BACCHUS JIHAD
inteview by Ian C Stewart
AUTO4 spring 1997

bacchus jihad
not wine terrorists

Bacchus Jihad is an electronic duo from Michigan comprised of John Neil and Liam Racine. They've been working together since 1993 and together they released the first Bacchus Jihad CD in 1995. Since then they've written a bunch of new songs and signed a deal with Midwest Records. Their music is at times industrial, sometimes pure electronic pop, sometimes just damn spooky. John Neil recently gained prominence with his appearances on the internationally acclaimed series of XTC tribute cassettes (Bizarre Depiction) for his numerous contributions, some of which were eerily accurate, but with subtle plot twists ("Summer's Cauldron," from SKYLACKING). Others were just fucked, in a most pleasing way.

Here's what John had to say for himself.


"Bacchus Jihad includes John Neil, Flea, and Liam Racine. (well, two out of three.) It started as a film project ("1-900") that Liam was doing. A mutual friend hooked Liam up with me for help on the soundtrack. The ease with which the music was produced led us to believe that this would be an artistically satisfying and musically profitable partnership. Flea was the designated driver (two out of three rule may apply). We don't play live but we are kicking the idea around. It would require lots of work, time and bodies. And more toons which we are currently working on."

"The local West Michigan scene is growing more and more each year. We haven't come across any other bands who are doing what we do. There is a lot of talent out there, some good bands, but there's also a lot of Pearl Jam ripoffs. Many of the locals dig techno/industrial. Many others don't get it. Many don't prefer this industrial shit. Many don't prefer us because they don't prefer industrial shit, and don't realize that there's so much more to us than that. The local mags and papers have been very nice to us, though."

"The sampler is a great tool because we can capture any sound imaginable and manipulate it in any way. For instance: Japanese garbage man, cuckoo clocks, Big Ben, Hari Cari screams, a dentist drill, sounds of scores of old movies and audio cassettes of old radio plays, and anything lying around the house. We tend to find unusual unknown sounds for percussion. It also allows us to utilize languages, instruments and musical themes from around the world that we wouldn't normally have analog access to. Flea didn't like the sampler, though."

"Bacchus is the Roman god of wine. Jihad is Islamic holy war. Together they are a culture clash; West meets East. Pagan ideas in a modern world. Older rhythms meeting digital technology. Also, it's two words that sound damn good together. Many people bring in their own interpretations of the name, which is fine. We are as political as people want to interpret the music to be. We don't go out to make protest songs or to impress any particular religion. The material in our music is our impression of what we experience and observe around us. If we impart any philosophy, it is simply Carpe Diem."

"We've had many different approaches to songwriting. Sometimes we start with lyrics and a melody and then hash out the music according to what we hear from the lyrics and melody. Sometimes we start with a groove or a grove of grooves and somehow through divine intervention order the chaos into nice pretty pieces (see dentist drill). We've also started songs with one certain sample (such as the Hari Cari scream in "Cranial Bedfellows") and then added more and more and more and written/edited lyrics to fit that."


Bacchus Jihad 1232 Lafayette NE #1 Grand Rapids, MI 49505 USA
http://members.aol.com/bcchsjihad/index.html