Download PDF - Xlr8r

track mini-album D.U.M.E.. Nicola says that
D.U.M.E.–whose stand out tracks include a
Christian Death-ish remix of “Don’t Talk”
and the catchy death dirge “Hold Your
Breath” (“Hold your breath now/for a long
time/hold your breath now/for a lifetime”)–was
intended as a way for audiences to catch
up to their new sound. “It had been a long
time since we had had a release and it was
a way to kind of foreshadow that the times,
they were a changin’,” she explains. “As
for the goth club you hear,” adds Adam,
“we were very conscious of that, thus the
very over-the-top cover art and the name
of it–Death Unto My Enemies. It’s from a
voodoo candle. As soon as we collect all our
enemies, we’ll light the candle and they’ll
die.” He pauses with a sly smile. “We’re still
working out the list though.”
Though they don’t name names, most
of the content on both records is a sharp
poke in the eye to their outspoken critics;
Gimmie Trouble is both a mission statement
and a description of what they’ve endured
as they’ve tried to move away from their
electro pigeonhole. “People are sometimes
unhappy with change,” sighs Nicola. “They
forget that as an artist you don’t want to
repeat yourself–you want to grow and
you want to discover what else is in there. ‘Gimme
Trouble’ was written [based] on an email where
some guy was like ‘You just really need to stay
focused on dance music and electronic stuff and
your roots. You need to get rid of the guitar and
the bass.’”
“I was a punk kid who started in 1985 playing
bass, so that would be my roots,” says Adam, frowning.
“Besides that, there was bass on Resuscitation
and guitar on Anxiety Always. You get these people
who want you to sound like when they first heard
you. What they don’t remember is that they liked
us because we didn’t sound like everything else.”
“Adult. was such a good idea when it started,”
Sam recalls. “It was like, look we’re not a rock
band. Nicola wasn’t going to shout at you like she
was in a rock band. But there’s a singer, so it was
obvious [they] weren’t a techno band either. [They]
were nothing.”
“I think our intent has always been to not be a
part of anything,” explains Nicola. “We’ve always
worked really hard to kind of not really know what
we’re doing. And then everybody’s always like ‘You
sound like an ‘80s band, you sound so retro.’ A lot
of it is because we’re using keyboards from that
time, but are you listening to them in the context
of now and what we’re trying to do with them
We’re trying to pick up where it stopped and continue
on. I think a lot of times people forget that.”
Fascination Street
What Adult. is obsessing over right now
Sam
1. Tom of Finland
2. The artist Ray Johnson
3. The Smiths
4. Musical theatre
5. Seeing people get serious about impeaching Bush
Adam
1. Larry David
2. Talking Heads
3. Oingo Boingo
4. Mexico
5. Reading about the forming of LA punk
Nicola
1. Finding the perfect pair of feather earrings
2. Classic cars
3. Trying to make more time to read books that I will
inevitably fall asleep while reading
4. Wanting to fix my house
5. Helmut Newton
Gimmie Trouble is out October 11 on Thrill Jockey and
Adult. will be touring to support the release in October.
www.adultperiod.net, www.thrilljockey.com
For more excerpts from the interview, see www.xlr8r.com.
Adult.: Sam Consiglio, Adam Lee Miller, and Nicola Kuperus
“Unless a man is both able
and prepared to see
himself as others do;
flaws and all;
he will be a loser
in cards, and in life.”
46
www.stapledesign.com