Rhys Fulber:
Interviewed by Alex Pagan
Where does the name Conjure One derive from?
The name actually was originally the name of a song on the record called
"Redemption". And it was the first song I worked on for the record,
which was quite a while ago now, like '98 or something. And you know,
it's just sort of this epic-eastern sounding track and I needed
something to call it in the computer and it was the first thing that
came to my mind. It was 'Conjure One' I don't know where it came from,
it just sounded like conjuring something, I don't know. I just wrote it
in the computer, and then as the project progressed I couldn't come up
with a name and a couple of different friends suggested that I name it
after that song title, so I changed that song title to "Redemption" and
used that name.
Right on. I had the same problem when I was writing my music. I ended
up taking the band name from one of my songs. It was kind of funny.
Yeah, you know, it was hard to come up with a cool name. Especially with
this kind of music, it's easy to come up with something that's really
pretentious and horrible. I wanted to avoid that and come up with
something that was sort of vague but had kind of a vibe to it and it
just seemed to all work.
This is a nice collaboration of artists you have going here, I was
wondering, is this directly your brainchild?
To be honest, it mostly just happened by chance. The vocalists anyway.
When I started making the record I had no idea who was going to sing on
these songs; I had no master plan or anything. So it was just something
that just sort of happened. We just sort of picked people up along the
way, you know what I mean? I was just happy, I had lots of people do
demos of stuff, and I just picked the best stuff, basically. And some of
the people…who did a lot of the middle eastern vocals, had never done
anything before…I love stuff like that, it's really cool. The Sinead
O'Connor thing just happened through the people who I worked with on
that song, they had some connections there. I didn't have a list of
people. Not at all. I just sort of went through it as we went.
Did the same thing happen with Reclaire Devoldo?
Yeah, she's known as a songwriter mostly…and she sang it when we were
basically just doing the writing demo, and she just sang so well that… I
had a few other people try to sing it, but it just wasn't as good so we
used hers.
I have to say that this is probably the most progressive house style
music that I've ever heard from you in your entire career, and I was
wondering what brought that influence.
Progressive house?
Well, I've heard a lot of the remixes that have come out so far…
Oh yeah the remixes; I don't do the remixes though. Those are other
people that do the remixes. I love that kind of crowd and that kind of
music. But the stuff I do is more verse and chorus, it's like downtempo
ambient pop kind of stuff with different influences in there. And so for
the club stuff I save it for the professionals. I try and come up with
who to remix. I was a fan of Max Graham's work so I said let's get Max
Graham to do a remix. I also wanted Solar Stone to do a chill mix, which
they did. So I'm actively involved in the whole process, but you know, I
don't really do any of the dance stuff. I just do the album, the more
down tempo pop stuff, and let the club people do the dance stuff.
How did you hook up with Tom from Junkie XL?
I've known Tom for years. I've known Tom since before Junkie XL
basically. I was living in Holland for about three years, in Amsterdam,
where he lives. But I met him in Europe just through a friend of mine
who was a video director that had moved to London. I spent a lot of time
in Europe for the past 10 years, living there on and off for periods.
And he was just one of my friends over there, and I always knew he had
tons of talent and a real hard worker. And he's getting some breaks now,
and that's good for him. I've just known him for a real long time and
done some stuff with him in the past. I did a couple of remixes when I
was in Amsterdam and I had him do the mix down. One of them was for Fear
Factory, and a couple of other things. So I worked with him on other
stuff before. Just never on something that was more creative, before it
was just mixing and technical stuff.
Right on. You guys were kind of labelmates for a while, when you were
both on Roadrunner.
Yeah, we were both on Roadrunner. We were around that scene in Holland
and stuff. And he's just a guy I've known for a long time. He's one of
my very close friends I could say. So I mean, it's cool that he's
blowing up.
Where are you based out of now?
Well, Conjure One is just me basically, and I'm in L.A. I started the
record in Amsterdam, when I was living there, and the initial vibes
definitely came from being over there. And I went to Vancouver for a
little while to try and finish stuff up, and then I ended up moving down
here where the last things kind of came together. So I'm based out of
L.A.
I went looking around the internet for information just to see what
people are saying about it and people are already calling this a
Delirium side project. I was just curious how you feel about that kind
of response to it?
:::Laughs::: Well, it's kind of, you know, whatever. People are going to
do what they're going to do. This isn't a Delirium side project because
I'm no longer a member of Delirium. Formally anyway. So it isn't really
a side project, it's a new entity. But you know, people are going to
associate things together, and if that's how they want to describe it
you can't really control that kind of stuff. It's good that people
mention it, period.
Oh that's fine, a lot of people know Delirium so hopefully some of those
people will like some of this stuff too. It's all good, it's just part
of music, the way people identify stuff together. But you can't really
call this a side project.
Are there any hopes for a tour with this project?
Yeah, you know, people have been asking about that a lot lately, and I'd
love to do it. The Delirium tour never happened for various reasons, but
I've always thought that this is possible. We could do a good live show
with this. We're just waiting to see how things go, you know? To see if
people pick up on the record because the only way we could really do a
tour would be if there was at least a bit of a demand for it. Otherwise
you're going to take on a pretty large production with very few
guarantees that you're going to get anything out of it. And that's just
a big risk for someone in my position to take. When you're not making
huge pop records and stuff, that kind of stuff can be really back
breaking for smaller artists. So we're just kind of seeing what happens,
and see if there is enough of a demand to make it realistic, because I'd
have to hire so many musicians and it would end up costing an awful lot
of money.
Well the buzz is out on the Internet already, I went to a couple of
chat rooms earlier today just to see if anyone had heard of the name and
quite a few people were like, "Oh yeah, yeah! It's awesome!"
Cool, I mean that's great because I really don't know. I'm kind of still
working on other projects, and I'm in kind of a bubble. I have no clue
what's going on out there. :::laughs:::
What else are you working on right now?
I just finished producing a rock record, a band from England called
Paradise Lost.
Really? Oh I love Paradise Lost.
Oh you've heard of them before? Yeah I just did their new album. I was a
fan of the band. 'Cause I was in Europe a lot where they were really big
for a while, and I liked what they did. I just got hooked up with them,
did a remix for them years ago. And then they called me kind of last
minute and asked if I wanted to do their new album. I was in England for
two months with them doing it, and we just finished mixing it in
Vancouver, and I'm really pleased.
Well, that's good to hear!
