“For the album title, it really can be both,” says LaPlegua via phone from his hotel room in Las Vegas. “It depends how you look at it. [Breaking into spontaneous laughter] It depends if you look at it as a positive thing or not. It could be inner demons or a strong demon, you know. I mean, myself, I am more or less referring to inner demons and the dark side. I guess I like ugly because I am quite twisted, so I prefer people to have some demons.”

It is just common sense that if we try and hide all our demons instead of owning and embracing them that they are going to rise to the surface. Combichrist wear it all on the outside from their dark, visual aesthetic to the core of their sound, a compelling hybrid of industrial dance, electronic body music and synths that are intermittently jarring or soothing. Like another standout current industrial act Assemblage 23, Combichrist is danceable and severe yet you can often sing along.

The exhumation of the soul has always been a part of this band, one of the most exciting acts in the underground today. Combichrist’s song “Red” from their 2007 release What The Fuck Is Wrong With You People? was one of the best psychopathic frustrated anthems in recent memory. Shit, it’s one of the best psychopathic anthems ever. LaPlegua sneered derision about a dead end locale atop a crawling wash of sonic dystopia, singing “Nothing ever happens in this dirty hick town. The bar is always closed and now the hookers are all gone…I’ve got to paint this town red!”

Combichrist’s music contains elements of familiar electronic movements but mutated and patented with a Combichrist stamp. It may be a more “accessible” form of industrial than the most far out works of the earliest old school artists or the most machine/noise obsessed, but it works really well and still slaps awake lots of people. Distortion is a commonplace texture while soothing and hypnotic elements mix freely with black humor and shouted hoarse vocals. The whole package is delivered with a killer sense of psychological cunning most bands would kill for a tenth of. This music really gets you in the zone like the best electronic-industrial of Front Line Assembly, for example, albeit with more hyper techno/club elements and even harsher militaristic sides. While more important a feature than with some industrial groups, vocals are often still subordinate to screeching and blaring keys that make your body rock and pull you in like a deer in the headlights.

“I guess I fought a lot of inner demons myself during the process of this album,” confides Andy. “It came out naturally in one way. It was so personal that it gets to the level where even if the lyrics and song were not a direct message it was still a metaphor for something I’d been going through myself. It’s been a lot of work fighting my own demons.”

LaPlegua is an accomplished DJ as well as a composer and is constantly traveling. When I spoke to him he had just come from South America to Russia and then back to the States. “To be honest, I don’t really have a day rhythm anymore,” LaPlegua admits. “You know how it is. Some times you’re up all night, sleep all day. It doesn’t really matter where you are. My thing is really getting enough sleep or not.”

If Today We Are All Demons (recorded in Totprod Studios in Atlanta,GA and produced by Andy) is any indicator, LaPlegua won’t be getting enough sleep anytime soon. The record is his most personal to date as well as another energetic notch in his belt that is sure to have fans howling with demand for live performances across the globe. This band is high (and I mean HIGH!) on apocalyptic glory. Today We Are All Demons flows very well from start to finish, with each track memorable and adding to the whole experience yet potentially a single.

Lead off track and answering machine sample “No Afterparty” is a hysterical send up of party culture involving a defeated phone message involving sleeping pills, jail time and concealed weapons derailing the fun, even as the fun of the record is just beginning! “Kickstart The Fight” (featuring Gen from The Genitorturers) is a rowdy “let’s fuckin-do-it” anthem revved up to warp speed and prepared for an all night vamp out session.

“She’s a good friend of mine,” says LaPlegua, who sat and recorded the track and did the backup vocals himself first.” I thought, ‘Who could I call that would be perfect for this song?” It didn’t really take Andy long to think she’d be perfect. “We first met touring in…I think it was 2005. No earlier…2004. Time flies fast! I was touring with them for fun. She called and asked if I wanted to go out on the road with them for part of their tour and that’s basically how I got to know them”.

“Spit (Happy Pig Whore)” continues the Combichrist tradition of memorable samples, this one featuring an enraged daughter complaining about a slutty mom. It reminded me of Peg Bundy from the sit-com Married…With Children and how even though I wanted to give it to Christina Applegate as a teen, every so often I wanted to bang Peg even more and sometimes didn’t understand why Al would rarely hit that shit! I related to Andy that the song made me think of that show.

“Exactly!” LaPlegua exclaimed, laughing. “That’s actually funny. It was just a fun track. Of course the music is just as serious as always but it was something we were messing around with in the studio and it just turned out great. We had quite a few good laughs in the studio about it also. It just came together really well. It started as a joke but came together really well.”

A lot of the record is EBM/electro-industrial mainlining techno influences, but there are more dynamics at play than a one trick pony. “A New Form of Silence” slows down the tempo to a chill, noise meets club drone mantra that is intoxicating and you want to stay immersed in as layer upon layer is added to the submarine depths and emotionally dead super spy/cyborg vocals.

“With this album what I started out with in my head wasn’t what I necessarily ended up with, also because it became a lot more personal, like I said, than I thought it would be,” Andy said. “It came out different than my original ideas but that is the natural progress of music. If it always comes out the way you expect it to be, you won’t get that organic side. It will be only pre-fabricated. To add that personal touch to something and go off in different directions is often very good for an album. At least, I think so.”

Is there a different approach Andy uses as a DJ than the headspace he is in whilst composing, or does it all stem from the same personal and slanted view of reality?

“When I DJ I basically play music that I like myself,” says Andy. “When you are DJing you are playing music for people that are on the dance floor and not necessarily for the people sitting around with a drink in their hand. If I was doing it for the people standing around I would play a totally different style of music, you know.”

“I play what I would like to hear myself if I was on the dance floor, which is not that often anyway unless I get really wasted,” Andy adds, laughing. “The same thing goes for a lot of the music I am creating, too, especially the more club oriented music. What would I want to see live or dance to? It’s a lot of this approach. I put myself in the fan’s position. That way I am keeping all the integrity because I do it for myself but from a fan’s perspective.”

It’s no secret that Industrial is the music most often associated with S&M and general shades and degrees of bondage and liberation. Combichrist videos have certainly never shied away from featuring slutty girls, blood and chains. But do people need the taboo factor for it to stay a seductive lifestyle?

“I honestly don’t know,” Andy confesses. “The whole bondage culture is so ingrained into that type of music. There’s a lot of people in the S&M scene that don’t listen to industrial on a daily basis but it’s sexual music. It’s dark and gritty. I also think there’s the opposite, too, where it’s a fad and people come into the scene and now they ‘have to’ be a part of that scene just because they are industrial. But I think everybody’s got an interest in the darker side of sexuality, too. If they are involved in pain or not I think everybody has a certain interest in it to some level, although a lot of people wouldn’t admit it. I think the freedom of that scene brings it out.”

My favorite track from Today We Are All Demons is called “I Want Your Blood” which features cold and soothing synth and yet a very aggressive vibe with dance beats. The whole song epitomizes Combichrist’s knack for satisfying psychological and aggressive needs for release. This band knows how it is done.

“That is one of the tracks that came out completely different than the starting point,” explains LaPlegua. “It evolved in an amazing way for me. I was almost throwing the whole song away.” Thankfully he didn’t and kept trying different things until it all came together into one of the undeniably best songs on the album. Sting never went as close to the edge as Andy does with a line like “Every breath you take belongs to me.”

“It just came together well, also because it’s probably the most sexual song. Well…definitely the most sexual song,” says Andy. “It’s dark and aggressive but also I think still somehow sexy.”

Industrial music has often had a much more dramatic or theatrical bent than many other forms of appreciated sound. A recent Skinny Puppy show at Nokia Theatre where Nivek Ogre performed behind a billowing sheet evoking Kabuki (during that band’s recent tour for their Mythmaker release) stands out, as well as countless black-clad, gloomy pouters, shouters and mechanized legions of creative souls embedded in the history of Industrial’s sub-genres.

With Andy LaPlegua’s background in graphic design, Combichrist carry on the tradition of intense looks and cool, edgy graphic elements, pushing, searching and assimilating like some cannibalizing PC virus. It makes their live shows explosive beyond just the power of the tunes and also translates into the band’s music videos.

“I'm a graphic designer so I’m like a design…(he pauses) fascist,” Andy laughs. “I’ve been doing the design myself from day one so basically that applies to the videos too. I’ve had different people work with their styles and stuff but at the same time I’ve had my iron hand on it. It has a certain steady feel but with different artists.”

I asked Andy how his live band for Combichrist helped shape Today We Are All Demons.

“They didn’t have anything to do with the writing of the album itself,” Andy said. “Most of the songs were near done when I presented it, more or less. They definitely had something to do with the inspiration for the album though. I’ve been touring with these people and basically living with them 24/7 on tour and it brings a lot of their personality to me anyway. I also know what they do live. You always have that in the back of your head. For example, there’s Joe. I’ll think, what would Joe (Letz-drums) be doing here. I know them so well and exactly what they would be doing live and that definitely puts a feel to the album.”

Was it hard to accept that the disc was becoming more personal and revealing than initially intended? Was it hard to allow that to actually be documented and fully take shape?

“Yeah,” Andy admits. “Especially during a couple of songs. It was kind of hard to get through the tracks in some ways but when the end product was done I kind of felt like I had cleansed myself in some way by making the tracks and going through it. Resurrecting your own demons somehow.”

It’s all about accepting yourself even when you’re walking through the fire.
Throughout the new record as in past works this very electronic band still feels somehow organic with many different styles blended into mix. Live drumming and percussive elements certainly help, as do Andy’s views on music.

“Growing up I had everyone around me from my friends who were pure grind-core people to the punk rockers and the hip hop guys,” Andy relates. “I had everybody around me all the time. This is how I grew up in all different styles. I was never part of a specific scene except for music, so I never really felt like I had any rules to follow. I felt like I could use and do whatever I want. I’m not limited by what’s correct for a certain style.”

It’s the bands that are rooted in a similar philosophy that are often the most interesting these days, from The Birthday Massacre’s glammy pop-goth to Mindless Self Indulgence on the cute yet utterly crazy and offensively brilliant/gnarly side to France’s We Are ENFANT TERRIBLE’s electronic pop and psychedelic sheen. Real punk was never supposed to be about limitations and Industrial took that farther than almost any other genre to unprecedented extremes. Pop culture is still young and today people are doing more and more exciting and weird shit if you keep looking for it, and the future is limited only by the imagination.

“ It’s ok to do whatever. In Norway one earlier project I was involved in was noise then got into a hip hop thing and then did one show and that one show was a metal festival!” Andy muses. “It was really, really weird combinations but really worked because that was how the music scene was back in my home city. It is funny how everything can come together really well if you don’t force it and just do it naturally. When I sit down and plan albums I don’t think now I have to have this kind of song here and this here. I just sit down and write songs and I do not let songs by if I don’t think it’s 100% just as good as the previous one. I try to keep up with the quality but I also try to have fun and enjoy writing, enjoy doing what I do and not let it become just a job, you know.”

Working so much and doing so many remixes and other endeavors, it’s a wonder Andy doesn’t get burnt out! How does he keep a fresh perspective or keep an ear out for new sounds in his work?

“If I listened to too much Industrial anymore I’d poison myself subconsciously by getting too many ideas from other people to keep myself very objective to my own stuff,” Andy said.

But does he have any guilty pleasures as a music fan?

“I’m pretty straightforward. I’ll tell people if I like something. I listen to a lot of Rockabilly and power rock and roll. I don’t listen to too much industrial at all anymore, like I said. It’s the lack of good bands, I guess,” Andy admits. “I listen to some electro stuff, dancier, gritty French electro like Justice. I don’t feel too ashamed about anything. [laughing] Honestly, I don’t know…guilty pleasure, hmmm…”

If only the general/mass Pop Zeitgeist could be more affected by these types of approaches to the seemingly disparate fields of cultural and media exchange and the quest for a uniquely expressive individual identity, maybe the world would be more interesting! Granted, television and media appropriate from everywhere these days but most of the revolutionary art of the ‘60s or ‘70s and ‘80s has been flattened and pastiched onto car commercials, (though we still have come miles from the days of Norman Rockwell. Not dissing Norm, but rather, pointing out that everyone is exposed to a wider palette of cultural sensations these days, even your average citizen). In some ways things are absorbed faster these days, but what does it take for smarter music to really resonate into mainstream consciousness?

“Always hard work and luck,” Andy affirms. “The right place and time. All of that stuff has got a lot to do with it, of course. Mainstream and underground is such a loose term these days, anyway. Look at Slipknot. They are definitely mainstream as far as being known but if you didn’t know the band and listened to them you would think they were underground, so it’s definitely a loose term.”

Andy then elaborated on his ideas of “Mainstream” as a flimsy construct.

“Mainstream is generally what people stamp on what is successful. I have no visions of going “mainstream”. I’ve always liked the underground because people really care about the music and not just the fad around it. I’d rather have people who actually care about the music coming to my shows than people who think it’s trendy to like it. To get through to the mainstream, I don’t think it’s important from the musician’s point of view. It’s important to get to the people who really appreciate it,” Andy says.

“Everybody who hits the prime spot, they always last the fifteen minutes but after they’ve been up there nobody wants to touch it again. But the underground artists can always have a strong foundation. It stays alive.”

“Then there’s YouTube. It’s one of the weirdest things,” Andy goes on. “The freedom of the internet, you have this good idea where you can put out something interesting and give people the freedom to post what they want, and as soon as something comes up there’s a million spoofs of it. It’s impossible to sort it out! It’s a broken mirror. Find the right piece! It’s hysterical. At the same time you find funny and really cool stuff but also people have the option to do something cool and some just mess it up.”

The system is failing and sometimes that means fixing it and sometimes that means smashing it all up and starting again. Beauty in rebirth. Creativity born from the ashes. It’s just a question of how far to take it and what, if anything, to keep.

Combichrist’s “Sent To Destroy” from the new album first appeared on the Frost EP, released in July 2008. That single from Today We Are All Demons features a refrain “Your God Sent Us To Destroy”. Andy and company also just released a green hued music video for the song of the band examining assembly lines and generally fucking shit up. The chorus lyrics are cool in that it could apply to so many things from the perspective of a Jihadist to a reaction against that or even to a rebuttal of mundane complacency or religious hypocrisy that called down the wrath of Combichrist! They were sent to destroy small minded “Gods” and negate hypocrites.

Still, is there any way to really get to people, shake things up or shock people anymore when the world every day is filled with fear on the news and massacres in India? Recently I saw a great Richard Pettibone exhibit at Specific Object in New York City featuring all the old Black Flag fliers with suicides and cops sucking on the ends of guns held by punks, all this stuff that was really radical for it’s time in the hardcore scene of the ‘80s. It’s still heavy, but as Jane’s Addiction said a long time ago, is it true that “Nothing’s Shocking” anymore? Cue Andy for a brilliant reply!

“I don’t think there’s any way to really shock people anymore. It’s been used up. What shocks people the most is if you bring out certain feelings in people they wouldn’t normally have,” Andy said. “A different level than just the visual to shock people, more to show them what they are themselves than to be something on stage or in a photo. The shock is learning about yourself, you know?”

Combichrist is certainly showing people access to different emotions and their music is also a fun route to exhume skeletons. Within their songs you can follow a road to darkness and out the other side via catharsis or you can even stay there if you like the shadows.