SEM Staff Profile
In Conversation With
Dominic Tanner
We asked our very talented Tech Support master, Dom to take a break from being awesome and give us a little glimpse into his amazingly prolific world outside of the SEM studios.
Tech Lord, Master Shredder, uber prolific music producer in many genres, singer, mastering engineer, etc etc is there anything you can’t do?
Sports. I’m heinous at sports.
You’ve just released your new album ‘מכשפה II’ on your own record label, this marks your 65th release!?! So many people have trouble finishing music/tracks, whats your secret?
I guess when you’ve been making music for 16 years it just comes to you pretty quickly, you’ve already been down all the dead ends you can go down, you’ve hit all the walls you can run into, so challenges are now more focused on trial rather than error. It just takes time, a lot of time, and making as many mistakes as possible. Doesn’t hurt being an absolute legend either.
Can you tell us a bit about your various aliases and the genres you produce.
Well, as a kid I was forced to listen to Europop, Hip Hop, Classic Rock, Jazz and whatever was on the radio. When I grew up I was drawn towards punk and metal and then later Breakcore and IDM. I wanted to make it all, so it made sense to split my brain apart into 20 different pseudonyms. A lot of these projects are confrontational, in the sense that it engages the listener by dispensing endless suffering and mental torture that only pays off with endurance, such as Error Flynn, Glič, pRRvRRt, however I also do Pop and Folky/Acoustic numbers under my main alias of Damir Bojanic, ambient doom ballads under Hellfruit, Satanic trap as מכשפה and countless experimental electronic pseudonyms. Le Enfant Terrible is personal favourite of mine as it allows me to make avant-garde jazz using bass sounds made of elastic bands, pianos sampled from aerosols and drums kits made from suitcases and pans, there’s no rules at all, total Outlaw Country vibes.
I used to do remixes under the guise of The International House of Mojo, but I stopped remixing after I was ripped off by Warner Bros Germany for reasons I’m still too bitter to talk about…
You’re also in a number of bands too?
Klaus Kinski are my boys from back in the old country. We’ve shed blood on stages all around the country and upset innocent gig-goers for over a solid decade now. Six Welsh lads making No-Wavey Punkish Noisecore. Bad cocktail of pure misbehaviour and violence with zero machoism. We’ve had to calm down now that we’re older, broken (physically & spiritually) and now one of us is a dad, so no more rolling around in broken glass or kicking drinks out of people’s hands or performing wrestling manouvres on concrete floors. Queer’d Science was my big baby. Just a fun, chaotic party band who left most people confused. Essentially a 3-piece punk band playing hard techno/math afro beat with the nastiest, ugliest guitar tone imaginable.
Our singer moved back to Sweden, so we only reform every now and then for the occasional festival these days. Only band I’ve ever seen an all-female mosh-pit for and it was one of the most brutal scenes I’ve ever witnessed, and I am eternally honoured. I occasionally step-in for guitar duties/moderate shredding in Irma Vep, which is a solo project of Ed who’s also in Klaus Kinski and I’m also one of about 30 people who’ve passed through the ranks of Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura which is an improv Sabbath-meets-Santana free-for-all shred-buffet.
Can you tell us a bit about your studio set up?
I have a literal mountain of junk that’s not worth discussing but there are a few items of importance. I’ve always been loyal to Tascam, going back to the old 4-track tape machines, then for audio interfaces; I use a US-16×08 at the moment which is sleek and means I can record an entire band from out of a rucksack. This also leaves me plenty of room to patch my old guitar pedals to use as external audio effect units, most notably a Korg Toneworks AX1500G which is cheap and bulky but reliable.
It’s what I created that “iconic” Queer’d Science guitar tone with, pumped through Carlsbro Stingray amp head. People tend to dump things they don’t want on me, like speakers, bags of unusable cables, drum machines and one of those is a rare gem in the form of a Yamaha RX-21. It’s limited; 9 sounds, no velocity but retro as hell it’s the same drum machine that was used on Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message”. Warm Audio do a tube EQ “homage” of the old Pultec specs and it’s as powerful as it is subtle and versatile. It takes up half of my desk but it’s worth it.
For students needing help in the studios you’re the go-to-guy, but you were a student yourself not so long ago?
Aye, many moons ago back in 2010. I’d been producing my own music for 8 years by that point, self-taught so massive gaps in my knowledge and rough around the edges. I was miserable as a financial caseworker at RBS so walked out and decided I was still young enough to do something that made me happy. I went back into studying at what was then MMS and then a year or two later I set up Idle Christ Records then Bojanic Audio & Mastering then boom.
You recently featured in our guitar day video with an impressive display of fingerwork. Can you play any other instruments?
*leans back arrogantly* I’m actually a savage bassist. I started learning how to write music on a second hand Hondo II Precision and spent hours as a teen shredding ludicrous basslines of pure hedonistic nonsense over other people’s songs. The only way to learn any instrument. I find the limitation of having just 4 strings to be rewarding as it pushes you to analyse what you can achieve creatively on a bass.
I can smash out chords on a synth with medium proficiency, and if my limbs could physically translate the beats I have in my head then I’d be the world’s greatest drummer, but that won’t happen anytime soon.
I had a go on a trumpet once. Rubbish.
What does the future hold? Another 65 albums?
Aiming for 666 albums, then my life’s work is complete.
