Interview from Delusions of Adequacy (June 2002)

It seems that much like the Transformers, there's more than meets the eye when it comes to The Guy Who Invented Fire. First off, his name isn't really Garfield Ulysses Yves-Kindling, though it does seem the best way to refer to him is simply as Guy Fire. Guy's latest solo release, I Didn't Get Where I Am Today, is a wonderfully simple lo-fi project that takes electronic music back to the Atari sound-effect age. Lest Guy be seen as a musical simpleton, it should also be known that more elaborate, off-the-wall collaborative material of Guy's can be found on a recent project with the moniker Guitare Brothers. I was fortunate enough to converse with Guy via e-mail recently concerning Run DMC, the world's simplest songwriting, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and 'two-finger electro' music.

Delusions of Adequacy: First off, uh, Mr. Garfield Ulysses Yves-Kindling, I was wondering if you could tell the readers here at DOA a little bit about yourself and your musical background.

Guy: Sure. I was born son of Byford, brother of Al. Bad as my mamma and Run's, my pal. It's McDaniels, not McDonalds. These rhymes are Darryl's, those burgers are RONALD'S. I ran down my family tree: My mother, my father, my brother, and D.

I didn't learn to play any instruments as a child, except for the brief few weeks that all British schoolchildren spend making a horrible noise with a recorder aged about 8 or 9. When I was at university, the bloke I was living with played the trumpet and was trying to learn the guitar so I said I'd learn to play the bass and we could be in a band. We thought of a name, Stodge, and had a load of badges made. I bought a cheap (and incredibly heavy) bass amp and borrowed a cheap (and incredibly heavy) bass guitar off my brother, and we started trying to learn songs out of the only music book we had handy, 100 Busking Greats.

These songs soon proved too difficult for us, so we switched to writing our own songs where there were only a couple of notes in the bassline and the chord changes were easy. I used my (then not so old) Amiga to provide the drums, and we were away. A single tape of those halcyon days still survives and it contains only the one song, entitled "dum-dum-da-dum-dum." There were no words, and it sounds exactly like the title would make you think it sounds, only slower and less good.

Anyway, Stodge dribbled out of existence when it became apparent that, miracles aside, we were destined to be crap forever. I packed the computer away and didn't do anything with it for three or four years until I started playing guitar (a cheap and heavy one, of course) with the chap who lived in the room opposite mine. He had a hand-held sequencer/drum machine that reminded me of the software I'd been using on the Amiga.

If I was bad on the bass, I was just as bad at the guitar, but had the saving grace that playing a guitar stuck on treble through a broken distortion pedal and a bass amp gave me a fantastic sound. So I wrote a few songs and used the Amiga and some toy drum machines as the backing. I recorded some of them on really primitive (and cheap and heavy) tape recorders and made an album that was released by a bunch of pricks. (Not under the name of The Guy Who Invented Fire, by the way.)

That was an unhappy episode, brightened by the fact that a couple of years later Julian from Intellectos heard it on the Internet and was impressed enough to get in touch and see if I had more tracks.

In the meantime, I'd been tricked into joining a band called Chief Sharkey who played a handful of times around Cambridge. Never with the same line-up twice, but usually with the same degree of lo-fi punkish ineptitude. That was a good laugh, but I was becoming ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and I couldn't keep up the band, so I left. Making music on the computer was a way to spread the effort of writing tunes over a longer period of time.

Anyway, Intellectos wanted to release a record, so we agreed five tracks and I swapped a remix of (my) "Glow" for a remix of (their) "To Be A Robot" with the 22 Metre Band and that made up the I Didn't Get Where I Am Today EP.

DOA: So you're not really The Guy Who Invented Fire then?

Guy: Yes.

DOA: I have my own theory, but how exactly did you come up with the "Fire Guy" pseudonym? Does it relate to the style of music you create under that name?

Guy: It does, but probably not in the way that you're thinking. I tried to choose a name that didn't make me think of any style of music. When you look at a record in a shop and it's by a band called Scarabeus and their logo is all jaggedy, you know its going to be a metal band. I didn't want that. I also didn't want to feel like I had to have a load of different aliases to release different types of music under, like so many electronic musicians do. So I went for an androgynous name - it doesn't come with preconceptions, I hope, and I can put out whatever I want under the name.

DOA: Alright, keep in mind I'm a clueless American - can you give me a brief synopsis of what sort of material a "100 Busking Greats" songbook would contain?

Guy: You know the songs - the stuff that the scruffy chap who plays a battered acoustic guitar outside the bus station or at the bottom of the subway escalator is always singing.

DOA: Everything on I Didn't Get Where I Am Today is sample- or computer-oriented in nature. Was this your original intention, or was it something that was totally brought on by the onset of your Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (to make the process easier)?

Guy: I just had the Amiga and some software and the samples that I'd got with it. The reason I stopped using the guitar is that we had to move out of the flat we were living in and our new flat had some odd restrictions about musical instruments not being allowed, because of the noise (the walls were very thin). So I stopped playing my guitar as much as I had at home.

DOA: You mentioned choosing the moniker The Guy Who Invented Fire because you liked the way it didn't really identify itself with a genre like some band names automatically seem to do. What sorts of other 'genres' would you consider working on under this name? Are there any other 'Guy Fire' projects in the works currently?

Guy: I'd consider doing whatever came out of whatever I started, if you see what I mean? I never start out with an expectation of what I'm going to end up with. Partly that's because I'm a complete idiot when it comes to "proper" music. Even if I've got a tune in my head, I can't work out how to play it.

Other stuff in the pipeline? We're hoping to do a Guitare Brothers remix 7". I've just got two mixes in the e-mail today. One from Wave Runner who are half of the Cuban Boys and one from Transistor 6. They're both excellent.

I've also got a 4-way split thing going with Printed Circuit, Transistor 6, and Tin.RP (the other half of the Guitare Brothers). Printed Circuit did a track called AI which T6 remixed on her album for Blackbean & Placenta. I owed T6 a remix and happened to choose her version of AI to work on. Then I sent my version to Tin.RP and they did another version. It's amazing how far apart the original and final mixes have turned out. We're looking for a label to release them on.

And I've been doing a few other remixes as well. Guy Fire - available for hire!

DOA: I found it amusing that I Didn't Get Where I Am Today sound essentially came from noise restriction rules at your flat. Any change in your living situation since then? Any chance the guitar might get dragged out for future musical productions, or do you feel like you've found a niche with the sound of this most recent EP?

Guy: I've moved into a house since then. I am my own master! Other restrictions have hampered the amount of guitar playing I do though. I've got a proper job now, and I run a zine and write for a few other places blah blah blah. Yeah, I might get the guitar out again, or I might not.

I'd love to be able to repeat the buzz I get from the tracks on I Didn't Get... I don't mind about being able to repeat the sound, although I'd love to be able to find the sample I used for the bass on "Glow." I lost a lot of stuff when I moved from the Amiga to the PC.

DOA: Now, I've heard from more than a few different musicians, and it seems that not being knowledgeable about 'proper' music can be seen as both a blessing and a curse. Personally, would you consider that a positive thing, or is it more of a detriment to your ability to make music?

Guy: I was just trying to make the point that I can't easily predict what will come out when I start making a track because I can't translate the sounds in my head into music, unless I've got a sample in mind or something. That's definitely a bad thing sometimes, because it's frustrating. On the other hand, not being able to get the sound I want makes me totally open to accepting something that just sounds good when I happen to come up with it.

The real skill in making music on the computer is deciding what to leave out - it's so easy to generate hours and hours of music. But stacks of it will be shit. You have to be a filter, and I am a filter - I filter for my zine, I filter for my radio show, and I filter my own stuff. I don't record often, but when I do I record quickly. If a track's not going well, I just junk it and start another one.

I said to someone the other day that when I do a track I try and make it feel like it's lasted 10 minutes, but only let it last for three. Over the years I've developed a total lack of regard for tracks that last too long. I love dance music, but I wish that 12" singles came with a 7" version without all the long bits. I want to cram all the good bits in to a short space of time, listen to them, and move on. I hate albums that have 20 tracks and last 74 minutes. I want albums with eight tracks that last 25 minutes. Or EPs with six tracks that last for 20.

So, back to the point, I don't mind too much about not having the musical knowledge, because I know what I like and I'm prepared to trash anything I don't like.

DOA: I guess to wrap this up, I'll go to a few of those questions that writers love to ask and musicians hate to answer: How would you, personally, describe your current styles of music to someone who had never heard your material? What reasons can you give listeners to be interested in The Guy Who Invented Fire? Feel free to sell yourself to the best of your abilities here.

Guy: I've got a description that I really like, and it's completely accurate: two-finger electro. That's really how I make the tracks - stabbing out the melodies with my two index fingers.

Why should someone be interested in me? Bloody hell, that's your job isn't it? How about this: The Guy Who Invented Fire gives you only the good stuff.

(Gary Blackwell)