We chat to Apollo 440 about their indiscriminate sound, their off set in the nineties, what they think of Dubstep and what we can expect from their latest release ‘The Future’s What It Used To Be‘ out this week.

Your sound is made up of many different musical influences. One description is that of an industrial underground glitch infused with Dub and Alternative Rock, with a whole lot of humour and energy. How would you describe it?

Yeah, I can’t do any better than that: the best description I’ve heard in ages!

Terrific, so what can we expect from your new album?

The usual: stripped-to-the-bone classic rock riffs that groove and dance beats that rock plus some epic cinematic soundscapes and some damn fine wordplay. Even though he’s sung on odd tracks on our albums going back to ‘Electro Glide In Blue’ in 1997, this is the first LP that’s featured Ewan MacFarlane as lead singer throughout the album and he makes his singular charismatic presence felt.

How different would you say the creative experience is when making music for films and TV ads?

It’s all about working to a brief: when we make Apollo records our brief is coming from within; working with film directors and especially with ad agencies and the clients means the aesthetic and format decisions are much more specific and restrictive. This can be both good and bad. I’ve scored a couple of French-language movies over the last couple of years (“Une Affaire D’Etat” – 2009 and “La Proie” – 2011) and have really enjoyed the challenge of enhancing the drama and mood of scenes with sometimes the smallest nuances of sound design as well as full-blown orchestral mayhem. The job is to represent unspoken aspects of character as well as add pace and import to action. Making @440 LPs is much more straightforward: if we’re all getting off on one aspect of a track, the decisions make themselves.

Looking at when you guys started in the early 90′s. What were the unique challenges for you in the music industry with your hard to box sound?

The whole rock/dance dichotomy that seemed so desperately important when we started is almost a non-issue anymore. Audiences have a much greater breadth of music at their fingertips now and are less hung-up with categorization. The rise of remix culture broke down a lot of prejudice and people became used to hearing musical and lyrical ideas juxtaposed in new contexts. The negative fallout of this means that it’s now much more difficult to surprise and shock.

What do you make of the Dubstep trend, fad or future?

I came to the dubstep scene through working with UK grime MCs in about 2005 and it’s been interesting watching each turn of its evolution into the very specific set of rules and production-values that underpin it today. The parallels with the drum’n’bass scene are obvious. Any music can now be made-over and formatted into the dubstep template and some of the best work ends up being remixes of non-dubstep tracks. Personally I like to be surprised and shocked into submission: the crazier the juxtaposition, the more fun. One of the best guys is Skrillex who’s come at it from a more rock’n’roll place than ‘pure’ dubstep and aint it always the way? Pendulum brought metal-consciousness to drum’n’bass and ripped the scene up ten years after we’d laid the initial blueprint. Even Led Zeppelin would have been half the band they became without John Bonham’s supercharged heavy funk beats. Dance grooves have got to rock. You cannot stop it!

What’s the coolest thing about being a ‘Scouser’?

Everything!

What was it like touring in Ukraine – did you receive any musical influences from your Eastern cousins?

There’s always been a lot of deep love for Apollo 440 in Russia and the old Eastern Bloc countries. They get it. We probably have most fun playing there and touring Ukraine was one of the highlights of our live-performance career so far. Oleg from TNMK (one of Ukraine’s best rap acts that we toured with over there) appears on the track “Odessa Dubstep” on the new LP to great effect after freestyling with us onstage a few times. The song reminds us of our adventures in Odessa: private planes, Crimean pink champagne and all!

Any chance of a South African tour anytime soon?

Wouldn’t that be nice in 2012?

Interview: Rachel Briant