Phil Kieran - Kieran About The Music
Irish techno producer Phil Kieran chats to 3D about Andrew Weatherall, Steven Soderbergh and Depeche Mode, and promises lots of new material during his Oz tour.
On your website you’ve written a brief note about your debut artist album – how is that coming along, and can you tell us a little about it-
Should be all new material, I have about 20 [songs] written so I will be road testing them all in Australia to decide which ones make it to the final cut. I might put one or two old ones like Skyhook on there – depends if we can get it off Mute or not. I have a few collabs, some secret for now, but some cool stuff happening.
You’ve got some very cool influences, ranging from Aphex Twin to Joy Division to Brian Eno – can you remember the first record you ever bought, and if you could name one record that’s influence you more than any other, which would it be-
I guess I always mention 1992 when Screamadelica [Primal Scream] came out. It was a great time for music and techno; very exciting. [With] Andrew Weatherall rock and dance was getting mixed for the first time. It’s only now it’s really widespread, but back then it was the start of something special: My Bloody Valentine… post-’80s it was punk happening all over again, for me I have never been as inspired as that era.
Did concentrating on your band project, Alloy Mental, a few years back change how you’ve approached your solo productions since-
It’s definitely changed a lot of things. I guess I just feel I have learnt more about all aspects of music, from recording to producing and even songwriting. Instead of just “’tracks’ now I’m doing an album on my own – it’s really good fun, I can go anywhere I don’t need to check with the other guys if that’s how they imagine it to sound. We are half way through an Alloy Mental album as well so should be onto that next.
Who’ve you remixed lately and who would you love to remix-
I haven’t really been doing remixes. I have gone off the idea to be honest, unless it’s Depeche Mode or someone like that. I would rather just get on with my own music; I have too many ideas I want to work on [and] can’t be bothered making somebody else’s music sound better, unless they give me loads of cash – then suddenly I would be interested strangely.
If you could score a film of your choice, which film would you choose and what ideas would you bring to the soundtrack-
Just done one with David Holmes for Steven Soderbergh – it’s called The Girlfriend Experience. I was more on the engineer tip, to be honest, as it’s David’s soundtrack. But still had lots of input into it – it was great fun and really refreshing to try something new. I would say it will be something I will have more to do with in the future, but it’s not what I am aiming my life towards.
Finally, which records will you definitely be bringing (either in your bag or on your laptop) to Australia-
Well, I still can’t get people to get sick of Skyhook, I always end up with a mobile phone in my face with that written [on it] at some stage, but I’m going to be playing lots of new material from the album that will be played out for the first time really, so that should give it all a nice fresh feel.
WHO: Phil Kieran
WHAT: Plays Club Club at Chinese Laundry
WHEN: Saturday 14 March
MORE: jammusic.com.au / myspace.com/philkieran