(07.08.08) CHRIS CORNER gained international recognition with the Sneaker Pimps, a downtempo band from England, and are best known for their album, Becoming X. To this day, “Spin Spin Sugar” is one of my favorite songs.
Chris has since left Sneaker Pimps and launched IAMX, which has a darker, electroclash feel. Chris’s latest album, Kiss and Swallow, was released by Metropolis Records on June 17, 2008.
Igloo :: I was talking with Dave Heckman of Metropolis Records and he told me he first fell in love with IAMX when he saw one of your shows. I get the impression that you employ a bit of theater when you play out. Can you give us an idea of what a typical IMAX show is like?
Chris Corner :: It’s pretty energetic, quite spontaneous. We tend to very much lose ourselves in the moment. I think because of the general feel of the musical direction I’ve taken with IAMX, which is a bit harder than my previous projects, I wanted to experiment a bit more on stage and to let loose and to really just to go for it and to allow the people in the audience to also lose themselves. There’s a lot of sweat. There’s a lot of sex. There’s a lot of falling around and it’s still emotional. It’s not a punk way of doing it, which kind of connects to the music a bit more. But I think the main thing is that it’s a huge release for everybody in the room.
Igloo :: The Alternative is your second album under the name IAMX. How is this release different from your previous album, Kiss and Swallow?
Chris Corner :: I would say it was probably a little more aggressive and live –I think the main thing is that I wanted to inject more energy and raw aggression into the record, even though it still deals with a lot of melody and traditional song writing. In terms of production, I wanted to bring some more guitars and some live drums and a band feel to the record. The first record was more technical and electronic and quite introspective. I think The Alternative has more of an open, more of an aggressive feel.
Igloo :: People might be more familiar with another band you were in, something called the Sneaker Pimps, I understand. What happened to the Sneaker Pimps and how did that experience inform IAMX?
Chris Corner :: I was in Sneakers since I was a kid so the whole of the band was a real growing up process for me, learning who I was and what I was capable of. At one point we were in a quite a confused situation in terms of the politics of the band and our relationship with record companies. It was just a mess, really. I really wanted to take a different direction and to move forward and to have some more personal songs. And it’s not that there was fighting between us but naturally I felt like I wanted to explore my own personality a bit more. Around three of four years ago I took that step. I moved from London to Berlin and experimented with IAMX. I think it finally felt like I had grown up musically and make peace with my learning curve, my internship.
Igloo :: According to my research, I read that you were a DJ and then became a musician. What led to that transition?
Chris Corner :: I was actually a producer. I was never a DJ. I’m probably the worst DJ in the world. I’m terrible! I find it much more stressful than doing a show, for instance. I was always into writing songs, anyway, but my first experiment was with producing dance music and with white labels and underground electronic weird projects. The main thing is that I wanted to go back, to bring my songs into that and to combine the two. We did that in Sneaker Pimps but I guess I really explored it with IAMX because I do everything myself so I really get a chance to find out how the combination works between traditional song writing and kind of indulgent electronic production and I think it kind of works quite well.
For more information about IAMX, visit his website at iamx.co.uk. [Purchase IAMX releases
