COLORS MAGAZINE - NOTEBOOK EDITION 2006

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Interview with Jera

FaerieFloss: The Electric Bath, how did you come up with the name?
Jera: The Electric Bath was a medical devise used in ancient Melbourne (1890's). It was used to recharge patients. We discovered pictures of it (pic left) in some Sacred Relic files. Some believe this is proof of robots existing in prehistoric times, as the bath would of killed mortals.
 

band members

FaerieFloss: So who do you have in the band?
Jera: I’m the lead, all Electric Bath’s need a lead (laughs), Sodium Monoflurophosphate or ‘Phate’ as he likes to be called, is the conductor, JamJuc is on bass, Mousey plays all the effects parts, she’s great, and Anton is on percussion.

FaerieFloss: I hear that your drummer Anton is a bit of a pin up boy?
Jera: Yeah, but he prefers ‘cover star’, …what are you going to do? Anton is on this months Mercenary Gnome (magazine) cover. Wearing the latest Spring Season camouflage gear. He’s really excited about it, all his buddies have the cover stuck up in their workshops. They even let him put his drum sticks in the back pocket for the photo, of course you can’t see them, because you only see the front of him. And he’s still on about that huge ‘small canon’ they let him hold.

FaerieFloss: Did he get to fire it?
Jera: Oh yeah, lots of times, he wanted one as payment, but the band wouldn’t let him bring it on the road with us. You just can’t trust him not to shoot it from the bus window. He likes blasting trees! They had some Moonshiner from the LongTower Mountains give him a few lessons at some remote secret shooting range Mercenary Gnome has up in the hills. We’ve noticed a drop in hecklers in the audience since Anton’s appeared on the magazine. (Laughs) People take us seriously now!

touring

relationships

travels

FaerieFloss: So where have you been touring and what has the reception been like?
Jera: We travel all over Technotopia. Mostly we play at the boarder villages and the like. Usually they’re glad to see us. We’ve had a couple of run-ins with the local Majik Police, but we’re still here going strong.

electricity is life

FaerieFloss: So tell us about your first album ‘Electricity Is Life’. Who’s the Latte Man you name a track after?
Jera: Latte Man is a popular underground manga (comic book), with a super hero office worker, who’s always being abducted by trolls on his way to the lunch room. He goes on lots of adventures, which no one believes when he returns late from lunch. (Café) latte’s are his energy boosts. After a couple of Latte’s, he can take on anybody.

FaerieFloss: And what about the WolfDragon Moonshine Mix? I’ve heard you have samples from the Sacred Relics.
Jera: Oh yes, they were a find. We have some friends who know the Sacred Relics well, and they put us on to them. There’s quite a lot of original proto-CybaFaerie life form music there, from the mortal realm, if you believe in those sorts of CybaFaerie Tales, which we do.

There’s actual sound recordings from the era, which we find amazing, birds which no longer exist, for instance, rivers that no longer run, even a party in the forest! These humans were a lot like us. We admire these pioneers of music.

FaerieFloss: You’ve had quite a bit of flak from the Grand Faerie Council about your statements concerning the CYbA TRYb and mortal composers, how do you feel about that?
Jera: We just think it is more Cultural Cleansing by the Council. They want to eradicate all knowledge of the existence of proto-CybaFaeries and even mortals! We find it repulsive. Long live the Believers.
 

FaerieFloss: You speak about mortals, and humans, as though they really exist Surely you don’t really believe in them do you?
Jera: Who’s to say they don’t really exist? Well the Grand Faerie Council naturally, but all these tales about them, not just humans, but other mortal creatures such as animals, which humans say existed even before them. There’d have to be some truth in it don’t you think?

FaerieFloss: Well it’s not for me to say, my editor forbids it. But don’t you feel a little naïve?
Jera: Not at all, it’s empowering. It’s liberating, and our audience thinks so too. Lots of them come up to us after shows and tell us about their real life experiences with humans…’

FaerieFloss: You’ve got to be kidding?
Jera: I kid you not! Now some of them have obviously had a little too much moonshine, but others are totally credible sources. Humans are timid creatures, they fear Faeries, but I, and many like me believe we can learn a lot from humans, perhaps even about our origins.

 

FaerieFloss: So your new album is called ‘Electricity A Love Story’, tell us about that.
Jera: We were working on a new album, since our last one Electricity Is Life, was selling well, and our record company Wolfdragon Records suggested we record it live, at a Love Happy party. We were fishing around for a name but Love Happy was a bit too light. The album has a bit more edge to it, a few ups and downs, so it was more like a Love Story, but it’s happy too.

FaerieFloss: My insider tells me you have some more sacred relic music too.
Jera: How did you find out that? It was meant to be a surprise. I bet it was our record company, wasn’t it…
FaerieFloss: I can’t say (chuckles)…revealing sources is not ethical.

Jera: Oh, okay, I’ll let you get away with it this time. We’ve found a very ancient electronic music work from prehistoric times, analog daze in fact. It was written by Garry Shepherd, we’ve used some of his work on the first album. This long one, with no title we could find, so we dubbed it ‘Wildlife’, was mixed for a four channel playback format, called Quadraphonic or Quad, at the time. It was a little used format because of technical difficulties, but Shepherd appears to have enjoyed playing with technical difficulties for the challenge. Quad was reinvented some 3 decades later in a digital format called ‘Home Theatre’ which had overcome most of the problems of analog Quad. But we’ve got hold of the authentic Quad mix and that’s what we’ll use on the album. Plus we’ll do some of our other numbers as well.

 

quad

FaerieFloss: So what is this Quad music like?
Jera: It’s a little long winded for our contemporary tastes, but things moved a lot slower in those times, and after all, they were only mortals. Shepherd was trying to achieve a trance like state for the audience with the music, he succeeds in places, so we’ll be eager to do a live ‘Quad’ mix at the Love Happy party.

One thing that really excites us is the virtual feast of actual mortal creature sound samples from the era. All sorts of animals, birds, ancient cats, vehicles, parties, wars, monsters called elephants and electronic winds. Shepherd likes electronic wind, apparently he lived on an ocean coast and in the hills, where there’s lots of wind, and sometimes it sounds like waves washing up on a sandy shore. Sometimes the wind/waves are really loud, sometimes they’re just in the background. The whole work plays like an intentional document of what they called ‘wildlife’ back then, which is why we named it that. So it’s like a catalogue of sounds from a world that doesn’t exits any more. The quad mix was an attempt at making a 3D soundscape, so the audience was immersed in this world.

FaerieFloss: So does it feel like you are really there, in this ‘mortal-land’?
Jera: Well, kind of. It must have been impressive in those primitive times. Technically to the modern CybaFaerie though, it’s a little archaic. But that’s not to say it has no value. In fact it’s extraordinarily rare. Besides, how often does a Faerie get to travel to an ancient mortal-land?

FaerieFloss: I can’t wait to hear it.