Praga Khan: Although we made a lot of underground dance music we always kept in touch with what happened on the rockside. The dancemusic we produced had always a lot of heavy sounds in there and was in a way very close to rock. Also the concerts we did in the past with Praga Khan and Digital Orgasm were very heavy for a danceband. When we were touring with Digital Orgasm we had "Luc Van Acker" (Ministry) with us on tour as guitarplayer. Both Oliver and myself have always been in love with rockmusic. I like bands such as "Korn" and "Clawfinger". Oliver really loves "Rage against the Machine" and "White Zombie". In the music of "Tattoo of Pain" you hear best of both worlds, the hard sounds of guitars mixed with crazy sequencers and drumpatterns. To me it sounds like Metallica in the year 2000.
Praga Khan: The original idea was to make a heavy album. I was in deep shit during the making of the album. You can easily hear it in the songs. One day I was very moody and the next day I was extremely depressed. When you listen to "Burn in Hell" you can feel the devils hammering on your spine but when you listen to "How does it feel" you are ready to sit down and cry. That's the way life is. Some day you win some day you loose. "Vengeance is Mine" turned out to be more than just a rockalbum, it's a personal statement. I forced us to work day and night. I was in this special mood and I needed to write it down in songs. We were working very intensively. The album was made in one rush and when the album was finished I changed completely. It was one of the strangest recordingsessions we ever had. We were living in the house of terror where "Tattoo of Pain" ruled with an iron fist. There was no space for rest or joy. It was madness, you can feel the tension in the record.
Praga Khan : Her name is Lyndsay and we found her in London. A lot of people inside the musicbizz told me that there was this strange girl who was playing violin in London recordingstudios. They said she looked like an angel but played like Satan's personal violin player. I had to check it out. I was always in love with the sound of a violin and couldn't wait to see and hear her play. In the middle of a recordingsession I received a phonecall from the UK. We stopped everything and three hours later we found ourselves back in a London studio. I remember that we met Lyndsay and I just couldn't understand why we came to London to see this girl. She looked very sweet, shy and innocent. But as soon as she plugged in the electric violin she transformed into a wild femme fatale. We just couldn't believe our eyes. For me, there was now way back. The next day she was recording in Belgium with "Tattoo of Pain".
Praga Khan : This year we started to do these remixjobs for other bands. It's always a challenge to start messing up other people's songs. You never know where you're gonna end up and what the composers are gonna think of it. The first big job we did was the remix for "Alice in Chains". We remixed "Again" and we were very pleased when we received a couple of faxes from the band who told us that they loved the remixes.
Another exciting remix was "Electric Head Pt.1" from "White Zombie". The Zombies are one of my favorite bands and this made it even more scary to me. We did two great mixes which were completely different from each other. White Zombie told our US management that they loved the remixes. Earlier this year we also remixed one song of a famous Japanese artist called Hide. The song is called "Pose" and is gonna be part of his new solo-album. We also had the pleasure to remix a Gravity Kills song. I did this remix with Carl S. Johansen. I also worked with Carl S. on the "Corrosion of Conformity" stuff.
Praga Khan: Not at all. Nowadays most of the rockfestivals do program bands such as Prodigy, Underworld, Tricky, Portishead and so on. These bands are much more linked with the dance scene than we are. We do have an open mind and we can't ignore that there's real good stuff coming out of the dance community. We're heading onto the year 2000 and music is changing. Not using the newest technology would be stupid. Here in Europe the press still believes that a rockband is doing everything live in the studio but in reality it's not like that at all. Most of the rockbands are working in sophisticated studios where they use all kind of high technological equipment. A lot of these bands work on Pro-Tools, the master sequencer-system, which corrects every single note they put on tape.
Praga Khan : The last thing we did was the song "The Real Thing" for the soundtrack of "Strange Days". This year we've put all our energy in "Tattoo of Pain". The writing, arranging and production of the album was very time consuming. I have to admit that it felt quite strange to see "Sharon Stone" doing my favorite thing on my music. (Sliver/The Most beautiful Girl). Oliver just went to see the Mortal Kombat Roadshow. 30 people dancing and fighting on the rhythm of our music. I also still love the moment in "Basic Instinct" when Sharon and Michael (Douglas) are getting horny dancing on "Rave the Rhythm". That was so fucking brilliant. I love it !!!! Not to mention the great car scenes in "Virtuosity" . Awesome !!!!
Soon we will start working on the new Lords of Acid album and I hope to make a new Praga Khan cd. But that's just a wet dream, I guess.