Apart from vinyl is there anything else you collect?
Not so much now. I used to collect DC comics when I was a kid, I had shoe boxes full of them. I was also into horror films and have the first 70 issues of Fangoria magazine alongwith a nice collection of videos like Maniac and Blood Feast. I used to have to order them from dealers on barely watchable VHS bootlegs. Now I go into Tesco and they've got the digitally remastered version of Driller Killer on DVD!
When I first discovered your music it was around 97/98 and tracks like Loop Dreams, Phantasm and Soul Dive had a massive effect on me and started my search for all your early 12's and remixes. Recently a lot of younger people we know through the brand in their early 20's who were too young first time round are getting heavily into all the same early Aim tracks and the first Grand Central albums like Central Heating. Does it surprise you how much impact these tracks still have today?
At the time I made those old records, there really wasn't much like them around and I never knew whether anyone outside my circle would be feeling them. I was making them for me and my friends and that was it. I wasn't trying to fit into whatever was musically fashionable at the time and as such, I think there is a timeless quality about them. Also, most of those tracks were written before I had a deal, I'd spend months on one tune, as long as it took to get it perfect. Listening back now I can hear the amount of work that went into them and even I'm impressed!
The Underground Crownholders is one of the best B-sides of any 12'' I've bought, what does it feel like when you first drop a track like that to a full club?
Thanks a lot! Tracks like Underground Crown Holders are made specifically for the dancefloor so when you first get to play them out and you see people are into them it's a great feeling. 'Job done' as they say.
Demonique on Cold Water Music features dialogue from Donald Pleasance in Halloween, did the sample match the tune or did you set out to make a track in homage to the film?
The track is a homage to 80's slasher films, in particular Friday 13th and Halloween. I love the scene at the end of Friday 13th when the killer has been killed and the last remaining survivor is drifting in a canoe on a still lake in the morning. The soundtrack changes from a heavy, ominous feel to an eerily optimistic one and that's what I tried to emulate at the end of Demonique. Once I'd finished the instrumental I went through all my videos to try and find some dialogue that would suit the feel of it and ended up at Halloween. The words and the way Donald Pleasance delivers them fit perfectly with the music. The title of the track comes from and old American magazine I used to buy called 'Demonique - The Journal Of Obscure Horror'.
Where did the name Hinterland come from?
It comes from a line in a poem by a writer called Charles Bukowski. I think it's a German word. Literally, it means land between Cities, a no mans land or the land behind a coastal settlement. It kind of describes where I grew up and to some extent the music I make. Most of all, I just thought it was a cool word, it looked good written down...
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Words: Chris Carden-Jones
Pics: Josh Cole