interview with BIOCARBON 13
What´s the name of your band? BIOCARBON 13
How was the band formed? The band was formed in 2001. It was formed as a personal project by iGor as an extension of his love of EDM and Chicago Industrial Music from the late 1980’s. It started with just iGor writing and playing all the music and asking various Chicago musicians to join in with their contributions both on stage and in the studio.
Can you tell about your band?
BIOCARBON13 is a member of the new generation of Chicago elecro-industrial bands projecting sound influenced by a wide range of rock and electronic music form punk and synthpop to noise and EDM.
BIOCARBON13 is an organic band with the same manifesto that was established when the band was first formed. To combine the love of EDM and Chicago Industrial Music into BC13’s interpretation of this combo. BC13 has a core base of members and continues to include various musicians from other great Chicago Bands for both live on stage shows and contributions in the studio.
Where are all band members from?/Who does what in the band?
iGor – principal song writer, programmer & lead vocals – Originally from the former Soviet Union
Kyle – Lead guitar – Chicago
Nauj – Arrangements, Drums/Percussion - Chicago
What was the ambitions of the band when you started? I wanted to play music that I enjoyed hearing and dancing to.
Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? It’s a combination of Electronic Dance Music and with a little industrial thrown in.
Where was your first gig? BC13’s first gig was in 2004 and it was in a Chicago Church (older catholic church converted to a night ministry Baptist church) an appropriate setting for an EDM group.
Where was the latest gig? Sept 19th 2014 at the legendary Club Anything AKA: Club Local in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Who writes your songs?/ who writes the music who writes lyrics? iGor writes the lyrics and the music but with contributions from both Kyle and Juan.
Who has the best since of humor in the band? Nauj – it has to be his upbringing on the south side of Chicago that brings around his black humor.
What's good/bad with the band?/What genre do you feel you are? Good is the current core formation of the band/ bad is the current core formation of the band due to everyone’s busy schedules. BC13 is in the Electro-EDM genre.
Why did you pick that particular style?/What are your songs about? That’s the kind of music that I’ve always enjoyed and I love the technology in this type of music. BC13’s songs are about love and/or war. Actually the same things... Also the songs get inspiration from our personal experience, current events - what’s happening in the world. Last year the Russian group Pussy Riot’s struggle inspired a song on our last album called “Til Spring”. That album: Cyberkraft was also our first album sung entirely in Russian.
Do you write your own material or mainly covers? Mainly our own material we will through in a cover into a live show. Right now BC13 is covering “Konami Code” by the Gothsicles in our live shows; because we all live in Chicago, Brian from the Gothsicles at times joins us on stage for his song.
Have you made any albums?/If yes what are they? Currently we are working on our 10th album, Toxic Dreams. The last 3 are our favorite – Dreadnought, Cyberkraft, International (remixes of Cyberkraft by other elecro musicians). Also, Toxic Dreams is shaping up to be an awesome release.
Do you have any clips on YouTube? Yes. You can find them on youtube.com/biocarbon13
What places will you be playing in in the immediate future? On November 29th we will be playing at event put together by The Cincinnati Industrial Consortium in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Where have you played from then till now? We have played some of the major Midwestern EDM venues in Chicago, Milwaukee, South Bend, and Kansas City.
Witch band is the best you´ve seen? Gothsicles are always fun band to watch live. I was surprised how fresh Nitzer Ebb is live even now. Frontal Boundaries is a band that is producing exciting tracks and to look for in the future.
Is it always the same songs live? We have a deep bag of material to choose from. We try to keep our sets fresh and pull out some of our old hits and mix them with the new tracks to keep all shows feel fresh and lively. Maybe we will work on an album of our own remixes. Who knows?
What has been the best/most promising gig so far? The next show we are about to play.
Have you had any bigger tours from start to now? No, we don’t tour. Tours are expensive and all of us have day jobs.
How big crowds do you usually play for? It usually depends on the promoter and the venue. However, we equally enjoy playing in a big clubs as well as the small bars. Connection with people is what gives energy to our show.
What are the plans for the rest of the year? Finishing up our next album, Toxic Dreams and shows in Cincinnati and Indiana, are at the top of our objectives.
How do you get psyched up for a gig? Huge amounts of caffeine.
What are your goals with your music? To have fun playing shows and making music we all could be proud of.
When did you decide to go all in for the music? When we were born.
Is it easier to get your inspiration from older bands or from bands more modern? It is easy to get inspired by the old bands because time has filtered out most of the bad music. However, to find new bands that inspire you is harder because you have to work hard to find good music without getting discouraged by all of the uninspiring gimmicky music you must search through.
What are your sources of inspiration? Life
What's the first step when making a new song? Starting up my computer.
How do you feel about the downloading of music instead of buying albums? Artists should be proud that their music is being listened to. If people are willing to pay for it, bonus!
What would be your dreams for the band? People enjoying our music, what could be better for an artist?
Besides your own music, what genres and bands do you listen to? Industrial, metal, IDM, EBM.
What would be your greatest fears for the future? No electricity.
When you are on stage, what do you fear most then? On stage we fear nothing. We are super beings transcending time and space. …Power outage, definitely the power outage.
Have you been in any other bands? Yes.
What do you work with outside of the band and the music? Regrettably the people.
What would you do if there was no music? Create it.
How important are your fans? They are our perfect drugs. We get high on our fans.
Name 2 of your own songs you like at the moment? Bang Bang https://www.jamendo.com/en/list/a97153/dreadnought
Passion of Villains from the upcoming Toxic Dreams.
What drives a band that isn't all that famous and renowned to try to make a living on their music and to keep playing? Our day jobs.
Do you have any webpages?
biocarbon13.com
facebook.com/biocarbon13
youtube.com/biocatbon13
and many more
Any pearls of wisdom for all other bands out there? Have fun and make good music.
Describe your show, visually and musically Punk band that you can actually dance too.
How do you view the music industry of today? From sidelines. Why would anyone want to enslave themselves to capricious tastes?
What is best/worst with playing the clubs? The best and the worst thing is people thinking that we have ego.
Tell us about upcoming gigs and why we should be at them? Because they will be… Legendary.
How would you describe your sound in one sentence You have to be there.
What is your favorite crappy instrument? Computer.