ADULT. Adam Lee Miller & Nicola Kuperus ERSATZ AUDIO P.O.BOX 02713 DETROIT, MI 48202 (USA) |
ADULT. |
ADULT. |
ADULT. |
ADULT. are from Detroit. According to an article I read in a recent Billboard, they are part of the "ELECTRO" scene. Though the term is used to put many different sounds ranging from 60 cycle hum with an abrasive drum beat to full blown Telex tributes/rip-offs under one umbrella I don't think it's on target enough. To me ADULT. is some of the weirdest listening entertainment I have had a quite a spell. It's punk rock in a 3 chord 1234 way but it's done on discarded synthesizers and a lap-top. Electrifying Mojo latenight radio show wig-outs meet Wire the night before they recorded "Pink Flag" in a boarded up warehouse. One day, My six year old son, Lucas heard me playing one of their songs. "What is that?!" he asked excitedly "It sounds like robots!!!" A few seconds later, three year old son, Nolan came in to hear what his big brother was all beside himself about. "Robots?" he charges in the room asking. Again at the at the top of his lungs he belts "ROBOTS?!" The song "Pressure Suit" comes on and Nolan does his wildman as a young child dance he only usually busts out when he hears the Ramones. Ever since Lucas' White Stripes interview of last summer I ask him every once in a while if he wants to interview anybody new. Unfortunately his ideas of asking Kraftwerk and Japanese superhero Ultraman questions haven't been possible. He started asking me questions about ADULT. I said "Why don't you ask them..." |
Lucas: How long does it take to put on your pressure suit? ADULT.: We always have it on. Lucas: Do you put it on when you go into outer space or deep in the ocean? ADULT.: We wear wet suits in the ocean and would wear space suits if we ever went to outer space. We wear our Pressure Suit for everyday living. Lucas: If you go to outer space do people on the moon like your music? ADULT.: We have never been in outer space, so we have no idea. |
Lucas: Whenever my little brother Nolan (he's 3) hears the "Pressure Suit" song he spins around then lands on his butt and then spins around on that! What do other people do when they hear your songs? ADULT.: We wish everyone reacted like Nolan, but some people just stand and don't move, and that makes us bored. Lucas: When car alarms go off late at night do you get mad? ADULT.: No, we usually sleep through them, but it does make us mad when they go off while we are trying to make music, and we can hear them and they interfere with our music. |
Lucas: Did the lady (on the cover of Resuscitation) ever catch her plane? ADULT.: No, she missed her plane, but she rented a very expensive Lincoln Town Car instead. Lucas: Is she the same lady that's at the ATM on the cover of one of your other records? Did she have to get money out so she could rent the car? ADULT.: Yes, that is right. She is on many of our record covers. Lucas: Does she live by you? Do you just call her up and she let's you follow her around with a camera? ADULT.: She lives near us, and yes we follow her with a camera, but we never ask first, because we like to surprise her. |
Lucas: Do you have a lot of phones at your house? ADULT.: We have 6, is that a lot? Lucas: Do they all have different sounding ringers so when someone calls it sounds really crazy? ADULT.: No, they are really quiet phones, and many times we miss calls all together. Lucas: My dad got mad at his cell phone and threw it in the lake one time. Have you ever done the same thing? ADULT.: We don't use cell phones by lakes, for just that very reason. Lucas: When you have people come over to your house are they all dressed up? (ed. Note-I think this question comes from the fact that people are always in business suits and such on the record covers) ADULT.: No, we only dress up when we have to. Like when you have to go to a Wedding. Lucas: Does this give you a problem with your pressure suit. Do you wear your Dress Up clothes over it. ADULT.: Yes. Did you ever see the movie Edward Scissorhands? He lived in a Castle all alone and he wore a special skintight leather suit. But when he left the Castle to go into Suburbia, he wore "normal" clothes like a Oxford Cloth shirt and suspenders, but you could still see his real leather suit underneath. It is kind of like that for us. Lucas: Do you have a robotic pet? ADULT.: No, we have a fat cat. Lucas: We've got a really fat cat too. What's your cats name? Does it catch mice. ADULT.: Our cat's name is Gattaca, and yes, she has caught about 3 mice in her lifetime. |
Lucas:What is Dispassionate Furniture? Is it hard to sit on? ADULT.: Dispassionate Furniture is very uncomfortable, it doesn't like to be sat on. Sometimes, when people try to sit on Dispassionate Furniture, it throws them off onto the floor. Lucas: Is Dispassionate furniture like the kind you sit on when it's hot and when you get off it, your skin sticks to it and feels like it's going to rip off your back and legs? ADULT.: Yes, that is a perfect example. Lucas: Have you ever built a robot? ADULT.: No, but we wish we knew how to build new cars so we could each have one. Lucas: If you ever build one to do that make sure it knows not to make the seat covers out of that material that makes you skin stick to it because if they didn't listen to what you told them you would always have to wear a shirt and long pants everytime you got in the car when it's hot outside. ADULT.: Good suggestion. |
Lucas: Do you have an intercom in your house? Do you ever sing through it and put it on your records? ADULT.: As a matter of fact, before we were called ADULT., I (Adam) wrote music by myself under the name Artificial Material. Once I wrote a song called "Wireless Intercom" and Nicola talked on an intercom in the song. Lucas: On "Hand To Phone" you're voice gets all squiggly. Are you singing through a big fan? ADULT.:...a digital version of a fan. Lucas: What is a digital fan? ADULT.: It was just our way to describe a very complicated piece of software that makes your voice sound similar to when you talk into a fan. You know, that funny way you can make your voice sound if you talk into a fan? Lucas: Then later in the song the voice starts to cut out. Was your microphone broken? ADULT.: No, it is a special noise gate trick. Neither Nicola nor the microphone were broken. Lucas: A gate trick? Like one on a fence? ADULT.: In a way. A noise gate is a special piece of musical equipment. You can program it to let some sounds through, and other sounds it does not let through. You can program it special to sound weird. And we like weird. |
ADULT. are Adam Lee Miller & Nicola Kuperus |
Lucas: "Human Wreck" sounds pretty scary but at the end it sounds like you are laughing. Was somebody doing something funny when you were trying to sing it? ADULT.: No, we just didn't want people to be scared, so we added that at the end. Lucas: Have you ever been on a fire-truck? Do you think it would be cool to drive one? ADULT.: No, neither one of us have ever been on a Fire Truck, but we think it could be fun to ride in the very back. Lucas: Yeah! That would be pretty cool too. Did you ever want to be a scientist when you were a kid? Adam- No. Nicola - Yes. Lucas: Do you like TRIO? Adult.: We don't really know their music very well. Lucas: I like their song "Da Da Da." My dad put it on a CD for me but says he liked it better before it was used to sell cars. What do you think he means by that? ADULT.:I think it means your dad is a socialist hippie;) Lucas: He always tells me he's a punk rocker...He's crazy! |
ADULT. Adam Lee Miller & Nicola Kuperus ERSATZ AUDIO P.O.BOX 02713 DETROIT, MI 48202 (USA) |
