Ross Floss w/ Chez Voz (aka Daniel Voznick)

Grilled Chez (A blind stroll through the void)

Ross: (hhhmmm .. hit by a rock) Points of reference ... my name is Ross Floss and I'm sitting across the table from Chez Voz of Afterimage. Between us a couple of beers for lunch in a fashionable Hollywood restaurant, with the best food the strip has to offer ... for under $5.

We will attempt a blind stroll through the void with Chez Voz. So what brought you together? Was it music or personality?

Voz: A total lack of taste.

Ross: Did you join the band. Was Afterimage together when you came to it? I know you'ra sort of the leader now.

Voz: The band as it was had rehearsed one time when I came in. They had some pretty great slabs of noise on tape.

Ross: Did you have someone in your place before you.

Voz: No. Instrumental, they were instrumental.

Ross: Did they have songs, did they have an idea, did they know what they were doing at all?

Voz: They had musical ideas on tape from their one session, mostly ideas from older bands.

Ross: Any bands we've heard of?

Voz: Produce came from the Blank Ensemble, Holland and Rich from Distemper, a sort of hard core outfit.

Ross: What were you doing before that?

Voz: I was in some bands with silly names, such as Boys in Bondage and The Young Execs.

Ross: Were those musical outlets or art things?

Voz: A little of both. A definite idea dominated those things ... sort of testing my wings, shall we say.

Ross: You started out ...

Voz: My strings, testing my strings ..

Ross: Don't you stretch strings ... you started out in ahh ...

Voz: That came much later, the stretching.

Ross: So... first you test then you stretch ...

Voz: Then you smoke a cigarrette.

Ross: Indeed. College at Santa Barbara, was it art or music?

Voz: I floated around a lot, played with analog synthesizers and tape manipulation.

Ross: Not into performing until you came back to L.A?

Voz: That's right.

Ross: When you came back to LA, you got into video. What kind of stuff were you doing?

Voz: Videos of the band and others that were sort of twisted, out of the ordinary.

Ross: What were you trying to do with it?

Voz: I was learning how to do it, how to push the right buttons.

Ross: Where did you meet the others, Rich Evac-bass, Holland deNuzzio-drums, A Produce-guitar?

Voz: I met Produce first trough an ad, before Afterimage we had gotten together for a sort of noise thing. We weren't really a noise band but a noisey band. We played badly, we didn't practice.

Ross: You were playing sax then?

Voz: No, guitar. Sax came later.

Ross: Why sax?

Voz: Great instrument! Looks nice.

Ross: What knid of sax did you hear that made you like it? Are we talking jazzz...?

Voz: Difinately jazz. Even though I can't play that. It showed me the possibilities, MMMAAAANNNN!

Ross: (It must be the beers) So you'fe been playing only a couple of years. A lot of people say that they really notice the sax man .. stands out.

Voz: Another LA band uses sax but thety create a solid layer. I make it solo like a singer.

Ross: You could use tapes.

Voz: Yes, but I like real music happening onstage. People pumping it out. Movin' grovin' , like a sex machine ....(mumbles something here. spills his beer on the floor . the waiter comes over and says something nasty.)

Ross: So what about your music? You've been called dark and compared with Joy Divsion. Were you influenced by them?

Voz: Some of those bands were an influence, but most of the ideas and approach I had and still have go back further, before those bands were around. I didn't hear JD 'till we were already together awhile.

Ross: Then it's important for you not to sound traditional?

Voz: No, but I was after something exciting and different things interest me. With all the apathy a band can recieve, why not do something you like?

Ross: In your position, you really can't ... or maybe you can ... I don't think you could deal with the whole record company thing because you're so outside. They're just so turned inward ... it's a whole masturbatory thing. They don't go out looking for pleasure, they just stay in, stay at home ... type of guys.

Voz: Yes, and they just raid independent record companies to keep going.

Ross: Are you self financed?

Voz: Yes.

Ross: Drag, huh?

Voz: Well, you can spend your money on traveling, or your car, or drugs.

Ross: And you spent yours on drugs.

Voz: It is a drug, a big one. I think I'm hooked.