VOLT 2023: A Volition Archive

VOLT 2023: How did Now: Zero start out?

Scot Mcphee: I can’t remember the exact details of how we started out. I knew Simm (Steel) as he was in my friend group, along with (Garry) Bradbury, (Tom) Ellard, Jason Gee and others. We probably started talking about doing some music together and that’s how it started. Before that I had done a lot of weird experimental solo gigs as “E.D.C.” and worked with some other people in various projects that often just lasted the one gig, as was the style at the time.

VOLT 2023: Was Stewart Lawler with you before or after being with Boxcar?

Scot: Stewart was a member of the BBS (Bulletin Board System) “Sys-Ex”, which Jason Gee and I ran and hosted in my studio, dedicated to electronic music and art. So that’s how he became involved, very early on in our history. This was all before he was involved with Boxcar and Severed Heads. Pre-internet even. The BBS had a FidoNet and UUCP connection to the outside world.

VOLT 2023: You had two tracks, “Falling” and “The Caution”, included on the Volition collection “High (A Dance Compilation)”. How did that come about?

Scot: We were always dropping various demos off to Andrew Penhallow at Volition. He encouraged us to record those two songs.  

“Falling” was one of the very first songs that we wrote. I had worked at Roland, and from that I had an R-8 and an MC-500 sequencer, as well as a Matrix 6R, which I still have.

At some point I had the main synth riff and the drum part, which I played to Simm and Stewart, and we built the rest from there. That was pretty typical of our process, I think. We recorded it onto a Tascam 8 track cassette-based Portastudio if I recall correctly.

“The Caution” came a bit later, at least the recording did. We would have had a very rough live version for some time before we recorded that one. Stewart did a lot of the production on that one.

VOLT 2023: I think both those tracks have a pretty timeless sound; they’ve aged well and they’re quite unique. Were there any inspirations or influences on your music as Now:Zero?

Scot: Our influences were pretty varied. Simm and I were both old punks. We all had eclectic influences… post-punk stuff like P.I.L., Wire, B-52s, Devo, New Order, and that sort of thing, which is what I had grown up listening to in my late teens, and dub reggae, 60s psychedelic music. And any type of weird electronic music, Cabaret Voltaire and stuff like that, Severed Heads of course, but also other local bands like the Systematics.

In the mid 80s I’d also become a fan of mainstream electro-pop like The The, and Human League’s album ‘Dare’. Of course I’d heard and revered their earlier work but wasn’t turned off by the glossy pop aesthetic of that album. We also weren’t averse to hip hop — I was a huge admirer of early Public Enemy for example. Also the late 1980s was when the first wave of house and techno hit, so we had soaked up plenty of that at house and warehouse parties, especially around the gay and lesbian scene in inner city Sydney at the time.

VOLT 2023: What were your hopes for Now: Zero? Had you planned to release an album?

Scot: We had planned to record and release an album at some stage, but what I think diverted from that path was the growing underground rave scene. Especially once I got involved in Clan Analogue.

At the time I lived with Bradbury, and he came home one night wielding a Clan Analogue flyer, which he was given at the pub, I think. And it turned out that a whole bunch of them lived a couple of doors up from us! So Simm and I kinda went in that direction, and Stewart at that point was working with Boxcar already.

We started out making weird soundscapes mashed over electro-beats, very trancey. Now:Zero has some stuff released via Clan Analogue, on E.P. 3 (aka “Deep Three Compilation” catalogue number CA 003) and the first CD, “Cog” (CA007). I’m pretty embarrassed about that stuff, its very of its time.

VOLT 2023: You’ve had numerous solo releases over the years since Now: Zero under various project names. Are you still making music, and can we look forward to something new?

Scot: After a while I started working solo as “Nerve Agent” for a good decade. There’s an album via Clan Analogue called “G-Type”, tracks on several other compilations, and a couple of overseas released 12” records. Oh and a track on “Trance Pacific Express”. 

Just before I moved to Brisbane in the mid 2000s, I switched to the moniker “Victor Xray”. Even before then, working as all three names, I had already released the odd track through Dennis and Anna Remmer’s Transcom label in Brisbane. They handled the distro for the Victor Xray “Dark Arts of Dub” 12” E.P., as well as putting some digital only EPs out and putting various tracks on their compilations, like the fantastic ‘BNE’ compilation.

VOLT 2023: Is Simm still around, and making music?

Scot: Earlier this year Simm, Stewart, and I were discussing rerecording old material, and producing new work. Something might still come of that, stay tuned.

I have literally gigabytes of unreleased music on my hard drive. I still write and record. The problem is sorting out all the genres of stuff I create. I rarely stick to one thing!

The music industry nowadays is shattered to pieces. I spent ten years completing my PhD in the 2010s, so that curtailed a lot of my efforts. I still made music in that time, but I didn’t have the time or energy to play it live, or promote it, or bombard social media with it, which is what you need to do to make a successful release.

Since then I still occasionally play out, as Victor Xray, once or twice a year … polyrhythmic semi-modular stuff … but these gigs are often in northern New South Wales. They’re organised through my friend Nadnerb who founded Clan Analogue, among other projects, as he lives and works in Mullumbimby now. These things are usually unrepeatable happy-accident style improvisations.

[Scot Mcphee was interviewed via email.]