Our next spotlight is on Chester-based alt-electronic act, The Ladder. We chat to vocalist Addz Milner about the music and inspirations.
S] How have your inspirations changed over the years you’ve been building The Ladder?
A] “Inspirations wise has stayed fairly solid on the gloomy electronic side of things, more recently I’ve been jumping on the witch-house bandwagon and also checking out some of that new wave of Joy Division inspired bands like White Lies and Mode Moderne. My big change has been, I’ve isolated myself from listening out for current trends in the Industrial and EBM scenes, the idea was to try come up with something completely of my own without the knowledge of what people expect if that makes sense?”
S] Infest. Good work! How are you looking forward to that?
A] “Honestly and truthfully it’s a dream come true, I’ve always wanted to perform at Infest since first going 2006. It’s one of them things that you have to tick off your list as an alternative-electronic musician! By time Infest comes around we hope to have our second EP out which I can reveal will be five-track concept named ‘Cirque’, the concept we’re keeping to ourselves to see what the fans can make of it!”
S] What are your thoughts on the electronic and industrial scene in the UK right now?
A] “Over the last couple of years I had felt very uninspired and bored of the industrial scene, it was nothing to do with the quality of the acts at all it just wasn’t me anymore, this is one of the reasons why I isolated myself while finishing off ‘Charade’. The bits and pieces I have heard from various artists this year has been interesting, more people are trying to think outside the box here in the UK and that is really exciting for me.”
S] How has the attitude you have towards live performance changed?
A] “Live performance is still very image based for me, you have to look like a band rather than random people playing music together, also it’s still a must that we are playing as much live elements as we possibly can. We’ve stepped up the live shows I’ve ditched my trusty Nord Lead 3 and now perform with a Misa Kitara, Danny [Dellamorte, vocals] has taken to using a TC Voicelive pedal to control his own effects on the fly and we hope to incorporate Kat playing bass guitar in for the upcoming shows we have. We’ve always found being stuck behind racks of keyboards looks awesome but in reality limits your ability to put on a good show and actually perform so the racks had to go!”
S] Talk us through the inspirations behind ‘Charade’, and what experiences led up to its creation?
A] “Throughout the writing and recording process I traveled around Europe and over to New York City, the sights and experiences really gave me a fresh drive towards The Ladder, I felt it was apt tribute to use images I took from each place I visited in the booklet of our debut EP, the album cover is the brick wall view from my hotel in Manhattan!
A lot of the material had been written years back but I really didn’t feel 100 per cent happy with the results. After a line up change we got Danny on board doing lead vocals and additional production, everything seemed to fit in place and the pace sped up. We reworked the old tracks and wrote a couple of new ones and after road testing the new line up and tracks at a show supporting Assemblage 23 we were sure we were on to a winner.”
