You also have John Stanier (Helmet) playing on the album.

Jon: Yeah, he's played on every song on the album. We always use session drummers 'cause 'D' [Walters] doesn't like to work in the studio. He just does his own crazy thing... You know what 'D' is like...he's fuckin' mad! He's like, "I dun wanna go in the studio!" All 'D' likes to do is tour. He doesn't like to be in the studio, he doesn't like to write any songs. It's just not his thing, he doesn't want to do any of that. He's just not interested and he doesn't like the pressure, so he just plays with us live.

How did you pick Stanier?

Jon: Because Dave Jerden is producing we had to do it in L.A. When you use a producer of his size you record where he wants to do it. The guy that we usually use is Keith York, who used to be in a band called Bivouac, he used to play live for... uh... He's been in a million bands, he does everything. He's actually doin' some stuff with Squarepusher--drum 'n' bass guy--at the moment. Keith was busy, and there's some insane law in America where you have to pay any musician musician's union rates, irrespective of who it is and which you don't have to do in England. So we would have had to pay the same amount of money but it probably would have turned into a giant nightmare logistically. I had this wishlist of drummers that I gave to the record company, and Stanier was on the list. He said he really liked the band--he really liked Pitchshifter--and he wanted to do it. He flew over from New York, drummed for a week and did all our songs, then he flew off to Australia to do something else.

Jon: Yeah, that's just live drums all the way through--one take.

Is there anything else on the new album similar to that?

Jon: Umm...no. I lot of the songs still have programmed drumming in the verses. They're still drum 'n' bass elements, but it's more of a hip hop feel. The songs are sighter slower this time. There's definitely more of a live feel to it. Doin' nine months of touring on the last album it's natural for us to write songs that are gonna be more fun to play and work better live. I think we took the programming about as far as we could go with www.pitchshifter.com.

I think that sentiment comes across on the Un-UK release.

Jon: [laughing sarcastically] It's a lot more fun... A lot more fun than our usual commericial radio pop hits!

Some time ago I asked about one of the samples you used in "Please Sir." It's around the 2:30 mark in the song, and to me it sounds the like recoil of a toy raygun I had as a kid. You told me it was the sound of reed scrape that had been sent through the Pitchshifter chaos machine. Well...the sound definitely came a long way from being a reed scrape! How do you go about creating and choosing the samples you use? Is there a certain progression you follow to get from point A to B?

Jon: I do the same thing--I hum it. I'll say, "Johnny I want a sample that sounds like this..." [makes Star Trek-like sound effect] And he'll go, "Uh...okay," and run off with it.

We've used a lot less samples on this album. We've bought another couple of synths and have started creating stuff ourselves. We've got so many plug-ins now. We use Logic Audio. You get an initial sound, drag it into the computer and then stack an insane number of effects on it and then put it back in the sampler. We've been creating a lot more, whereas before I would just troll through samples and go "that one's cool, use it." Now I just start off with a sine-wave and try to make it sound like what's goin' through my head. It's a lot more difficult, but it makes it more unique and it's a lot more fun as well because you created it. I think the only samples on the album we haven't created are the drums.

Jon: Yeah... [laughs] I think we went fucking crazy on that album! When we were mixing it there were like forty-eight tracks on every song. When I listen to it on headphones I hear like little sounds that I'd forgotten about.

What kind of gear are do you use to pull off all these noises? What are your weapons of choice?

Jon: Our super new tool--our super-synth--is a Waldorf Microwave XT. It's a giant thing that's rack mounted, and has five units where a synth usually has but one. It's bright orange and has like forty-two knobs on it. And basically it's a modular synth with loads of voices that you can make any sound of any other synth on earth with it. You just have to really get into it and program...

We still use the Korg Prophecy, which is that acid 303 sound in "Genius." It's great, it's like a modern classic. They built a limited run of them and already people are paying silly amounts of money for one. Much more than what they're worth.

You record most of your demo material back in England in the PSI studio. So is coming here and working with Dave Jerden is just to put the polish on the finished product then?

Jon: We won't actually keep any of the stuff we've recorded. It's just a really detailed song plan. We come in and replace every bit and only actually keep the sampling. Even the keyboards. We'll bring them in here and record them to tape through some really posh filters. It's all the same stuff but it's been beefed up. In the studio here we've got the bass going through two bass heads amd three stacks. The guitars are plugged into an effects unit that is run out to six amplifiers and cabs. It's just a wall of amps! I'm singing and recording through microphones that are two thousand dollars apiece. I can't afford to do that at home. We need to come to a big studio to get that power.

There's a lot of tricky things we do as well. Dave Jerden's got a six string bass guitar. Once we've finished with the guitars we play it again on the six string bass and mix it in really low underneath, and that gives it more weight. It still sounds like a guitar but it sounds really deep. There's millions of things you can do. Sample the guitars on synth and just play the key notes. That's what Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson do. They play the key notes of a riff through a synth--underneath--so it sounds like a guitar, but no guitar could ever sound like that because it's such a thick, meaty wall.

Jon: Again, I had a wishlist of producers. It was Dave Jerden, Butch Vig, and then all these other names. The guys at the label told us we were living in a dream and would never be able to get any of these producers. We sent Dave Jerden a CD of the demos and he actually called me. He picked up the phone and called and said, "The is the most exciting things I've heard in ages. I want to do your album." A producer like Dave just picks what he wants to work on. Any major record company in America has probably got ten bands that they want him to work with, and he just goes, "No. No. Boring. No."

That reflects well on Pitchshifter as a band.

Jon: Yeah, totally! It's amazing because he'll do an amazing job. Everyone owns his albums. You might not know it, but you've got Alice in Chains, you've got the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you've got Jane's Addiction, you've got Offspring. He's engineered The Rolling Stones, the Talking Heads. If you look through your record collection and look at who produced them, you've probably got ten albums that he's done.

His name is really well known and gives the band--hopefully--access to some things like radio stations who would never have played our stuff before. "Oh, this is produced by Dave Jerden. Maybe it is good, 'cause he doesn't work on shit."

On the new EP you do a cover of Big Black's "Kerosene," which I really, really like. You also have covered XTC's "Making Plans for Nigel." How do you go about picking the covers you play?

Jon: There just tunes that we all like; usually older tunes. We're prickin' around at the moment with "Touch Me I'm Sick" by Mudhoney. We did a breakbeat version of it the other day for a laugh, and it sounded alright so I think we're gonna do it.

You should just always do a song that you can make better. People always go, "Oh, why don't you do 'Holiday in Cambodia?'" Umm...because they did it really well and I don't want to ruin a great song. Our version would probably suck and everyone would hate us. Heh! Do you know what I mean? I think I hate people who do covers to become famous. That whole Limp Bizkit thing... I mean, the Limp Bizkit thing was fair; no one had done it. They took a shit-cheesy old tune and made it funny by making it heavy. It was good and then everyone fucking thought that it was a pathway to success. Machine Head did "Walking on the Moon," Fear Factory did "Cars."

Jon: I mean, everyone started doin' it. Taking songs that weren't really good to begin with and covering them because they know everyone would know them and the radio guy would play 'em. I just pick songs that I really like, like "Making Plans for Nigel." So many kids emailed me, thinking "Kerosene" was our song. They've never even heard the original. So I email them back and say, "It's Big Black. Look, go to this website and take a look...please!" No one's ever heard of "Touch Me I'm Sick" by Mudhoney, not in big radio land anyway. But it's a fun song.

Then you're turning a good deed by turning kids on to this stuff.

Jon: Yeah, well you wouldn't have Pitchshifter if you didn't have Big Black. It's good to do a cover of a song, hopefully not ruin it, and turn people on to where it first came from.

Do you have any desire to work with Steve Albini? [guitarist/singer for Big Black]

Jon: Umm... I don't know if he still does his "one take" thing. Is he still on that trip? 'Cause I suck and have to do about forty takes of everything! I would never want to work with someone that was like, "Yup, I've got it!" No, no, no... Just keep going until I'm happy.

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