TEST DEPT Industrial pioneers, Test Dept have proved that it’s possible to have a coherent career, both musically and politically. They have managed to keep surprising us, during all these years, on record and also on stage. I read that all the members of the band were unemployed just before founding Test Dept. Howwas living in the UK at the beginnings of the 80s? Paul Jamrozy: We came from different parts of Britain and settled in NewCross,which was a very run-down area, lots of the properties and businesses around us were boarded up, there were lots of squats and it was here that Test Dept lived and worked. The community was a multicultural mix of students and the unemployed.Musically the punk scene had dissipated, but the experimentation of post punk had changed the sonic environment.Music was a vital force that provided a focus and an antidote to the oppression that existed. More than a decade ago, I visited Sheffield to try to understand how industrial music “started” there. And I thought that the endless sound of factories were the key in the creation of the style.Howdo you think that living in the docks of South London helped the development of the sound of the band? Graham Cunnington: We relocated to the docklands of South London where we were surrounded by the inevitable consequence of Thatcher’s destruction of the heavy industry and manufacturing economic base in favour of a service economy. Corrugated sheeting, empty beer barrels, gas cylinders, car springs, they were everywhere around us. Deptford Creekside was our playground, we wandered around the old decaying factories, rummaged on the banks of the Thames and scavenged in the scrapyards that proliferated in the area. The band used unconventional instruments such as scrap metal and industrial machinery as sound sources. Were Einstürzende Neubauten an inspiration or both bands just did the same at the same time? PJ.: I saw EN in Berlin, they were like a wrecking ball to mainstream rock music. These were ideals we shared in our fledgling state. ’Steh auf Berlin’ struck a chord. It was a clarion call to stand up and fight and seemed to embody what was happening in Europe at the time. GC.:We were on the same label as them (Some Bizzare).They played metal percussion. That’s where the comparison ends for us. They were very creative and somewhat groundbreaking, with their use of sound, especially in those early years,but they seemed to be working more within the whole “rock” aesthetic which was not our scene at all. www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be - 4 - What can you tell us of the collaboration with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir that was the origin of the Shoulder-to-Shoulder record? The band toured and made this album in support of a miner’s strike, right? GC.: The Miners” Strike resonated with us then and now, and is still relevant as marking the moment when the post-war liberal consensus finally started to be fully broken apart; when the uninhibited neoliberal free-market economy could be fully implemented. The Miners’ Strike was the pivotal campaign in the UK, the last great resistance to the introduction of the system of individual and corporate greed which has led,over the subsequent years, to today’s political, social and environmental mess. Thatcher knew if she could break the miners, she could break the unions and thereafter allow the implementation of corporate hegemony and diminished workers’ rights. This model subsequently spread across much of the globe. Beating the Retreat is considered the band’s best work. Do you agree? Why do you think that fans prefer the band’s third album? PJ.: Actually our first vinyl album. It was a huge sonic development from our previous rough and ready sound aided by the genius producer KenThomas.We always treated the studio very differently to live shows, where that raw sound and energy was not something that could be easily captured. It has some strong material on it that is recognized as significant of the early industrial scene. For Disturbance and the current work we have revisited our archive and sought to capture that early energy and rawness combined with contemporary production values.I thinkwe have always tried to do something different in recordings, we have not
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