You've been active in electro+ music for almost decade and a half. What's your view on the scene in all these years?
SMITH - It's great to just watch the waves of fashion crash into the shores of brutal reality year after year, safe like a seal on our tiny but solid rock of integrity.
DAN - It's a beautiful thing to see kids hijacking the family computer and starting a band. It's amazing to go to a "punk" concert and see keyboard onstage. A 15 year old today will listen to Lightning Bolt, Jay-Z and Autechre all together and think it’s no big deal. It's satisfying that young people are seeing music as an option to create and express themselves - as a way to communicate and reach out to others. This is what electronic music has done for all of us.

Speaking of California, it is blooming with dark hardcore rock and even darker industrial scene. What put us back on dark music map?
SMITH - Raw numbers. California has a huge population of bored, educated young people with enough disposable income to start bands. So called "dark" music tends to be most appealing to people with little to actually fear in their own daily lives, but a huge amount of psychological trauma associated with experiencing decent dental care and suburban grocery shopping. This describes BABYLAND almost perfectly - I assure you that my glass house has already been reduced to ruins.
DAN - There is also a steady flow of new humans migrating to our corner of the world. Los Angeles may well be the most ethnically diverse city in the world, and often with that diversity comes tension, alienation and a basic need to make sense of one's environment; These are the perfect ingredients for "dark" artistic expression. And I also agree with Smith that our access to technical resources and a decent standard of living largely contributes to the ability to participate in music. But in the end, it may just be that it's easier to make dark, brooding music in a place that's sunny and 80 degrees most of the year.

Do you still make music on Apple II and tin barrels?
SMITH - Tin sounds really terrible and it doesn't hold up to the punishment I give my gear, so there have never been any tin barrels. My junk of choice is steel - stainless steel if at all possible - and I use oak sticks 15 inches long and 1.4 inches thick.
DAN - Yes, I still use my original Mac SE for most of my sequencing though live we are now using a G4 Powerbook (now 1.25 gigs of RAM versus the 4 megs in my SE!)

If you trade your computer for some other equipment for making music, what would it be?
SMITH - Depends on who's paying the freight: If size and weight were no object, I think a BABYLAND tour with multiple Gamelan and Grand Pianos would be fun. Then again, the format of what we do IS what we do, there really isn't any changing it except by its own glacially slow evolution.
DAN - I couldn't do it. We've been through too much together, and besides, I can't play any instruments.

If you used vocoder, how would you 'modify' your vocals?
SMITH - I'd use it to sound like Cher.
DAN - Haven't you heard our track "Startled By The Obvious"? Cybotron and Egyptian Lover were flown in specifically to supervise the vocoding on that one.

Also, which punk band would be perfect to remix/cover your songs?
SMITH - I'd pay a couple cases of beer to hear Twister Naked cover our song "Nativity." There's a band from the Mojave Desert called Dead Rats that recorded a very slick cover of "Omaha" that works great a la punk rock. There is a great underground remix of "Stomach" by Bombardier from NYC, and of course the classic BABYLAND cover was Stanford Prison Experiment doing "Worst Case Scenario." Hearing bands cover your stuff is almost always great!
DAN - Any punk band made up of outcast kids from suburbia pounding out a BABYLAND song for their high school talent show.

In the end: where would you start your world tour?
SMITH - Los Angeles!
DAN - I would have to say Helsinki. I spent time in Finland when I was in high school and I loved it - I need to go back! Mark my words - some day WE WILL ROCK SUOMI! (EOF)