MIKE: So, I guess my first question is are you really a one-man band?
CHRISTIAN BLITZER: Um...yeah.
M: Why the hesitation?
CB: Well I can't play it live. I play all the instuments on the recording.
M: And is your name really Christian Blitzer?
CB: Ask my loving brother Wolf about that sometime...
M: By the way that part of your bio was fantastic. You two don't speak anymore, then?
CB: Well ... I was abandoned before I had the power of speech.
M: Let's get to the music then. What drove you to create such a shitzo sound?
CB: Besides it just being something I was doing for a long time unofficially before I ever thought of doing it as a real musical thing I thought other people might hear let alone buy ... well, it's more complicated than that. It comes from a couple of near-simultaneous stimuli. I was in THRONES OF SCORN and doing a side-project with one of the guitarists from that, Chirs, called SLEIGHER. That was meant to be a sillly band, a joke. We did our first recording before we had ever heard of anything weirder than Primus. On a whim Chris and I were in a used record store and there was a tape of Mr. Bungle there for $1. I think he had heard they were supposed to be weird, I only knew them in relation to FAITH NO MORE, which I admittedly am not the hugest fan of, but we figured what the heck and I bought it. We popped it in the cassette player in the car and almost crashed we were laughing so hard. I couldn't believe some band had the guts to make such ... music. To make something that was at once so silly and unmarketable but on the other hand was so genius. I'm getting way off topic.
M: Go ahead, man. So you were jamming weird music before you knew what weird music should be?
CB: Pretty much. I mean I had heard Zappa and some avant-garde jazz my dad was into. We were both into Primus. But we had heard nothing like Bungle or Zorn. So SLEIGHER's next two albums were more informed by what we heard Bungle doing, plus we were taking snippets from death and black metal...we threw a little half-riff from Nile next to a cover of the main riff from the 'Inspector Gadget' theme; we did a black metal / jazz version of the uber-tiresome 'heart and soul' piano duet. So already I was jamming some strange music with definite ties to underground metal. Some of the musical jokes you wouldn't get if you weren't into Slayer or Cannibal Corpse or Emperor or whatever ... that just progressed to THRONES OF SCORN practice sessions or whatever ... Chris and I or even the whole band would just jam some silly or strange metal, or even make fun of true black metal with the slowest most pathetic blast beat and some happy gnomish flute riff and buzzing guitars ... later I got more interested in recording, I was even doing it professionally for a while in San Diego. That's when I met Nick Olney and he had me doing live and recorded weird songs and soundscapes for his plays.
M: What kind of plays are these?
CB: Well ... the first one we worked on was not our own, it was an avant-garde production of stuff by these doctorate program directors with students doing the acting, tech, etc. One of the directors named DJ Hopkins (not a techno DJ ... but what a great name if he wanted to spin vinyl instead of write a thesis about conceptions of three dimensional space in Shakesperian times) asked me to do music and I just threw my taste for things like MR BUNGLE, ANAL CUNT, etc. in there, and Nick was also in that show and asked me to do music for his stuff. Turned out his show was a weird very low-budget (even for avant-garde student theatre) performace involving zombies foaming at the mouth, stuffed animals coming alive and attacking things, gore, nintendo-worship, and voluntary brain surgery. It was weird and he had me onstage towards the back in a full-on gimp suit with leather and studs and chains galore...even the gimp mask. But doing brutal weird silly forest-creature zombie music live for two weeks just made me think this is not only fun but kinda cool ... and people were coming up to me after the show complimenting the music or asking for a CD ... even some of the cast members wanted a soundtrack. So that, coupled with my work with SLEIGHER and THRONES OF SCORN kinda started it all.
M: Your first demo, 'Verfremdungseffekt' is a socialist theatre term, right? How much of your music comes from avant-garde theatre?
CB: Good question. I dunno. I actually was at an avant-garde theatre workshop in LA and saw a dance show with music by the guy from VOIVOD. I mean, all of black metal from Venom and Mayhem on down has been highly theatrical ... the whole 'we hate performers in sweatpants who look like the fans' idea is pretty theatrical. The spikes, the corpsepaint, the blowing fire, and of course the fact that more than a few of these bands were very much aware of the silliness of it all; they approached it with a very aware 'tounge in cheek' attitude, that all speaks of the connections between black metal and theatre. But mostly my music comes from everyhing I listen to. A lot of black and death and thrash metal ... but also a lot of weird jazz, folk, soundtracks, cartoon music, whatever. My wife got me into old punk; the punk before everyone dressed like Sid Vicious and wore black leather, when bands like Devo and Geza X and weird performance art like these two guys half-lipsynching old Mambo songs with Mike-Patton-style vocals, all that weirdness was called 'punk' before 'punk' became a uniform and a style ... of very simple drug-and-beer-soaked 50's rehash pop ... so that every song and every band uses the same damn power chords and I-IV-V song structure ... (panting, he's in a barbaric rage of a diatribe) ... sorry. Anyway, I listen to all kinds of weird crap ... I seek it out as much as I'm seeking out underground metal, and it all informs my music.
M: Does that old punk and grind stuff influence the length of your songs? All of your songs except the ones making fun of 'true' black metal are pretty short and chaotic...
CB: I think that comes more form the fact that I'm just easily bored by repetitive music. That's why I got into metal in the first place. I mean, you listen to a Green Day or a REM or some Boy Band song, and it's very boring on a musical level. It's a package to frame the lyrics, which I almost always hate. Compare how many lessons you need, how much musical theory you need, to play a Green Day song versus a Nile one ... they're in compeltely different worlds. Nile is so packed with riffs and rhythms and changes and harmonies and it's a constantly shifting ocean of music...versus a pop song with one beat in 4/4 and a couple riffs in one chord structure...if you like music and not vocals there's nowhere to be in the music world but Metal, Jazz, and Classical. And those are my three favorite styles. And those styles are the basis of most 'weird' music.
M: Most Metalheads appreciate classical and jazz, and many even have a sense of humor...
CB: EXACTLY! That's the whole thing. I'd say anywhere from 25-50% of people who listen to extreme metal love wacky silly music. They have a definite sense of musical humor. They eat FANTOMAS up because it's technical and good music but it's also funny. True guys hate all this, though. There's a war between true people are 'un-true' people much more than there's a war between 'Heathen Questioning Satanists' and 'christianity'. Personally. I think true black metal is a hoot ... but also good sometimes ... and that's what I hope Organ Grinder can be, or can become...
