Below is an email interview with Breck Stewart. All interviews are published unedited.
- You have had a varied career starting at a very young age. What have been the most rewarding highlights so far?
For me, the work has always been the reward. To actually be able to put so much time and effort into my art is a gift from life I truly cherish. Yes, I struggle financially and my whole existence is dedicated to my career which means very little to no social life. But somehow, as soon as I stop working I get depressed. As if the whole purpose of my existence was to actually promote and create my art, no matter how vain it might sound.
And I fully understand that the fame I have once craved so much and that might always elude me is made up only of tiny glimpses of recognition which in the end, doesn't really define us. But I must say that by starting very young, I was really able to put it all in perspective and never forget that in any career, the ones who succeed are the ones who often have to sacrifice everything to what they believe in. And I'm prepared for that.
- You list a very impressive support team behind you, what are their roles and how important do you think it is to have this support system?
The thing about my organization is that we are mainly 3 members: Me, Calvin and Gabe, my 2 partners. We actually all live in different countries most of the time. Yet with the net now making things so easy and distances a thing of the past, we were able to create a dynamic which fits well.
There are also other people that come and go in the process but somehow, the 3 of us have connected in a way that made an efficient entity. Without them, not much of this would ever be possible. Now that we are not only producing but actually distributing both a movie and album, the level of complexity makes their role invaluable.
- Tell me about the releases you have to date and are there any more planned for the future?
We have released the album Utopia first online in digital form only back in December 2007. But it took a long time in order to create a structure that would allow us to sustain a promotion strategy. I must admit, I was coming from the world of porn where I was an actor since 2000. And so, I had to completely redefine my role and existence while making a bifurcation to music in 2006 when I started to record the album. I hadn't really recorded any vocals before that point.
And all the while, I wanted to start producing and directing my own project which actually became a sort of mix between my music and high tech pornography. Utopia X is now the movie I am releasing officially on the 5th of November exactly 6 years to the day after the theatrical release of The Matrix Revolutions which came out in 2003. The Matrix trilogy had such a profound impact on me that it completely redefined the way I viewed life. And in a way, Utopia X is my own version of The Matrix, with sex, very cheap effects and no money lol
I wanted to create a new kind of pornography where images would come at a very fast pace being relentless in their motion. The movie is available for any public display with no restrictions and will be distributed progressively in many dance and sex clubs. We also plan to release Utopia on CD in 2010 with a bonus Disc along with a video compilation on DVD featuring new music videos including many from my next album called Mister E.
I'm still working on recording this last outing and it should become available hopefully sometime in 2010 in digital form at first and then on CD subsequently. Being an independent artist often means that our albums are progressively being heard because we don't have a massive push from the big labels which makes it possible for an established artist to be seen simultaneously throughout a large array of venues. As an indie, I got used to working from the ground up for any new production.
- How would you describe your music and who has inspired you?
I admit I was baffled at first when I was asked to describe my own music. The best definition I came up with is electronic dance music with a pop edge. It's quite a bit experimental and can even be eclectic. What happened is that I met 2 music composers who had tons of musical compositions without vocals or structures that could be as long as 10 minutes and more.
I listened to a huge amount of material and picked parts of certain tracks which I thought could become songs and started to write words and melodies. And I was really careful to adhere to a certain pop structure even if the original music wasn't necessarily created to accomodate a pop song per say. And once I was faced with the results, I had a hard time describing it even to myself.
I tend to have a schizophrenic way of writing songs, very charged and dense vocally which I have to refine a bit by substracting elements. And even if there is a ton of artists who have truly inspired me, The Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran and Erasure are most likely the ones who have truly changed my vision on life and permanently permeated anything I can create in the future.
- You have commented on our pixelated existence on the web, how important is the Internet for delivering your music?
The net is extremely important because it really gives many the chance to forge a career in the world of music even now that the existing structures are crumbling. There are a lot more music hopefuls now then there were even 10 years ago. And the net is responsible for that in a big way as it gave tools to create art to anyone willing enough to do the work and pursue their dream. And Utopia for me is the perfect metaphor for the net because in a way, everyone is becoming an image now and we are used to dealing with virtualized version of people and events which in a way, is all an illusion artificially created by mankind.
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