‘Mad’ Mike Banks, leader of Detroit’s techno terrorists Underground Resistance, rarely does interviews and ‘isn’t keen’ on having his photo taken to say the least. However, seeing as Jockey Slut is based in Manchester (which is “fucked up like Detroit”), and hasn’t yet sold its soul to The Man (i.e. IPC), Mike agreed to talk to us. In this exclusive interview Paul Benney dials Detroit and communicates tonally with a man on a mission about life, the universe, and everything.

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What first inspired you to make music?

“I’d have to say my mother. My mother played guitar in her earlier days when she was at college. She was kind of a hippy type – she participated in the Martin Luther King freedom march. She really liked that Joan Baez, peace, love and harmony music. So I would always hear her play guitar. I can’t say I was interested in it. She liked music from India like Ravi Shankar and she also liked a lot of soul and gospel music. Her tastes were pretty varied so we heard a lot of different stuff around the house – so I’d have to say it was my mother that inspired me.”

What inspires you now?

“I would have to say Electrifying Mojo, a local DJ in Detroit. He plays anything he feels like playing and the whole city is always with him man, he’s a cat. Mojo would play anything from James Brown and Jimi Hendrix to Alexander Robotnik and Tangerine Dream. We heard Kraftwerk, we heard YMO, and all this right in the middle of the inner city, he’s been doing it for years. They kick him off the radio every couple of years but he’s a true rebel, he’s like a leader to me. And then Jeff Mills had a radio show at WDET, that’s like the State college station, for years he was playing stuff like Meat Beat Manifesto and Nine Inch Nails, a lot of alternative stuff.  He played a lot of interesting music and Jeff Mills was known as The Wizard. He would play a lot of Chicago, a lot of Detroit techno and a lot of hip hop coming out of New York and he’d mix them all together. So at that time we had Mojo and Jeff Mills on the radio and some heavyweight music getting played. The state of affairs now is we got a little radio show that we’re trying to sponsor to educate the kids, but it’s gonna cost a lot of money so we’ll have to wait and see.”

What is it about Detroit and good music?

“It’s just a city with a lot of soul. Nobody really has a lot here, people aren’t absolutely poor here, they work hard for what they’ve got – it’s a real working blue collar town.  The few chances in life that people have here to have a good time are very much appreciated. I would say that in combination with the fact that there is absolutely nothing to do here but to either get in trouble or to do something positive. So just like with our boxers and our athletes and Motown, the whole reason that shit happened here is because those people chose not to be on the street and they focussed on what they did and they became very good at it. I think that’s why a lot of our techno musicians and DJs, mix engineers and the guys who master the records – they all do that and that’s all they do. There ain’t nothing else. No vacations, holidays, or shit like that, that shit don’t happen. Only holiday I ever went on is when we had a gig or when I went to jail.”

How did you end up in jail?

“Gangs. They try and say I shot someone.”

Did you do it?

“Nah. They just picked me at random.”

Was that a long time ago?

“Nah, not really. Y’know, you get in trouble a lot but it’s fortunate for me that I’m (goes into Yogi Bear-style voice) smarter than the average bear.”

You had a record called Riot EP. Do you think the LA riots changed anything?

“Err. Nah. I just think the government is just going to think of more pacifiers to give poor people to pacify them. More welfare programs – it’ll be a temporary fix. In order for somebody to be rich somebody’s gotta be poor. That’s the way I look at it. I’ve got kind of a dismal outlook on the way our country is run. I’d say 80% of the bums here are Vietnam veterans. You need to ask them what they think about America. I wish it could get better but I’ll believe it when I see it.”

A lot of people say that Ice T is the most dangerous and subversive Black American.  What do you think?

“I’m very glad that Ice T is socially aware with his actions and words now. A lot of people give a lot of the rap artists a lot of credit for being independent but we’ve been doing that shit for years. We do our work quietly and efficiently and I’m glad Ice T is socially responsible, because his early records – I didn’t particularly care for them. To me, and I’ll say it in no uncertain terms, LA is soft, the whole fuckin’ place is soft to me, that’s why I don’t play there, it’s not my environment. The people like our music and I don’t want to down them but it don’t get cold there – there’s palm trees in that ghetto.”

What do you mean by soft?

“The lifestyle. It’s laid-back, a lot of people there are asleep. I’m glad they’re beginning to wake up. But basically LA – the whole situation there, the gang thing – that’s 15 years old in Detroit, even the music they’re listening to – George Clinton and all that.”

Do you think a rough urban environment creates social awareness?

“Yeah. In Detroit we’ve been through the brothers killing brothers and the senseless violence. Although it still occurs, people are a lot more aware here. They’ve realised that that’s not going to get us anywhere. To me, rioting won’t either. I understand why they rioted but we’re silent and deadly and that’s the best way. I like Ice T now. I have high respect for him now.”

Can techno be subversive?

“My techno is. I can’t speak for anybody else’s, but mine is designed to be subversive and mind awakening. There are definite messages there through tonal communication and you can’t assess it – that’s why techno is deadlier than rap. With rap you have to vocally communicate your point but with techno you don’t. I’m a big fan of Public Enemy – to me ‘Prophets of Rage’ and ‘Burn Hollywood Burn’ were all warning signs of what was going to happen. And the ‘Riot EP’ was too. ‘Riot’ is a warning sign of what can happen when people try to dominate other people. The more you oppress someone the harder you make them – it’s just like making a diamond. When they put the shit on the Vietnamese and they tried to force them into cheap labour and all that shit they became so hard that they couldn’t beat ‘em. They couldn’t beat the motherfuckers ‘cause they’re so hard. They go to any lengths to win. That’s what the governments are going to create out of the poor, the mismanaged and all that other part of society that they don’t like to deal with – they’ll create hardcore killers. I see it every day in the street ‘cause people out here don’t give a fuck about nothing. You can’t control them.”

What message is your music giving out?

“The message I’m trying to give people around the world is very simple; the way the programmers control the masses is through audio and visual imagery. They play to you the kind of music that they want you to hear; they show to you the films that they want you to see and you act accordingly. Detroit is coming up – we’re trying to get it together but we’ve got a lot of problems, we’ve got a lot of drugs, a lot of guns and a lot of violence – we don’t need a video to see it. They pour this shit down our throats – sex, violence, drugs; sex, violence, drugs – that’s what these kids grow up on and they act accordingly. If we had more role models like Minister Farrakhan and men like that then you would see a different style of young Black male coming from the inner city but our role models are motherfuckers who hold their dicks for a living and tell stories about shit they never did. If you came to Detroit you would see the effects that some of these unwise rappers are having on society here.”

Who are ‘they’?

“A lot of the ill-informed gangsta rap – it’s bullshit. If you’re a gangsta you’re in jail, you a hard motherfucker you in jail, you don’t have to brag about shit because there’s nothing to brag about. ‘Cause they don’t get paid it’s as simple as that. They are inefficient – just totally inefficient to me and in the machine they don’t fit. The same guys that would sell dope to a brother would do a video and talk shit to a brother. I’ve got no emotion in my heart for none of them.”

Gangsta rappers say they’re simply rapping about their real-life experiences?

“That’s bullshit. For most people here there is no ghetto. Yeah we got poverty but it’s a lot worse in other places of the world. I don’t think anybody should glorify being a poor, broke, inefficient motherfucker. It’s nothing to be proud of.”

Gangsta rap has a very large white audience now. Why?

“It’s totally a white audience. That’s the market they aim it at. Black people don’t buy rap music. They don’t buy albums because they don’t have enough money. Like I say, they can see it if they walk outside so why should they have to buy it? I mean if it’s a good song and it’s cool then fine. But if it’s some bullshit people don’t buy it. The white audience to me is uninformed. Anybody that jumps up there and says they’re against ‘em, they take them as that, just like in society any Black man walking down the street is a criminal – they take it as that. Here in Detroit we are surrounded by suburbs just like George Clinton’s record said ‘Chocolate City in the Vanilla Suburbs’ – that’s what Detroit is.  And when we go out to the suburbs we are harassed accordingly because we are all rappers and all criminals in the mind of white society.”

Did you vote in the last presidential elections?

“Yeah I voted for Minister Farrakhan – he wasn’t on the ballot though.”

Do you think Bill Clinton has things under control?

“I really couldn’t say man – I think the military controls everything.”

Is America a democratic country?

“No. Like I said, I think the military runs everything. Military objectives rule the world.  There is no such thing as democracy.”

Where does your fascination with space come from?

“From wanting to escape from here.”

Do you think there is life on other planets?

“Definitely.”

Bill Clinton has just slashed the budget for searching for life on other planets. How do you feel about that?

“They already know we’re here, he doesn’t have to look for them.”

Why don’t they show themselves to us?

“I think we’re a little too primitive to communicate with them.”

Are we progressing?

“Slowly but surely.”

Is world peace a possibility?

“No. Before that can happen we would have to reach a point of evolution where materialistic things like gold don’t mean anything. Right now we’re not at that point.  We can’t imagine it. Until we reach a point where our respect for our fellow man outweighs our respect for the dollar we’re fucked.”

What does Underground Resistance stand for?

“Revolution for Change. It stands for the deprogramming of the programmed mind.”

Why is it so important to stay underground?

“It’s important for me for Underground Resistance to stay underground because I think it provides inspiration for others around the world to start organisations and not be controlled by the programmers. I can hear in the music over the last three years that our music is influencing people all over the world. I like to see the effects that our music is having – I think our listeners are very much informed, and very much aware of world events, nature, of respect. I think for Underground Resistance to go commercial would be like me disrespecting all the people that have supported us over the years.”

What signs of change have you seen over the years?

“People are listening, people understand that they are being programmed as I travel around and hear the musical styles that are coming out of Europe now. You can hear more expression and people are letting themselves go, they’re letting their emotions and efficiency meet and create projects that are unparalleled like Aphex Twin. There’s really some good basic channels – people are starting to understand. Juan told me ten years ago the whole point to techno, and Captain Kirk says it at the beginning of every ‘Star Trek’ – ‘Boldly going where no man has gone before.’ If we all explore together we will find what we’re looking for. We will find that point of evolution where we respect ourselves more than paper money.”

What do you think of Aphex Twin?

“Well, like I said, people’s music is one thing – the individual is another. I judge people by their music and I’ve always liked Aphex Twin’s music but sometimes musicians don’t always make the best business decisions ‘cause they’re musicians not businessmen. For me I do street business – if you come up here and try and take my record company and control my shit you ain’t gonna do it, it ain’t gonna happen, you gonna get the fuck outta my place or you get hurt. That’s what happens.”

You'll never be bought out then?

“It's impossible man – I'm an American Indian. I'm an American Indian and Black and I've got warriors from both sides and nobody buys me. Nobody buys me – people would be disrespecting my forefathers if they bought me.”

You're part American Indian then?

“Yeah. A lot of Black people are here – it's something that's not talked about a lot. A lot of Black Americans from the south are interbred with American Indians. It's just not being discovered but it's heavy in my family. I've got pride – I love my background. I love it. I'm proud of what I am. I'm a goddam fool, a rebel motherfucker who don't give a fuck. And society’s gonna have to deal with me for years to come. Just as I’m a rebel with my music, I'm a rebel with my business practices too. I love what I do right now. I feel like if I was to die tomorrow my life was worth it.”

Should musicians be taking more care with their business decisions?

“Yes, they should. If they are intelligent enough to create beautiful music then they should be capable of handling their own business affairs. A lot of musicians are lazy motherfuckers that's why they're musicians. They ought to take enough energy to get their business affairs in order to the best of their ability. As long as you do your best people respect you.”

What other people's records do you listen to? 

“I like listening to Jeff Mills records. I think Jeff is exceptionally gifted. I listen to Dave Angel, I listen to a lot of Marshall Jefferson, I like Martha Wash she always makes beautiful music. I mean every man has always got two sides to him and sometimes my dark side consumes me and so I have to try to appreciate positive music – keep my head up man. This is a rough business and a lot of times I get discouraged and I feel like an extinct or dying-out breed. I'm a Black American and I'm trying to make these techno records and uphold Detroit’s reputation and there's a lot of pressure. I try my best and sometimes I don't always make the best record I wanna make but it's very difficult competing with people much better armed than me, with bigger promotion teams, bigger computers, and all that. But the Vietnamese were outnumbered and outgunned and they won. And that Geronimo. He was outmanned and outgunned and they never kicked his arse. Those are like my spiritual leaders. I respect Geronimo and I like Bruce Lee – them motherfuckers that were underdogs. That's why I'm in the underground man. I know that I'll never be famous, and on the cover of Billboard. You know what I'm saying, I'm not gonna win no Grammy. I know that this will never happen for me and I've accepted it. To me it's just as much of an honour to be underground as to be a successful commercial artist. I don't want people to think that I'm against all commercial music – I think there are some very gifted commercial artists. It's just the garbage that record companies will feed people to satisfy their monetary situation. Just being a commercial artist doesn't mean you're a sell-out it's just when you allow the company to use you to do something that you normally wouldn't do and they make you into something you're not.”

What happened with the ‘Let the Music Lift You Up’ track?

“Our vocal ended up on another record and some of my underground comrades in England down at X313 in London dropped a dime and let me know that there's a record out here with your vocal on it. We put the song out as an acapella for people to take a little snippet here and there. Not that we were looking to legally pursue anybody but I never imagined a guy would take the whole song and not only that but rewrite one of the verses and have another singer singing it. It became a bitter warfare for me and for once the little guys won. We went in there with the help of KMS Records and Network’s legal team and got things sorted out. Our artists got recognised and our artists got paid, our writers got paid, and I feel real good about what happened. Right now I look at it as a small victory for us. I'm going to put out some more acapella records but I hope people use them as samplers should – don't take the whole lyric, it weren't made for that, it was made for people to take little pieces to make a track with. I won't come after them for that ‘cause they're my boys but if it's a major record company and they try to rip me off I'm coming after their arse. And I did, I flew over there and we got what was coming to us. And I hope Darlene [Lewis] gets a singing career out of it. We did a follow-up record called ‘Soul Fly Free’ and that’s out on KMS UK. I hope she gets a career out of it but I don't want to make it no habit. I don't want people thinking they can rip off Detroit. We have our head and arse wired together like my man in ‘Full Metal Jacket’ says. Just don't pick on us man – I'm a cool guy until people fuck with me.”

Do you feel indebted to the 303?

“Yeah, I really like the 303, sometimes I like it too much (laughs). I just like the sound it makes, man. It's just an amazing instrument. Every time I turn it on it makes a different sound and I really like it. I'm indebted more to the designers who made it. When I was in Japan I wanted to meet them and I heard that I was maybe hours away from where they were but we never could hook up. It was the guy that made the 909 and a lot of the early Roland stuff that we depend on. Although I must admit I use it a lot, it gets to you after you hear so many records with it on. I love the 303 though I try and think of creative ways of using it, like 'Hi-Tech Jazz', I always like to include it just like a musician in my hand. All my instruments I've got a personal electronic relationship with. ‘Cause I have electricity in my body too. When we touch they recognise me and I recognise them. I think ‘The Terminator’ is definitely what's happening man – machines have emotions. They can become intelligent and they will one day.”

Do you think you'll ever become bored of the 303 sounds?

“Nah. To me Europeans get bored with things quickly. Here people still listen to Cybotron. The pressure of our society to be different and ever-changing is much less than you guys have. But here – it's mundane man. It's the drone – y’know what I'm saying. A mechanic’s a mechanic and that's what he's going to be for the next 40 or 50 years. In Europe people are not loyal to any one sound, they’re never satisfied and I guess that's why you all spread all over the world and colonised everywhere ‘cause you weren't satisfied with home. I'm very much aware to not be influenced by European standards – if I like the 303 I'm going to play the motherfucker until my shit falls apart. ‘Cause that's what they like in Detroit. And that's my environment. If they don't like it in England then they don't like it in England. There are a lot of records that we make that you guys don't have ‘cause we don’t sell them over there. We sell them in the city. A lot of the early sounding Cybotron-type of records people always liked here and we still make them – we just don’t release them. Basically because the distributors in Europe say: ‘They don’t like that sound; they like this sound.’ So I say okay cool, we don’t sell it to them. No big deal, I mean every time European guys come over here they like it. There’s less than 10 guys in the world that decide what you guys listen to over there. There's nobody here that determines what we hear. We can play what we wanna play. Over there it's much more restricted. There are so many categories of techno. I ain't never heard of ‘intelligent techno', ‘ambient techno’ – I don't know the difference between none of them. It's all underground music to me. All these categories is just to make new markets to sell old products. That's why with my records I'll put out a jazz record and any damn thing I feel like, it's just the way the song comes out. It's like a baby – it's gotta be born. It's the mission I'm on and most of my records have a mission and an objective. If the song sits inside of the mission then the song gets on the recording. There are a lot of complexities to techno that the European buyer doesn't understand.”

Will you ever stop making music?

“Nah, man. That's one of my purposes on this planet. If I get killed then I'm finished. That's the only thing that would take me out if I got killed out here on the street or in some plane crash when I'm flying somewhere. Nine times out of ten a guy ain't gonna get me – I'm hard to get. They tried a lot of times. My jungle awareness level is way up. I have had some problems. My roof came through on my building and the rain got on my equipment, so I'm in the process of trying to rebuild a lot of my ancient, ancient keyboards and shit but the landlord never fixed the roof so that's what happened.”

So only death and rain can stop you making music?

“Yeah. Natural elements can take me out but no regular guy will get me so I'm kind of happy with that.”

How did you get the name Mad Mike?

“It was a gang tag at first and I used to drag race cars a lot so I used it there and since then I kept it. It was my battle name. To my close friends I'm Mike but when I'm on a gig or I'm making a record I'm on a mission, and when I'm on a mission I'm Mad Mike.”

What's going to happen with techno in the future?

“The majors will fuck up certain parts of it but techno is very similar to AIDS, which I have high respect for. AIDS is a very elusive disease, very intelligent, and its self-learning – the more and more medicines they use to try and combat it the more intelligent it becomes. Of course that's one way of looking at it, I don't want people thinking I love AIDS I'm just looking at it from a scientific standpoint where you have to respect it. Anytime that death is involved that’s the one thing that all men respect.  Death is a motherfucker. Death is the end of this known existence. So I think techno – and again I have all sympathy for all people with AIDS I hope I haven’t got it – to me techno is like the birth of each new baby – techno lives on. Each mind is going to hear a new sound, see a new colour, think of a different way to do something. Techno to me runs parallel with life itself. To me it’s an obvious music that’s going to carry us forth.  Like I said, man is very primitive, we’ve been here for millions and millions of years but we have yet to communicate with our closest neighbours – animals. Why the fuck are we going into outer space when we can’t even talk to a dog or cat yet. We are idiots.  Animals communicate through tonal communication. When man becomes smart enough not to shit in his own back yard, not to disrespect his fellow neighbour we will be moving forward. Techno is going to carry us there. Techno will be medicine. With so called primitive man, when someone in the tribe got sick they’d sing a song or do a chant. Western medicine looks at that as bullshit: ‘You can’t fix somebody from singing a fuckin’ song.’ That song carries an emotion. It carries that emotion through tonal communication. If that person feels that communication it might trigger something in him that will repair whatever the fuck is wrong with him.

“We disrespect things. Think about the old sci-fi flicks – all the Martians and ugly monsters and some bullshit from some silly motherfucker’s imagination. If you want to talk science fiction get with ‘Star Trek’ – they even know that even if someone looks like a monster they might be a beautiful person. It was an intelligent show and that’s why it lasted. The early Hollywood flicks depicted Martians as monsters so when we go in outer space or when they do approach Earth and they want to communicate – what are we going to try to do? We are going to pull out our little guns and we’re going to shoot them instead of communicating. I’m hoping that techno music inspires a whole new generation of kids to approach animals and future engagements with life from outer space in an intelligent manner. I just hope it inspires them to do the right thing. Don’t do what our forefathers have done for hundreds and hundreds of years before us – be scared, pull out our little weapons and shoot whatever the problem is. That’s not the solution. Shooting and pointing a gun ain’t shit. Here we are in 1994 – you ask me are we going to have wars, and what do I think of the government – what runs the fuckin’ world? Nuclear weapons. It’s the balance of power. It still shows that we’re cavemen – who has the biggest club? I don’t care if you’re white or I’m Black – when we get cut we’ve all got red blood. Environment makes colours man. If you live in Africa and you’ve got the sun beating down on you, you’re gonna be Black. If you live in the North Pole you need certain features  to survive up there. That’s a scientific fact. These motherfuckers with this racial shit man – they’re cavemen. I wish I could eliminate them tomorrow with some kind of laser gun but I don’t have it right now.”

There’s been a lot of racial problems in Europe recently. Comment.

“Every time it gets tight over in Europe the nationalists want to come out and blame all the foreigners for all their problems. It’s been happening for centuries and centuries.  We’ve got to come together as a human community. Now these same nationalists – if we were supposedly  attacked by another race of beings from another world – all of a sudden we would all be human. Then what army would we be – the human race army.  They gotta speak about shit like that man – because at the end of the day we all bleeding red blood. I know we talked about a lot of racial issues but I’d really like to keep that shit away from techno. A lot of people ask me what I feel about all these white boys making techno and I say to them: ‘What are you talking about?’ The first techno I listened to was Kraftwerk and they’re white. Techno to me is the one music that is truly a global music – I think it’s a galactic music.  That’s why I name my shit ‘World to World’, ‘Galaxy to Galaxy’, ‘Universe to Universe’.”

So you’ll be ready?

“I want to be ready man. I want to prepare my brothers and sisters so that if we come into contact with intelligent lifeforms from another planet we can talk on the same level.  I want to one day talk to my cat. I’ve got cats and I like to watch them ‘cause they react to different frequencies. I feel stupid ‘cause I can’t talk to them. It’s like how far have we really come? We got a long way to go, man.

“I know what respect and pride means – it  means that you keep your arsehole tight and if you don’t have no respect and you don’t have no pride you get fucked whether it be in the arse in prison or in life. ‘Cause the sharks are out there and they will definitely fuck you. So to all the new upcoming techno musicians – tell them to stay underground – fuck selling out. What you and me are doing is a mission. You are trying to inform the readers and I’m trying to inform the listeners and that’s what brought you and me here on the phone. We don’t think of it as that but I might not ever speak to you again and we did a mission together and it was planned long ago. That’s what deep – everything in our life is planned. And now you and me have talked on the phone our mission is complete.”

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