When it comes down to compiling a list of the acts and producers responsible for exerting a crucial influence on the development of popular electronic music during the last two decades, Sydney-based electro / dance act Severed Heads are definitely there. First emerging in the early 1980s with an original lineup of Tom Ellard, Gary Bradbury and Paul Von Deering, Severed Heads announced their presence on the then-emerging ‘coldwave’ scene with a string of chaotic, highly textured and experimental tape-collage based albums such as 1981’s ‘Blubberknife’ and 1983’s ‘Since The Accident.’ During the late eighties, Bradbury parted ways with the Severed Heads collective, remaining founder member Tom Ellard going on to collaborate with producer / engineer Robert Racic on albums such as Bad Mood Guy (1988) and Cuisine (1991), a period that saw Severed Heads’ sound shift into a more streamlined electro-pop incarnation, with even a US hit single (‘Greater Reward’). In 1994, the release of a reworked version of 1983 track ‘Dead Eyes Opened’ (through Australian Sony imprint Volition) resulted in the track being a club smash eleven years after its release, and returned Severed Heads to the spotlight once more.

Severed Heads released their last album on a major label ‘Gigapus’ in 1994, with the successful ‘Heart Of The Party’ being remixed by Boxcar and released as a single, but since then, Severed Heads profile has been comparatively low. With the untimely passing of innovative producer / engineer in the time since ‘Gigapus’ release, the Severed Heads core has been distilled down to just Ellard. In recent years, there’s been the occasional tantalising albeit all too brief live appearance at Australian summer festivals such as Homebake ‘98, and yet another rare apppearance at this year’s Sydney Big Day Out (complete with lush visuals on a BIG screen), but most Severed Heads fans could be forgiven for thinking that this pioneering act had decided to unplug the drum machines, with an extended period passing since any new Sevs album had appeared on store shelves.

So, to this end, having emerged dazzled by the intricate visuals and icy electro rhythms of Severed Heads after I’d decided to forego some unmentionable arena-straddling US act on the main stage in favour of exploring an act I’d loved throughout high school / uni, I realised that there had to be more going on than I thought. A quick Google confirmed my suspicions – there were 3 Severed Heads albums that had come out in the intervening years, not to mention a number of other Ellard projects under Co Kla Coma and related aliases – but most importantly, Ellard was running all production, distribution and administration himself, as a completely independent entity called SevCom. After catching up on the last seven years in the world of Severed Heads over three albums (‘Haul Ass, Ops 1.2 & 2) I found that I was simply left with even more questions – and who better to fill in the gaps than Tom ‘Temple’ Ellard himself?

ITM: Op2 was created between 2000-2004 – was this the longest gestation period for a Severed Heads album? In what sense does Op2 relate to the original limited Op1 release – is it an upgrade or a full follow-up that was created in tandem with the first one?

TE: Actually it’s not finished, the hope is that it will not finish, rather be a growing, organic entity. So you would have a first burst of activity, a pause, another, a pause and these growth spurts are like a child – their body changes shape and has a childish, then teen, then adult charm. There is an Op1, an Op1.1, Op1.2, Op1.9, and at the moment Op2.0 starts the next growth spurt. Op1 was more childish, Op2 more teen – but I’ve met some resistance to the idea of an Op3 – we shall have to see if the audience likes my idea.

ITM: As well as producing music, you obviously work in parallel with video and DVD (releasing the recent Severed Heads ‘Robotic Peepshow’ DVD compilation). What is the ‘Animated Family Doctor’ project that you’re currently working on? Are there any other DVD projects that you have planned in the future?

TE: The Illustrated Family Doctor is a forthcoming feature film starring Sam Johnson and Colin Friels and a lot of other Australian actors – it is directed by Kriv Stenders and I have been lucky enough to score the soundtrack. Lucky for me – I had the Music Server series which is about some of the same themes as the movie. When it came to a soundtrack album we agonized and decided that a soundtrack DVD would probably be more interesting to people. So I have called that the Animated Family Doctor as a slight reference to the Animatrix. Right now we have very little idea what would be on the disc, except that it’s ‘music video’ of some sort.

ITM: Unlike many artists who’ve spent time signed to major labels and been forced to part with the legal ‘rights’ to their own music, you’ve retained ownership of all of the original Severed Heads album masters. Was this always part of a conscious plan to form an independent entity if things didn’t work out with a label as distributor?

TE: Actually it’s not as simple as that. Often yes, it’s mine – no one else wants it. In other places – it’s been a question of see if they will come and get me. Can they be bothered biting me for a small return? The only real ogre is Virgin Music that claims a bunch of my publishing although they don’t actually have the paperwork – but they challenge me to go fight them in the UK, at large cost. Ownership is dare and double dare. A whole bunch of it was assigned to Sony by Volition Records, but for reasons I can’t get into, Sony gave it back. So I publish and be damned. If it suddenly made money, maybe the dogs would come out.

ITM: At the Severed Heads show on the EAR stage during the recent Big Day Out Sydney shows, I noticed that computer-generated visuals (eg. Pilots Hate You, Son Of Sam) formed a large component of the live show – another element that Severed Heads have always prioritised, whether in music videos or live performance. Do you create all of the newer animations yourself, or do you work in conjunction with others?

TE: I stupidly spend hours putting these videos together night and day for weeks before the gigs and usually find that no one was watching! It’s a matter of honour, I hate cheesy live video – Kraftwerk a big case in point. Something like Pilots Hate You was so funny when I thought about it (every five minutes you encounter one of those damn pilots) it would have been criminal not to do it. In that case I had some help from some folks over in the UK. Always with Severed Heads was the idea that we were just the crew for a more charismatic entity. Pay no attention to the people behind the screen.

ITM: In the early days of ‘Since The Accident’ and ‘Gashing The Old Mae West’, Severed Heads regularly tampered with equipment by placing cardboard over the erase heads of tape machines to create dub effects and plugging audio signals into video equipment. Do you still find yourself ‘overcoming’ your current equipment by tampering with software, or has the process of shifting to digital production made this less accessible?

TE: Well, those were hard times. All you ate was bricks and had to carve your own shoes. We now have TOO MUCH – too many bands, too many sounds, too many media. Creativity is now a subtractive process, a critical process. So rather than find ways to expand your palette, you’re constantly saying no. You place cardboard over your own head.Current engineering is psychological – it’s about assigning energy in this or that direction – overcoming the feeling of boredom, of sameness, of comfort. To be able to sit in a completely quiet place and therefore modulate the soundscape – that is where we are at. Machines are only very small part of music.

ITM: Is it true that there was a mooted plan for Ministry Of Sound to release a new updated version of ‘Dead Eyes Opened’ featuring Miss Kittin on vocals? Was this just an urban myth, or did it come close to being a reality?

TE: It was allegedly going ahead. I have a long correspondence with Ministry of Sound in Germany. It seemed to go wrong at the time I insisted that we had to pay tax. For some reason they were unable to comprehend the idea that we just couldn’t take a pile of cash. They were going to talk to the accountants and … then found something else. Maybe a shiny pebble or a piece of string.

ITM: In a 1997 interview printed in the Sydney Morning Herald about the online marketing of music you’re quoted as saying ”...at this point the music industry’s flirtation with the internet is winding down.” Surely now at this point after successfully establishing an independent presence that primarily operates online, you disagree – has it simply been a case of consumer uptake of internet technology having to catch up with the possibilities you initially envisaged?

TE: I spoke at a time when the first round of Internet music sites had come adrift. Obviously since that time there’s been a revival – the fear that someone else (e.g. Apple) might make money is enough to get corporations (e.g. Telstra) losing money again. And they will. It depends on Digital Rights Management. The users are not yet aware that the music they buy is not actually theirs to keep – it’s tied to the machine used to download it. As soon as Auntie Millie understands that the Frank Sinatra album she downloaded can’t be moved onto a different medium, she’ll wonder if it was such a bargain after all.I still sell discs. Discs are not entirely reliable, but you can play them wherever you like. They don’t crash and they aren’t compressed ten times over. In future I’ll offer downloads if people prefer that. But no DRM.

ITM: So, with the release of this newest Op, does this mean that you’re back to being Severed Heads again? Does Co Kla Coma still exist, and are they still two completely separate projects?

TE: Co Kla Coma is one of a number of collaborations I’m supposed to be seeding. I’m supposed be collaborating with Phillip Western as well, but we both are collecting the time and ideas. Sometimes there’s just no inspiration either side of the Pacific and it gets quiet for a while. And then there are bursts of activity. “Severed Heads” is a kind of label that gets slapped on some of it, much the same as underpants can be “Calvin Klein”. I’m really happy with the Co Kla material – even if most of it was my work – the fact that other people were judging it made it sound completely different. That’s why “sevcom” was formed -what was “Severed Heads” became a range of different things.

For more information about Severed Heads, Co Kla Coma and Severed Communications, check out: www.sevcom.com