[Techno]logy: Electro jam band gets glitchy

By Richie Essenburg / Staff

Sons of Glitches is a new techno band that has been stimulating crowds, tingling ear drums, and making more than a few heads turn in and around Kennesaw and the greater Atlanta area. You heard right, techno band, not something you might usually associate with techno or electronic music. The band name should tell you a little something about what they do, what they might sound like, even if you’ve never heard a note.

Electronic music as a whole may not even be something you have conventional ideas about already, not something for which you can compare a new idea to in the first place. Let’s get one thing straight: Sons of Glitches is not your everyday techno, electronic music takes a serious stance when it comes to music making and musical skill, and these guys know how to do it right.

The three of them, Benjamin Hopper, Ryan Gibson, and Sean Chancey, have been kickin’ it for some time now in the techno scene. Basically, this isn’t their first rodeo. Years of playing techno and being a part of the scene sit comfortably at their belt. Sean, Ryan, and Benjamin know what it takes to play the music that makes you “sweat it out.” If you’d like to hear the same old sing-a-longs or maybe layback in your easy chair, then this isn’t for you. If you do like hearing something you’ve never heard before, something actually new, then these three  techno masters will take you there.

Their live shows are some of the most impressive, dynamic, and interactive performances around. With three Apple computers (all with the bright apples all aglow), a set chords and wires to get tangled up in, and an intense, in-your-face sound, these guys will be sure to make the most shy-whiteboy-wallflower dance. Or, if nothing else, you won’t be able to take a listen and not bob your head.

I sat down with Benjamin and Sean to get the skinny on the newest installment to the techno world: Sons of Glitches!

Talon: Could you introduce us to the name of the band and possibly how the idea came about, if you’re suggesting anything about the music you’re making, or suggesting something else about technology?

Ben: Well, glitches, not like the standard glitch you hear with computer failure, but more like auditory noise, the glitch itself, its almost like noise destruction, noise experimentation. So, as for Sons of Glitches, I think it’s almost implied that we come from, sort of, the other side of music–we experiment not just with the noise but a lot of instrumentation, maybe things that wouldn’t often sound like music.

Talon: So you could say that the name goes with scene or the music directly?

Ben: Yeah it goes with the genre and really the style of music…

Sean: Plus people seem to remember it pretty easily.

Ben: We come from disorder in a way, even though that may not be easy for some people, I think there’s a little something larger we’re trying to say with the name and through our music.

Sean: We’re all definitely weird in our own way.

Ben: It’s really not like we’re normal kids listening to or making normal music. We’ve [as a band] really, naturally sort of adhered to this sort of sound, it’s what we relate to musically, maybe otherwise.

Talon: So you experience this music in an organic way? Even though most people don’t normally associate something organic with this sort of music.

Ben: There is a definite organic element to start with. I’d say it’s just bound by technology.

Sean: It’s nearly impossible to appreciate the music until you start trying to write it and make it yourself. Then, you start to develop the kind of music you want to DJ and it seems like it goes from there. I know, personally, when I started on electronic music–when I was little and I would play video games–so I did grow up with pure electronic sound, so my first jump to music was sort of like, “well, ya know, I wanna hear some techno music,” and just never really came out of it.

Talon: So, there’s definitely a learning through making, with this kind of music in particular, maybe even more so than if you play guitar and you listen to bands with really talented guitar players?

Ben: Yes and no. It’s completely the same art form. Maybe most people, when they hear techno they might usually throw it aside because it’s not something they’re necessarily used to hearing. This music doesn’t just make itself. There is still and maybe even more so an effort in making this music.

Sean: Completely. This stuff is orchestrated. Like waaayyy orchestrated. But, this doesn’t take away, I think, at all from an organic aspect. Tons of people that make this music record organic sounds, like rain drops…or something else, turn it into a beat, and there you go.

Talon: So, techno in general and especially what you guys as a band are doing, really does fly in the face of some of those people who critique what you’re doing as a “just push play” kind of music?

Ben: Well there are those guys that do “just push play,” there’s even a website that is dedicated to call those guys out. And what we do, the music that you hear, would really be impossible to do without there being a live element to the music.

Talon: Could you explain the dynamic in your songwriting between each other as musicians and maybe that process as a whole?

Ben: Well, the thing is that, unlike some other bands, we are not confined to one instrument, but all three of us have limitless instruments at our fingertips.

Sean: The only way you can’t play something is if you don’t have it on your computer. When we write songs, it’s like our imaginations can just go wild and translate right into the computer, then with each other. The amount of pre-planning is ridiculous because there really is so much that could go wrong, whether it’s from all the connections or your computer just quits the program. So before hand, in our songwriting and playing live, you’ve got to have everything set and ready to go.

Ben: This kind of thing feeds into our live performance too. Often, we don’t know exactly what we’re going to be doing or what were going to play, or even what specific equipment we’ll be using…

Sean: We actually try and angle our computers so people can actually see our computers and what going on, what we’re doing to make the sound that they are hearing.

Ben: Techno is like having 30 metronomes and never being able to get out of sync once. Never getting that off-beat miss. If you do, it’s a total flop.

Sean: So the skill is there, maybe even more so than playing guitar or drums. Once it’s set in motion, you better hope it all comes together.

Talon: This is when you’re song writing or live?

Sean: Both really.

Ben: Pretty much like being an electronic Jam-band (laughs). Still somewhat different, in that, we use computers that have a program that we link controllers to, then we manage those sounds, that audio…put it all together individually and then together.

Sean: Kind of like a giant puzzle. Your mind is constantly focused on this making and managing of sound.

Ben: It’s funny, though, as original and creative as we make our performance, sometimes, in some venues, you’ve just gotta play “Baby Got Back.”

Sean: On the other side of things, playing this music is really intricate. All the controls, knobs, and wires make for quite the performance.

Ben: Yeah, completely. That is something that we make a point to steer clear of. We like to provide something visual to what people are hearing.

Talon: So in a way you are working with technology, it is what allows you to make your music, but you are also working against it?

Sean: Yeah, the technology allows us to do a lot, but we are always waiting for a new tool, a new controller, a new piece of technology that will allow us to make a certain sound, a certain kind of music.

Ben: Even a new controller or device can set off a whole new wave of genre in techno.

Talon: So maybe it doesn’t always come together. Ever have any “glitches?”

[They laugh.]

Sean: Oh, yeah, completely. Practice is pretty much all trouble shooting.

Ben: Practice especially is about 80% glitch, and 20% playing.

Sean: And playing live is always running a risk.

Ben: Some weird stuff has happened. Like my computer shutting down mid-song. Or, once, a weird blue line just appeared across my computer screen.

Sean: My programs have continually quit throughout the night and you’ve got to restart them and get them going again before the song fades out.

Ben: We’re laughing now, in retrospect, but it’s a hell of an ordeal live. Sometimes you’ve only got 8 seconds to get it all working again.

Sean: It’s been cool though, here and there. You got a hippie crowd and they’re like, “Whoa they’re really experimental!” So it works to your advantage sometimes even when you might not expect it.

Ben: There are wires everywhere. We use up to giant surge protectors, and almost every port on our computers is filled up.

Talon: Any larger aesthetic that you’re going for as a band?

Sean: Techno in general isn’t especially concerned with image, and we as a band aren’t really either. We’re definitely more dive bar than we are super-club.

Ben: It’s almost like, “if you play it, they will come.”

Sean: Especially with something as underground as techno is and can be.

Ben: Really, we just love playing. Not too much about money making but about packing out a house party and getting people to dance and sweat it out.

Sean: Totally.

Talon: Any larger cultural phenomenon you think happens with techno in general or more specifically with your music?

Sean: Well, some people are scared of what they’ve never heard before and techno has evolved in its own for such a long time that a lot of people might just hear some of the most popular stuff that just seems to bubble up to the top, but so much about techno has to do with making and hearing something you’ve never heard before. I think it requires people that really do want to open up and experience something new.

Ben: You could say that electronic music, or the whole technological scene is one that’s more prevalent now, but really, it’s what we’re into. And we’re into it so much, genres, the scene itself changes so much, it’s really hard to say even for ourselves, much less for other people that are listening.

Tags: Richie Essenburg