Mesh - That new Robbie Williams single definitely has got a meshy feel to it, he must still be a fan !

Bristol's electropop stars Mesh are back. Three years after their last studio album "We Collide" - and with one member less after the sudden departure of Neil Taylor leaving Mark Hockings and Richard Silverthorn as a duo - Mesh return on a different label (Dependent Records in Europe and Metropolis Records for North America) presenting the single "Only better" and the album "A Perfect Solution". The album was recorded before the band was actually signed and shows a band free of any compromise, but still delivering exquisite electropop pearls. Advised purchase via a legal store! Side-Line talked to Rich for some more insight in the band's recent moves. (By Bernard Van Isacker)

SL: "If we stay here" surely sums up your career in Mesh, especially the complete phrase which says "If we stay here, we die here". Standing still has never been your modus operandi so to speak. Was that also with that idea in mind that this song was written?

R: No not really, but I like the analogy (laughs). The phrase sums up a feeling between two people and the situation they are in. A feeling of "every day is the same" and an overwhelming desire to break away from that. A feeling we all have from time to time when our lives seems to have reached a point and is in need of a drastic change.

SL: The past few albums have been released under different umbrella's, do you think that Dependent/Metropolis will be the final halt for you?

R: It's really hard to say. I'd like to thinks so. As a band I think we have tried different approaches with different labels. When any band starts out they (like we were) are desperate just to get something out but then the harsh reality of sales comes in. I think we have been reasonably lucky with the people we have worked with and we have sold thousands of albums but there comes a time to try new things. Dependent and Stefan Herwig just seemed like a good honest move for us. We liked what he had to say, none of the usual record company bulls**t. He also knew all about our career so far and liked what we were about and doing. It is good to work with a label you can talk to on a level, we are all working as a team, which is great.

SL: Why did you choose for this option?

R: With"A Perfect Solution" we decided to write it without a label and then nearer completion look around and find a label with the right attitude, experience and skills to promote it, that's where Stefan Herwig and Dependent comes in. We have known Stefan for years and his work with other bands and what he does in this scene. Hayo Lewerentz, our manager, put us in touch with him and we had a few meetings and we liked what we heard. Stefan also has a kind of partnership agreement with Metropolis which means a simultaneous release in the US which is good for us.

SL: Many fans wonder why Mesh is not released by a major. I think that there is still a (mis?)conception living with many fans that your kind of electropop music would easily chart, what's your take on this? Having said that, "It's gone" is a perfect pop song.

R: We have always felt the same. We are very proud and love being part of the Dark/Gothic scene but have felt we could quite easily bridge the gap between that scene and the more commercial/alternative scene in the same way as bands like Muse, Prodigy, Garbage, Placebo and even DM. We are not saying we are going to be anywhere near as big as these bands but fit in in the same way they do. Bands like that can quite comfortably play big festivals alongside pop acts and still not look out of place.

SL: Is it in the end media charts that matter for a band like Mesh?

R: The key to success for a band like us is Radio. In the past we have had a reasonable amount of airplay which has helped but I think if people got to hear it on a regular basis it would be a different story. Yes the charts would also be a big boost, the media would certainly take notice if you were riding high in the charts. The last single "Only Better" entered the charts at 84 I think, without any major radio play, so you can only imagine what it could have done if it had.

SL: Then again, one of the first things I thought was, how can a Bristol band make such a brilliant album while a multi million dollar budget band like Depeche Mode doesn't even succeed in recording 9 decent songs for an album...

R: Oooo I'll have to go carefully here won't I? (Laughs) Is it about the money you plough into it? I'm not sure it is. We have always prided ourselves on writing, recording, producing and mixing ourselves, what you hear is part of us, we put our all into the recording of our albums and I think that shows. We don't have the budget to pay some overpaid producer trying to be the next big thing; it's an honesty thing with us. Perhaps when you have made your millions and become icons of a genre of music with adoring fans all across the globe the desire and need to raise the bar with each album fades. Depeche will always be Depeche and the fans will always love everything they do...good luck to them.

SL: With Neil leaving the band, didn't this make you wonder if it was all still worth it?

R: After the "We Collide" tour Neil surprised us by said that he wanted to leave the band. Initially Mark and I weren't sure if this was the end of mesh. We both thought long and hard what we wanted to do, but soon came to the conclusion that we wanted to take it further and that it had been such a big part of our lives that we wouldn't know what to do without it.

I have to add that we both felt let down by Neil's decision as there was still a second leg of the tour to do. This left us with a problem to find someone who could fill his position. That person was a good friend of ours, Geoff Pinckney. We had known Geoff for many years as one of his early bands Glasshouse had supported us and we had stayed friends since then. Geoff was also a very good musician and vocalist. We have done a few rehearsals and instantly knew it was going to work. The four of us have a great chemistry when we are all together and totally understand each other which is a good feeling.

Mark and I make music for no other reason than because we love it. It certainly isn't for the money (laughs).

Get your industrial music CDs at the following eBay sites:
	eBay USA	eBay België/Belgique
	eBay UK	eBay France
	eBay DE	eBay Nederland

SL: How stable is the Mesh machine these days? You at least added the Seize drummer to your line-up I noticed, why?

R: Our first drummer Gary also had to leave the band due to personal reasons so we had to find a replacement fast. The guy who runs the studio where we practise suggested Sean Suleman who was part of Seize and Trauma Pet. I had met Sean at an Apoptygma Berserk gig where Seize were supporting them and discovered that he lived in Bristol very close to us, so it seemed like a good opportunity to ask him if he was interested. After a couple of rehearsals we decided he was right for the job.

SL: I discovered a sound on this album which reflects a very confident band, you also experiment more with new song structures, using a few gimmicks that I would never have expected. What production ideas did you base yourself on for this release?

R: Mark and I never really have a master plan when we start work on a new album, we just write songs and music and see how it takes shape. I think possibly with this album I wanted to push it in a more energetic direction. With "We Collide" it had a commercial almost pop feel to it but with "A Perfect Solution" we wanted to go back to our roots but do it in a modern way, I think we have achieved that. It has a very strong electronic feel to it as we dug out a lot of our old analogue synthesisers but with the guitars and recording techniques it comes across with a more rockier attitude.

It is an album without any outside influence from a record company or any compromising within the band. I think Mark and I are on the same wavelength musically and this album depicts that.

SL: You've grown a long way since the very first demos we got at the Side-Line office, how do you look back at the very beginning knowing what you know now?

R: I'm sure everybody would do things differently if they had the chance again, but generally I feel quite proud of where we are today. If you would have told me back then that we would be travelling around the world playing festivals and shows and selling thousands of albums I would have never believed you. The desire to make it bigger is still there which keeps us going. We still get hundreds of comments and letters from people saying our songs have helped or moved them in some way in their lives....that is what it is all about, the compliments don't get any better than that.

SL: The past few years have revealed a not so positive (r)evolution for the music business. How far did it effect Mesh and what is your 'plan de guerre' ?

R: Yes, I think the music business has suffered greatly over the past five years and it has had its effects on us in the same way as everyone else. Record companies certainly are not putting in huge amounts of money to new artists for the fear of not recouping back. I guess you just adapt if you want to carry on doing what you love. We have been in the situation where the major labels have given us big-ish budgets to make an album but does it buy creativity? Not really, it just makes your life easier (laughs).

I just hope people continue to buy music in some way, be it on CD or iTunes. I'm scared music will become worthless. I think we all live in a short sighted society where certainly the younger generation thinks that music is free..

SL: In the UK the government and ISP's have been rather strict concerning illegal downloading, then again, a site like Spotify which is a legal alternative is doing great there. Have you been using it already and do you see it as a valid solution/replacement?

R: Funnily enough I have only recently been introduced to Spotify, I think if the listener has to pay then it can only be a good thing. There will always be that age old argument that you are reaching new people via the internet and if Spotify does that and you get some kind of royalty then great.

SL: Is Robbie Williams still a fan?

R: Ahh Bob as he's known to us (laughs)! I'm still waiting for him to cover one of our songs so we can retire but so far nothing. He is on a massive comeback campaign here in the UK at the moment. That new single of his has definitely got a meshy feel to it, he must still be a fan (laughs)!

SL: "Is it so hard" is a massive song, did you instantly know how to construct this track? It's full of sounds that create different atmospheres in the song, look at the heavy intro and the in between synth contrasting with the more acoustic like rest. Especially the drum swirl added here and there is excellent making the whole very organic. Whose ideas were that?

R: I really like the fusion of electronics and rock elements and this track demonstrates that. For me a lot of bands get it wrong when they mix the two. I have always tried to kind of confuse the listener in a way where they think synths are guitars, and then we put keyboards through guitar effects creating an overall blurring of sounds that gives off a certain raw energy. On "Is It So Hard" there are plenty of electronic and acoustic sounds combining to create this massive anthemic chorus.

SL: The outro of "Hold it together" is not something I would have expected from you in the past, very smooth though.

R: We love doing these little pieces of interspersed music to help change the mood from song to song, it's something we didn't do on "We Collide" but have again on "A Perfect Solution".

SL: You enlisted Julia Beyer (Technoir) for the track "Who says", I must say that this the most accomplished duet I heard so far, very powerful and extremely catchy. Who cam up with this idea to use both vocals this way?

R: With "Who Says" I wrote a piece of music for Mark to write some lyrics to. When he played me what he had written I instantly saw it as if it was an argument between two people. He was repeating the lines in the verses as if it was another person replying, and that's what gave us the idea of using someone else to sing the second line. We have known Julia for years and she has become a good friend. I also had recently remixed a track of Technoir (her band). I knew if I asked her to do it, she would do it quickly and professionally. I sent the track to her over the internet and 24 hours later it came back with her vocals on. It is the first time we have used another vocalist on our recordings but it really captured the mood we were trying to create!