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02 April, 2000

An Interview with
Meat Distributors


Photo by Fred Hale -- l998


This Email Interview was
Graciously transcribed from tape by
Mark Campbell.
Questions and feature article by
Kim Alexander.
April l998

Who is Meat Distributors?

Dan Dale: (Drums)
Lance Hayes: (Vocals)
Tom Atwell: (Guitar)
Chris Hayes: (Percussion)
Mark Campbell: (Keyboards)

And what do they have to say? Read Below...

Last Sigh: Could you tell me a little history about Meat Distributors? You are currently in Seattle, Washington. Are you all from Seattle originally or? How Long have you been together?

Dan Dale: We started in 1995. We're all from Seattle, except Tom.
Tom Atwell: I'm from Boston. I'm the new guy in the band.
Lance Hayes: Dan, Mark, Chris and I have been playing together about six years.
Dan Dale: It was more of an experimental electronic band that evolved into Meat Distributors in about 1995.


Last Sigh: Where did you get the unique name Meat Distributors?

Chris Hayes: Off of a truck.
Lance Hayes: Chris and I were driving along in Seattle and we saw this truck for this company that had the words "meat" in big red letters. And we thought that would be a great name for an album, or an EP or something. And then this other car moves out of the way and we see the word "distributors."
So Meat Distributors it was.

Last Sigh: There are five members in the band, but is there one person who deals with managing the group mainly? Who might be the "spokesperson"- the person who negotiates or does the public relations, or does everyone in the band help with this?

Tom Atwell: I think we all do our own parts. Lance does most of the coordinating and special projects, but we all do our own parts.
Chris Hayes: Lance puts all the stuff together. Tom works on the booking aspect for getting shows. Mark and his wife Katie work on the graphic design for the albums and what not. Dan works on the web page and is the treasurer.
Lance Hayes: And Chris does the drum programming and maintains the database. We all have roles and we're all directly involved with making the project work.
Dan Dale: We're hoping to expand into having a manager in the near future.

Last Sigh: For the people reading this that don't know your music, could you describe what you believe to be the sound(s) of Meat Distributors, short of pigeon- holing yourselves into a genre?

Dan Dale: People are usually impressed with the original sound of it.
Lance Hayes: We're sort of a part of the wholeelectronic-industrial movement out of Seattle...
Mark Campbell: But we don't sound anything like it.
Chris Hayes: We have kind of a standard industrial feel with the keyboards and everything, but we don't have the typical industrial "growl" singing. It's a much more melodic sound as opposed to a monotone, screaming kind of sound.
Mark Campbell: It's more song oriented.
Lance Hayes: I'm really into Peter Murphy, Depeche Mode, and other influences that are still darkwave and dark music stuff, but they're not strictly industrial. I like a lot of industrial too, and that's where I borrow a lot of influences from that. It's a combination of dark-music stuff.

Last Sigh: Are there any philosophical foundations or ethical motives that prompts your music?

Tom Atwell: I'd like to see more people embrace the darkness in the music and have it kind of reflect the darkness in themselves that we all have.
Lance Hayes: I was actually a vegetarian for a long time but I can't really say that I still am. So the name doesn't have quite the juxtaposition that it used to have.

Last Sigh: You have recently been playing live in Seattle. What do you enjoy most about playing live? What is the most difficult issue for you in playing live shows?

Tom Atwell: The energy.
Dan Dale: The ability to get more people into the project and listen to the music.
Mark Campbell: I like reinterpreting the songs, adding new stuff.
Dan Dale: The live experience is so different than the CD, it's a different sound.
Tom Atwell: The difficult part is that every place we play sounds different.
Mark Campbell: The person running the sound can really screw us.
Lance Hayes: That's been a problem in the past. But now we have our own guy, Eddie Sams, who comes to our shows to run sound for us.
Dan Dale: The Fenix has been really supportive. We've played there three times recently, but frankly there are not a lot of other opportunities to play in Seattle.
Lance Hayes: Veronica and Rick have done a great job at the Fenix by keeping it darkwave/gothic/industrial on Thursday nights.

Last Sigh: You also recently played live with SMP at the Fenix - what were some of the more memorable events of that show for you? Any downfalls?

Lance Hayes: I thought it was pretty cool that they have a woman in their band. And it was cool to play with a band that has a national following.
Tom Atwell: It was a good experience. They were all really nice people.
Lance Hayes: It was a great night for a show because it was really intimate. There wasn't a lot of pre-press about the show, so the people who showed up were totally into it.

Last Sigh: What other bands have you played with live?

Mark Campbell: Most recently we've played with Noxious Emotion, Off World...
Lance Hayes: Two Minutes Max, Pin Go In, SMP.

Last Sigh: What is your gear list for a live show? For studio work?

Mark Campbell: I play a MicroMoog, a Korg DW-8000, and an Ensoniq EPS.
Tom Atwell: I'm playing a '77 Gibson Les Paul Artisan, a 1961 Gibson ES 335 through an ART DST A35 Rulesbreaker with an ART X11 foot controller.
Dan Dale: I'm playing Yamaha recording series acoustic drums with Paiste cymbals.
Chris Hayes: I play the Roland SPD 11 and acoustic floor toms.
Dan Dale: We use DAT backing tracks for the bass lines and some of the drums and backing keyboard parts.

Lance Hayes: For studio work I have a full 16 track Alesis ADAT production facility with DAT mixdown, called Hell's Gate Studios, that I do recording projects for Meat Distributors and other bands, including sexwithsarah. I'm working with them to finish up their new release "Insert Thrust Repeat."
Dan Dale: We've got a wide variety of outboard gear.
Lance Hayes: For a lot of the keyboard tracks that are on the album I use a D-50, an Ensoniq Mirage, Sequential Circuits 6 Track, and a Super Jupiter. Also our friend, Eddie, has allowed us to sample his Roland System 100 that will end up a lot on the new album.
Mark Campbell: We also have an Oberheim OB-Xa.
Dan Dale: For recording we also use a Space Muffin electronic drum kit, a Roland Acupad, Alesis D4, Roland R8, SPD 11, HR-16, and an Octapad.
Lance Hayes: For microphones we use and AKG 414 for vocals. And I run all that through a couple of Yamaha 1602 line mixers.

Last Sigh: You are cutting a new release soon. Can you tell us about it?

Lance Hayes: It is initially being worked on as an independent release but there are a couple of labels interested in the release. It should be out this Summer or at the latest in the Fall. It will be a full length album with a tentative title "Flesh of the Terminus." Sinseven from sexwithsarah may end up doing some backing vocals.
Chris Hayes: It will be all new material with maybe a couple of remixes.

Last Sigh: Does this new release have a similar sound as your latest CD: Gimp? Or are you taking on a new direction at all?

Lance Hayes: Yes, we are taking on a new direction. Our last EP was very guitar driven and the new material will have some of the same type of stuff. But we're also going to expand into more varied territory. I'd like to see some ambient, dance, and electronic flavored stuff, all dark, along with some other songs
that are more darkwave acoustic type of arrangements. It will still have the Meat Distributors very punchy dance industrial sound that we've had on our first two EPs.
Dan Dale: With the opportunity to do a full length album were hoping to expand upon the sound that we've done for the EPs, and to include some experimentation into acoustic and further electronic dance type stuff. We'll have an opportunity to put more material on a disc and to expand on that.

Last Sigh: Are you involved with working with any other bands?
In what capacity?

Tom Atwell: We're all a part of The Industrial Coalition which includes several local industrial bands.
Lance Hayes: As I mentioned, I'm currently working with sexwithsarah in an engineering and production capacity in my studio. And we're working on their full length album "Insert Thrust Repeat" which you reviewed the demo version of in your
April edition of Last Sigh:. We've just got done mixing some of it and it sounds fantastic.

Last Sigh: You have a pretty nice looking web site. Does someone in the band manage it? Do you have any sound clips of your music there for your visitors?

Dan Dale: It's run and maintained by Jay Liu who does a great job with it. Also our web site now features a new photo collection by Fred Hale entitled "Damaged Selections." We have some WAV files there currently but we're hoping to expand to include Real Audio formats in the near future.
Lance Hayes: They may be up by the time this goes to press.

Last Sigh: That leads me to ask you: how do you feel about people using artists' music in MP3 format, bootlegging entire CDs or tracks throughout the net community?

Lance Hayes: We don't feel it's appropriate. If someone wants to put out thirty seconds of a song that way and you can make a tape of it or maybe even two minutes of the song as a demo or if they want to release a whole demo for free that relates to a larger album sale, that's cool. But only if it's controlled by the artist. If it's other people doing it on the web illegally, that's not cool.

Last Sigh: Obviously with only two EPs out, your music doesn't sustain you. What do you do for a living outside of Meat Distributors?

Tom Atwell: I'm Kyser Sorcze.
Lance Hayes: Money laundering.
Dan Dale: Extortion.
Chris Hayes: Off-track betting.
Mark Campbell: Amway.

Last Sigh: If you could pick one artist you would like to be in the studio with, whom would that be?

Tom Atwell: Ministry or Laibach.
Mark Campbell: Baby Spice.
Lance Hayes: Cocteau Twins or Spawn Ranch.
Chris Hayes: Frontline Assembly.
Dan Dale: 16 Volt.
Mark Campbell: Actually it would be nice to have Flood produce our next album.

Last Sigh: If you had a day off to do anything you wanted, what would you do? If you could open for any band, who would that be?

Tom Atwell: On my day off I'd sleep. I'd like to open for Depeche Mode.
Lance Hayes: KMFDM, maybe?
Mark Campbell: Devo.

Last Sigh: What books have you read or films have you seen recently? Does film or the literary world influence your music at all?

Dan Dale: The film for The Butcher Boy is out.
Lance Hayes: I was going to go see that tonight.
Chris Hayes: I can't read.

Last Sigh: What if any vision do you have for Meat Distributors for the future?

Dan Dale: Label interest, touring, more people listening to the music.
Lance Hayes: We want to reach a wider audience of people. We don't want to sell out doing what we're doing. We want to remain true to what we've been doing for the last two years.

Last Sigh: Any advice for bands starting out?

Tom Atwell: Be true to yourselves.
Mark Campbell:: Write good music.
Lance Hayes: If it's possible make sure your recordings sound good. That's a big thing that a lot of bands miss. It's really important that the stuff you release sounds good because that may be the only chance that people have to hear you. That's what has helped us so much; having access to good recording equipment.

Last Sigh: Is there anything you would like to add that hasn't been covered?

Lance Hayes: Thank you Last Sigh:, especially Kim Alexander, for having us as your featured artist.
Tom Atwell: Thanks to Paul Aleinikoff at C-89 FM for playing our music!

Last Sigh: Yes, and thank YOU for doing this feature with us. Special thanks to Mark Campbell for transcribing this from tape.

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