The Stranger
Mechanics, Nature and Noise
by Michael Hukin

"Do you dare to enter the black hole?" I sit opposite the three members of Hovercraft in their secret sound laboratory-cum-rehearsal space. The walls are covered in leopard-skin print; some kind of electronica music pumps from the front room. A booming voice emanating from a manically flashing pinball machine in the corner challenges me to enter the black hole. "You should put that in the article," suggests Campbell 2000, "that'd be cool."

The lead-up to this evening had me feeling as if I was tumbling into an unknown dimension. Hovercraft have a reputation for being a mysterious bunch, and mere mention of their name was enough to strike awe and disbelief into friends and colleagues. "Hovercraft NEVER do interviews" was so often whispered on the phone and emailed to my computer that for a while I didn't think it was going to happen. Phone calls, appearances at their shows, more phone calls...the weeks were passing with no set date. Then, finally, on a weekday afternoon in early November, I got a call from Campbell. Directions were given, a time was set. I was to meet the band just three days before they took off for a tour of Europe and Britain.

On a cold Sunday night I head out to Hovercraft HQ, feeling like some kind of secret agent. All I want is to interview one of the few groups whose shows I try never to miss. I haul all my equipment with me: tape recorder, large notepad, 12-pack of beer, truth-serum dart gun disguised as a ballpoint pen...

Within minutes of entering Hovercraft HQ, I'm feeling comfortable and at home. The place is the epitome of trashy rock 'n' roll cool. Campbell shows me the huge hole in the ceiling above the little kitchen, where water built up and burst through. In a whoosh of cold air, black jackets, and quick introductions, the other band members arrive. Mysterious? Unfriendly? I don't think so.

"I am Campbell 2000, from Seattle." Dressed in black, wearing glasses, and rolling his own smokes, Campbell looks more like a coffeehouse revolutionary than the lab-coat-wearing techhead in his promo photo. Campbell is dangerously intelligent, loaded with theories on any subject. His role in the band is to "generate a wide variety of atmospheres" using "conventional equipment and invented devices." "Sadie 7, from Chicago." Sadie reminds me of about half a dozen girls I went to college with, seemingly trippy and carefree but weighted down with serious issues inside her head. Sadie is responsible for bass, or "the lower band of the Hovercraft spectrum." "I'm Karl 3-30, and my numbers do have meaning. I'm the their member of the band, and I'm 30 years old..."The least vocal of the three, Karl pays total attention to everything that's said, throwing in the occasional line of complete clarity or total hilarity. Karl is accountable for "creating pulses" and "focused beats."

This is Hovercraft, a band some of you love and some of you will never understand.

For over three years they practiced sonic experiments in the seclusion of their Aurora laboratory, before taking their constantly evolving music to venues all over town. "We didn't think anyone would like us, to be honest," admits Campbell, "and some people just don't get it. But for every person who doesn't like us..."

"I think now people who come to see us are waiting for us to really lose it on stage," continues Karl, "like they're waiting for a car wreck." "And so are we. It'll happen on day," adds Sadie, "probably when we've been in here playing for three hours straight." She pauses, lights a cigarette. "I wonder sometimes, how can people like something so left-field?"

"Experimenting with sounds as we do, it's like alchemy," says Campbell, "not pure art in the accepted sense."

Sadie continues, "I see it as an escape from the boredom of daily life. He's definitely a scientist [nodding at Campbell], and in many ways it's more of an experiment, a psychology experiment affecting different people in different ways. One thing people can't say is, 'Ooh, I like THAT song.' They can like a certain bit of the music, but really, it's a reaction to the whole"--"the whole" being, of course, the performance mix of music and film that makes up the Hovercraft experience.

Subjective Visuals
As the rooms does dark, a hush settles over the crowd. Repetitive threads of sound begin uncurling from the stage, and a vertical white light tracks down behind the band. The music morphs gradually, bass notes surging; the light is hypnotic, and then with a grainy countdown the film begins. Images of astronauts, insects, mechanical switches, and human faces flash by. Some of the shots appear once, other flicker across the backdrop many times. The music seems to react to the visuals. It's fascinating, mesmerizing. There are no vocals, no breaks in the set to distinguish individual songs. There are a number of different edits of "The Hovercraft Movie," but they all end the same way: with a light bulb crashing to the floor, rudely jolting the audience from their forced meditation. It's often difficult to focus after witnessing a Hovercraft performance, which may explain why so many of the band who follow them onstage play to a less-than-full room.

"There are about eight variations of the film," says Campbell, "and they're getting progressively more chaotic. The one thing they all have in common is the light bulb crashing at the end." I ask if I'm wasting my time looking for meaning in the visuals. In particular, the juxtaposition of mechanics and nature jumps out at me. Campbell nods. "It's edited so people get from it what they want. Some people see it as dark, others may think it's just eye candy, some think it's sexual. Not so much a message in there as the way it makes you feel."

Will Hovercraft's music have less impact on their soon-to-be-released album (Which will be followed later by a CD), without the visuals to support it? "I've heard the album," Karl deadpans, "and it definitely doesn't lose any impact. It keeps your attention throughout." Cambpell expands: "People who need visuals make their own. Driving around in my car playing music, everything that speed past is visuals. People will use their own. Since we started, the music has climbed to new levels--the album will demonstrate that."

Not Wanted: Vocalist
"People ask if they can be out vocalist sometimes, strange people come up to us wanting to be our singer," says Sadie.

"At the Halloween show someone two feet from the stage was singing along to us, this strange 'bird bird birdy bird' lyric over and over." Campbell remembers, laughing. "People write down their dreams or visuals to put them to the music. One girl described this vision of a murderer while listening to us, stabbing and stuff--"

"From him plotting the murder to leaving the house," Sadie continues, "holding an ax!"

Campbell sighs. "It was way too through-out. Scary."

"We gave her number to the FBI," smirks Karl. "We don't want to be the next Judas Priest."

Sadie drags on her cigarette and remembers something. "Another girl was visualizing fluffy clouds and drops of rain, so we get both extremes." "Some people see happy visions, other see plague and death," says Campbell. "There was a bartender in Arizona who thought we were the best sex band he'd ever heard. Let me say that the rockets and tunnels are not meant in that way!"

As the room gets smokier, I bring up Hovercraft's infamous non-relationship with the press. Is it deliberate? Contrived? Campbell sighs. "It's not contrived. It's just...people trying to describe our music and getting it wrong can put people off, or attract the wrong audience." Individual writers acts as a filter between the artist and the audience, the band members fell, and who knows what kind of filter they are going to get? "So many writers are lazy and fall into the trap of comparing something to whoever-meet-whoever, and just get it wrong."

Lazy writers may be a reality, but speaking to the press is unavoidable on the road to commercial success. However, as Campbell lists the magazines and papers both here and in Europe that want to talk to Hovercraft, I begin to understand that commercial success is probably the least of Hovercraft's concerns. Alternative Press is due to meet them in Seattle, and British indie bible Melody Maker is waiting to talk to the group in London. Sadie seems saddened by the high-profile marketing of modern music. "You can see a video these days before you hear the record. You can know every little thing about a rock star within six months of them taking off. There's no gradual learning or accumulation of knowledge anymore. But videos, ugh! People worry too much about what they look like."

"The video should be another creative outlet for the band," responds Campbell, "not some video director." There are too many band lip-synching in elevators or sitting on couches, I add. "And there's always an old man or a kid," continues Campbell, as Sadie laughs. "There must be a generic script going around. There has to be an actor's guild of old wrinkled men, and all they do is take their shirts off in alternative videos and put a wizard's hat on."

On the way home, I wonder what kind of filter I'll be, and how England will take to Hovercraft--then I realize I never go to play any pinball.