Backstage Pass - ManifestiV - Interview

ATP

For the record, who's answering the interview?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: Pronounced “Paragraph” Taylor, I play guitar & write my name with a “¶” or pilcrow.
EvE: EvE.

ATP

What is your band's name? How did you come up with that name?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: ManifestiV was my first screen name ever. In 1997, my mother asked me for a 10 character user name for a new service called America Online. I looked at a couple records (namely by Marilyn Manson & Meat Beat Manifesto) and smashed some words together. Seventeen years later, every network from Twitter to Instagram had the “manifestiv” tag, so when I presented the album I’d written in Dallas to [ManifestiV vibraphonist] EvE in Vallejo, she suggested I use it since it was already conveniently plugged in everywhere. Low and behold, it happened to stand for everything we did – the sovereign power to celebrate manifestation of one’s own reality. True emancipation.

ATP

So who's in the band and what instruments do you each play?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: Citing myself (¶ Taylor) as guitarist & EvE as vibraphonist is simplest, but those roles are merely primary. We both sing (often in Alice in Chains type harmonies) and have extended roles in ManifestiV in the DIY age of the shambled music industry. I write the cores of the songs, some from guitar, but more from my native piano & synth before adding performance instruments to the tracks. EvE acts as a stellar producer and serves as a presidential yay or nay to my senatorial ideas I toss her way for anything from art to tour. She keeps me enthused yet realistic. We collaborate on everything from our live shows to visual accompaniments from song paintings to graphic novel concepts. While I handle web presence & booking, EvE specializes in hand-making most ManifestiV merchandise along with all album artwork, not to mention flyer art and… her vibraphone.
EvE: The band is very DIY. We couldn’t afford to buy a vibraphone (they usually run about $2-5k) so we built one from scratch, basically the entire frame but not the bars. The aluminum bars were ordered from eBay by a guy who had a vibe that was smashed to pieces. Taylor’s stepdad, an artisan remodeler, donated some prime lumber to our cause - a bunch of quarter sewn white oak. That’s badass because we’ve had instances where cheaper wood like pine would have split under the pressure of tour/road life.

ATP

How would you describe your sound. What makes you unique?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: How heavy we are for just two of us makes us stand out to start, even without a current live drummer. Genre-wise, experimental industrial is our latest description. We have bass-heavy industrial influenced beats you can dance to one minute & mosh to the next. Over them, I play guitar as syncopated as death metal in tandem with atmospheric layers & loops sounding more ambient & textural. Over me, EvE’s electronic vibraphone is muted & delayed, looped, or even bowed to make a synth pad sound. With how uncanny our combo of sound is, the vocals are surprisingly palatable. You could probably describe us way better than I though.
EvE: Let’s call it Amino Acid Rock :-)

ATP

What bands have influenced each of you?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: My influences evolve over the years. Heavier bands like Deftones, Nirvana, & American Head Charge shaped my range of influence in early writing years.
EvE: Clan of Xymox, Boards of Canada, Lights out Asia, Alice in Chains, Telefon Tel Aviv…

ATP

How experienced are you on the stage, a virgin or whore?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: I’m definitely the stage slut to end all whores, for someone who’s toured as little as I have in proportion to time spent playing live rock. With my longest tenure as second guitarist in LaME. from Dallas, I played over 200 shows with them without a single tour further than a state away. We showcased in NYC but didn’t play a single date to or fro. We were a six piece though, so that band taught me a lot about chemistry, character & compromise. Secret of Boris (its re-name) played about 50 shows the three years I was with them, yet ManifestiV is nearing 100 shows in our tenure half as long thus far.
EvE: Technically, virgin. I’ve played vibes in high school for 4 years, in front of big crowds (5000+) but being backed by a 100 piece marching band is not the same as in clubs with everyone focusing on just you and your mate.

ATP

How would you describe your shows?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: It begins with loops built from nothing to an explosion of instrumental melody for the first song. This sets the stage for an emotional rollercoaster cruising into the center of the set when I treat my guitar pedal like a DJ deck. We escalate out of apocalyptic vibes into more instrumental fury before balancing it out with sing-along harmonies that crescendo from smooth ambient into drum-distorted bedlam to end the set, if we choose.
EvE: I used to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on stage during ¶’s rendition of “Red Water” and hand them out into the crowd. It was about wage slavery, how artists need to have “real jobs” in order to support their creative endeavors. It’s difficult to be an artist when success is measured in dollars.

ATP

Tell us about your favorite show and why?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: Every show has been so radically different thus far, comparing them is like apples to snails. Any show where we befriend a band makes a deeper impression for sure. Shows like in Vancouver (with The Great Speckled Fritillary) & Spokane (with Itchy Kitty) came off the stage so emotionally charged, everyone exchanged deep views of the world, both light & dark, before feasting together & making more music with the other bands. Cities like Missoula & Portland showed us how to be MORE chill with beautiful scenery to boot. Others like St. Paul (with Patch & KPT) & Sheboygan (with Nevers Blessing) engaged conversations thereafter about what music led us to junctures in life & how. Our shows near home in Vallejo, San Francisco & Oakland (with amazing acts Slave Unit, Limnus, Suicide Queen, Roadside Memorial & too many more to name) always end in harmless debauchery with “Remember when…”s sustaining for weeks. Viper Room in Hollywood (with Society 1 & Skinmask) was epic because we emptied the bar into our tour vehicle – “Bummobile” (Batmobile for Bums) – with thrice capacity. Acoustic grunge covers in Ayutthaya Thailand were epic – a Thai even requested “Come As You Are”! Fat Baby in Manhattan (with Feyer & Newborn) is this Friday; who knows what comes next of our ManifestiV DestinY.

ATP

Tell us about your worst show and why?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: To date, San Jose was our greatest test of endurance. We can’t wait to return to hit it thrice as hard, but most things that could have gone wrong at the show seemed to do so. EvE & I were dead middle between tours yet simultaneously house-moving due to an earthquake smashing our former abode, so distractions were rampant. I forgot my signature suit, so playing in a tank & skirt felt slightly more out of character. I was sick so we padded our set with instrumentals which worked to our favor as the microphones & PA’s weren’t supplied until nearly the end of our set anyway. Even this gig-mare had plenty of silver lining: we made friends with an über-talented band called Revri, the fans were VERY supportive during the show & after regardless of circumstances, C.R.E.A.M. was open across the street till 2, and I got to practice parking Bummobile with our then-new trailer called The Hatrium in a tight spot, preparing me for crazier situations the further we head east. All in all, no gig is a loss as long as you have fun, appreciate the support, and own whatever flies your way.

ATP

Tell Us About Your Dream Show, who you'd like to play with and where?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: Besides Rock am Ring, Glastonbury, Sonisphere, the Budokan or Madison Square Garden? Let’s see: Our dream billowed take place in Bangkok, Thailand with 6 acts: Tool, Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails, Manifestiv, St. Vincent, Boards of Canada, listed last to first. Hour sets each with 20 minute movies or dark comedy in between.
EvE: Glastonbury or Burning Man, with Nine Inch Nails, Lights out Asia, Boards of Canada and Trifonic.

ATP

Do you have a street team and how can you join?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: We’ve got cells throughout the country flying & representing for us. Kool Kat is a character from the Mission District of San Francisco who always has our backs. A friend named Adam who went to the mortuary school EvE & I met at in Dallas keeps us relevantly plastered in Denver.

ATP

Do you have a record label and if not are you looking for one?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: Pilcrow Magnum Records is our imprint we place on anything ManifestiV thus far. Labels help with booking legalities, big-muscle marketing & media distribution, but we’re learning to climb up those ladders without a label in the current state of the industry. We’re building a team to spread the word, and if the right management, agency or even label approaches, we’re prepared to comb it with lawyers to assure we don’t sign our own death certificate. I’d seen too many bands sign themselves into oblivion by not getting guidance from people qualified to provide it.

ATP

What are your plans for the future, in a year, 5 years?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: After this Glacier Tour, we spend fall concentrating on our respective arts. I’ve not written for my longest spans in my music career, even though riffs & lyrical blurbs regurgitate as Voice Memos on my iPhone semi-regularly, so I’m anticipating my favorite cold-weather activity: tracking new songs.
EvE: I am currently working on a graphic novel that will be released along with our second album. They should be finished by next year. Hard to predict what will happen in five years, I imagine we will have more equipment, lights, bigger shows, playing international festivals and hopefully a third or fourth album under our belt.

ATP

Finally, do have any words on what Arm The Pit means to you?

MANIFESTIV

¶ Taylor: As a Limp Bizkit fan, I first thought of their fan site thearmpit.net when I first saw y’all. The concept of arming the fans to arm the musicians has a great flow of feedback to it; this is why I believe festivals are so huge lately. A successful band shouldn’t be about ego, pomp & circumstance- it should be about the connective power of tens of thousands of people singing & feeling the same notes as a way to forget woes, heal wounds & form new bonds. I could die tomorrow happy with the countless people, fans & musicians alike, for the inspiration we’ve shared and to help others to follow their hearts, create art, live for themselves. If that’s not the point, what is? –¶