IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

It takes a lot to scare the bejaysus out of the average Nine Inch Nails fan, but newcomer noiseniks Health rose to the challenge when touring with the goth elder-statesmen recently.

“We designed the opening of those shows to be as crazy as possible,” recalls frontman Jake Duzsik. “We would just start with pure noise. I don’t think that’s ever been done in an arena setting before.”
As anyone who has listened to Health’s grindhouse din can attest, ‘pure noise’ is something at which these scrawny Los Angelenos excel. Somewhere between an experimental ambient record, a discordant metal album and someone going wacko crazy with a power-drill, their sound is at once seductively off-kilter and, to be frank, quite terrifying. One shudders to imagine how it went down with the NIN hardcore.
“We got booed sometimes,” recalls Jake. “Nine Inch Nails fans are fanatical and tend to be a certain kind of person. They’re not very interested in seeing you, let me put it that way. We had things thrown at us.”
Not that Health hold NIN fans entirely to blame.
“People go through so much to get to a stadium show, in terms of parking, paying for expensive tickets, buying shitty ten-dollar beers. Your girlfriend wants a t-shirt – that’s another 40 bucks. Then the lights go off and the only thing between you and the goal of finally seeing your favourite band is the support act. They have you play for 45 minutes and that’s just way too long. People get fed up.”
They got a rather better welcome from NIN leader Trent Reznor, who handpicked Health as support after randomly encountering the band on the internet.
“He’s super friendly. Before the tour, we didn’t know if we would get to meet him. As it turns out, he’s really down to earth and laid-back. I mean, he’s an intense guy. But there isn’t a cult of mystery to him or anything.”
For a band whose music is often impenetrable – though new album Get Color is relatively accessible – Health certainly haven’t lacked for weighty cheerleaders. In addition to Reznor, their list of fans includes Crystal Castles, who spent much of last year talking up Health to anyone who would listen, going so far as to include a remix of the LA band’s ‘Crime Wave’ on their own album.
“They’re a very different thing, but they helped introduce us to a lot of people. Every once and a while we get people asking us if we’re going to play that version of ‘Crime Wave’. To which our answer is: ‘dude, it’s a remix’.
Duzsik gets a little antsy when it’s suggested that Get Color sees the band moving in a more commercial direction, with hummable melodies and quasi-choruses.
“If that’s your reaction to the music, then it’s absolutely valid. We don’t want to make up people’s minds for them. Personally, I do think it’s more melodic and accessible. We’re going more for a song structure. It’s not a deliberate strategy or anything. We’re developing as a band and trying to write better songs.”
Together with other underground darlings such as No Age, Health are intimately associated with Los Angeles club The Smell, an art/performance space which has been staging all age ‘happenings’ for the past five years and which has achieved global fame/notoriety, culminating in a profile in, of all places, WASP institution The New Yorker.
“It’s not the most fun place in the world to go to,” says Duzsik. “I mean, you pretty much have to be a hardcore music fan. You can’t drink, it’s in this dirty, stinky alleyway. It’s in a part of town that’s dangerous. So you don’t go there looking to hook up with some chicks. You go there to see music.”
He isn’t exaggerating – the venue is just off Skid Row, ground zero for LA’s vast homeless community.
“The first time we went to The Smell, you had to park next to these shanty tents. Every night something crazy would happen as you were getting to your car. They’ve really been trying to clean LA up – it’s not so much that people have jobs. They’ve been pushed into a different part of downtown. I think the city has something like 90,000 homeless.”
Even nipping out for a post-gig beer can be an adventure, he says. “Usually we go to this Mexican gay bar because it’s the least threatening place to go to. Other bars, it feels that, when you walk in, the record skips and everyone is going ‘why the fuck are these guys in here?’ The gay bar is sketchy as hell. At least nobody wants to kill you.”
Though their music suggests a certain art school prankster-ism – unless you’re fully on board with their shtick, their tumult of percussion and feedback can induce headaches and even nausea – Health are actually quite earnest about what they do. Aghast at the Death of the Album, they’ve taken a leaf out of the Willy Wonka book of marketing in a bid to boost physical sales of Get Colour.
Concealed within a number of CD and vinyl editions will be ‘golden tickets’ – the top prize is an all-expenses paid trip to Los Angeles, where the band will put you up, show you their local attractions and, finally, take you on a day-trip to Six Flags rollercoaster park. Runner-up prizes include scarves knitted by the band members’ parents, signed photographs and various other items of paraphernalia.
“We wanted to find a way to make it more special for people who want to buy CDs. Because so few people actually want to buy CDs, there seems to be less of an emotional relationship with an album. We thought this would be an interesting way of making it personal with them. We wanted to create some sort of communication between the band and the listener – hopefully someone will actually want to come to LA and hang out with us.”