You work a lot together and are friends in every day life, how did you meet each other and how did you start working together?
Mental Wreckage: “That's a long time ago, I believe around 2000. We met each other through the internet, because Maurice was busy restarting the FIX Records label, of which I was a huge fan. Later on we spoke each other on parties and hang out with each other more often.”
The Relic: “After a while we appeared to have the same vision on music, but also on everyday life. After the start of the Symp.tom label in 2004, our music went more and more to the same style and that's how we started to cooperate, while maintaining our own identity and sound. Despite the big living distance (I live in Dordrecht and Lody lives in Hengelo), we see and speak each other quite often.”
Mental Wreckage: “Beside our music cooperation, we were booked as Dual Mechanism last year and since then it happens more often that they book us together.”
How did you enter the world of industrial? Did you allready listen to it?
MW: “One day we saw a advert in the Hitkrant saying: “Wanted, Industrial DJ's”, we cut out the coupon imidiately and send it in... hahaha! No, I listened in the '90 mostly hardcore, with a preference for the monotonous and harder stuff. Around the the start of this decennium hardcore went in another direction, to a style I didn't like that much. I started looking for new things that were more to my liking and so I discoverd a completely different side of hardcore, which gave me a lot of inspiration. I especially liked Armageddon Project, N-Vitral, Rude Awakening en the new stuff of The Outside Agency. With mainstream hardcore it's more about melodies and sample usage, while industrial hardcore is more about the percussion, drive and atmosphere. It's not that I don't like mainstream hardcore, there are still releases that I like, but industrial is more “me”.”
TR: “I've always been a fan of the alternative sound. I used to be a huge Ruffneck-fan. Except for a few labels, I didn't like most of the music of that time. You liked Ruffneck or you didn't. The FIX label was the same. Dark sounds in hardcore have always atracted me. Labels like Cold Rush, Dance Ecstasy 2001, Ruffneck etc. That sound evolved more to the industrial sound. Also because there are more cross-overs. Now with internet, you get in touch with so much more different kinds of music, which broadens your vision. What industrial is, is hard to say. Real industrial for me are releases from Hymen label, AntZen and the stuff you hear on Machinenfest. The name industrial hardcore or alternative hardcore is a better name I think.”
Lody, you are together with Mute. the labelmanager of Symp.tom and you had the honor to host the industrial area on Nightmare Outdoor. Was this the moment you've been living to all year?
MW: “When we heard late last year that we could host our own area, we were very enthusiastic. Since then I've been looking forward to it. We made the line-up fit the sound of the label. Symp.tom was actually allready linked to Nightmare Outdoor, because of the “Symp.toms”compilation CD's that where released after each edition and a own area would be the next logical step. I'm very happy they've taken that step and I also hope that this will make the label a bit more accissible. But you have to like this kind of hardcore.”
Maurice, can you describe the difference between your The Relic and Zanthrax aliases and under which name you rather play?
TR: “My first vinyl was released under my alias Dark Earth in 1998. Before that I was already using the name Zanthrax when DJ'ing. The name The Relic came when I was producing for the FIX label. I was the only producer at that time and for alternation I used some other aliases. The Relic on FIX 17 sounded different then the Zanthrax releases before that. On Symp.tom everything was released as The Relic, because the name sounded better than Zanthrax. All my sounds started to become more alike, so I decided to use only one name. Whether it is hardtechno, doomcore, darkcore, industrial hardcore or acid. I think it is more recognizeable to use one name. I only use the name Zanthrax in the weekly radio show with Ben Harder.”
Can you describe some good and bad properties of each other?
TR: “Lody can be a little bit to perfectionistic every now and than. He's working for weeks on a track and when it's finished he doesn't like it anymore because he has heard it to often. A good property is his very unique own sound, recognizeable in the kicks and drive.”
MW: “I think Maurice produces sometimes a bit to fast. Sometimes he make's loads of tracks in a few weeks and do they not sound “finished” in my opinion. I would put a bit more time in details. For me that is more important than the ammount of tracks you make. A good property of Maurice is, that he makes a lot of different styles, what makes him very diverse.”
What can we expect from Mental Wreckage & The Relic in the future?
MW: “The new Dual Mechanism is comming. We are also working on a cool remix project, that I've been looking forward to for some years, but I'm not going to tell any more about that. It'll be around end this year probably. A few cooperation tracks of Moleculez, The Relic and some other artists are going to be released. Besides that I'm also working on a guest release for another label. I also have quite a few nice booking for this year.”
TR: “Many new productions from me aswell as Dual Mechanism. I'm also finishing some track together with Moleculez and Lody and there are some nice remixes coming. A lot of tracks are ready to be mixed. There are also some nice bookings. This will be solo and together with Lody. I also hope to make a sequel to the mix-CD “Symp.toms 4 – Life Below 20HZ”, since this one was received very well.”
I spotted an english translation of our interview in the nightmare-outdoor magazine.
