This week my buddy DJ Liquid whom we have a long history with from our days at the Hungarian alternative community site LD50 made a short interview with me for his Facebook page while he was doing his Planetdamage Week – thank you for making that happen! Part of that week’s content was a brief interview he did in Hungarian that he let me post to my blog in English. Enjoy!
(As for the image – that is Esteee (another amazing DJ from the LD50 crew), Liquid and me, from right to left, back in 2016.)
1. Where does the name Planetdamage come from?
Aaah man, that will sound so bad. For a while now everybody knows me as Damage, so when I had to pick a name for my new blog in 2007, I picked the name Planetdamage (which is inspired by the gamer network that was active a few years before that, I was following up on PlanetUnreal for a long time and it seemed like a good idea to pick planet as a protocol and not https). And then the time came when I thought I would start doing music again and I had to think through what name is useful in terms of SEO: a new one or the Planetdamage handle I use everywhere in social media. Obvious answer. And no, my project is NOT eco-industrial.
2. Which was the very first track you did and when was that exactly?
The very very first was in high school (and this probably was gabber which sounded like that Sunday 5am when you wake up realizing your neighbour has a hard time assembling the full wall bookshelf), the very first Planetdamage track, though, was Glitch Baby Go and I remember I wrote that after a 17-year hiatus, four years ago. This sounds like that time when the Japanese bot next door has a hard time assembling the full wall human.
3. Which bands do inspire you?
A lot of the reactions I get from people is “oooh that is a lot of Front Line Assembly in there” and yeah, there is some truth there but I think during the years Mentallo & The Fixer and Haujobb has gotten way more under my skin. I do get inspired from a lot of places, those long-winding ambients are really huge points of inspiration (Pete Namlook and Future Sound of London have been favourites FOREVER) and I am really thankful to oldschool psytrance. As for new bands, I do love spinning Chrome Corpse and Nevada Hardware.
4. You had a few gigs now, which one is the most memorable?
Well, I did not have that many :) I could highlight each of them for something but I would probably pick the latest gig at the Fekete Zaj summer festival – it was probably the most memorable because a lot of variables just acted in such a lucky combination, the place, the organizing, the staff, the sound, the audience, each and every factor was great, so thanks to Zero and the staff and everybody who was there!
5. Could you talk a bit about how your recent EP “Hi Rez Lo Life” was born? When did you start working on it?
I checked out the timestamps for you to be sure – TAZ had a saved version in January 2018, so this time last year the EP was already under way :) Hi Rez Lo Life as a pun has been bouncing around in my head for a time and sometimes I do store ideas like that, saying well, there’s a good song title here, this would sort of need a track around it. (Okay, Cyberpunk 2077 might have inspired the title.) As for the message in the background, I sort of covered that in the booklet – I am disgusted by what I read in the news, I haven’t ever seen such an illogical behaviour from so many people. I do have a looming feeling, though, that even before my time things weren’t better, only I wasn’t around to see it or I wasn’t interested in global politics or practical psychology. (I’m still not interested in politics, though.)
As for the genre and the sound, there’s obviously a shift which has a lot to do with Krisztián Árvai, it is a really interesting experience to ease the creator control and let others work on making your songs tougher and stronger. All the tracks have gotten a lot more kickass and we do make funny remarks on how GOOD they sound on everything from very cheap earplugs to very high end sound gear and the car tests and the city tests and everything.
The artwork, the video and the design was all handled by Richard Besenczi – I first worked with him on the Vex video and it went so well that now he basically is responsible for all the visuals of this release and seeing all those glitches and the DIY LED-glasses really warms my heart.
6. What plans do you have for this year?
I do have a few things in the pipeline, but my main priority is the debut album I will be working on – there are places and atmospheres I want to visit in sound, very different to the ones where you wake up to the sound of Japanese robot next door still not really getting there.