Several years ago when UK duo Evil Nine released their debut album You Can Be Special Too, while they might have faced a few inconveniences in terms of their record label Marine Parade temporarily going out of business, it was nonetheless praised far and wide for injecting new life into the breaks scene. They were never ones to be tied to the scene though; as they say themselves, “Our first album was a bit of a reaction to our dismay at the breaks scene at the time.”

So they traveled the world, played a bunch of Australian festivals and released two killer Fabric and Y4K compilations. So where the hell did they go after that? Well Evil Nine are finally back from the dead with another album on Marine Parade, and they’re furthering their reputation as the ones filling the record box of label boss Adam Freeland. In theme with them returning from the dead, They Live! is heavily inspired by the undead themselves. “We’re big fans of zombie and horror movie composers, they told ITM. “The whole rebirth thing seemed to sum up our ‘return’ as well and it all just fell into place. ITM spoke to Evil Nine late last year about They Live!, which has just got a local release in our stores.

Hi guys, you’re talking to inthemix from Australia. How are you, and how has the last few nights been for you?

Very well fella, we just arrived home after a few live gigs with the band in the north of England so things have been pretty hectic, boozey and sleepless. The first gig was pretty average which comes with the territory, but the second was awesome and we totally rocked it, I’m taking it easy after spending three days in a van with a bunch of smelly blokes.

How does it feel to return to the scene with the new album? And was there ever any question as to whether you’d return at all?

It feels great man, we’ve waited so long for this and we’re really proud of the album. It was a bit scary at first; it’d been so long it was like releasing our first album all over again. We were definitely gonna release a second album, there was not questioning the fact, it was just a matter of when it happened. We got very caught up it the touring of the first album and we both had some pretty fucking heavy negative personal shit to get our heads around, but we got there in the end.

You guys have mastered a killer dark vibe with your new tracks. How much experimentation was involved in nailing that?

There was a lot of experimentation with both our albums as there is with all our music. When we first started writing They Live! it was a really awkward and inaccessible rock record until we realised we wouldn’t be able to play it in clubs, it then slowly morphed into a dance record. We’re big fans of zombie movie soundtracks which were a big influence on our first album, but this time we really ran with the ball so I imagine that’s where the darkness came from.

Obviously fans can often respond in a mixed fashion when an artist tries to pursue a different approach with their sound than what they’re already known for. Was this a daunting task for you, and how have people been responding so far?

To be honest we don’t think it sounds completely different from the first album, it’s just moved on and progressed to our ears. If we’d just written an exact carbon copy of the first album we would have been super bored and I think other people would of too. the big gap between albums and singles maybe makes it seem like a much different sound, if we had been releasing records more frequently the ‘change’ would be as noticeable. The record’s been received well so far and it’s getting more and more props every week, people seem to really be digging it and we’re gaining a lot of new fans. Now that you’ve mentioned it I’m finding it really hard not to use the phrase ‘new sound’, maybe it is a ‘new sound’ but it definitely sounds like an Evil Nine album to us.

Do you feel much of a tie to the current breaks scene, or do you feel like it’s something you’ve moved on from?

It’s not something we’ve consciously moved away from, but to be honest people in breaks just aren’t releasing music we like anymore, as soon as someone releases a breaks record we like we’ll play it out. Our first album was a bit of a reaction to our dismay at the breaks scene at the time, it actually sounds nothing like anything else that people in breaks were doing at the time or have done since. So basically we’re totally over whether we’re breaks or not, we dealt with all that with our first album. We just make music we love regardless of genre and other restraints.

It’s been a good three years since release of your acclaimed You Can Be Special Too. How much of that time was taken up with putting together They Live!?

We probably spent about year of fucking around, touring, sampling, vibing and getting high and then about another year of actually writing the record with a firm direction. A lot of the other time was taken up from touring and the aforementioned personal bullshit that I won’t get into, it’s a vibe killer and you’ll go flaccid.

Did you take anything from You Can Be Special Too in regards to feedback from fans, fellow artists and critics, into the creation of They Live!?

Not really, we just do our own thing. We’ve always made an effort do something different from everyone else but I suppose we were conscious of not alienating our fans by writing an album so different from the first, but that’s about as far as it goes.

So there’s clearly a love of the undead that’s heavily present on the new album. What is it about them that inspires you so much?

It’s the music mainly although, we love the classic zombie movies too, we’re big fans of zombie and horror movie composers like Fabio Frizzi, Charles Bernstein, John Carpenter, Shuki Levy, Jonathon Newton, Simon Boswell, Stelvio Cipriani and Goblin. The whole rebirth thing seemed to sum up our ‘return’ as well and it all just fell into place.

Other than the fact that you guys love your zombies, what other inspirations did you guys take into producing They Live!? Honestly, we’d be here for absolutely hours if I started getting into that. Ah fuck it, I’ll give you five influences and five only….. John Carpenter, Toto, The Fall, The Melvins and suicide.

So how did your label boss Adam Freeland respond when he heard the new material?

He loved it but had some A&R suggestions. He didn’t hear a lot of it for a while cos we were all busy writing our albums and had our heads down working in our respective studios. He heard the initial anti-social rock tracks and was a big fan, we wanted to scrap a lot of it and he wanted us to finish them but we scrapped most of it anyway and by the time ad heard the new tracks it was a totally different album, although two or three of the rock demo’s did make it on the album in a different form. He loved the new tracks even more and was a great inspirational energy as always.

The live show apparently contains you two duelling on guitars? Tell us a little more about it and what it entails.

Basically it’s just tom on bass and I’m on synth bass, keyboards and vocoder. We also have Juice Aleem on vocals (although Toastie Taylor sometimes steps in) and Toby May* or Jim Carmichael on drums. We’ve tried to make it as much like a band as possible and I really think we’ve achieved that, it’s got a great feel and energy to it all although evil nine the band might take a bit of getting used to for some as its quite noisy and rocky.

Finally, are there any plans for a trip out to Australia in the next few months?
As soon as possible basically, we wanna get the band out your way in the first half of 2009 and if the band doesn’t make it out we’ll be DJing for sure. We’ve always had a great time playing for you guys and always look forward to it, we can’t wait.

Evil Nine’s They Live! is out now through Marine Parade and Inertia.