Elara
From the first day we met the ELARA, we knew there was an
undeniable spark of talent and ambitious drive to make the best
industrial music to ever come out of Jacksonville, FL.
In early 2001, ELARA released their first full length CD on our own
artist based label Movement FREQUENCIES. The run quickly sold
out from local record stores. Little did any of us truly
realize how prophetic this collection of infectious songs would
be, the main focus being the controversial song "Amerika" - see
the lyrics at the bottom of this page. After 9/11, the group
took the song out their live set for fear of the lyrics
(severely distorted) would be mistaken as anti-American in the
patriotic fervor that followed that tragic day.
Since then, ELARA have had their ups and downs and split apart and
reunited a few times. The lead singer joined the Marines and is
currently slated to be shipped off to the war in Iraq. So where
does that leave the core of the Jacksonville industrial scene?
|
Perry Safer
The composing half of the industrial power house ELARA, Perry
Safer has inspired and awed other locals musicians and audiences
alike. And not just at the helm of ELARA, he also helps drive the
heart of X-Sister Z the heavy hitting trans-metal amalgamation. On
the very brink of war we sat down with Perry and caught up on his
plans for the future in the aftermath of ELARA.
Where are you going to go now that Jose shipping off to war is
looking more final?
Franco and I are continuing along with the project and we’re not
going to call it Elara because we figured it’s a good time to
start something fresh and new with the name. As you heard some of
the music earlier, it’s along the same lines but in a more
artistic and expressive direction, and there’s no limitations or
boundaries of what we’re going to do with this. So if we like a
song we’re going to put it on there. It doesn’t matter what style
it falls into, and we’re not afraid to mix something soft and
light with something progressive house, with something more beat
orientated or street orientated. So that’s where we’re going. As
far as what I’m doing other than that, X-Sister-Z is now going to
become more of a focus. There is already success behind it, people
like it, it’s got a great fan base, and I think its something that
can grow and become something even more worthwhile. And since Ken
has given me majority songwriting privileges in that band as far
as keyboard programming goes now it’s taken on a whole new
challenge for me. Nothing’s really changed as far as the
opportunity to work with anybody, I’m more than willing to
collaborate with just about anybody on almost anything as long as
we can agree on the artistic freedom of creating something cool.
So that’s where I’m going.
You guys played Tampa with X-Sister-Z didn’t you?
Yeah, we played Tampa a few months ago at the beginning of the
year, it went really well actually. We played a small club, The
Liars Club. Two of the guys that are in the Grim Faeries set us up
with a show and it turned out that about 120 paid through the
door, and the place was small enough to where 120 looked really
big. So the response was great. We actually went on first that
night, there was two other bands. Grim Faeries being the
headliner, and there was a band called Playground Tactics (Shawn,
ex-bass player from the Grim Faeries' new band) stuck in the
middle . So we all knew each other and the big Tampa family
brought us down, because they’re extended family down there. And
it was a good turnout, everybody enjoyed it and got into it and
they want us back soon. So it seems like we’ve gotten a positive
response everywhere we play, Orlando was the same way.
Who all is in X-Sister-Z now?
Good question. Myself, Cynthia Volaire our transvestite lead
singer a.k.a. Ken Roy, Bill Dawson the other vocalist, Burt Hood
who plays bass, Dan Moots who plays guitar and also plays guitar
for Elara, Jack Ringca playing live drums and drums for Elara as
well. So four of the people were also in Elara are in this band.
X-Sister-Z is also working on recording our full-length as well,
that should hopefully be out my late May or early June.
So what’s the overall plan for the project with you and Franco?
The overall plan with the project is to record a full-length
album, and go ahead release it ourselves, doing the business
ourselves, and publishing it ourselves, because those means are so
available to us nowadays we don’t need to rely on the big record
companies to mother us, or baby us. But, if something were to come
along to us that would help us gain more exposure or obviously
more security we would definitely be interested in looking at it.
We’re not going out to deliberately look for a record deal,
because we have a deal, because we have the means. With everybody
that we work with, we have it covered. So the plan for us is to
finish recording the tracks that we have written, and release them
- hopefully sometime late summer - early fall. Definitely have out
an E.P. by the end of April. That’s what we’re looking forward to.
Are you going to do live shows?
Yeah, we are going to do live shows. We probably won’t do the
first live show until the actual CD is out and do the record
release party and coincide that with the live performance and do
that with merchandise.
Basically through all the stuff I’ve done through bands, I know
what not to do now, and know what to do.
How many bands have you been in?
Working bands probably about five. Four or five.
What were they?
Elara was one, Espionage was another, X-Sister-Z which I am still
in, Killroy Manfred Spectacular which is something else Franco and
I do, it’s not related to the thing that were doing now, it’ kind
of like hyper house music a couple of guys behind all of their
synths playing around having fun. Freestyling beats and throwing
loops on top of it. We may do a live recording of that. That’s
just stuff we do. We do different shows, do private parties and
stuff. That’s pretty much all that we’ve done so far, we kind of
like it that way ‘cause as cool as it it and as fun as it is, this
may sound cheap but, it’s not as fulfilling as doing what we’re
doing with the other project, because the other project is
actually songs we’ve written that we’re very proud of. Killroy
Manfred is what we do when we’re not really writing for anything
in particular, we’re just having fun. We figured people enjoyed
listening to us at our house, why not take it to other people’s
houses and let them and their people enjoy it too. We don’t have
to be the center of attention, and we don’t have to be the reason
they came to the party, but we’re there to provide an
alternativeand a good time. And you know, we love partying, and
that’s pretty much what it is, a big party. So we’ll play Hefner’s
Mansion at the next playboy party.
And that’s the goal?
Yeah. As far as other bands there’s a band I think we called
ourselves Oracle back in High School, a speed-metal band, but we
won’t get into that.(laughter)
What’s the first industrial band you heard?
The first one I listened to and actually got into was Front 242. I
had heard Skinny Puppy and that some other bands, Throbbing
Gristle all the old noise stuff my brother was into. And I wasn’t
really much into that but when him and his friends got into the
more electronic stuff in the late eighties I think 242 was the
first one I heard and I liked it and it opened me up to the whole
thing. Shortly thereafter it was Puppy, Front Line Assembly’s
early works, then Leather Strip, and Exorcist, Contagion. The only
bands that I get into of the bands that are around nowadays that
are considered Industrial are Project Pitchfork and Covenant, and
those aren’t really Industrial anymore, it’s more like progressive
house the song structure of it. But I really dig that stuff.
Ultimately Depeche Mode is one of my favorite bands, hands down,
but I never considered them Industrial. I just considered them…
kind of godly. (laughs) I wouldn’t categorize them industrial,
more like electro-alternative, or progressive. Those are the grass
roots of my Industrial that I listen to.
When did you start playing music?
When I was eleven I took some guitar lessons, then played guitar
through junior high school, then through part of High School,
hence the speed metal band that we won’t talk about. But it was
January 1993 when I met Rick Marsten and went over to his house
and he had a keyboard workstation. And I had never seen one
actually physically in front of me before. So I had listened to
the music for around seven or eight years then, but had never had
any of the media there to actually create any of that. Then I went
over to Rick’s house and he had one, and he showed me how it
worked, and from that day on is when I started to play with
keyboards. I remember telling him, if you ever want to sell this
just let me know and ironically a week later he wanted to sell it
so I bought it. It was a Korg but you don’t need to print the name
of the keyboard because they aren’t paying me to endorse it.
(laughter) But they will soon.
But it was a Korg and I learned on it, and I loved it because I
could compose my entire songs on it. Because I know what I wanted
in my head, and it was a lot easier than getting four or five guys
telling them you play this part, you play this part, you play this
part, and having opinions shouted at you when all you really want
to do is sit down a go this is what I want and this is how I’m
going to do, and I was able to do it. Then I bought my Korg
Trinity and I’ve had this same keyboard now since 1995, the one
that I’m currently working on. And since then over the past five
years I’ve gotten into sound design, and making my own sounds, so
if you were to go out and buy a keyboard like mine you wouldn’t
achieve the same sounds I have because that’s also the great thing
about being an electronic musician, having the capability of
creating your own wave forms, you own instruments to work with.
Over the course of the years, the only people that have come along
that I’ve actually been able to sit down and write music with have
been Franco, and Jose was good because he pretty much stuck to
lyric writing, and my forte is songwriting obviously. That’s why
that collaboration was so good. He may come to me with a bass line
in his head and these are the words, and that kind of gets a thing
going…and we would just kind of roll with it from there. That was
a good way to write. And that’s pretty much that. I forgot the
question actually.
How are you finding the balance with Franco? Are you guys
getting along similarly?
Yeah, and it helps being best friends because we know personally
what pisses each other off and when someone is annoyed. Because
now we can just walk in the door and know if that other person is
irritated or not and you know that you don’t want to fuck with
that person right now, or pull a prank on them or something.
When you grow with somebody over the years… when you kind of
uh…when heterolly grow with somebody over the years (laughs) you
know what each other like. I think when Franco and I first met
each other we had some common interest in music but totally from a
different spectrum. And then over the years we’ve kind of been
like, hey check out this band, hey check out this band, so we’ve
kind of grown to like the same things which is really cool because
he’ll bring a song to me and say this sounds like something we
could use, or vice versa. Of coarse we’re pretty much in agreeance
all the time, if I like it I’m pretty sure he’s going to like it,
if he likes it he’s pretty sure I’m going to like it, so it’s easy
for us to write, and it always has been. And I think it’s a good
bondsmanship. Different than Jose, it’s somebody that I can write
fully musically with. We can sit around and talk keyboard jargon
for five hours and be entertained. I guess we’re a couple of nerds
when it comes to that factor, but it’s what it’s all about. I’m
pretty sure that Franco is going to be a hetero-lifemate,
::laughs:: not only in friendship but also as far as writing goes
and anything musically. It’s like him and I can hardly go anywhere
without each other. It’s a good thing.
We were talking to Jose about putting up the last album because
of the strangeness of the timing of some of the lyrics of that CD.
Yeah, like I said, if we were running four months behind schedule
we may not have had it come out that way, one song in particular
would not be on the album.
I’m glad it was, it was a great song, and listening to it now
it just has that much more significance.
Yeah, it’s ironic how in the past two years American opinion has
changed. |
Jose
Figueroa
The vocal half of the industrial power house ELARA, Jose
Fiqueroa has blow away audiences with his driving hard-edged
growl. On the eve of war he sits. Waiting to be shipped out to
Iraq. How must that feel? We cornered Jose and tried to dig into
his head hoping to find the reasoning for his march to war and the
prophetic and eerily foretelling of his lyrics.
So are you freaked out?
Well the whole war thing, yeah I’m worried about it. I’d be lying
if I said I wasn’t. I’d be lying to say ‘I’m not scared.’ It would
be bullshit. Because you know, there’s the possibility that I
might not come back. Or if I do come back, I could be missing
parts. Or if I’m not missing parts I could come back sick because
of the biological stuff they’re going to be throwing at us.
Or warped.
Well people think I’m warped anyway. (laughs)
So that won’t bother you.
That’s right, it wouldn’t. People think I’m absolutely insane any
way. I mean, a lot of people think I joined just because I’m this
war buff. But the reason I joined the force is pretty much from
getting laid-off. I had a nice job, sat in an office, assistant
manager. And getting laid-off puts a lot of things into
perspective when you have a family. A wife and a three year old
boy. At that point I remember thinking "Well, Elara is doing
really, really good, however, I have a family." Do I want to be
that guy who’s 34 years old, going ‘Baby, one more year…It’s gonna
happen."? And keep doing that, you know a lot of the time takes
like ten years. A lot of the guys I’ve met, especially in
industrial music, and just harder music in general, they are in
their 30’s and 40’s they just look young. So I mean, I thought
about that a lot. I thought about it for a long time. It’s not
like I just woke up and was like, well, we’re already doing the
whole camouflage thing anyway, why not? I mean the whole reason
why I made the band do that anyway was just to set ourselves apart
from the other bands. Anybody can walk out on stage, the
industrial bands, with leather pants and t-shirts and goggles,
just like everybody else. So I was like, well, screw it, we’re
just going to come out and look fanatical. Some people liked it,
some people didn’t. It worked. ‘Cause they always knew it was us.
That’s what I wanted.
Well if anything it’s got the legend, because you guys are
definitely known as the industrial band in Jacksonville. Everybody
else who has tried has faded. It’s the organization, it’s the
dedication of the whole crew. It’s nice to see a big band on stage
doing that kind of thing.
Yeah, it was great. I loved every minute of it. But that was my
motivation for joining the Marine Corp. Family, and just deeming
to do something right, and make sure that my family is squared
away. Because if you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take
care of other people. I’ve got a career here, or I can keep going
to customer service jobs and office jobs, and work for a year or
three years there, probably get laid off, bounce around over here,
fight to go to school at the same time and do two jobs. I could
see it wasn’t working in the house. It wasn’t working for me. So I
had to make a decision. So it took a lot for me to walk into that
recruiting office. I mean, I was thinking about it long before
September 11th happened…
Well obviously you can hear that in your lyrics.
Yeah, the album was done before September 11th. I always had in
the back of my mind that something like that would eventually
happen.
Yeah, we’ve been listening to the album, and that’s why I want
the lyrics. There’s a lot of references to things that have since
happened in there.
I grew up military, my dad was in the Marine Corp. He was in the
Army before that, he went to Afghanistan with the Russians. Then
he went to Beirut with the Marine Corp. Then he went to the Gulf
War, and the whole peacekeeping effort in Bosnia. I don’t know how
much we were keeping the peace but, he always said there was going
to be another war, because what’s happened over there is
unfinished. There’s a lot of loose ends. A lot of Gulf War
veterans came home angry, because they got turned around right
outside of Baghdad. I still say in the Gulf War we got pretty
lucky, because Saddam didn’t use everything he had, because he
didn’t expect us to hit him as hard as we did. Now he knows that.
A lot of people are saying it will be quick, that it’s going to be
a push button type thing. I mean the Iraqi people, yeah they may
hate Saddam, but at the same time if we go in there their way of
life ends. And they’re going to get a bunch of new people, a new
government, and a new way of life, ya know? Because spreading
Democracy is a business, and if they can’t buy into it then
there’s other ways to make people buy into it. Plus, September
11th gave us an excuse to go over there. I mean, we had an excuse
before but that reinforced it. Now we’re going to be over there in
the middle of all those people like a thorn in their side. They
asked for it.
But then at the same time, how do you feel about going over
there fighting for that if you know that’s the possibility of what
might happen?
I knew what I was getting into when I joined the Marine Corp. and
it’s my job. My opinion, in a lot of ways, doesn’t matter. When
you’re a soldier, when you’re a Marine, it’s what you do. You take
your orders, you follow them, you accomplish the mission, you come
home. That’s what I’m going to do, and try to stay alive. That’s
my goal. Because when it all comes down to it, it’s not about the
flag, it’s not about anything but the people you are with that are
fighting with you, it’s about your family and friends back home.
At the end of the day governments fall, empires fall, all you have
is your family and friends and the guy next to you. That’s all
there is to it. Saddam Hussein needs to be taken out. That’s
definite, that’s an obvious.
Now, what do you think about this war though, even though you
think that Saddam Hussein needs to be taken out which I totally
agree with also, what do you think about the actual fact that we
are having to go to war to do it, and that there are other
countries that have the same threats, nuclear weapons, Iran, the
whole ‘Axis of Evil’.
The whole thing with Iran too, is that they are about to have a
civil war. So that’s another situation that I hope we don’t get
involved in that. The possibilities of a full World War are good
right now. As scary as that sounds.
That’s definitely true, it’s totally set up for that.
But it seems like we do this every turn of the century, if you
look at history you see that. You just look at history books every
turn of the century. The last century was probably the bloodiest
century ever. Well, as far as recorded history. If you dug up
Europe it would probably be just one mass grave. Even the native
Americans were having wars against each other far before we ever
came here. Then we came over and warred with them, then warred
with some other guys. Civil wars, British wars, Roman wars, Mongol
wars.
Yeah, human beings really amaze me. They spend so much time on
destruction, screwing and killing each other, then just a tiny bit
to save lives.
Well at the same time that we’re going to be spending all these
Trillions of dollars on this war, or whatever it ends up being, I
don’t know if we even have a number, but at the same time vaccines
and medicines like penicillin are becoming ineffective in a large
mass because all of the germs and everything else are adapting and
attacking us stronger and stronger every time, and these vaccines
and these antibiotics that we have are running into the ground and
the research to find new ones are falling behind because the
funding’s not there. Things like penicilan are becoming
ineffective. Our medical system in general is falling by the
wayside, it’s difficult for everybody to get decent insurance, and
to get the insurance they have to even work for them to even go to
the doctor for anything.
It’s history repeating itself, and it’s frightening like standing
on the beach watching some monsoon coming right at you. You see it
coming and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s scary, it’s
really scary, it will hit me even more so when I get over there.
Where are you going to go? Do you think you’ll end up in Iraq?
I never know. I’m going to go to boot camp, then to my infantry
school, then it’s there. So yeah, it would be nice if the fighting
is done by the time I get there.
It only lasted three months before.
Yeah, but I don’t think it will be like that this time.
You never know.
Yeah, you can’t really ever know until it happens. I think this
time it’s going to be a little different.
Well, we’ve had people over there for years,
And he’s had people here for years.
Yeah, he’s tried to kill the Bush family, and the Bush’s have
tried to kill him. That’s what I find funny. They are both world
leaders trying to kill each other it’s very James Bond. (laughs) I
mean it’s crazy. So what are you going to do with your musical
career? (laughs) Do you think you’ll be thrown right into fighting
or will you have any time here?
When I get out of boot camp I’ll be back here for a little bit at
the recruiting office. I work with guys getting into the Marines
now that can’t even do pull-ups or sit-ups. I try and get people
into the Marines.
So do we need to buy you a digital recorder? Are you going to
have access to e.mail? How do you think the situation is going to
be?
I know they’ll have little rec areas that I can send e.mail home.
I’ll probably be able to take a lap top. Call, write letters.
Writing letters is the best, it just can’t ever state exactly
where I am. They’ll all be read of coarse. If I include any
sensitive information it will be cut out or gone over with a
marker.
Yeah, as far as music goes it’s all up in the air.
What was your favorite show you’ve played so far with Elara?
That last show was probably my favorite show. It really was. I
really wanted to open up for Das Ich for a long time, we got to do
that, and we just had a lot of fun that night. It was really good.
I walked out of there totally shits and grins. We really kicked
ass that night. We sounded good. I think the sound guy was a
little annoyed, my effects processor was running a little hot.
There were certain times that I would scream that would completely
distort. But it worked out okay, you know, it’s industrial. It was
fun.
How did you get into music, what started it all?
Well, as far as music goes I guess it started when I was a kid.
Probably like 12, before that I wanted to become a ? and a priest.
I started to listen to metal, thrash metal, I listened to Suicidal
Tendencies, Slayer, Sepultura, all that stuff. The Cramps at the
same time. I was living in California so it was like you couldn’t
escape it.
But yeah, I was listening to all those groups, and I was listening
to punk too. I think that’s pretty much when I started wanting to
do music. I started off playing guitar and I didn’t like it. Then
I started playing bass guitar. I was a bass guitarist for a long
long time. I played in metal bands, hell, some of them never even
leave garages, or we got like a single show. But I mean, that’s
high school. I didn’t start to do anything very serious until I
met Rick Marsten and he originally had been working with Perry, on
a Depeche Mode sounding industrial thing. Which was cool, but they
weren’t doing anything any more and that’s when we started Elara.
And it was a slow process. There was a lot of good music out of
that, out of me and Rick, and a lot of not so good music. Then
Perry came along, and this other guy named Chris Caldwell came
along to play guitar, and things started really getting emotion
there. And Rick actually wanted me to do backup vocals. I never
wanted to sing lead. Just leave me in the back, I’m fine. I was
doing bass, and I started doing backup vocals. But one of the
things I wanted to hear was, we were more of a goth rock band at
the time, I wanted to hear more low vocals. More Andrew Eldrich
kind of thing. So I said, "Well, I want to do it." So we had some
songs I wanted to sing, and some songs he would sing. There was a
little friction there, and he ended up leaving and I ended up
taking over vocals. We did about two shows like that, and it died.
Well, goth rock was fun. It was cool. But I really like electronic
music more than anything else, so we decided to start doing
industrial stuff. We started messing around with the Trinity, and
really learning how to work with that, and it took around 8 or 9
months. Then we did a show at the Metro, and we really just went
from there. It was very very Skinny Puppy in the beginning, and it
changed. That’s just pretty much from adolescence, to the new
music.
What’s the first industrial band you heard that struck you?
Front 242. I actually heard a song of theirs when I was 12 when my
parents were living in Puerto Rico. It was this teen show they did
in Puerto Rico, it was like ‘Party Time’ or something cheesy like
that. But I would hear a lot of Front 242 and Frontline Assembly
over there on the radio. On just like regular dance stations ya
know? I always liked stuff like that. Living in California I would
hear stuff like that too, and my cousins in Spain and Puerto Rico
would turn me on to a lot of different stuff too. So I was
familiar with it. But the first time I saw Front 242 was on this
show, and they came out with a guy on keyboards, and they had
these little 80’s hot pants on, and tank tops, and goggles, and
they were doing this whole like Hans and Franz looking thing and I
was like, "These guys are awesome!" And that was it. And they did
Headhunter on that TV Show live. Because in Porto Rico you get a
lot of stuff from Europe that you never get over here. And that’s
how I was exposed to that. And from there it was Throbbing
Gristle, and Cabaret Voltaire, Einstredzen Neubauten? .
And we know the rest. |
The most asked-question
remains will ELARA ever reunite? Jose prepares to head to war.
The remaining members of ELARA are entrenched in other
projects. The future of the Jacksonville industrial scene hangs
in the balance as the remaining days of ELARA wind down. It
seems that time inevitably draws the gang back together for
"final" show after "final" show as the date of Jose's departure
draws ever closer. There are currently whispers about a label
sponsored final-final show for hopeful live album/video
release. With Jose not leaving until May it may be more
possible than ever. Keep your eyes and ears open and stay
logged on to MOVEMENT for updates on ELARA and Perry's future
endeavors.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Amerika" Lyrics:
The song "Amerika" was released on "Strength Through Technology"
well before 9/11. It is as prophetic as it is obvious. Jose was
very disgusted with the people in this country. The song is by
no means meant to be anti-American. It is meant more as a
wake-up call. To take the "look at what we've become"
perspective. The song is self explanatory, but it can still be
taken the wrong way.
V1
Our culture decays
in every way
empire of the west
it's people in dismay
degradation rules the land
Malevolent agenda
Chaos at hand.
V2
Get your packets fat
just for the stars and stripes
destroy it and loot it
Buy into fascist hype
oppress it and sell it
burn it all the away
who cares about tomorrow
We have a great today.
V3
This cargo of shit that dwells in the past
The pride they lack, is killing us fast
We see the day, It's falling away
The land she cries, imperial demise
Chorus:
Fear and loathing our land of hate
despise demise the nations fate
Brave men follow leaders that lie
we need a new America
V4
We war ,we kill
what do we try to find
a penny a quarter, Mickey Mouse and dollar signs
drop the bomb, load the gun,
Feed the economy, We are just commodity
(Break down)
Empire has the troops they come in masses
Fire lights their eyes and kicks your asses
7.62 assassination
This generation lives the lie of American nation.
AMERICAN NATION!
|
|
