I could only find one article about Militia in English Wikipedia. Nowadays every band has a website. Why there is so less information about Militia on the internet?
Well, very simple, we haven't got the finances to have a good website made, one with flash, bit of moving pictures and so forth, it costs and we've placed the production of new material on top of our wanting list. We try to communicate as much as possible through facebook and the myspace page (www.myspace.com/militiaweb) to keep our fans informed, but a nice website would come in handy, for sure. So if anyone thinks he can help us out with that one, please be welcome.
You are the "mastermind" of Militia, so I think you're responsible
for most of Militia's content and form. Can you please tell us something
about your social and musical background?
I
come from what you might call a'red'
family, meaning my parents are socialists and when I was young I remember
people active in politics came to our house to discuss. In those days
I kept my ears wide open so I learned about the situation in Chile when
Allende was killed, I heard the plan making for the strike at Vieille
Montagne (a zinc factory) and so on. It was all a great adventure and
you know that young guys love some action. Later on I joined the Maoist
group AMADA, but not for long. I learned about the terrible conditions
the common Chinese folks had to live in and therefore I left the movement.
I had already read a lot about Bakunin and Kropotkin, and finally I realized
that the anarchic social view had a lot to offer. It became the source
of inspiration for the Militia music as well.
As for my musical background, well, I definitely may say that I'm well-inspired
by Klaus Schulze, Steve Reich and some other electronic
music composers active in the 70's. Their way of manipulation analogue
instruments drove me towards buying a second hand Korg poly 800 Mark II,
and accompanied by 2 digital devices (a reverb/delay and a distortion
machine, both Boss) I started producing the first tapes. Tape loop was
one other medium I used, combining two Revox tape recorders and a Nakamichi
cassette deck (which I still have, and is still working great). So this
turned out to be very rhythmic and repetitive music, kind of sequences
and layers combined to one consistent whole.
This way of working produces and creates the base lines for most Militia
tracks till today. I use a Roland SP-555 sampler and Cubase recording
software now as well. Combined with our percussion and wind instruments
lines it's the foundation of the Militia music, our trade mark so to speak.
Can you please introduce the actual Militia outfit to us!
Well,
first of all there's Frank Van Hoof, who joined in from the beginning
in the early 90's,
he's the only original member besides myself, then there is Philippe
Hermans and our 'Dutch' team Jérôme Opbroek, Diana
Tummers and Paul Mommers, playing in a Dutch percussion band
(Volle Petaj) as well. So we're six people now, live on stage all playing
percussion and tools, I play the wind instruments as well.
Can we imagine Militia as a "real" band with a lot of group
work and discussion or is the band just your "child"?
The guys -and lady- in the band like to say it's my child, mostly because I compose the music, and because I founded the band of course, but I would like to feel that I'm playing in a band, rather than playing with a band if you know what I mean. Anyway, it's not possible to make the Militia music without the efforts and the inspiration and ideas of the other members. In fact the only thing I do is composing the basic music (electronic music), record it on a CDR and show it to the others. Then we start playing the base drums for rhythm and speed, and then the solo percussion layers are created. This is a process of collaboration, discussion and creation. So I may say that everyone adds to the music and what you hear in the end is the result of the efforts coming from all of us. The people I work with now are really great musicians and they are very nice people as well, so I hope they will stay with Militia for a very long time.
Militia was founded by you and wind instrument player Jo
Billen in 1989. What musical and social views did you want to express?
Were you into anarchism at that time?
The first project was a composition called "Statement" in which Jo and I combined our anarchic social views with electronic and percussive music. Jo played a series of wind instruments, something I learned from him and I still use wind instruments now. The band was more like a platform for our political ideas and soon we started to invite others to play music with us and discuss our points of view. The ideological outcome resulted in lyrics and texts, even in a book, the combined artistic forces resulted in a series of LP's, 7 inches, CD's and so on, in which we tried to capture the social vision behind the project. Some of those collaborators stayed for quite a long time with Militia, but finally -as said- only Frank Van Hoof is a remaining factor. Most of the former band members stopped playing with Militia due to professional career, family, children... That's why the line up changed quite a lot over the many years of our existence. What we tried to express was the need for a society based upon a few anarchic principles and one that is in balance with our natural environment. We became a sort of 'green' anarchists I guess. In fact, such a society is based upon the human rights and personal freedom is an essential element in this kind of structure.
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