.

Rob: Someone at Wasteland is bound to have a flamethrower, so. Yeah. Up with that guy, then you're all good. 

Prime: And that guy could be you. Take your own place there, that's the 

Rob: answer. 

Prime: Right, exactly. Good thinking. I should take these solutions into my own hands. Is what you're, is what you're 

Jude: saying. Set it on fire.

Yeah, correct. 

Prime: They are going to have but I'm, I've been getting ready for that, making my costume and everything. There's going to be like a Friday, there's like a motorcycle parade or whatever and they've got a guy with the chariot motorcycle like from Furiosa that's going to be dressed up as like Dementors leading like the charge.

Oh he has fire. Yeah, he probably, yeah, he probably has that. Yeah but yeah. I'm going to ask you a 

Alex: question, what's your 

Prime: cost of 

Alex: therapy? 

Prime: So I've I've got together, I found like a PBS t shirt and like a Smithsonian Institute couple of t shirts and I'm making like a, the radio man a outfit.

I've got like headphones and some radio wiring [00:45:00] going down my thing and random scribbling and scrawling on my pants of random numbers and calculations of I was like, I'm gonna look like the guy in camp who just does drugs and listens to the radio and is Ah, did you hear it?

I heard, ah, there's a voice over the waves. Did you hear it? I, that's that's my whole, yeah. Love that for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the question. I appreciate that because like I feel like it's so key to everybody who I, who invited me out to go to this thing was like, Ah, what's your character?

What's your story? And I was like, Oh, fuck. I went to school for writing. What is my story? I don't even know. So, But yeah, thank you. Great question. But yeah, hopefully maybe at some point in the future we'll see some harbingers out in the wasteland in the Mojave that would be great. That's a good thing that would suit your squad.

I mean, of course, that's a lot of logistics of Hey, let's get 22 people into an inhospitable place. To. 

Jude: And tarantulas, I don't think we properly sold it there. Yeah, 

Prime: Did I [00:46:00] mention the horny tarantulas that are gonna be all over the place?

Yeah, okay, just in case you missed it, they're there. They are looking to mingle. So. 

Jude: I mean, I'm glad that your costume is not a tarantula, because then you'd be in trouble. Yeah, 

Prime: see? I would come back from Wasteland with oh, I got this whole tarantula family now, and I got all these illegitimate kids, I went to the desert, met a tarantula, you know how this happens.

You yeah, again damn another tarantula family off. Okay. We will go ahead and wrap it up here, but thank you all so much for taking the time to come have a chat. And, talk about what you do. And I am hoping to at some point in the future, make my way over the pond and experience land that's older than where I am.

Not older, but older governments and places and culture and things. And I will hope to one [00:47:00] day catch the Harbingers live myself. That would be fantastic. Either there or here or wherever, but until our paths cross thank you so much for doing what you do and making what you make and coming on the show.

Alex: Thank you for having us. Thank you very much for that. Great. Yeah. 

Prime: Thank you. Okay. I have.