JFD: Question about your art. Do you view it as a musical expression, or is it an attempt to make statements?

Thorn: It's more than a musical expression, but its not necessarily trying to influence. Anyone's art is created to try to reach people. And, most art starts as a stab in the dark, trying to find like minded people. As it grows and develops it becomes something else. We don't have a message where we're trying to create a worldwide satanic network. And we're not trying to recruit people to an evil thought form. It's more than a musical expression, it's an ideology, and an expression of that ideology through words, sounds, and images.

JFD: We had a question about the samples you use, we've seen the pages that say where you get stuff....

Thorn: Most of those are wrong. Just recently I got web access, and our official site had a bunch of stuff listed that was just completely wrong. The one that really irked me was that they said we sampled Dead Can Dance, for the beginning of Temple of Flesh. And yeah, we both happened to use the same keyboard that had the same style of sound for a sitar, but it wasn't a sample, and TOF was on the original 4-song demo, making it exist probably 3 years before Dead Can Dance.

JFD: Well, they might be wrong, but many of the movies and stuff on it are pretty obscure, and you have access to weird christian speeches and stuff, how'd you get that stuff?

Thorn: I'm just an avid collector. As far as sampling obscure things, there's always a danger when you sample sounds that somebody might try to sue you. Generally they won't bother with a band like us, but if you're a Marilyn Manson, or a NIN and you're making millions of dollars, somebody has something to gain, but we're not exactly in that league. It's like, "yeah you can take ten bucks out of my car payment." But it's not worth it for the lawyer's expenses. I've been an avid collector of obscure things for a very long time, and sounds are just something that's included in my collection. People give me stuff, and send me things, a friend of mine from Portland, sent this four record set of Jimmy Swaggart, and it's all about demons and demonology. It's four records, and it's all on 16 speed, so it's not only vinyl, even people that have turntables can't play it. You gotta be anachronistic to work with the source material.

JFD: Speaking of Manson...his recent change from Antichrist Superstar to glam, after Rolling Stone almost canonized him as the successor to Anton LaVey, what do you think of the transition?

Thorn: First I got to say, from my interactions with Manson, he's a great guy and a very smart person, but he's in a hard place, and it's very easy for people to twist his words around. Rolling Stone wants to say that La Vey was Manson's puppet, and now people say Manson thinks he invented the Church of Satan. So... he's more in the public eye than anybody with a Satanic ideology has been, so it's easy to point fingers. He's as manipulated by media, as he manipulates it. So the best I can say is, I'm jealous. I wish what I was doing made millions, like the song says: "I always spell Satan with a Dollar Sign." If Manson sucked, he wouldn't get as far as he did.

JFD: Are you worried about the media twisting your stuff as well.

Thorn: No...that's one of the things that we've got, is that ours is just so simply evil and twisted that it's not marketable or able to be co-opted by the main stream. And the cool thing about that is that all the kids that get pissy and say Manson sold out...Manson's main stream...Fratboys wear Manson shirts...they're looking for the next level, that's that much more evil, and we're there waiting. They've paved lotsa ground for us. And they've worn our shirts on MTV before. So, they've tipped their hats to us. Their page used to have a link to us. They've been good to us. The first big national tour we did, we had these shirts that had a fluorescent green inverted cross on the back and said, "God is Dead, Satan Lives." But we couldn't sell the shirts, and it's not 'cause kids didn't want 'em, it's cause their mom wouldn't let 'em wear it. Then a couple years later, you've got shirts that say "I'm the God of Fuck " on the back, and all of a sudden, the shirts we sold are now collector's items, we only made a hundred. People say, "why don't you make that shirt again," and it's 'cause the people that bought 'em deserve to wear 'em as a badge of honor.

JFD: You used to be with the (My Life With The) Thrill Kill Kult, you want to talk about it for the Kiddies?

Thorn: I don't know, I keep reading all sorts of things on the web. Basically, as I remember it, I was in the band, and decided it wasn't something I wanted. It wasn't my brain child, it was Buzz's (McCoy), and his music and ideas, and at that time, there was a little of my influence, and it became a dance band. Now, I'm not claiming I was influential. I've heard that a) I wasn't in the band b) I got kicked out c) I was incompetent. Whatever!  The big joke last year was that every time someone brought it up I'd say, I was never in that band, and if you see 'em, tell 'em to stop mentioning me, and trying to ride on our band's coattails. Because, they've kind of fell of the face of the Earth. It was just one of those things, if they want to say I was never in the band, that's fine, because the stuff that they've done in the last couple of years is pretty embarassing.

JFD: What are your musical influences?

Thorn: Well....when I joined TKK, they had one single out. I moved to Chicago because I loved Revolting Cocks, and I wanted to join. So I went, and ended up in TKK, about 4th on my list of Wax Trax bands. So I was influenced by the early industrial stuff: Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, the classics. But I got into that via Einsturzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle, and to that through goth, the original Christian Death, Bauhaus. I used to buy Bauhaus records when they really were still a band, like still recording. There's a variety of influential music from a seminal standpoint, like early heavy metal, anything from AC/DC to Judas Priest, at weird times rears its ugly head in our sound. But, as far as music that I listen to on a day to day basis, you listen to calling Dr. Luv, you hear a Judas Priest influenced sound, and then you hear something Nancy Sinatra. It's one of the things of the TKK was the versatility. You have Burning Dirt, and then Kooler than Jesus.  They have a wide range of sounds, and it's something that I took with me, and we try to maintain throughout. The new record is pretty heavy, but the coup de gras, is the cover of INXS' Devil Inside. So after all this damage, there's a throwback to "yeah, we still have a sense of humor."

JFD: Is this album more like the track you did on Gummo?

Thorn: Exactly. That real sort of Motley Crue guitar... a little more rock-n-roll. You know there are traces of everything. We've done so many things. Last tour we ended with Slayer's South of Heaven. So guys who got dragged out with their friend, that says "yo man they're cool," just doesn't get it, and then at the end goes crazy when he hears us playing Slayer.

JFD: Gonna release it?

Thorn: Yeah, actually there's a live version on Slayer...what's it called...Cleopatra's of course doing a tribute to Slayer. When a lot of time they talk about life imitates art...the AC/DC tribute came about because we closed with Highway to Hell, and Brian Ferrer's like, "wow, no one's done a tribute to AC/DC." And, that things sold so many copies, it got licensed in Japan. It's the first album I got that we're on that has Japanese writing all over it, and I thought that was pretty cool.

JFD: We had a question about the tributes...like Warlock, Skinny Puppy, how do you decide which tracks you do?

Thorn: Well, it's weird, I'll do pretty much any tribute at this point, basically because, and this sounds mercenary, 'cause you make lotsa money off those things. It's free money. To be honest, I hate the Cure, and the reason we did Killing An Arab is so that Robert Smith would hear it and decide it was time to disband the Cure, because so much damage had been done to the band, by this hellacious sound that someone had created around one of his songs. It's weird because the Bauhaus thing, Bryan called and said we're doing a tribute to Bauhaus, and I started naming songs, and he says "Taken, Taken." And I'm like "We sell a lot of records on the label. Why is it others get to choose before me?" And he says he has an idea of what he wants us to do. And I say, "what?" And he says, "Bela Lugosi's Dead.' And I say, "absolutely not. No way". "Why not?" "It's the band's signature song, and it's the worst way to get compared to the band." So he tried to stroke my ego. And I say, "hello, child psychology doesn't work on me." And I thought the whole goth community was gonna be buying copies and pissing on it, but I've heard nothing but compliments. It really surprised me. That was an honest tribute, because they were such a strong part of my life for several years. The Cure thing was dishonest, and I'm reading liner notes, and they say "all these bands love the cure." No, I hate the Cure. The Skinny Puppy thing, I went through the same thing. I ended up with the one I wanted. Eventually, Athan called up, and offered Warlock, and I was like, "yeah, that's the one I wanted to do first." Apparently, Athan was going to do a collaboration with some other band that backed out, so I got the track. And I was like, "Aaah, I see. There's the Spahn Ranch cut and then the Athan cut." He's a really good friend of mine. He finally convinced me to do Killing an Arab. I'd wake up and the phone would be ringing, and I'd say, "hello." And all I'd hear would be "Killing an Arab." "No I'm not doing the Cure."

JFD: Following the release of Unholy Roller, what's your approach to remix albums?

Thorn: My approach to remix albums is that Cleopatra tells me that techno is selling really well, and that they want to release an EP of techno remixes, and I say "No!!" Just because, I don't want someone to pick it up and think that's what we're about. We selected some songs, some bare tracks, and Cleo gave 'em out. There were like three remixes that were hard core techno that were absolute crap. It was just breakbeat, and then it stops and there's a segment of one of my lyrics. It had nothing to do with what I do. But I like all the ones that are on there. Most of the people wanted to do Prince of Darkness. We were gonna do a Prince of Darkness EP, but then I had a brainstorm for Unholy Roller, so we went in a week later and recorded it. It gelled perfectly. I like having pop songs like Psychedelic Sacrifice. It's poppy, but has nasty lyrics. Unholy Roller is poppy, but rocks hard, and has poignant lyrics, a nice statement about the way things stand. We decided that would be the title track. Much like Satan's Little Helpers. The title track is unique, some extra remixes, and some other songs you can't get anywhere else. I guess my approach is that if we're gonna release a remix album, I want it to reflect our real character, not techno-Hellfire or symphonic versions. That was the thing in the sixties. Symphonic versions of the Rolling Stones. And, I wanted someone who would pick that up, and you still get a taste of who we are. And it's priced as a mini-EP, and for that price you get a full album, almost 44 minutes of music. I don't want to rip my fans off. And if they don't like the techno, there's enough other oddities and stuff, to make it worth it.,

JFD: If you would start someone off with the "right impression," which album would that be?

Thorn:  I really can't choose....I generally start people off on Calling Dr. Luv, because it's got hard stuff like Ultraviolence. But for every Ultraviolence, there's a Groovy Boots.

JFD: Where did you record the new album? I heard you did it in a castle.

Thorn: Well, kind of.  You heard of Venom. Venom licensed to Dead Line, a subsidiary of Cleopatra. And the guys from Venom came to sign a contract, and went home with a stack of CD's. And the manager and drummer have a production company, and they called up Cleo and said, "The Electric Hellfire Club, this band is amazing." 'Cause you know Venom are like the godfathers of black metal, but now they're trying to update their sound. And they called with a proposal for Cleopatra and said they wanted to bring us over to England. They had this studio set up in this old weird manor hall, so we went over there. It was really last minute. We got home from tour, and within two weeks we went to England, and there were people in the band who had never even gotten a passport. So there was all sorts of crazy shit that we ended up needing to do to get over there. And, I'll tell you this. It was interesting...crazy. You think of England, and you think of swinging London and hot chicks. We were in a village of 22 people. We were locked up out on the farm. You seen the old series the Prisoner? Its like that. This guy is an ex-secret agent, but they maroon him on this island that's really a happy little village. And we could go anywhere we wanted, but we didn't have a car, so we couldn't go anywhere. Keep walking, and not getting anywhere, it was like being held prisoner. The conditions were peculiar, it wasn't a castle, but it was an old manor estate, and we recorded in this huge ballroom. It used to be a former bishop's residence, so there was a big chapel. But, it turns out that the bishop was a nasty guy, and used to have orgies in the room we recorded in. It was really a Hellfire Club environment. It was weird, the most peculiar conditions I've recorded under. Venom is an old-style '80's rock band, and we're a very '90's band, so it was really a clash of two worlds taking a high tech band, and recording under low tech conditions.  You know, like playing all at the same time.  I think what we came out with was really great.  And we were in this castle environment, and we wrote all the music like the first week we were there.  And honestly speaking, I've always written all the music, so we'd never really sat down as musicians and just gone crazy with it.  So we came up with some really intense music.  It was a bizarre experience, and i wouldn't give it away for the world.  It wasn't what anybody expected is I guess what I have to say.  I mean they brought us over there to give us lessons on how to sound heavy, and I think we taught them a thing or two.

JFD:  Traditional last question.  If there was one band you could wipe off the face of the earth who would it be?

Thorn:  Oh man, who's someone I really hate right now.  I don't know...it's difficult to say.  Because there are people in certain bands that I really hate, but I like others in the band.  I'm supposed to say something really conventional like Hanson, but I really like Hanson because they are the antichrist.  And, I think people would say christian music like Amy Grant, but god... listen to her, she turns more people to our side than we do.  I don't know.....I'm gonna regret this.  As soon as I get off the phone I'm going to think of someone that really pissed me off.  There are all these bands that masquerade themselves as wild cool guys, but are really these horrible christians.  But...I don't know.  The answer would be that it changes from day to day.  I turn on the radio, and I hate what's on.  But I guess I really just don't have any axes to grind at the moment.  I'm just not feeling that vindictive right now.

JFD:  Anything to say before we sign off?

Thorn: As far as the new album goes...everyone has to check it out and see.  It's kind of a new Hellfire club, but at the same time it's the sam old Hellfire Club. It's meaner darker nastier, but at the same time it still has that same forked tongue planted firmly in cheek.  So check it out, it's called "Witness the Millennium," and we hope it'll be out in early April.  Hope to see you on the road.