1. Beginning with the history of Dtrash. When did the label start, what were your reasons behind it and how did the name come about?
We started in 1998 when it was formed by members of CPUWAR and AK47 (then DJ Rabies). The reasons were to band together and provide means of support and promotion for each other’s bands. This type of music was still relatively unknown at this point, or at least fragmented into different regions. The power of the Internet and cooperation amongst bands helped start something that resembled a “gang”, which all huddled together under the DTRASH name. We changed over the years, and now it’s me (SCHIZOID) in the driver’s seat of DTRASH after finding the original members weren’t into it anymore. I thought that the idea was still as relevant and necessary to the promotion of my band as well as this type of genre, and overall important to the proliferation of the type of themes and ideas that we were putting out there with our music and art and ideas.
From what I understand the term originally came out of the late 90’s D-Jungle scene, involving artists like some of the more underground stuff Alec Empire and his European crew were doing stuff like DJ Mowgly and others were attributed to this genre. The D stands for? Data trash, digital trash, deathrock trash, whatever …

2. What music did you grow up listening to?
Lots of heavy metal for me personally. It started with pop music when I was very young (was obsessed with the stuff, it was the 1980’s and all!) – then slowly progressed from Guns N Roses, Beastie Boys, Metallica, to heavier stuff like Slayer, Anthrax, Sepultura, until I has fixated on the whole death metal scene in 1990-2, reading Metal Maniacs and stuff like that. I found that labels like Relapse and Earache were experimenting with electronic sounds and I liked that a lot. From that point, I got into any variation of genre mixing that these individual bands and their scenes were doing. Meathook Seed’s disc got me interested in ambient after hearing an ambient track on their disc. This led to techno/gabber type stuff from the whole Rotterdam scene; I loved the most extreme stuff. Now I’m into everything mostly, today I’ve got The Donnas, Deceased, Amorphis, Angelfish, Incantation, Berzerker, Sick of It All, Apocalypse Now soundtrack in my cd wallet.

3. Using such examples as the industrial noise band Unitus and riot punk band F_Noise, are there no specific boundaries to the type of alternative genre your label attracts?
I think that there is an underlying type interconnecting factor between say a band like F_NOISE and UNITUS even though they’re pretty different. There is that common element, it’s not something that I can really clarify, but they both have that trashy and sort of punked out fighting spirit to them. SCHIZOID is good for DTRASH because it takes that ‘digital hardcore’ style and injects it’s own heavy metal tinged style to the overall base sound, whereas say, RENEGADE ANDROIDs disc from a while back it was almost the other end of the spectrum, very Ecstasy-sounding warm ambient stuff, though when I hear both, I can sense that we grew up around the same time, generally started on the same page even if the results are different. There are some faint limitations… we obviously are based electronically in most of our stuff, so if a band that had no electro submitted to DTRASH we probably would not put out their release – though on the other hand, we have received demos of straight noise, and that’s not what we’re really trying to do with DTRASH at all, it’s about more than this.

4. Do you offer / do you plan to offer other services than just the label?
I think the very nature of what we do is more than just a label. There’s different elements to the scene and to the DTRASH world. There’s the live shows and events we throw. There is our webpage which contains interviews and artist profiles to promote the artists. Also, we list news and event dates of other artists not even involved with DTRASH but relevant to the scene and to the cause. We also have remix projects that we run where we just try to stir up the pot by giving out samples to our material and inviting remixes. There is mailing lists like the Riot Soundz mailing list where we have a discussion forum to talk about culture and politics. Some members are involved with writing for different magazines and doing reviews of artists of electronic or non-electronic nature. Some of our artists have background specialties like webpage design or sound production and between all of us, we have lots of outlets and ways to channel our energy for this overall type of experience.

5. Who are the bands currently signed to the label?
There are no bands ‘signed’ to us, we work under a sort of freeform association basis. It gets too touchy sometimes to identify it in those terms, because then bands have the freedom to move from scene to scene and from label to label – We also then don’t have an obligation to put out bad releases from bands who might have done good releases before on DTRASH. At this point I feel we have a reliable core crew of artists who are constantly in touch with me and working to promote themselves and really take part in DTRASH, some of these include SCHIZOID, EXIST, CONTRA, .MIQ, UNITUS, CPUWAR, ASURE.

6. How many releases have you now available?
There are approximately 30-40 CD-R and MP3’d releases. There has been a 7” compilation of SCHIZOID/RABIES/CPUWAR/BASTARDS UNITED which has sold out. There are also two pressed releases, which are SCHIZOID “All Things Are Connected” and UNITUS “Cross Contamination”.

7. So…what do you look for in a band to make them worthy of signing to Dtrash?
Going back to the boundaries question, I don’t think we’re looking for something in particular. We’re looking for something that ROCKS, something that pops out at us and grabs us! Something that’s boring and faceless and unambitious is not our preference. I don’t want to have to listen to a demo 5 times to ensure that it sucks like I think it did the first time. I want something that puts an evil grin on my face and makes me go “YEAH, this has got to be a DTRASH release.” With stuff like UNITUS, F_NOISE, DHC MEINHOF, ASURE, hell anyone who made the final cut, I felt that feeling. Other releases I’ve got have been good, and I’d really like to help those involved with those releases however I can, but some were best just not released on DTRASH.

8. Are you a believer in giving your bands total artistic freedom?
I don’t really see it in those terms, I’m not out to control what people do or don’t do. If they make a release that rocks and is great, then we’re in business. I would not put out anything racist or seriously sexist or generally ignorant and ideologically uninteresting. I don’t want to put out unfinished material that sounds like shit and is just noise. I want quality material from quality bands that are willing to work and help me take this further, in whatever form that comes in.

9. What do you find to be the positive and negative sides of running a small label such as yours?
Well, I can’t really be too negative right about doing this or else I wouldn’t do it right? I’d say some negatives are generally trying to shake up the cage enough so that people take notice and generally take part in all of this, it takes a lot of work to motivate people to go to a show locally, or download an MP3. But once you get them interested, it’s much easier. The positives are that we’re starting at base zero and it can only get better and better from here. Running the label is a good for our individual bands as well as our friend’s bands which get promoted through what we do. Oh yeah, I’d say the most negative is less time to write music, I wish there were two of me, one to write SCHIZOID material and get obligations with that done and one to run DTRASH.

10. What promotion methods are you using to attract attention to the Dtrash name?
There are all kinds, ranging from CD mail outs to magazines, record labels other bands, mp3.com pages, interviews in magazines like this, flyers at record stores locally and internationally, trying to get distribution internationally, remix projects online, shows and music festivals locally, you name it, we’re out there using it to spread the word. The Internet is the best for all of this; things would be a lot harder without it. Bands and labels who have problems with using the internet to promote themselves will find themselves more out of touch with things as everything moves on, they will be left behind, this is the ultimate way for us to stay in touch and accommodate to our fans.

11. What are your distribution outlets?
In Canada there is SCRATCH RECORDS, TOTAL ZERO, plus you can order our CD at HMV. In USA, there is CAROLINE DISTRIBUTION, AQUARIUS RECORDS, RELAPSE RECORDs. In Europe there is SHELLSHOCK, ADNOISEAM, and in Asia/Australia there is AKLASS and TOKYO TRIBE. There is a lot more, a full list can be obtained through our website. You can also download our online releases through www.dtrashrecords.com

12. Are you kept regularly informed via local / foreign dj’s about the club potential of your releases?
To a degree yeah, I mean in Toronto, the Toronto Industrial Kollective DJs our stuff playing F_NOISE and UNITUS and stuff. That’s cool, as well sometimes the Cathouse in Scotland, a friend of ours gets request for ‘that fucked up Guns N Roses cover (the SCHIZOID “My World” track I did)” that’s neat as well. We have better luck with radio, radio is more likely to play our stuff, it takes an eccentric person to ‘dance’ to our stuff.

13. What has been the most rewarding achievement for the label so far..?
I think there’s been lots of rewards, some of which have been having DTrash artists appear on the DHR “Don’t Fuck With Us” compilation, that is really cool. I know last year SCHIZOID playing with EC8OR was great. Getting in touch with and working with artists and labels who back in the day I dreamed of meeting and working with.

14. And the forthcoming events for Dtrash are….?
We are planning a compilation for 2003 which will have exclusive and new songs from SCHIZOID, UNITUS, CONTRA, KNAR, EXIST, CPUWAR, ASURE, F_NOISE and more. This will be called “Rising Tide” and will be our third pressed official release. We are also going to release the next album from CONTRA as a pressed release in late 2003.
Right now in November 2002, we have released online the albums DTRASH37 “ASURE: Wallbreaker” and DTRASH38 “CONTRA: Social Darwinism”, and you can download these as MP3s. We played a show with MERZBOW in September w/ SCHIZOID, noCore, UNITUS and others, that was great, and also had this weird underground rave type of event where EXIST made an appearance. Right now we are regrouping and basically dealing with some administrative issues and writing new material and sort of gearing up. The last couple of months have been crazy and I expect them to get crazier.

15. What gives you the motivation to carry on building the label?
I really like making and listening to this type of music. I like getting demos in the mail that are awesome that I want to release. I love to make music and spend a long time on seeing it through and finding out it has been played on the radio. I like turning people onto new ideas and types of music and providing that for people. I like the camaraderie in our scene and meeting new people and seeing great electro shows from my old and new friends.

16. Any final words for our readers?
Support independent music. Watch less TV and do something with yourself. If you’re in the Toronto area, come to one of our shows. Question “The war on terrorism” and everything it stands for. Make a friend with an animal. Download our music at www.dtrashrecords.com