JFD:  Our first question is about musical diversity.  Your albums are all over the place in terms of style: industrial, funk, metal, jazz.  What are the influences that go into writing the albums, or that you grew up with?

Foetus:  I'm a filter for everything.  I don't have to like anything I'm hearing.  When I'm creating I try to put myself in a vacuum, and have as little outside influence as possible.  But I guess if you inundate yourself with a whole bunch of disparate stuff, something's gonna come out the other end.  Growing up, there was David Bowie, Alice Cooper.  And I've always been interested in all sorts of music.  When I started doing Foetus. I fell in love with punk rock when I was 17, but when I started there were lots of elements of experimental composers, like Stockhouse, Cage and others.  I read up lots about their theories and music.  And I used them to implement my versions of those systems and compositions, in a kind of half-ass way, with numerical systems.  Just like the possibilities...I'm not a trained musician, so I invented lots of the forms that I use, and to me its about juxtaposing wildly variant forms.  This new album I'm working on is just, as if not more schizophrenic.

JFD:  What kind of schizophrenia?  Craziness, or divergence?

Foetus:  Sounds and forms.  It's only just gelling to me, to where it is.  I'll start out a song and then make a rough mix and put it aside, and then drag it back and then realize what that song is.  Oh, that's what its about.  There's one song which is a very cathartic epic which is called "Variations on One Chord", and its some of the most frenetic, out of control big band stuff I've ever done.  And its a bossanova song, and its hard to say what the unifying factor is.  But there's something undefinably Foetus about it, even though it's new territory.  Its hard to say what Foetus is.

JFD:  As a solo artist with individual style, how do you think you fit in with the industrial landscape?

Foetus:  Don't know what that is.  Many in it try to distance themselves from it, because any label put on one is put on them by the media or the press, I don't consider any label works on my music other than foetus-music.

JFD:  You've influenced a lot of people, and worked with many bands, do you feel like you've altered part of the scene, remixes, influences etc. or do you think about your own stuff solely?

Foetus:  I don't know who would be my peers per se.  I'm a song writer, composer, and sound manipulator, and the master of the bastards.

JFD:  When you do the remixes, do you hear them and say I want to change and screw with that, or do they bring them to you?

Foetus:  I do get songs from people.  And I don't have to like the song,  just need to hear the potential in it, which is often putting it through a mangler, so it's unrecognizable.  Sometimes its keeping spirit of the song.  For example, if I'm doing the Cult, or something there's no input from the artist at all when I'm reworking their stuff.  They've already made their song.  I have the freedom to do what I like, and raw out what I think is the most premium performance of the song.

JFD:  As a person who's worked with lotsa of people like Ray Watts (pig) and others, who would you like to work with most?

Foetus:  David Bowie.

JFD:  Have you attempted?

Foetus:  I told him.  There's a lot of musicians I've worked with, that I want to work with again.  But, I'm more old school, when I play everything myself.  Because the music changes so much, and is tainted when I'm working with someone else.  Steroid Maximus (w/ RW) is kind of a concession to that.  Foetus was getting increasingly, almost 50% instrumental, and I wanted to do just songs, and I wanted to shuttle off the instrumental, to another project, so the instrumental work was getting its due, so I could create the emotions of a brain movie or a soundtrack... and SM became the shuttle from the Foetus Terminal, and I also wanted to use that as my vehicle for collaborations.  I'm working on a new SM album, it's not as much of a priority, but I'm bringing in people intermittently. to work on new stuff.  I've done one or two tracks with Todd A of firewater, and a couple of pieces with Brian Emerich, from my live band, who also has a project called Psilonaut, which is on the soundtrack for pi.

JFD:  How do you pick a live band?

Foetus:  Combination of musical prowess and personality.

JFD:  Do you act like a conductor?

Foetus:  Since it's all my songs, I don't work within the constrictions of a band when write the songs.  I might use all orchestral or big band sounds, rearranging that for whatever instrumentation I have for the live band.  The song becomes a new entity, makes it challenging.

JFD:  Are you trying to accomplish anything new with this album?

Foetus:  Every album is different.  This album is heavily crafted, and I think I've gotten better.  I'm doing everything in house, I've expanded my studio.  This is just a better way of working.  Old School doing all the engineering myself.  I've taken a long time to reach this fertile period, and it's curious, it's all just kind of pouring out.

JFD:  We had a question we ask everyone, do you have an opinion on the rock'n'roll lifestyle?

Foetus:  Well, you live your life, trying to stay alive.  The Mayan calendar ends in 2012, and the end of the millennium is coming, and there are people on the bus, and some people who are off the bus and in this fragile moment in time, I'd like to think I'm on the bus.  I've had my share of debauchery.  As to having an opinion of it, the more people who die the better, more room for me.

JFD:  Will there be a tour for the new album?

Foetus:  Yeah, there will be a world tour.  We don't have it all set up.  US, Japan, Australia, wherever the wind blows.

JFD:  How's going back to Australia?

Foetus:  Well I haven't been back in 20 years, It'll be strange, lots has changed.  It'll set off lots of dormant memories.  I'm looking forward it if with some trepidation, I hope I return as the conquering hero.

JFD:  We had a request from our station manager, can you tell an old punk story?

Foetus:  I don't know if I have any.  My first exposure was the Saints who I saw in Melbourne in '77.  That was kind of the turning point for lots of people in Melbourne, lots of people were there.  I remember seeing them, and remembering that this was either one of the worst or one of the best things I had ever seen, and the lead singer, Chris Bailey, started the set with a full bottle of JB or JD, and ended up with the bottle gone making out with some girl in the front row and the band was just playing.....and I thought this is where it's at.  It was wild.

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

Foetus:  There's so many.  Everyone's allowed their tiny corner.  If I feel that strongly about any particular artist, I tend to ignore them.

JFD:  Okay would you like to do sweepers for us?

Foetus:  Sure, you know usually I get paid a lot for this.

JFD:  Well, we could send you a coupon or something.

Foetus:  No, i'm trying to get my voice over career starting again.

JFD:  Really?

Foetus:  Yeah, I used to be the voice of MTV sports.  This week Gabby Reese gets down and dirty with the canadian hockey league.

JFD:  (Laughter)...are you really trying to restart?

Foetus:  I did like 5 seasons, and some Reebok spots and various soft drink things.  I didn't have an agent at the time, and people were trying to get a hold of me, and nothing ever came of it.  I'm trying to get into it, but its a closed industry.

JFD:  You big into sports?

Foetus:  I don't follow sports, I just read the script.

The foetus album will hopefully come out this fall or winter
SM is a work in progress