Heathen Harvest: Good evening, Lee. Congratulations on having your album out on Cold Spring. Does it feel like you’ve hit the big time yet?

Lee Howard: Hardly the big time, but no, it’s good. It’s good to have an official release. I’ve done a few CD-R things before in the past, but it’s nice to have an actual solid release on such an esteemed label.


HH: I know that it’s taken a long time to get this release done – didn’t you have to re-record some tracks?

LH: Yeah, we had a difference of opinions on certain things. I wanted the album to flow a certain way, because basically the album’s about an experience I had last year, and each one of the tracks corresponds to a certain period of where my head was at the time, without wanting to sound too pretentious. But some of the tracks didn’t quite flow, and in hindsight I think we made the right decision getting rid of them. There were problems with the actual programming of the album, how it was sounding. It went from very caustic and aggressive to very quiet, and that was kind of how I wanted it, but in the end we got rid of the quiet ones, and made it a lot punchier, and we were left with the product that we’ve got – Behavioural Decline.


HH: That really leads on to my next question, because I was wondering what the album is about? The record label says, ‘Personal obsessions skewed by drug use, codes of behaviour observed by a misanthropic mind… Behavioural Decline documents the rise of treachery and the fall of honour.’ Can you put some flesh on those bones?

LH: Yes, to a certain degree. I don’t want to say too much about it, but for me, the period from 2006 to the end of this year, really, was probably the worst part of my life imaginable. I lost my home, it was repossessed, I had two very painful breakups with a girl, and I was probably, erm – how can I put this? – I had a bit of a liking for certain substances, shall we say, a bit too much. I became obsessed with certain codes of behaviour. And that’s all I’m really prepared to say, because I don’t want to drop the guilty in it. But it was a really bad time for me, and the tracks are really corresponding to that period. It was awful. I’m coming to the end of it, but it was a pretty black time to say the least.


HH: The album contains a track, ‘Concert For Evening Battle’, which was recorded here live in August this year. I was wondering about to what extent your live performances are improvised. Do you have an idea what you’re going to play in advance? Actually, I heard you soundchecking earlier, and I thought I recognised ‘Smile Like Sword’ from the new album.

LH: The album was pretty much all recorded in one take, so I can reproduce all of that stuff live. There are certain loops and some prepared sound sources, but the majority of it is live, it’s all effected in real time and modulated and stretched in real time, but there are some set, solid loops and pieces, and the rest I can improvise, I can bring things in and out, and totally interchange stuff as and where I see fit. There are two sides to my music, really – there’s the power electronics side and then the more electro-acoustic side. The ‘Concert For Evening Battle’ was a piece I did for the Radio Black Forest electro-acoustic festival, and that was certainly the other side of the coin, more abstract, more electro-acoustic, whereas tonight is more straightforward, full-on power electronics.


HH: What kind of equipment do you use to generate your sounds? Are there particular devices you go back to a lot?

LH: Yes, Behavioural Decline was written and recorded without any musical instruments whatsoever, there’s not a single instrument on there. I use a process called signal routing. It’s not a new process, I’m not the first one. A lot of the musique concrète establishment and some of the electro-acoustic hierarchy have been using this technique for quite a while, but I’m just applying it to my own sound. All it is really is feedback in its purest sense, but it can be a very beautiful sound, if it’s sculpted in a way, and that’s what I’ve tried to do, I’ve tired to sculpt it and use it sonically, I guess more poetically than just straightforward feedback.


HH: How important are words to you? A lot of your songs have vocals, but they’re often impossible to decipher, and you don’t print the lyrics, so do your songs have layers of meaning that are only accessible to you?

LH: Pretty much, I suppose. I think that if people did hear the lyrics, they’d think, ‘What a load of gibberish!’ But the trouble with power electronics, I find, is that it’s very cliché-ridden. I’m not going to write endless songs about torture and rape and murder and the humiliation of others, because it’s not in my field of knowledge, to a certain extent. What I’m using is what I’ve experienced and what I’ve noticed and what I can see. Behavioural Decline was about the breakdown of all moral fibre, as I could see it happening to me, and happening to others. So those are my lyrics, and they mean a hell of a lot to me, but I don’t think other people would get the meaning without knowing me and knowing what’s gone on. ‘Smile Like Sword’, for instance – that’s a difficult one to understand, and I’m not sure I quite understand it myself, but maybe a couple of sessions on a psychiatrist’s chair might be able to get me some of the answers to that. My lyrics are quite abstract, but very meaningful.


HH: Do you ever start with words or phrases and then build a song around them, or do the words come after you’ve laid the instrumental track down?

LH: Yeah, totally. I mean, it comes from an idea. It kicks off from a track title or a line, and then I flesh it out from there, and then if there’s a specific sound that I want to achieve, I’ll try that. Sometimes it fits, sometimes it doesn’t, but it all comes from an idea, an initial spark, a saying or a phrase or a glance, even.


HH: Who have been your major musical influences? IFOTS seems fairly obviously to be a power electronics and harsh industrial project, but did you have any specific precedents in mind when you started recording under this name?

LH: No, not really. I discovered industrial music when I was 15, and I’ve been absolutely hooked ever since, and I’m very proud of my industrial heritage. One of my pet hates is some of these so-called performers who are quick to dismiss their industrial past, and the consumers who have put food on their table for many years. I’m very proud of my industrial past, and I’m so glad I’m part of this scene, being able to play with people like Con-Dom and The Grey Wolves tonight. Initially, though, I was motivated by Coil, they’ve been a big influence on me, especially sonically. Throbbing Gristle as well, obviously. And a lot of the new American acts, like Fire In The Head and Prurient. And a lot of black metal as well, to be honest. I like the emptiness of black metal.


HH: That’s interesting, because my next question is about black metal. I was listening to your album this morning, I just got my copy yesterday, but it seemed to me that there are some songs there, especially ‘Sword Like Smile’, that seem to have a distinct black metal influence – is this accurate?

LH: Yes, I buy a lot of black metal. I’m quite fussy – I like mid-tempo, poorly produced black metal. I like the emptiness, the total space in it. Although there’s a lot going on in it, there’s a kind of void as well, and I like the nihilistic attitude as well, that’s very important, especially for the kind of stuff that I’m trying to do. That’s the kind of feeling that I get when I’m listening to the right kind of black metal, and that the kind of feeling I want people to have when they’re listening to my music.


HH: Do you know an Australian black metal project called Nekrasov at all? Because I interviewed him for Heathen Harvest earlier this year, and he used the word ‘void’ so many times during the interview that in the end, I asked him about what the word ‘void’ meant to him, and he really went off on one. So if you’re into black metal voids, check out Nekrasov – I’ll send you the link.

LH: Absolutely, that sounds great. I’m terrible with names, though – black metal names give me a headache!


HH: Your Birmingham Nihilism logo features the life and death runes – is that another link with black metal culture?

LH: Sure. Let me explain the name Iron Fist of the Sun. I was born and raised in Yardley, and then went to the Maypole in Druids Heath, and these are all key pagan spots that have been whitewashed over. And I started imagining a kind of pagan terrorist unit called Iron Fist of the Sun – I was going to write a story about it, but it developed into a musical project. It’s a subject that fascinates me – heritage and paganism and the loss of our identity. That certainly figures quite largely in my work, especially on one of the first releases, The Power Of September.

HH: Do you know a lot of pagans – people in the organised pagan scene?

LH: No, not really. I was in contact with a group called Woden’s Family for a while, but really, it’s more a personal thing with me, something that I’m building up by myself.


HH: Because I am quite busy in the pagan scene myself, I go to a lot of camps in the summer, and one interesting thing I’ve noticed is how many pagans have a military background. So the idea of a pagan paramilitary organisation is not so implausible. I know pagans who were in the Tank Regiment, signals, artillery, counter-intelligence – I know a pagan who’s still working in counter-intelligence, in fact. I don’t know what it is about paganism and the military, but there’s a strong connection.

LH: It’s probably the warrior ethic.


HH: Either that, or it’s just people who like dressing up in branches and running around in the woods? Anyway, staying on the subject of Birmingham Nihilism – has IFOTS’s sound been strongly influenced by your surroundings? I used to live in your neck of the woods down here in South Birmingham, so I probably have some idea of what your everyday life feels like, but maybe you could describe Birmingham for those who live far away and don’t know.

LH: It’s the quintessential post-industrial town. It’s got a bit yuppified now, but there’s definitely still a smog-stained black heart at the centre of it. It’s multicultural – however, that’s not working out quite the way that people planned, and it’s very segregated. I think all Brummies have got a love-hate relationship with the city, and I’m certainly a typical Brummie, I suppose. We’re quite a warm bunch of people, but it’s a shithole, to be fair. I love it, but it’s a shithole. And I think for anyone doing music in Birmingham, that has to have an effect on you. It’s not cool, like Manchester’s music scene, allegedly. It’s a strange thing about Birmingham – I love it and I hate it in equal measure.


HH: And of course with Birmingham’s heavy metal heritage, it’s hard to be a Brummie and not be a bit of a metalhead.

LH: Yeah, I guess so. I was never a real metalhead, though. Black metal is something different. I’m not really into thrash or death metal, but certain elements of black metal and black noise, definitely. Birmingham bands like Bolt Thrower and Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, they don’t really mean much to me. As a kid, I was into electro-pop, and I suppose that’s where the worlds collide, you know – put together electro-pop and black metal and you get power electronics, I suppose.


HH: One of the more surprising features of your MySpace page is the large number of pictures of Princess Diana, and all the Diana tribute pages you’re friends with. What’s all that about, Lee?

LH: Erm, again, it’s a drug thing. That’s all I can say on the matter. I don’t understand it myself, but it’s purely related to a time when I was...


HH: You got obsessed by Princess Diana?

LH: Not in a sexual way, not in a conspiracy theory way, not in a royalist way, but in a way that I don’t even understand myself. I must say, it was a fucked-up time! I get asked about this a lot.


HH: Well, yes, I had to ask, because it does seem a bit strange! You used to run the Experimental Seafood label, but I believe that’s inactive now. Are you doing any more production work, or working with other projects outside of IFOTS?

LH: Yes, the label’s not active at the moment. I was supposed to be putting out a single by Ramleh, but basically, my house got repossessed and I had a massive Inland Revenue bill, and I’m filing for bankruptcy at the moment, so that single fell through. So I’m probably on Ramleh’s shitlist now, because they had paid for recording costs and I was going to weigh them in, so apologies to Ramleh, if you’re reading this at the moment. You’re only as strong as your next release, and at the moment everything’s been put on hold. Birmingham Nihilism is like a CD-R and tape thing. But maybe if I get some money behind me, I’ll start all that up again.


HH: So what’s next for IFOTS? Do you have any more gigs or tours coming up?

LH: Yeah, I’d love to do some more gigs or a tour. Hopefully, there’s a tape coming out on Unrest Productions soon. And I’m also starting to record the next IFOTS album, which is going to be a lot colder, more electronic. And I’ve got another project called Pink Flowers, which is probably the most extreme music I’ve been making. And I’ve done another album under my own name, Lee Howard, which is going to be more electro-acoustic based. So there’s a lot going on.


HH: You have some very fine tattoos, Lee – two full sleeves and no doubt a load of other stuff I’ve never seen. Are you still getting new work, or are do you feel like you have enough tattoos now?

LH: It’s the time aspect. I work out of town, and trying to fit it all in is difficult, And there’s the money as well – I’ve been a bit skint lately, so that’s all been put on hold. But I have some big plans on that front too.
 

This interview with Lee of Iron Fist of the Sun took place face-to-face at the Wagon and Horses pub in Digbeth, Birmingham, on 28 November 2009.