| Psyclon Nine | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Castro Valley, California, United States |
| Genres | Industrial metal Electro-industrial Aggrotech EBM Black metal |
| Years active | 2000–2010(hiatus) 2011-present |
| Labels | Metropolis, NoiTekk |
| Associated acts | Everything Goes Cold, Mushroomhead, Nocturne |
| Website | PsyclonNine.com |
| Members | |
| Nero Bellum Abbey Nex Rotny Ford Jon Siren Vlixx |
|
| Past members | |
| Eric Gottesman Josef Heresy Daniel Columbine Dr Sevin Daniel Fox |
|
Psyclon Nine is a musical group formed in 2000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. While their early efforts are generally categorized as aggrotech, their more recent material has incorporated a disparate set of musical and aesthetic influences, notably industrial metal. The group took a hiatus at the end of 2010 due to Marshall Goppert (aka Nero Bellum's) opiate addiction. According to a Facebook status on their page, Goppert is bringing Psyclon Nine back. On October 30th, 2011, Psyclon Nine played their first show since the hiatus in New York.
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Psyclon Nine began in 2000 when Marshall Goppert (then using the name Marshall Carnage) and Josef Heresy began working on a guitar-oriented electronic project called "Defkon Sodomy", influenced by bands like KMFDM and Ministry. Renamed Psyclon Nine they played a small festival headlined by See Colin Slash, whose frontman, Eric Gottesman, was promptly recruited as the band's third member.
Goppert met NoiTekk head Marco Gruhn at a San Francisco Grendel show, and persuaded him to sign the band. The band's first album, Divine Infekt was recorded shortly thereafter, produced and engineered by Da5id Din of Informatik and din fiv, a electro-industrial/futurepop band on the local scene. The title track was remixed by Tactical Sekt, and the album was released in 2003.
Goppert later said in a interview for Vampirefreaks: "Tactical Sekt remix left a bad taste in my mouth", and attributed that to Anthony Mathers of Tactical Sekt political differences to his own overview on American politics. He also said the incident made him not to collaborate with anyone out of the band (a belief he held strongly until We the Fallen).
The band toured lightly in the U.S. and Europe in support of the album, playing with bands including Dismantled, Nocturne, Feindflug, Aslan Faction, Grendel, and American industrial rock figurehead Martin Atkins on his spoken word tour.
Several tracks for the follow-up album had already been in the band's live rotation for some time when writing began in earnest. Those tracks were "Lamb of God", "Nothing Left", "Rape This World", "Faith:Disease", and an early, very different version of "The Feeble Mind". By the time the album began to take shape, the band had signed in the United States with Metropolis Records.
After several months writing at home, the band had produced a complete album's worth of demo material. Most of the songs focused on Christianity, some actively hostile towards it, others discussing its history and influence, and the title track became "INRI". The demo version of "Lamb of God" appears on the Noitekk compilation United I. Psyclon returned to Da5id Din's studio for mixing, and the completed album was released in April 2005 on Metropolis in the U.S. and Noitekk in Europe.
Psyclon made several major live appearances following the album release, including several dates opening for alternative act Mindless Self Indulgence and a headlining slot at the German Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival. The MSI shows especially helped solidify the band's younger fanbase, which had been expanding from the traditional rivethead music crowd and out in to the larger alternative music population.
In 2006, Psyclon Nine released their third full-length album, entitled Crwn Thy Frnicatr. Taking another step away from their terror EBM roots, the album features black metal-styled guitars prominently, and frequently complements them with blast beat kick drums and high-pitched, shrieking vocals typical of black metal.
The music on Crwn Thy Frnicatr was written almost exclusively by Goppert, with only occasional contributions by Eric Gottesman. Some lyrics were written in conjunction with founding member Josef Heresy, but mainly handled by Goppert.
Marshall Goppert appeared on internet channel NoisescapeTV in 2008 and said that he was in the studio working on an album entitled We the Fallen, scheduled for release on September 9, 2009. On that album and its preceding tours, Jon Siren of Kidneythieves, Mankind Is Obsolete, and Hate Dept. became Psyclon Nine's new drummer.[1]
We the Fallen was well received. The album featured guests Brandan Schieppati from Bleeding Through, Gary Zon of Dismantled, Jamison Boaz of Epsilon Zero, Johan van Roy of Suicide Commando. We the Fallen fused more of a metal-styled influence, but was still clearly in the realm of electro-industrial/aggrotech.
In interviews, the band has stated that they are frequently accused of Nazism, partly because their name is derived from Zyklon B, an insecticide best known for its use by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.[2][3] In response to the accusations, Goppert stated that "people who think we're nazi's [sic] are fucking idiots and I don't want them listening to my music".[2] Such allegations are supported by a large tattoo of the word "Übermensch" across Goppert's chest. To charges of supposed antisemitism, the band also pointed out that former member Eric Gottesman is Jewish and that their song "Requiem for the Christian Era" features lyrics from a Hebrew prayer.[3]
From early 2010 onwards, Marshall Goppert (Nero Bellum) has been accused of scamming many fans for money via Western Union. As of August 2010, over 40 fans have reported personally sending money to Goppert for Psyclon Nine band merchandise via Western Union, and then not receiving what they had ordered. While the other band members/former band members strongly deny any association with these alleged scams, Goppert himself has not affirmed nor denied association with these scams. Since late August 2010, all band members aside from Goppert were removed from the Psyclon Nine Myspace band page, therefore making Goppert the only member responsible for band merchandise.
On October 10, 2010, Goppert posted a new blog entry on his personal Myspace page that addresses the "scam", his drug addiction and the undetermined hiatus of Psyclon Nine. On October 31, 2011 Goppert posted a Facebook status on the Psyclon Nine page that Psyclon Nine is back again.
... There were only a very small handful of people who could still stand to be around me. It was during this time in which, I was attempting to live off of merch sales. I'm being honest with you when I tell you that I had NEVER intended to rip anyone off. NEVER. However, I did get way over my head with sales, and my drug habit kept me from ever shipping anything out. I kept telling myself that I would ship it all out on Friday, then Monday, then Friday again. After months of this, I completely lost track of who I even sold to. This has kept me up nights on so many occasions. Eventually, I reached a point where I had decided that I had made too big a mess of my life and that I should just take my own life. ...