When was the last time you heard a rock song and got chills? It's happened to many fans of real music over the years, the first time they heard a certain song or an artist that changed their life and became a favorite band. It could have something to do with sociology, like the raw, simplistic yet brilliantly written punk music of The Germs summing up L.A. nihilism and frustration so well. It could be hearing a band who musically blow your mind but you still relate to as of your generation, as is currently happening for many kids discovering the music of Three, The Dear Hunter, Scale The Summit, or Coheed And Cambria. It could even be just from being in a certain mood and having music perfectly compliment it, like cooling out to Sascha Funke's electronica record Mango when you are feelin' mellow, starry eyed, and dreamy. Shit, I used to bug out every single time I heard the Sabotage record by Black Sabbath and have to listen to it cover to cover or not at all. The depressed yet uplifting feelings it channeled are that intense. Most recently for me it was a little song called "Red House Been Empty" by BM Linx that stopped me in my tracks. The song out stomps Wolfmother (who recently also worked with Alan Moulder on their Cosmic Egg record) and yet is also ethereal and expansive, lifting your mood into the cosmos. It's like some ‘80s montage of the "big city", all flashing lights and zooming lines down the avenue until you are propelled up above the skyscrapers themselves and realize you are feeling like Superman. All this and a sense of remorse that things aren't better out there in the wild world.

I talked with BM Linx's axe deity Tony Diodore and mad drummer Griff about Black Entertainment and getting out there to tackle the great big world.

MORGAN Y. EVANS: All hail the power trio! You guys have a great sound. There has been a lot of electronic rock over the years but I haven't heard much like what you are doing, really combining economic, no bullshit, big guitar ‘60s/’70s rock sounds with electronic and dance music, rather than prog-y electronic sounds. It sounds like it could be horrific on paper but you guys made it kick ass! Were you ever really into Brian Eno? Your sound could sort of appeal to fans of Kings Of Leon to U2, Glint, Wolfmother or Vast fans and many other spectrums.

TONY DIODORE (Vocals/Gtr): This happened naturally, really. To be honest, for some it's a tough sell because electronic music fans and rock fans are supposed to hate each other. I grew up as a violinist, started playing guitar, found blues rock and went with it. But as I got into production everything sounded very new wave (especially on our first record, The Portable Genius). That was actually a surprise to me, that the ‘80s had such an obvious influence on how the electronic side of how things came out. There is still some guitar stuff in there, even some heavy stuff, but I made a conscious effort to not "show off", to focus on the production side of things and attempt to complete a record. Once that was accomplished and we landed a small record deal, I could take the electronic stuff as a skeleton into a proper studio and record drums over them. We started getting closer to what we actually sound like live, a fucking real rock band that maintains the DIY production and songwriting approach. I still do all the vocals in my apartment, all the programming and most of the bass guitar.

ANDREW "GRIFF" GRIFFITHS (Drums): Yeah, I guess it could have turned into a big old mess but i think every ingredient comes from a very genuine place. It's the natural result of exposure to a wide range of music and influences. Tony's a classically trained violinist into Hendrix and classic rock who grew up during Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and then got involved in the New York club scene. I think that's kinda what Black Entertainment sounds like.

MYE: I dig hearing your band because, for example, I love how Mastodon have earned this huge major label deal but are really adamant about tones and great, vintage gear and other shit. Your band also really seems to share that aesthetic.

TD: Yeah, Mastodon is rad. Vintage stuff is the way to go. Companies would still make gear the same way if it was cost effective, but now you just get emulators that attempt to ape the great sounding stuff they used to make. We use it when we can. Since most of the music is recorded at my apartment we have to go with what I have laying around, but in a bigger studio we tend to go with the vintage stuff. The thing with vintage gear is that there is a limited supply of it, so you have to go out and get it as soon as you can and keep a hold of it. And it will last forever if you take care of it! I use an old 1960's Fender Bandmaster Reverb half stack that I got off some redneck in Indiana for $250 when I was 13.

MYE: Awesome!

TD: Yeah, I still use it for every show. The 6L6 tubes don't have the same grit that British EL34's (like Marshalls) had but I push that with a Electro Harmonix tube compressor to richen it up.

MYE: Tell the Crusher readers how you got involved with legendary producer Alan Moulder, if you don't mind. What was the experience like working with him?

TD: We used to be on a booking agency called Chaotica run by a guy named Gerry Gerrard. Gerry loved a track of ours called "Understanding Orange" and saw a lot of potential in our live show so he forwarded our first record The Portable Genius and some demos for Black Entertainment I was working on. Alan really liked what he heard and offered to mix our upcoming record, which was an unbelievable honor for us. So the label flew me out to England and since Griff is from there he headed there as well and we went to work at Alan's studio. The thing about Alan is that not only does he possess an almost supernatural gift to place things in a mix perfectly, he is also one of the nicest, most pleasant people to be around I've ever encountered. No ego, totally professional. You can suggest anything and he'll try it out. Rare for studio guys.

GRIFF: It was amazing getting Alan's response to our music, extremely validating. The label only sent Tony out to work with Alan but I thought it was an experience not to be missed. So, I bought my own ticket and flew to London to get in on it.

MYE: I hear there are a lot of racks out that have, like, every pedal sound these days. Some of them seemed real suspicious to me, but now I hear a lot of that type of gear is not only cost effective but rather reliable, finally. Any thoughts on this or similar technological advancements in gear you'd like to talk about? Your cousin just designed you a rad amp I saw featured on Guitar World's site.

TD: Fuck all that shit. I use a distortion pedal, a tuner and a compressor. I may start using a delay but once you have all that gear you're tempted to use it and you start to hide behind it. No amount of gear can compensate for lack of skill. I'm no shredder, can't play real fast or do tons of tricks but whatever I play at a show I'd like the people there to be able to tell what I'm doing instead of tossing out some big wash of sound. Yeah, my cousin is a super genius. He used to build amps, radios, and circuit boards when we were kids. Now he builds, rebuilds, and maintains huge pipe organs for a living. He offered to build me an amp, asked me what to model it after - I told him Band Of Gypsies and he fucking did it. Dude knows every minor detail about the components and if I owned an amplifier company I'd put a hit out on him cause if he sticks with it he could do really well. I'm actually on tour right now. We're on some interstate in Ohio heading to Cincinnati. We do Indianapolis this Sunday and he is supposedly bringing me the amp he built to use for the show. It might be too loud for a small club but in the interest of science I'm willing to shatter some eye sockets with rock!

MYE: While you were working at Stratosphere Sound did you get to meet James Iha (ex-Smashing Pumpkins guitarist and studio co-owner)?

TD: Yeah, he was working on a record of his own I think so he was kicking around the studio when time was available.

GRIFF: He seemed really nice. Tony used his Epiphone hollow body on a couple of tracks.

MYE: Cool. I am a huge Pumpkins fan, especially Siamese Dream and Pisces Iscariot. So, how'd you come up with your band name? And the new album name Black Entertainment? It's funny because Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and black musicians invented rock’n’roll but nowadays to hear that phrase you think right away of huge hip hop stars (not to imply that hip hop is strictly for black audiences).

TD: Part 1: Originally the BM LINX was my friend's car in high school. He had a Mercury Lynx, same car as a Ford Escort just cloned, and he put a BMW badge on the front of it. So that's really it - the BM LINX. I changed the "Y" to and "I" cause I thought it looked cooler. We used to raise hell in that car and we had no worries, just where to get another bottle of booze, and although my life will never be like that again it's an homage to it.

MYE: [laughing]

TD: Part 2: Much credit goes to you for being the first person to ever ask about the album title.

MYE: Really?! I can't believe it.

TD: Yeah. I was walking through the Virgin Megastore in Union Square NYC, one day and I wandered through the "Rock/Pop" section. Then I went further back and walked through the "urban" section and I realized that my record would end up in the "rock/pop" section. If we look a little closer to those descriptions, it's actually segregated into "white music" and "black music", a pretty psycho throwback to times we're all ashamed of. Since whatever the next BM LINX record would be called would inevitably be placed in the "white music" section, I wanted to call it Black Entertainment. I don't want to think that you have to adhere to a particular genre of music that is appropriate to your race. Probably stupid from a marketing angle but I don't work in marketing and if you think of creative endeavors in those terms you end up making vanilla sheet rock for nobodies.

MYE: How did the band come together and also, what was it about the group of players involved that made a rapport develop? I think a lot of younger kids think they have to ape their heroes in style or sound, but there's a whole other skill-set needed to go out and play with other human beings. I have been trying to ask bands about that side of things lately to try and help newer musicians. I know you are Band Of Gypsies fans, and obviously that is Hendrix, but even Hendrix and every live dynamic proficient kind of band or artist has to have some point where they were learning the ropes.

TD: Jonathan Murray (bass) and I were friends already and Griff was in a previous band I was in called Puracane.

GRIFF: We played together in Puracane for a few years. Tony was honing his production skills while I was getting comfortable playing with electronics and click tracks. After Tony left the band he started hanging out with Jonathan, clubbing and DJ'ing, and eventually became inspired to start his own band. Tony and John had already started playing together before I joined and the first rehearsal I had with them really clicked. It just felt right.

MYE: "Red House Been Empty" from Black Entertainment has such a killer intro and the layering of sounds is just brilliant. Parts of it almost remind me of The Who. Can you talk about that composition? The production is so crisp on this record yet it sounds very organic and real, just amazing.

TD: Thanks. Griff and I get drunk and watch this Black Sabbath performance of War Pigs in 1970 in Paris on YouTube all the time. Check it out if you haven't seen it. It inspired us to come up with a longer rock track that doubled tempo, did guitar solos and was pretty heavy. But to keep it in line with what we have already going in the electronic realm we had to come up with a few riffs, so I took the riffs back to my studio and came up with the electronic skeleton of the track. It wrote itself really, and it could have been way longer, too. Love when that happens.

GRIFF: We would always watch stuff like Rush, Metallica, Zeppelin. I think "Baba O' Reilly" might have played a part too - big epic stuff. We went to the rehearsal room and just jammed. Tony took a few ideas back to his home studio and came up with the bones for “Red House”. I loved it and couldn't wait to get some real drums on it.

MYE: With the rise of the Guitar Hero game, it is cool that there is emphasis on guitarists again, and especially now even more with all the buzz Orianthi has been building. Do you think it'll stop with the video game and not translate into people picking up real instruments? Or is this just a stage in shifting technology? Amanda Palmer has a great song "Guitar Hero" about how you gotta still get out there and fucking rock for real.

TD: It can only be good. The game itself can't really be played by actual musicians cause it's not intuitive the same way an instrument is. But at least kids who get into it get exposed to great rock tracks by the best bands in the world. If those tunes stick in their head the next step is to pick up an instrument and start learning the music for real.

MYE: Yeah, they've even got Megasus and some real obscure newer bands in some of the games now. How does it feel to have this buzz generating about you guys and to know you are really trying to build on some new terrain? What's on the horizon? Have you had your tarot cards read lately?

TD: Tour, tour, tour. We have to get the hell out of NYC as much as possible and bring the show as far and wide as possible. Buzz feels good but you can't pay rent with it. The harsh realities are making this into a more streamlined effort. I went back to Indiana where I'm originally from and bought a kick ass blue conversion van for super cheap and we're rolling around the Midwest playing shows as I speak. We're doing our best to make this a reality. I'm also working on a new EP, 3 or 4 songs, that will be available in February most likely. We'll have vinyl printed up for that which is awesome cause I've never had that done before.

MYE: Well, best of luck. You guys are tops.