We dug this out from our archives - it appeared on our website in around 2008.
1. Do you play live?
As a general rule, no. There is no particular reason for this, but we live a very long way apart these days, doing most of our songwriting using pigeons. This makes rehearsals rather difficult, and very long. Experiments using baked bean cans and pieces of string are ongoing, but apparently we need to eat the beans first, and we're worried about flatulence.
Right: an early gig. We changed our sound a little for our fifth album Ephemeris. [The image to which this refers is unfortunately now lost.]
2. Do you write all your own songs?
Yes. We hope so, anyway.
3. Do you do cover versions?
See above. After a number of early experiments, which were particularly unsuccessful (we once recorded an album of hymns, and that's not a joke), we decided to steer clear for the forseeable future.
It's not particularly that we think our songs are better than everyone else's: we just think that there needs to be a very good reason for doing other people's songs, and we haven't thought of one yet.
4. What equipment do you use?
Obviously you're having trouble using the menu on the left hand side, so here's a direct link to our equipment list. You'll find it helps if you click on it. [See the separate blog post for the most recent information.]
5. How long have you been making music?
The truthful answer is: we can't really remember. Officially, we started in 1992, when we recorded our first album Schizophrenia by pointing two tape recorders at each other; playing keyboards and singing badly; and banging things together. Now, fifteen years later, we have moved on to recording albums by plugging two computers into each other; programming synths and singing badly; and banging things together. Well, we never claimed to be innovative.
When we originally recorded
Schizophrenia, we had a different name, and several of our songs were written by taking other people's songs, and running them between the tape recorders so many times that you could no longer hear the original. This meant that what you could hear was mainly background noise, with the occasional sound of somebody trying to sing here and there. Fortunately, the original tapes from 1992 have long since been lost, but many of our recordings from the early 90s still exist. And they're every bit as bad as you might expect.
We started calling ourselves Hypernova in 1995, and spent the next four years going back to re-record the "classics", plus recording three more albums,
Nemesis;
Prophecies and
Odyssey. We did this entirely for our own amusement, which is probably a good thing, as there's not much worth listening to on any of them.
After that, we decided to start doing proper music, and so newly armed with some decent songs and equipment, we recorded a daft EP of spare songs called
Behind the Waterfall and then a full album called
Ephemeris. It's quite good actually, even if the title isn't actually a word. Since then, we've done another album every couple of years, and you can find more information about that over there.
6. Which comes first, the words or the music?
We thought it was the chicken. It depends, usually Rollo writes words and then Simon sets them to music, mutilates them and then sends them back for re-writing, but there have been quite a few occassions when the music came first.
7. What are you doing next?
This is obviously one of those questions which will need updating from time to time, but the answer in early 2007 is as follows, roughly in the following order:
- Some more singles - we expect there will be three or four off Dusk, each with extra tracks and remixes, and nice artwork. [Four singles were released during 2007, with an EP the following year. The artwork was quite nice.]
- A compilation - this might not actually happen, but we had a vague idea of putting out an album with new versions of our favourite old tracks, with some remixes and exclusive stuff. [We still keep talking about this, but as of now still haven't got around to it.]
- The next album - writing is going well, and if it continues the way it has been going, it will probably be released early in 2008. If it doesn't, it will probably be three or four years again. [No kidding. Transmission was finally released in mid-2011.]
I've got some more questions...
Good. It's nice to see you taking an interest. You could either keep them to yourself, or email them to us
here. [Our email address is now shown on
our main website, right at the bottom.]
