Endif is a solo project from Jason Hollis. It started in 1991 utilizing a rag tag pile of equipment. With that he used what limited resources he had to create and shape his sound which ultimately transformed into aesthetic and heavily layered music, mixing hard Industrial, Powernoise, IDM & EBM, plus more. It's hard to classify Endif into one genre, all I know is it makes you want to blast out your eardrums & dance...or rather stomp out onto the dancefloor. Endif has headlined or supported a fair amount of electronic / dark acts; Monstrum Sepsis, Combichrist, Spahn Ranch, Hate Dept., Stromkern, Pisstake, Switchblade Sympony & Tonikom to name a few. He's been live support for Terrorfakt, Caustic, Manufactura, Cervello Elettronico & more. Besides a hectic workload Endif's debut CD, Meta was released on Crunch Pod in '06. His next CD, Carbon will be mastered by Justin of Pneumatic Detach and released on Tympanik Audio...a new single will be out soon. So keep an eye, or ear, out for that! You can find Endif at www.myspace.com/Endif or www.endif.org/.

Interview by Melissa Pierce

DTC: Hello, thanks for taking some time out for this. Before I start with the questions could you give a brief overview of how Endif began?

Jason Hollis: Endif began in '91 with me experimenting with half-broken music equipment I got cheap from pawn shops and yard sales. Reel to reel, distortion pedal, delay pedal, multi effects box, awful lo-fi drum machines. Having such a limited tool set, I was forced to improvise and explore. Early attempts were...really bad. Eventually it was worth listening to and I was better able to manipulate and orchestrate the experiments. I still experiment. It's really the heart of the project.

DTC: What kind of impact do you think Endif has made in the electronic music genre? Are you to where you want to be? Do you think anyone is ever "where they want to be?" Is that goal even attainable? Yeah. I'm getting philosophical now for some reason.

Jason Hollis: I don't know what kind of impact it's had. I like to think that it's been positive. Maybe opened up a wider audience to less formulaic music? I don't think that most people will ever even see "where they want to be" in today's music industry, if that means reaching the top of their genre or whatever. Most musicians have no chance of making a living off their music. Sad but true. But I've been part of way more awesomeness than I ever expected, so it's all been beyond expectations.

DTC: Do you ever get stage fright? If so, how do you conquer it?

Jason Hollis: A little. At first it was almost crippling, all I could do to get up on stage in front of a few dozen people. Now I'm more comfortable, it's much easier to just feed off that energy instead of being overwhelmed by it. Sometimes I still choke on it a little, but you just keep plugging away and work through it. At the last Reverence festival in Madison, in '07, I was already up there and had played my set and went to say something and this stabbing pain lanced through my head and I couldn't focus at all. Terribly embarassing. I don't know if that was booze or nerves or a minor aneurism, but maybe that counts? Dunno.

DTC: I was going to say that your music has so many layers, you can *feel* the texture, feel the emotion...then I read your profile where it pretty much said the same thing: "Emphasis is placed more upon energy, emotion, context and texture than on stale commercial formulas, towering arrangements or catchy pop hooks." And that got me thinking, where do you pull it from? Is what you create based on what you feel and what you've experienced? It seems that you put a lot of care and time and thought into each sound that you make.

Jason Hollis: Well, some of it is the massive self-generated sound set I've compiled over the years. Since day one I've been recording, as best I can, every experiment that holds any promise starting with cassette tapes and reel to reel. I bought one of the first Roland hard disk recorders, which I still have, so then I was able to multitrack instead of just flat stereo tracks. Eventually I was able to afford computers, and started going back over the old stuff and digitizing that too. And the process continues, so new, old, all together in one big sonic mulch pile. 30+ gigs and growing. Never toss anything. I cut these sounds up, name and classify them, and use the good bits when I start building a track.

So there's that.

But I do tend to form these context trees around things, places, people, whatever. I guess everyone does, right? Sort of little directory structures of information about whatever it is? That's one of the things I try to convey in sound. Hyper-nested contextuality. Every interpretation is correct. Or something. Showing my acid-casualty-ness now. Bill Hicks is calling, he wants his rant back. Moving along.

DTC: What gear or programs [software] do you require to make your music? Explain the bits and pieces you put together to make a whole.

Jason Hollis: Pretty much everything starts with the sonic arsenal I mentioned above. At first I used sampling workstations to assemble tracks, such as the EPS16+, ASR 10, and W30. Later I did the same thing in computer based DAW programs, such as Digital Performer, Fruity Loops, and now Ableton Live. It's so much easier to simply save everything in one file instead of having to load or replicate 20 patches on different hardware to recreate something and lead it further down the path.

DTC: The list of artists that you've worked with is impressive. Who has been your favorite? If it's even possible to narrow it down...

Jason Hollis: Well, Caustic has been a huge presence. I've been helping Matt perform since, I believe, his second show, and vice versa since my move to Madison 3 years ago. Ditto for CTRLSHFT. The three of us sat down one day and decided we'd support each other's efforts in any way possible, and it's worked out well for all of us. Playing 'Satellite' with CTRLSHFT gave me goosebumps every time. A lot of artists have presences online, and many of us tend to interact freely in that medium, so a lot of remixes and collaborations happen that way. Another big interaction point is shows. Mika and Nicolas of This Morn' Omina were super nice, ditto for Philip and Tim of Synapscape, Andy LaPlegua, David of Cervello Elettronico, Ben of Terrorfakt. So many nice people you meet back stage or wherever, or that sometimes ask you to play with them at this or that gig. Honor. Privilege. Fun.

DTC: Speaking of "artists that you've worked with" are you allowed to expound on the now historical "KMFDM/Caustic" debacle? I seem to remember you were involved? What happened!?

Jason Hollis: Oh jeez. Long story. Very embarassing. Part of me wishes everyone would forget...

Caustic was lucky enough to get on the bill for 5 or 6 dates of the KMFDM / Combichrist tour, mostly thanks to the pillar of awesomeness that is Andy, who Matt had brought to Madison several times, and with whom we had played with elsewhere, such as the LA Industrial Festival. The live support personnel for these dates was myself on drums / controller / sampler, and Brian and Katja from the Gothsicles on keys, and of course, Matt up front where he belongs. The first show was Chicago, at House of Blues. We made it there on time, waited while the headliners got their situations squared away. Combichrist was kind enough to share their dressing area with us. As is common, we got just enough time to set up and sound check. Business as usual. Then the curtain (!) came up and suddenly there's hundreds of people waiting to be entertained. Holy shit. So we rocked it out and they loved it! Fanale owned that stage like a pro. Kids that had never heard of Caustic were singing "Emmanuel Lewis Handjob" while I showered them with sparks from a disc sander and it was just pure awesome. Someone tossed up some (mercifully clean) tighty whiteys. Then it was over and we hauled our stuff off the stage and the drinking commenced.

Both headliners were amazing, and the crowd only got bigger and more into it as the night went on.

I, unfortunately, kept getting more and more plastered. I started tossing flyers into the crowd for the Kinetic Noise Festival we were playing in a few weeks. One, apparently, found its way on stage during KMFDM, and this was the last straw. No one said anything to us about it at all that night. We drove home high on a big win. Sasha called Matt the next day and told him we were off the tour, and that it was my fault and why. I was crushed. Matt was disappointed, to say the least, but didn't kick my dumb ass to the curb.

It's still simultaneously one of the highest and lowest points.

DTC: What is the Thirdwave Collective? I keep seeing the name pop up in reference to anything to do with you.

Jason Hollis: Thirdwave used to be a pre-myspace online collective of artists from around North America that worked together to promote and support each others' projects. It was administered by myself and Jason Prost from MindFluxFuneral, our webmin. This was pre-Myspace and LJ, so we had to make our own forums and site. I eventually got tired of putting so much energy into it and it decayed in the absence of leadership. The site is still up at http://www.thirdwavecollective.com , but it's spam riddled and dormant. Still some interesting stuff up on there. But in many ways, the whole Web 2.0 thing makes it superfluous. I think. Someone prove me wrong, I dare you!

DTC: For the random question of the day: I know you and your girlfriend are pet lovers. I love them too! How many pets do you have now?

Jason Hollis: Fiance, now, actually.=) We have 5 cats and four little dogs, all rescues. Animals live in the moment, they love you no matter what, and they need people that will return that love, so we try to spread as much of that around as possible. I encourage you all to adopt a pet, if you have a place in your life for one. And I do mean life. Pets are forever.

DTC: What is your opinion of American Idol, and of the current state of pop music in general?

Jason Hollis: Never touch the stuff. Closest I get is some of the better Indie rock, like Flaming Lips or Band of Horses. Pure genius, and something I'll never be able to come close to doing.

DTC: Differing from that, what is your opinion of the state of electronic music right now?

Jason: Electronic music is both exciting and disappointing, today, in turns. There's an explosion of creativity right now with equipment prices down near bedrock which allows anyone to express anything they want. There's a lot of this that is simply brilliant. Unfortunately, since anyone can make and push anything there is less of a filter so a lot of mediocre or uninspired material floods out as well. Anything that becomes popular, any successful formula, gets cloned ad infinitum 'til there's an infinite array of goblin trance or VNV clones or whatever the flavor of the moment is, stretching off into the distance like when you put two mirrors together. It's always been this way, emulation is easier than innovation. But with no filters, not even a North American print mag servicing the genres, nothing separating the wheat from the chaff, it can be difficult to find the good stuff sometimes. All I can say is keep looking, it's out there!

DTC: What can we expect from Endif in the future?

Jason: Well, I recently signed a deal with Tympanik Audio to release my next CD, which I'm calling Carbon. (Hopefullly I didn't just tap into Mr Shear's brain again!) Justin of Pneumatic Detach is doing the mastering, and maybe a remix. Kostas of Subheim is doing the artwork and layout. So that's all exciting. There may be a short run special edition with hand made packaging. Beyond that, who knows. Maybe a retrospective release of some sort...I have a stupidly large back catalogue that no one has heard...

DTC: If this were the last statement you were ever allowed to say, what would it be?

Jason: Live like it's your last day. Apparently it's mine.

*static*

See also: Review: Carbon

Tympanik Audio