By Akira

Born from one of the most dangerous and unstable regions on the planet (Haifa in Israel), Infected Mushroom have never stopped evolving.  Since their sonically inspiring and mind boggling debut album ‘The Gathering’ was released in 1999, Infected Mushroom have toured over 20 different countries and sold albums numbering tens of thousands.   They recently added a live guitarist and a drummer to their energetic stage show and have crossed genres like no other electronic musicians before them.  Almost everyone with a passing interest in electronic music has heard of Infected Mushroom.

Akira got a chance to massage their minds on behalf of Teknoscape while they were on vacation in between shows, and preparing for their live performance in Perth at the Capitol nightclub on April 8th.  With their new album ‘Vicious Delicious’ due out on March 26th and in a constant state of jet lag, Eraz and Duvdev very graciously took time to discuss their unique past, their new album, and their continuing plans for spreading the mushroom around the world.

Q: It’s an honour to speak with you both.  What are you doing with yourselves at the moment?  What was the last party you played and how did it go down?
A: We are on vacation at the moment, taking some time off before going to Australia.  The last party  we played was in the US in Texas. It was great we played these two huge parties.  

Q:Do you notice a difference in your fans from country to country? Do you always get the same reaction during your sets from them?
A:There is a little difference from country to country.  There is the dance/trance community but most of the people who come to our shows are real Infected fans.  The reaction is always overwhelming around the world.  

Q:You’re incorporating a drummer into your live shows lately, who is he and how did this decision come about?
A:We’ve wanted to add a drummer to the band for long time in order to create a bigger live show. We auditioned a few drummers in LA and chose a Brazilian drummer named Rogario Jardim.  He is a great drummer and a very nice guy to hang with.

Q:With such a heavy touring schedule (booked till Nov 07), how do you find time to get into the studio to work on new tracks and albums? And how do you cope playing in so many different countries and time zones?
A:It’s very hard to produce new music with so little time and such a busy schedule. When we come back from a show we take a day off and then back to the studio. We are in a constant state of jet leg.   When we are on the road we like it very much but sometimes we miss being home. When we do a show we try to give 100% because we like what we are doing.  

Q:Have you started using any new hardware or software in your studio lately? Can you briefly take us through your setup?
A:Well  we are always  buying new stuff  because we are addicted to new technology. We bought the 960l reverb by Lexicon to add to our reverb power.

The studio setup changes all the time - we have a lot off gear to work with.

Q:Onto your new album now where did the name ‘Vicious Delicious’ come from?
A:It’s a cool name for an album and it’s a name of a tune we thought of  while working on the album. We didn’t have a concept or anything - it just came up one day.

Q:Musically how does the new album vary from your last (IM the Supervisor)? What influenced you have while making this album?
A:This album is very different from the last one.

We try and take a new direction with each new album.  With this one we tried to by very diverse from track to track. It’s almost like the Converting Vegetarians album but only in one cd.

We’re  influenced by a lot of different music but while making this record heavy metal really seemed to seep in.

Q:There are different versions of Vicious Delicious coming out (Japanese version, UK version, BNE online version etc), what was your motivation for doing this?
A:We try to give each country something unique for our fans.   That’s why you find different versions out there. 

Q:You announced recently you have been reworking some of your older tracks (Bust a Move, Merlin etc), Will you release any of these remixes?   What gave you the idea to do this?
A:This project of remixes started because the very high demand by the fans to have new versions of their favorite old tracks.

We are planing a new live DVD… Maybe the remixes will come out there?

Q:Is it going to be an ongoing project?  Are you going to rework any  of your others?
A:We don’t know yet but we think in the future we will have more remixes of old tunes.

At the moment we are working on new material.

Q:Late last year a party in Israel you were booked to play at was cancelled due to a demonstration of the ‘Islamic Movement’ planned the same day. Does the security/political situation in Israel often effect the parties?
A:It’s very rare for things like that to happen and parties usually go on as planed. We canceled that party not because of the Islamic movement rally but of the situation in Israel at that time. 

Q:Duvdev – you mentioned in a previous interview that during your conscription into the army all you could think about was trance music. Can you explain further the link between the two?
A:When I was in the army I had just started listening to trance music.   I was so addicted and could only think about that one thing: psytrance. When I was released I went to India and well, you know the rest of the story.   

Q:You’ve mentioned before that you found in hard initially to break into the music scene? What difficulties did you face and how did you overcome them? Do similar difficulties exist for young hopeful musicians today?
A:The difficulties of  breaking though as an artist are the same today as they were then.

First, at that time  nobody wanted our album.  We were persistent and continued to do what we love and believed in and in the end we gathered a fan base.   

Q:How does it feel to still be flying the flag for psytrance even though musically you have evolved so much since your beginnings?
A:It’s a big respect and honor to lead the psytrance community. Our love for this scene will never fade.    

Q:Writing movie sound tracks has been on your agenda for some time and something a lot of your fans are eagrly anticipating.  Any news on this?
A:We have something going on at the moment but we don’t want to talk about it till its confirmed. .

Q:Now you are making music videos to compliment your songs, have you thought about making your own animated or short films? Where can people see your music videos?
A:We haven’t given it much thought but we wouldn’t say no to this idea. People can see our video on youtube and maybe we plan to upload it to the website as well.

Q:You have some huge shows coming up, the Coachells Music Festival in USA, Cancun in Mexico, the Arvika Festival etc. What are you looking forward to the most about 2007?
A:First, the Coachella music festival is a huge step forward for us. It is considered to be one of America’s biggest festival.  Also Arvika and few more around the world. This year we will play for our 1st time in China, Singapore and Korea.  In 2007 we want people to see our new live show , listen to the new CD and continue to be  Infected and spread the Mushroom around.

Catch Infected Mushroom at Virus - Sunday 8 April 2007 @ Club Capitol - click here for more details