Pornography : interview à l'occasion de la sortie de leur compilation

Hello! Pornography is not very well-known around here. Can you introduce yourself and the project?

Hi, I'm Anderson and I do whatever needs to get done to make the music project Pornography happen. I was graced to work with Tyler Coburn (Alraune/Gnarwhal/Yautja) and Jared Moran (54R/Dragunov/Speed Ritual Records) on two tracks this year and hopefully again. Other than those two songs, I make and record all the sounds. I've had a shifting definition of what I think Pornography sounds like, but it's basically doomy noise rock with screaming, pounding, and dissonance at a mostly plodding pace. It has some elements of hardcore or screamo in there, too.

How was Pornography born? A sentence on your Bandcamp page (« my name is Anderson and this is the worst chapter in my life ») makes me think that this project is an outlet for you... Can you tell us more?

That line was taken from a TV show called Hoarders with a little influence from Demian Johnston of Playing Enemy. He has a line in a song where he yells "This is Demian and I need help" and that always stuck with me.

I started a cassette label called Tapes of a Neon God with my best friend, Austin Gaines from Japanese Women, in late 2010. Doing that kind of gave me confidence along with an outlet to put out my own music. I started writing a song after listening to Swans' Children of God one too many times and went on from there. Holiness Church of the Valley approached me to do a split after the 54R split came out and we've been pals ever since. Kevin from HCOTV put out the Hex/Golden Sunshine lathe-cut 7".

Pornography is the only semi-conventional musical outlet I have. I also play noise with Austin in Hadals and have started working solo as Pleasuredome.

Lyrically, sometimes I'm saying horrible things and making threats in a character far removed from myself. Sometimes I'm saying something really personal. The lyrics on Sex/Dishonor and Pleasure/Contempt are in-character and actually got me in a bit of trouble with a label that was going to put out Heaven on a lathe-cut record. The lyrics on Hex and Golden Sunshine are me at my worst.

No link between the name of the project and The Cure?

You're correct. I named it after my favorite Cure album. There's already a band called Drowningman after one of my favorite songs by The Cure, so there's precedent.

Your music reminds me of some hardcore bands like Dial or Admiral Angry. Just like them, your band takes hardcore to darker territories. You told me by email that you liked Dial and Admiral Angry. Any other bands linked (or not) to Pornography that you are a fan of?

As an aside, I'd like to clarify that while I enjoy Dial and Admiral Angry, I wasn't consciously influenced by them. My biggest influences early on were Swans and Playing Enemy. I purposely tried to write riffs where I played one chord too many times or played weird, dissonant chords.

When I was younger I listened to a lot of screamo and associated bands like Shikari, Reversal of Man, Combatwoundedveteran, pageninetynine, and Welcome the Plague Year. Lately, in the hardcore and darker territories, I've been listening to Great Falls (ex-Playing Enemy), Plebeian Grandstand, The Secret, Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, and Burnt Skull. I'm looking forward to the new Baring Teeth and Full of Hell + Merzbow albums coming out this year, as well. I also need to mention that I constantly listen to the bands I've worked with like Death Engine, Idylls, Japanese Women, and Yautja.

Hardcore music tends to get darker. A lot of bands like to use the violence of the style with a grimmier touch, making links with industrial music or black metal for example. The line between those types of music is getting more and more blurred. Why in your opinion?

Some of my favorite bands of the last few years are doing the whole black metal meets hardcore thing, specifically The Secret and Plebeian Grandstand as mentioned earlier. I think you can take hardcore as an ethos and apply it to most types of music. When you apply it to black metal or industrial you can take away a bit of the pretense or at least alter it to be a little more populist. You strip it down a little and simplify it a bit and make it rough around the edges. I think things go in waves and eventually we'll get to a point where black metal and industrial are passé, but I'm happy right now that some great bands are choosing to avoid purity.

Your music can be downloaded via Bandcamp. What do you think about the Internet and the possibility to download legally (or not) as a way of transmitting your art?

I absolutely think artists should provide free streaming and am glad that so many do. I also believe that people don't value things given freely as much as maybe they should. At this point, I give away the downloads for free because I'm more interested in people hearing and enjoying the music than creating a barrier to make some cash. Personally, I've never paid for an mp3. I generally also don't pirate music, but have no qualms with people who do. Physical media can be rare and sought after, but digital media should be easily accessible.

You (Anderson Cook) are solely credited on the first Pornography's tracks. A bassist and a drummer joined you afterwards. How did you create those first tracks? Has the arrival of new members changed that?

The first five tracks were written and recorded in my basement. I think the first song started with drum programming, but the later songs started on guitar. I don't write very quickly. I also don't think of myself as a very good guitar player, but it's the instrument I'm most comfortable with. So far every release is in a different tuning, but I'm moving more towards more standard, if lowered, tunings.

The songs that Jared and Tyler played on started out much the same way. I recorded guitars to a click track. Then Tyler wrote drum parts and recorded them with Shibby Poole. I mixed a rough track and Jared wrote and recorded bass tracks in his home studio. We didn't actually play or write together because we're all busy and Jared lives seven hours away.

I started writing a new song but couldn't get a good time to record with Tyler so I went back to the old way of doing things. I hope to work with them again on the next songs, though. I've never really wanted to turn it into a live band, but I'm not entirely opposed to the idea.

Pornography put out releases sparingly since 2011. Some of them are gathered on a compilation by Speed Ritual. How did it happen?

I was supposed to work with a label to put Heaven on a lathe-cut record in 2013. Literally the day I released Sex/Dishonor and Pleasure/Contempt on Bandcamp, I got an email from the label guy saying he didn't want to work with me because of the lyrical content of those new songs. I wasn't going to argue with the guy and convince him to put out my music. Jared from Speed Ritual and I have been friends for over ten years and he offered to put it out on his label. We decided to put all the songs I'd made so far onto the CD. We just did a second run.

Can we expect to hear a full-length album by Pornography one day? What is the future for Pornography?

Maybe? I need to buckle down and write some good songs. I'm writing currently, but I've been distracted by other projects and ideas. In the near future there is a track that's going to be on a 5-way split on Tapes of a Neon God. The label never had an official #1 release, so we're doing one with bands/projects that Austin and I are in separately or together. Hadals, Japanese Women, Pleasuredome, Pornography, and Settlement. That Pornography song is a little different. Less feedback, more obnoxious pauses. I need to finish lyrics on it and so far they're pretty bleak. The new songs I'm working on have a slight black metal influence but that could change.

Thank you for your answers to these questions. I hope to hear from Pornography soon! The last words are yours.

Thank you so much for the interview! I appreciate it beyond words. You can hear my Pleasuredome track from the split here: https://soundcloud.com/tapes-of-a-neon-god/pleasuredome. The new Pornography song will be out by the end of the year.