BEN: I'm about to. Tonight is going to be the last show for a while. I pretty much just did 40 shows in 60 days, which involved all of the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico. After tonight I'm just going to go home, I have nothing planned, I'm in no rush to plan anything for a while. And Yann from Iszoloscope [who just walked by] is totally not gay.

INQ: Are you finding any time to work on new material?

BEN: The next album is probably about 90% done. I'm pretty happy with everything so far, but I would like to add in one or two more tracks. But the next album is pretty much done.

INQ: That's amazing. How did you pull that off?

BEN: I've been working on it since I finished the last album, so it's been about a year. Just, you know, whenever I have free time, the little bit that I have, I try to get as much done as I can.

INQ: Where have you found the best crowds?

BEN: Definately New York City, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Montreal, Puerto Rico and Mexico City. Puerto Rico and Mexico City were a little too wild, they were just absolutely insane. The Mexico City gig, for instance, was a little bit bigger than this place [capacity, 250], but it was packed with 400 little Mexican guys and as soon as I started, they started one gigantic mosh pit, from the front of the stage all the way to the back of the club. They pretty much screamed for, like, three encores, and while we were playing, in between songs they were going "Fuck you, Gringo! Fuck the USA! Fuck you, Gringo!" you know, and there was this row of guys at the front giving us all the finger. Before the first encore, the promoter came up to me and he goes "You have to do more music, you have to play some more songs." And I said, "Yeah, but they're yelling shit at us." And he goes, "No, that means they like it. You know how they spit on punk bands? Well, this is how they do that." And I just thought "Well thank god I'm not in a punk band or I'd be covered in spit right now." But the same guys that were yelling all that, after we were done playing, they were coming up and saying "Sign my shirt! Sign this napkin! Sign my ticket stub!" They're just really crazy, insane people. But yeah, they were wild. They were beating the shit out of each other on the dance floor while we were playing. You could see guys punching each other in the head while they're dancing, but there was, like 400 of them just going ape shit.

INQ: You've been playing with Adam X for the last few shows. How has that been?

BEN: It's one gigantic headache after another. No. I really like Adam's stuff, he's definately got a lot of potential with it. I don't know if the American crowds are going to catch on, because it just seems like anything like what I do and what Adam does, it just seems like it's always a smaller crowd than would come out for, like, Covenant or some EBM, future-pop crap. So, anybody that does this side of, more the experimental side of electronic music, whether it's like underground techno, or noise or power noise, or whatever, they kind of have to understand that it's not going to be anywhere near what it's like for some of these other bands, like for Funker Vogt or somebody. But I think he's definately got a lot of potential.

INQ: Who else was a lot of fun to play live with?

BEN: Well, I do a lot of touring with E-Craft from Germany, they're really good friends of mine. Of course Carlos [from Manufactura]. It's always a bad scene when you have me and him on the same show, because usually we're going to end up hurting somebody. The perfectionplastic guys are really cool. There's a band out of New York called Cervello Elettronico which is really good, that's my friend Dave, who sometimes playes live with me as Terrorfakt, but he's got his own project that's really great.

INQ: What hardware/software are you using, and is your touring setup much different than your studio setup?

BEN: From the start we've always pretty much brought out what we've used in the studio out on the road, which is kind of cool, but in the beginning it really sucked because we were using a lot of hardware stuff. The first tour we went out I had my Korg Prophecy, my Roland Juno 106, I had my SH-101, two mixing boards, two drum samplers, we had a D-88, all kinds of effects racks, these two big A-frame keyboard stands, and it was just way too much stuff. Stuff would get damaged, I'd come home and something wouldn't power up after it had gotten knocked around in the van, so what I'm using now is Ableton Live for software, and then I've got two different MIDI controllers, a drum sampler, and some pedals. I've basically taken enerything and sampled it all and loaded it into Ableton, and then with two different controllers I can pretty much lay everything out and run it like that.

INQ: Your music concentrates on driving, relentless beats. Obviously dance-ability is important, but what else are you striving for when you create a song?

BEN: Just originality, really, I know doing power noise isn't the most original idea, so I always try to make it as different as possible than what everybody else is doing. Whether that's something that sounds dated or something that sounds ahead of its time, you know, it doesn't really matter for me. Just as long as you can hear something and not say that it sounds like somebody else's song or sounds like somebody else's style. I think that's one gripe that I have with this specific genre is that a lot of stuff I hear, I know who it is, but I couldn't really tell you. I may say, "Oh, I have this CD, but I don't remember which artist it is." You know? Because a lot of it just sounds the same.

INQ: I've seen people refer to your music on an online forum as "power noise lite." Obivously they're nuts, but how do you respond to that?

BEN: It's these same people on line that think that VNV Nation is innovative and original, you know? I would say 90% of what you read online is complete, absurd crap. I ignore most of it as best as I can, but if people get a little personal, then I get a little personal with them. Whether that means tracking down where they live and knocking on their door and asking if they want to come out and play. Which I'm perfectly willing to do, but, for the most part it's a lot of jealousy and it's a lot of people who don't have any concept of what power noise is. But whatever, everyone's entitled to their own opinion. You've heard the record, it's not really that "lite."

INQ: Terrorfakt was formed as a response to the airplane hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001. How political are you?

BEN: I have some pretty strange political views. I'm definately not a supporter of George Bush, absolutely not, but at the same time I don't ridicule our troops for doing what they're doing right now. Pretty much they're just following orders, and I know that's a lame excuse, because that's the same thing that the Nazi's used. But, you take on a responsibility and you stick with it. It's not their fault they're over there, they didn't decide to go over there. Considering what our government would do to any of them that decided to go AWOL, I think it's just really fucked up, so I support the troops, but I do not support our government.

INQ: Good luck tonight. Anything else you'd like to share?

BEN: The new album should be out hopefully around April, I would think, on Metropolis. Then I'll probably have another European release on Industrial Movement. Other than that, after tonight, like I said, I'm just going to take a break for a while and still do music and remixes, but I'm just not looking to tour for a while. I've been touring so nonstop that I just need to sit and be stationary for more than, like, five days.

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After the interview, we were treated to awesome local musicman Ad.Ver.Sary, a great Adam X performance, followed by Ben's non-lite brand of power noise. My only regret is that I danced so much to Adam X that I couldn't keep up by the time Ben got halfway though his set. Such is life as a parent of two. Thanks again to Ben for the interview and the fun evening!
Interviewed Dec. 13, 2005, by Victor Couwenbergh.

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