Tristan Shone, better known as Author & Punisher, was hard at work in his garage soldering wires for his new set of instruments when RockRevolt caught up with him on New Year’s Eve. For those who aren’t familiar, A&P is a one-man industrial doom metal act that incorporates dynamic shifts in music and periodic of down-tuned roars. Not only is Tristan creating the music, but he is building this assembly line of custom triggers, throttles, and an eight piece MIDI controller microphone. Author & Punisher is a clean-cut, mechanical engineer too interesting to ignore. So while Tristan fused his precious metals together, we chatted about tour life, British soccer, and Godflesh.
Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule, we really appreciate it! Do you have anything planned for NYE tonight?!
I probably will find something terrible to do later on, but for now – just working (laughs)! Trying not to drink too early! (laughs)
Many people know who you are thanks to Philip H. Anselmo. He has openly endorsed you – hell I’ve personally seen him on stage sweating all over one of your shirts, and if you’re a true Phil fan you pay attention to his musical interests. What is it like to have someone of his stature recognize your talents?
It’s great! It’s great to have him give me shout-outs and take me on tour. But, it is also more important to me, actually, to be on tour with him and see how professional they [The Illegals] are. To watch them on stage, watch them do their thing, their artistry on stage – it’s amazing. I don’t get those opportunities very often – so just to be able to see him play every night, and his band play every night, that is amazing.
As a giant Pantera fan whom is insanely jealous and excited for you – I must know how you two even got in contact.
I got the call when I was in the UK -his tour manager came up to me and told me Phil wanted me to come on tour with him. I thought he was joking! It took a second for that to sink in!
Anytime I see your name pop up on any music website/blog – I only read incredible things about you. Most notably ‘the future of music”. What does it feel like having people say that about you and what you’re doing?
I’m not trying to make new music. I came from the same background as a lot of these other guys [artists in the heavy metal music industry]. I listen to bands like Godflesh, Led Zeppelin, [Black] Sabbath – all those bands. I also listen to lot of electronic stuff as well – a lot of dance music. So, the background is the same, but I think kind of forcing myself into making different interfaces makes it all unique. -Kind of molds music into a different form – you’re not limited by a guitar and drum set, you can kind of – you put your body in new positions and makes the music sound different. So I think simple changes like that influence music drastically. But it’s a great compliment to hear nonetheless.
You seem unlimited when it comes to sounds you’re able to produce. You construct all your own instruments and corresponding components, which is so unlike any other act out there. Your live performance has to be quite a task; what is required for a show?
Kind of depends – I play a lot of smaller gigs, and art galleries. In that situation I can have a very complicated set up, or I can have a simple set up. So for Phil’s tour, since I have assistance, I’ve got people on the road to help me carry equipment and sell merchandise and do visuals. That’s ideal because I can get up on stage early and go through a full sound check. I have a lot of custom cables that I make, you can’t go to the local music shop and buy them. So it’s imperative to make sure everything is plugged in and working properly. Other than that it’s very much the same as any band. I realize that if I play a club I have to function just like a band does. They’re [show promoters] not going to give me any special treatment to set up and break down my instruments just because I require the time. I have to be up there, 15 minutes – be ready to play, and be off the stage in ten minutes. You have to accomplish that seamlessly or you risk playing time being sacrificed.
It is stressful at the same time because I have custom instruments with custom cables. Although I do have backups, but sometimes it’s a pain. I do try to as much as possible- having toured as much as I have recently, I realize I need to change the designs a little bit sometimes, instead of making something so customized. Just the connector- you know, I make my instruments very custom (laughs). I’m trying to make some of my other pieces more standard so that logistically it works out. When I was playing just art museums and galleries you have everything set up without an issue, but when you’re playing a club show you have to stick within that mold and time limit, you know? The metal world and music communities have a mold they want you to fit to.
You mentioned playing in art galleries – what a cool concept, that makes perfect sense!
Yeah, it works out! It’s nice to be able to play a multitude of venues and not just be stuck with one type. A lot of times if you’re a smaller band, a doom metal band and just starting out – chances are the venues that you can play are dive bars in St. Louis. I like that, I like cheap beer (laughs), but it would be nice to go to St. Louis and play an art gallery. Not everyone wants to go to a shitty bar, they might want to go to somewhere with a different scene. By doing that, [performing at art galleries] I opened up a lot of non-metal people to my music. I think art galleries are a place we should continue to explore- they have kegs, it’s a cool, alternative space that allows shows!
Tell me more about the time it takes you to develop these instruments versus actually putting them to use and playing them.
Once I build them, I definitely get mileage out of these. I play them for years! I still have the first instruments I built in 2007, but I haven’t played them in a long time because they’re really heavy. But now that I’m getting a little bit more support to tour, I’ll probably bring those back out. I think I spend more time performing rather than building them though. For now- the new instruments I’m designing, I started a year and a half ago and they won’t be done for another year or so. I have this overlap going, which is a little bit logistically complicated because I have to keep playing shows and at the same time create new instruments. Sometimes you just wish you had a private donor!
You have quite a unique relationship with your instruments what is it like being completely submerged into every sound that leaves the instruments?
I think that guitars, bass, and drums – all those things are more physical than I want it to be. They didn’t feel customized to my body. When I imagine a sound – playing guitar wasn’t what I imagined that sound to be – so I started listening to electronic music and kind of hearing different textures than just guitar distortion. I tried to think of other ways you can move the body and grab on to a device – kind of like the things I touch at my day job – mechanical devices and lab equipment – and you come across something that feels really good. So I just decided to make this set up where I can be touching these things all the time. Now – that also can get very complicated because you can get lost in that. I tried to make my set up to where you can’t get lost. You go to the store buy a console with all these buttons and knobs – it’s just not intuitive. I put my weight into the stuff it makes a sound effect. I can grab onto three of my instruments at once, and have my mouth on another one – and kind of morph my body into what I want the sound to do. I wanted it to be like riding a bike; something that matched my body. I don’t think someone else should ever play my set up.
[Concert Visuals] Author & Punisher “In Remorse” Live at The Fillmore
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Playing a traditional drum set is similar to what you do with your machines because you’re separating your brain into different sections to use your hands and feet accordingly – yet you’re also adding your voice as well. Was that an easy task for you?
Well, it took a while, but the first machines I made incorporated really slow movements, so I could move and this wheel would spin and make this “AAARRRGG” noise. It kind of stayed going for a while then I could bring the drums in slowly, and then drone my voice out. Once I got better at it, I started to increase the speed and coordination. So yeah – it took some time.
Do you think you enjoy building your instruments over playing them or do you enjoy both equally?
I think I like performing more. I like sitting and designing instruments. It’s a really pleasant experience sitting on the computer and designing. It’s a very relaxing process. I’ll sit on the couch – I’m a huge soccer fan- so I’ll put on a British soccer game and I’ll just sit with a beer designing my machine. That would be an ideal situation in my life right there. Machining and putting the actual instruments together, it’s a very hard thing. Very difficult, takes a lot of time. There are a lot of mistakes made, a lot of money spent. Right now I’m trying to raise money to make my new set of instruments. I’m trying to raise money with art grants, also possibly some commercial avenues. I mostly fund my own stuff with my job. Which means that I never have any money at all. It’s kind of a pain in the ass (laughs).
I see that your wife contributes to your musical career by playing keyboards and running visuals, so does this mean the rest of your family and friends accept and understand what you’re doing?
Yeah, my parents come to my shows! They’re into it. My parents and my cousins came to the Worcester Palladium show for Phil’s [Anselmo] tour. It was awesome! He basically talked to my parents about growing tomatoes and organic farming. He [Phil] hung out with my dad and cousins like two hours after the show! He’s very down to earth. I think that’s why he and my parents got along so well. I’ve been doing this forever, so they’re used to the whole scene and process.
Your latest piece, Women and Children, is a great album – but some of the material featured on this album seems so intricate and layered – you’re not able to perform all of this alone, are you?
Very true! I don’t even play those songs live. I would say on the Ursus Americanus album – I couldn’t play everything live or I would play sequence. That’s fine, but then I was annoyed with that because there were a lot of songs I couldn’t play live. On Ursus [Americanus] I was very conscious – everything that’s on there I wanted to be able to play – so it’s almost like a live album. I have songs right now that are full of improvisations that aren’t even on any of the albums. So a lot of my set is like that.
As a random question, because I’m sure you have a dynamic taste in music, what musical influences would we NOT expect?
Let’s see, I like James Blake a lot, he’s a newer artist in the last few years. He’s very mellow, electronic dub-based music. Ed Rush and Optical – two drum and bass guys that I really like. Let’s see what else…um…probably like Bonnie Prince Billy – really mellow but dark, folk music. I can’t mellow out all the time, but metal is a different feeling. It’s still very dark and heavy.
We really appreciate you donating your time to us, Tristan. I hope to catch you on tour this year, because it’s clearly a must-see show!
Thanks, great to chat! I hope to see you!
~Cassie Carlson, Journalist
Connect with Tristan Shone (aka Author & Punisher) at the links below!
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | WEBSITE | VIMEO | BANDCAMP | MYSPACE
Check out his upcoming tour dates HERE!
