Introduce yourself; who are you / what do you do?
I'm Tom, but my alias is Gross Prophet. I'm also a songwriter/singer in a band currently without a name, and contribute to a project called Errorhythm.

What is Gross Prophet? Can you give us a brief bio?
I first used a sequencer when I was about 20, when I lived with the guitarist of an industrial band, and their keyboarder brought over his gear. I fucked around with it a bit, and it was fun. I got a copy, and fucked around with it for a few years more and performed my first live gig (with Greg the keyboarder, also in Errorhythm) NYE 2006. After that, I've been playing gigs around Brisbane for fun and profit (very little profit).

How did you come up with the name / what does it mean?
I like puns. A LOT. Anyone who knows me will tell you this. So it seemed fitting that my alias be a pun. It's a pretty obvious metaphor as well. Think about it. If you want a clue, it's got three meanings (well, that I intended).

What do you hope to achieve with / through the medium of music. What CAN be achieved?
World peace. Good will to all men. Drugs and bitches.
I see music as a release and a kind of meditation. I also see it as a platform for speakers with something worthwhile to say. Unfortunately these days too many people talk about their feelings in music, and not enough about the things which really matter in this world. It's a big ol' "me me me" fest in music these days. That shits me, no end.

What inspires you to make music?
Anything can inspire me, as long as I'm feeling excitable at the time. The world around me doesn't seem to inspire me that much. If I'm feeling inspired, I'll draw on the world around me, but like I said, it's whatever is handy.
 
Apparently breakcore is a really big genre (not that I would know, being from USA). How do you keep your music fresh, hard, interesting and not sounding completely like Venetian Snares when there are so many other artists to compete with?
I think a lot of originality is born out of failure to to emulate. That's pretty much how I make my sounds. Usually it's failure in the sense that I'll start trying to copy something, then run in a completely different tangent I find along the way.

Speaking of Venetian Snares, when are you going to drop an album?
When I have enough tracks with enough conceptual continuity to hold them together as a solid piece of work, without being boringly congruent all the way through. They'd also have to all be good, which is gonna take a while.

I know that you’re also a part of the project Errorhythm. How does the process of writing differ between Gross Prophet and Errorhythm?
Usually I'll do beats and Greg will do synths, then we'll pick at each others work for a week or two, then undo the changes the other made, then they'll get re-done, and we'll finish it. Pretty much the same way GP stuff gets done, but less "You're doing it wrong!!!" getting screamed.

What do you think the future of electronic music is, perhaps specifically breakcore? Where is there left to go? WHERE!>@>!>@>!@>!>>!!>>!!>!
The only reason I've stuck with electronic music this hard is because I know that we'll never be able to predict it's course. I hope it becomes more purposeful though. Nothing wrong with music for fucking-shit-up's sake, but I get tired of aimless fun.

What are the top albums that inspire you?
At the moment they'd be: Dead Kennedy's Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, Primus' Pork Soda, Aphex Twin's 51-13 Singles Collection, Venetian Snares' Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972 - 2006, 311's Music, Nam Shub Of Enki Meets Kiki Ill In The Valley Of Mood, edIT - Crying Over Pros For No Reason, Textures' Polars. I can't list them all.

What are the top movies that inspire you?
Movies don't inspire me, they're a holiday. I like Hong Kong action flicks, sci-fi and horror.

What are the top books!!!?
Same as above, but mostly sci-fi/fantasy.

What is currently on the Gross Prophet agenda?
Getting a few tracks for the band finished, getting an album's worth of worthwhile material together, and getting drunk as much as I can in between.

If you had to pick a favorite piece of industrial machinery what would it be?
The things that make circuit boards. Circuit board machines.

If Gross Prophet was a movie, what would the plotline be?
I don't want to ruin it for you.

Any final words?!?!!!??
STFU NUB!!

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Wounds of the Earth wishes Gross Prophet (and all of your damned sideprojects) much success in the future.

- by [.d4n b4rr3tt.]

july 2007