INTERVIEW: CONTAINER
DAMAGED TECHNO FOR REAL ROCKERS
Not many people have made the journey from the Providence Noise Warehouse to the Berlin Techno Club. Even fewer have done so without relinquishing the core tenets that make the music at those warehouse shows exciting. But for over a decade, the London-based Ren Schofield’s project Container has been riding a crazy storm, one that has seen him move through the electronic music world as a beacon of a genre that some people at some point sort of embarrassingly referred to as “outsider techno.” I’m not sure what they call his music now, but I’m not convinced it’s techno at all anymore.
Schofield came up within a Providence underground community that focused on abrasion and play. You might know what I’m talking about here. Lord knows I’ve mentioned it before on the blog. I’m talking about bands wearing costumes and playing in warehouses filled with cultural detritus; I’m talking about the space Fort Thunder, the duo Lightning Bolt, and the art collective Forcefield. I think I need a John’s Music Blog glossary.
Schofield was deep in the American noise scene for a decade before doing Container, which started as an attempt to make techno but has moved into something approximating a one-person noise band. His newest release, YACKER, which came out last Friday on Alter, is my favorite Container record to date. It’s the clearest synthesis of the various eras of his output; it sounds like Jeff Mills and Brian Chippendale getting loaded on Narragansett and jamming in the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s sick shit. I first met Ren over 20 years ago, which feels insane to write. We had a nice video chat.
The new record is great. I think it's your best yet.
Thanks, man.
After that, I went through your catalog, going in reverse. I listened to the new one, then I started from the beginning.
Yeah, that's a good way to do it, actually.
It made me realize that you've slowly been moving from techno to a feel that almost approximates rock music. How have you seen your sound change over the past decade plus?
Well, yeah, definitely the first record, the idea was that it would be regular sounding techno. That was what I wanted to do. And by the time the third record—technically it was an EP or something—came out, I'd kind of already gotten sick of just working with a 4/4-based structure of things. And there was one track on that record that I think is kind of the starting point of the new record, you know, the weird time signatures and crazier kind of drumming and noisier things going on. I guess the fascination that I'd had with techno at the beginning started to wane pretty quickly. And yeah, at this point, I feel like it's gone pretty much full rock.
You say that those early records were your attempt to make straightforward techno. I think most techno heads probably thought they were pretty weird, though, at the time.
Yeah, that's what confused me about the whole thing in the beginning. I was like, Woah, I’m trying to make the most normal kind of thing I can. I guess I did a really bad job or something.
I read somewhere that early on, there were only one or two techno tracks you were influenced by. You weren't really a techno head.
Yeah, mostly the idea of it or what I imagined it was, because I really didn't know anything about it for the most part. The whole experience of doing this project has been a real learning curve in a lot of ways. I've learned a lot about music in the process.
Have you gotten more into techno over the years?
At the very beginning I did, because I found out about a handful of techno people I didn't know about at all. And there is some stuff I really liked. But I haven't really kept up with what's new or anything. The whole way it works at the shows and stuff is always so foreign to me and a bummer feeling, which is part of why I think I pushed the sound more rock, because I really didn't have too many more of those nights left in me.
Your live set is still within the language of noise or punk music. I was always curious how that would go down in Germany or something at some really proper techno club that is used to this kind of seamless techno experience.
Yeah, there's been mixed reactions. That's for sure. In the beginning when I started playing more shows like that, I played that big famous place, Berghain. And I just kind of played the same set I would have anywhere, but I knew they wanted me to play an hour. Now, I actually tried to stretch the songs out a bit, just to make it as long as I possibly could, because it would have been like 30 minutes otherwise. And so I was really pushing to make that hour and throw in some jams. But then I really had nothing else to play and I looked at the time and there's about 15 minutes left of the hour. And the guy who's going to DJ after me was there and I was like, “Hey man, are you ready to go?” And he was like, “No, you got 15 minutes.” And I was like, “Yeah, but I'm done.”
We couldn't communicate with each other, really. Like, he couldn't conceive of the fact that I would stop before the set time was over. And since we weren’t coming through to each other, I just kind of killed the sound and everyone freaked out. He was rushing to get on the decks and the promoter was all in a state, you know, because something like that wouldn't happen at those places normally. And I learned that that night. And they're also yelling at me about changing BPMs radically and all this stuff. And that's when I kind of realized doing stuff like that is probably a pretty good idea in those contexts. I don't want to go around upsetting people, but I think the people who get all bent out of shape about the rules like that, it's good to, you know, knock them around a little bit.
For sure. And Berghain, did you enjoy your experience there? There's not another club in the world that has as much weird significance.
Yeah. I mean, it was just a trip, really. So out of my element in every way, and it was just like, I don't know, I felt like a tourist there or something.
Did it make you appreciate certain kinds of electronic music more, seeing it in the proper context?
Not really, because it’s all DJs, no one's jamming live, you know. So sonically, everyone's at the same wavelength, everyone's playing mastered tracks through CDJs. In terms of fidelity, it's on the same level the whole time. So there's nothing really to like, and of course it sounds clean and big and huge through the system. But it's like that all night, I just kind of get used to it, there's nothing too crazy coming out of it. No, I wasn't really that impressed actually.
Some people say that they didn't understand techno music until they witnessed it in the right place. Maybe drugs are involved.
I wasn't on any drugs, that would have helped a lot.
Yeah, maybe your whole trajectory would have been changed if you would have been on drugs at Berghain that night.
Yeah, instead I had like nine beers or something. It's a different vibe.
Yeah, beer doesn't seem like the right techno drug.
No, yeah, it's definitely not.
I went back and I read this Resident Advisor piece about you from over a decade ago.
Yeah.
And I remember reading it at the time, actually. Back then, outsiders to specific subcultures would often be viewed with a lot of suspicion by the deep heads within it. And I sort of assumed that would be a similar thing with you. Like, Oh, who's this weirdo trying to do techno? But it seems like you were really embraced by techno people from the beginning. Is that true?
Yeah. You know, I've always wondered about that myself too, because I certainly was to a certain degree. I haven't really heard anyone say anything, but I imagine it would be weird if there weren't people who were skeptical about it and people who were haters, you know, there should have been. But yeah, I know what you mean, because if someone was coming into the noise scene like that, all of a sudden people would be like, What the fuck? There'd be a lot of skepticism.
Maybe the techno scene at that point was just so boring that these fans welcomed anything different.
I don't know. That could be part of it. I think the other thing is that unlike noise and other genres that are more DIY, there's money in techno. So, I think if something gets popular, people want to jump on it. I think promoters booked me definitely because of that interview in Resident Advisor, because it was trendy at the time. Because you can make money that way or something. Which you know, no one would do that in noise or anything because there's no money to be made.
Yeah. And you've been in the game for a minute now doing this. I'm sure you've seen that ebb and flow for you in terms of interest within that community. But you also have this bedrock experimental world that will always be there for you regardless of whatever happens with these club things.
Yeah. I mean, I've tried to distance myself from the club things, honestly. I guess at one point before this project, I might have naively said something like I wanted to have a career in music, but then as soon as there was a chance it could happen, I realized that I didn't mean that at all. And what I meant was that I just didn't want to have to work. And then I was playing these gigs and they felt like work a lot of the time, like I didn't want to be there. It’s a struggle to get through it all. I was going for the more rock kind of sound because it just felt natural and better and what I wanted to play and what I was more interested in. But also I knew that it would get me away from getting asked to do the club shows. And I still do them once a while. But when it happens, it's usually one that's kind of fun and more geared around being weird.
I can't believe it's been over 20 years since I booked that abysmal show for you in Milwaukee. One of your early bands, Japanese Karaoke Afterlife Experiment.
Yeah. How old are you?
I'm 37 now.
Yeah, I'm 39. I was thinking you were probably about 37, but it was funny because when we met, I guess I was 18 and you were 16 or something, right?
I didn't know you were that young. I would have assumed you were like 23 or something.
Well, we’re 37 and 39, it must have been.
Wow. I didn't know you were that young. I mean, it makes sense in context because I feel like in Providence, you were a bit like the little brother band?
Oh, yeah, definitely. My friend who I was in that band with, when we were in high school, we just kind of discovered all the shit that was going on in Providence. We suddenly fell in love with it and started going all the time, but we didn't have any connections to it in terms of friends or anything, because everyone was 10 years older than us. So we were just the goofy kids showing up, trying to get people to buy us beer and hanging around and going to every show.
You saw some of the heyday of that scene.
Maybe not technically the heyday, because we probably started going to stuff around 2000, or maybe even more like 2001. And so we kind of missed most of the Fort Thunder stuff that was going on, but we were there for the aftermath of that, which was still pretty amazing from my perspective because there was so much going on. I've never seen a city have a DIY scene that was as active as that was at that time. So if it was crazier than that before, that's kind of hard to imagine, really, but I think that's what people say.
It seems like the older people in the scene would take you on tour?
Yeah, that tour that I met you on, I think we were doing some shows with Lightning Bolt later on, which was cool. That was like a total dream come true at the time. But yeah, all the older dudes were cool. And yeah, finding out about that stuff at that age definitely changed my life.
It felt like such a lifestyle choice, you know. There were costumes involved. At that age, I was involved in punk and hardcore or whatever, and it felt like a bit of a break from that. All of this we take for granted now, but when you're a teenager and you’re exposed to something like that, it really opens your mind to some possibilities.
Yeah, that's what it did to me. Before that I was just sort of into alternative rock.
Growing up in Providence, was that scene in front of your face?
We did have to dig to find it a bit. The whole reason we found it was just because we used to hang out on the street all the time, kind of standing around. And I was like, Man, this sucks, we got to figure out something else to do. And then we found this weird looking flier that someone put up somewhere, but had no information on it in terms of where it was. But just digging around and looking for clues, we eventually somehow found the place days in advance, so we'd know where to go on the weekend when it happened. So yeah, there was a lot of work to be put into finding it actually.
I think about the idea of curiosity a lot in shaping some musicians' or artists’ whole trajectory, just the act of you seeing that flier and being like, What is this? And that shifted the entire arc of your life.
Yeah, this looks like it could be cool.
The drumming on this new record, or more correctly the drum programming, I can hear your voice as a drummer from back in the day. It’s like I can hear you inside of the drum machine, fighting to get out.
Yeah, that's great. I mean, the last couple records have gone more in the rock direction, but I think with the gear that I have now, I finally figured it out. I got pretty good at programming it exactly the way I want to, with a lot of fills and different sounding beats. Because the old gear I used to use was so clunky and old, to program anything weird or just test something to see if it sounds cool would take like 20 minutes, and then it wouldn't sound cool and it just got exhausting. The thing I have now is a lot easier to throw ideas around with, so I think that's helped get the beats to more of a place that I guess I wanted them the whole time, sounding more like it could be a drummer or something.
There’s a sort of aggressive, digital hardcore style that seems popular with young people right now. Especially this new record, I could see it making sense with those kids. Have you played any of these shows?
Yeah, in a way I have played a couple shows adjacent to that scene, and it is pretty fun. I was really surprised, because there were all these teenagers waiting outside to get in, and they were all dressed like mall goths from 1997, but they were all teenagers. I didn't realize that was a retro look.
No, for sure. I think that a lot of people right now, they're open to really aggressive electronic music, and they're also open to dressing like they came out of a Hot Topic in the late ‘90s.
Yeah, it was a real shocker to me.
Who was that show with?
It was with Machine Girl.
Oh, that’s great. You opening for them makes a lot of sense. Was there a pit during your set?
Yeah, from, like, second number one, which was just a tape loop playing. As soon as it happened, everyone was just—they were ready to get going.
That’s like Warped Tour back in the day. It’s noon on a Wednesday afternoon in some parking lot and people are going crazy from note one.
Save Ferris is up first.
Speaking of ska: London has this crazy history of dance music and sound system culture. Has any of that inspired you at all?
I don't think so. It's definitely the place I've lived where it's the hardest to actually work on and play music. Everything's so cramped and congested and there's no privacy in this entire city. It's pretty insane. I’ve found it, especially once COVID happened, just really hard to find the time and space to work on stuff. So I guess it's changed my music in the way that I have to cram working on it into specific chunks of time that I can carve out for myself, whereas before I would just do it whenever the hell I felt like it, for most of the day. And so that's different.
You're not going clubbing very much. I mean, you have a kid, right?
I do. I just don't have any money. It’s fucking expensive as fuck here. I couldn't afford the train to the gig if I was going to go to the gig, you know. The club. The things I'm going out to are when friends come to town or when I'm playing. I have never really lived in a big city like this before. In Providence, the music community encompasses a lot of different genres, so you'll end up with different types of gigs, just because everyone you know is going or something. And it’s a social activity. So you'll see different bands and different things. But in a city like this, everything becomes so niche. Everyone's going with their crew to the specific thing. I feel like you don't see as much of a variety.
I was wondering if being so far away from Providence or just the American noise scene has allowed you to look back at an earlier era and kind of reinterpret some sounds from your past?
Maybe, and it might not even be a physical distance but the time distance from it as well. I think at some point I realized that there've been two moments in my life where music completely floored me. And it was when I was 11 or something and discovered 1994 alternative rock radio. That was a big game changer for me. And then in 2001 discovering the Providence scene. And I feel like whenever something really speaks to me on an inspirational level, it's usually stuff from those eras.
And so I guess I found myself realizing that at some point and thinking, like, that's nothing to be ashamed of. If that’s what speaks to you, that's what speaks to you. And then going back to those times and checking out stuff that I've maybe forgotten about and seeing if it holds up at all. And you know, some of it does, some of it doesn't. But then the things that you forgot about and rediscover, they’ll be something in there that gives you this kind of idea of something you could do, not ripping it off or anything, but just a fraction of a second of some old song or something like that. It sparks an idea.
That’s interesting, because your gear and your sound palette is so limited and definitive in a way that it kind of feels like it allows you to take influences from all these sources and funnel it into your sound.
I intentionally wanted, especially the new record, to have a really limited sound palette, so it would sound like a guitar, bass, and drums band recording in a studio—not a lot of variation sonically. But yeah, I guess if you're channeling different things into that limited palette, you're right, you can get away with sneaking some things in there.
Yeah, the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” riff.
Yeah, no one noticed.
You have this blog about touring.
Yeah.
And you've been touring on and off for over 20 years. What are some eras that stick out for you as being the best and the worst times to tour?
Well, it's funny because when you're writing about something, I find that the good times, they're no good to write about. You want to write about horrible shitty times because that's comedic. And so, even the worst tours in retrospect, those were pretty good. At the time they might have sucked, but looking back, they’re absolutely hilarious. And then sometimes I'll think about the cushier tours where I was getting paid decently and staying in hotels and man, that wasn't really that fun at all, actually. I was kind of by myself, ordering a pizza, walking around some town.
Earlier, you talked about electronic music touring feeling like a job. If you hit a certain level, you're pretty much traveling like a mid-level business person.
Yeah, totally.
There's a good Cory Arcangel essay where he describes EDM DJs as being just another asset in the global supply chain.
Yeah, I think it hit me one of the first times I played a bigger fest in Europe. Everyone's at a party at some bar afterwards, there's a lot of industry people there, A&R guys and PR people and journalists, and they're kind of talking about emails, like how many emails they're going to have on Monday when they get back. And I was like, Woah, I'm sure the same conversations are happening at an insurance conference at a Hilton in Omaha or something. There's no difference between these two things right now. This is not what I want to be doing, really.