Tell me about the project surrounding the song “Let the Angels Go”

XIREN: We are doing the song as a project. We are gifting the song to the city of New York with a three-foot tall sculpture done by Sam. He’s a guy we just got to know. He has no formal training of any kind. He just kind of channeled this insanely gorgeous piece of art. He channeled it in much the same way we channeled the song. The two projects just seemed to come together. Initially, we weren’t gonna do much more with the song than put it on the next album. There are so many people out there with so much great material supporting New York, that it’s almost too much. But then we realized the sculpture and the song describe each other so perfectly that it became a much larger creative project naturally. We actually are in the process of contacting Mayor Webb about gifting this to New York. There would be two made: one for New York and one for the Denver Art Museum. The song will be released as a multimedia CD-ROM single. When you put it in your computer and play the song, you’ll take a 3D tour of the sculpture.

What’s your take on the war?

XIREN: I think the war is absurd. It was a bad, bad call to declare war. Acting as president or acting as someone who could have made the decision following the events of September 11th, I would have united the world in hunting down someone who committed a heinous, evil crime. I would not have declared war on some entity that…we declared war on terrorism. What the hell does that mean? When’s that over? What’s the target? I’m always empowered by the difference between finite and infinite gains. This war is not an infinite gain that empowers me. To most foreigners, America just sticks its nose in everything. We’re belligerent, we’re huge and we’re this big monopolistic dictatorship country to the rest of the world. We always look at ourselves as heroes. “We’ll go conquer, we’ll go save those innocent people.” It’s funny, though, the rest of world doesn’t always want to be saved. So here we are, we get this horrible attack, and it’s finally a chance to jump into the rest of the world and unite with everybody to hunt down this guy, bring him to justice, kill him, whatever. Do that to a criminal, as opposed to declaring war on something. It’s a bad thing because we’re relating to it like World War Two, in that we believe we can pay the cost. We can’t pay the cost of World War Three. We’re acting as if we can. If you introduce biological weapons into the air and water, you’re messing with stuff that everybody needs and can’t live without. If the whole world had been united in hunting down Osama bin Laden, I would have felt very differently. The other thing is concerning the American flags you see everywhere. The minute we declared war, those American flags became something that separated us from the rest of the world. Now, as a result, everybody has to choose sides. I think that’s an uncomfortable position to be in for other countries.

BEN: I think the events of September 11th opened up the possibility for some really gutsy, honest conversation that the United States could have been a leader in. We could have used the momentum of this tragedy to create a whole new conversation with the world about being related to each other. I don’t see that as possible with the current leadership in this country and it’s sad. It forces me to be that conversation every day in my own personal life. It
forces me to be responsible.

Tell me about your martial arts, pathetic mortal.

XIREN: I study a very odd martial arts called Ninjutsu. Most people think they know what it is, but there are actually not a lot of people who study it, much less know what it truly is. Ninjutsu is a very old art that is not part of the traditional Samurai guild. It was basically kicked out of the Samurai guild at some point and not legitimized. The reason for that is it had sort of strange beginnings. It has a rough history that isn’t very well documented. The people who studied it were outlaws. It was all based on survival. There’s definitely an element of mysteriousness and manipulation to the art, which completely intrigues me.

We are talking about the Ninja are we not? I eat Ninjas for breakfast!

XIREN: (Laughs) Well, it’s interesting. Most people think of the Ninja as the character with the mask on his face, and to some degree that’s accurate. A Ninja could be compared to a Navy S.E.A.L. What most Americans relate to when they see the Ninja is basically a Japanese stagehand that used to wear the mask to do props in theater. Over time, that image became translated into what a Ninja is.

How long have you been studying?

XIREN: Ever since I moved here in ’96. I’m in the process of becoming a Shodan, which is essentially a black belt. In most arts you’d get that in two to three years. It wouldn’t take six or seven. It’s a very interesting art that’s all about self-empowerment. It’s really about knowing your way out of any situation you could be in. It’s about not blaming outside things. It’s about taking personal responsibility.

Where did your name come from?

XIREN: It was invented. When you think of names that people have, they always have interesting meanings behind them. For example, “Mark” means beloved.

What does Ben mean?

BEN: Son of the right hand.

XIREN: Most names were invented long before we were born. I wanted a name that I got to invent. So, I literally invented XIREN. I took an existing Irish pronunciation of Sehran, changed the spelling and created a mythology behind it. I invented it a couple of years ago as a line in the sand, so to speak. It was a declaration of my musical persona. It was a fun way of drawing that line in the sand.

Tell me about your musical history.

XIREN: I’ve been singing, which is my primary instrument, obviously, since I was a child. I’ve been singing even before I could remember. I went to a little parochial school. There were about 70 to 80 kids from preschool to 9th grade. I had this interesting, almost, feminine quality to my voice. I had a really pretty quality to my tenor. Every year I got the school solo, which I didn’t want. I was petrified getting up on the stage. I’ve always sang. I’ve always had an interesting quality to my voice. When I started writing music in High School, I bought my first guitar. That was in ’89.

Weren’t you once were in a rock band where you threw stuffed animals at the audience?

XIREN: Yeah (Laughs) The first band that I created was called Painted Glass. We had a way of ending our shows… in all the bands I’ve been in. I’ve always enjoyed finding a way of turning the audience on. So, in Painted Glass, we typically ended with a song I wrote about Dr. Seuss. I wrote it right when Theodor Geisel died. It was called “His Red Hat.” It had a very Jane’s Addiction kind of quality to it. It had a very rhythmic, heavy rock kind of groove. There was this one transition in the song where we would have all these big garbage bags filled with stuffed animals and we would throw them all over the place. (Laughs) More than once, we might have knocked over a pitcher of beer throwing these animals around, so we had more than our share of unhappy customers (More laughter)

How did you go from throwing stuffed animals at audiences to becoming XIREN?

XIREN: It began here in Colorado. I moved here from Detroit in ’96. I put together a project called The Chimera Project. When I first put that together, I thought the route I wanted to take was to assemble another band, but I had trouble finding the right members. I think I was living out of the past. It was such a great, romantic relationship I was had with my past bands that I thought I wanted another band. I put a couple of bands together, but then someone would leave and then the whole entity would change. I continued writing through that whole period and I think I came to the point where I realized that there was really a commitment to my music and my career that had yet to be defined. It was at that point that I created XIREN and legally changed my name. I then created a solo career.

When did this happen?

XIREN: Late ’98. That was the beginning. I put out an album…

BEN wasn’t on that first album?

XIREN: No, that was done before I met him. In fact, I had already started Bullets and Rainbows. I had “Gerilyn” completed. I had “Bullets and Rainbows,” “Summer of Love.” I had a bunch of tracks started. I pretty much had the whole thing written. After I met BEN, we went through (the songs) and tore up everything. In some cases, we started
from scratch.

How did you two meet?

BEN: XIREN and I met through mutual acquaintances. To me, the whole thing came as a complete fluke, in the sense that it was totally unexpected. I had pretty much been hiding in my basement composing. I was at a party; in fact, it was my birthday party. Some people that were there told me I just had to meet this guy named XIREN. I figured I had nothing to lose, so literally, I just showed up to XIREN’s place one night. I brought a keyboard over. We sat down; XIREN grabbed his guitar and said, “let’s just start playing.” I was able to get pretty quickly what was happening just by ear and we ended up playing duets for the next hour. We just totally freewheeled it.

Did you two come from the same musical past?

BEN: No. I came from a very different past. But for some reason, I heard a possibility. It was just something in my gut that said “follow this.” I followed it not because it was the music I would personally write, but because it was a possibility of a future I would want. To this day, it’s that same gut feeling that keeps me in partnership with XIREN.

You two would make good gay lovers. What would your relationship be like if you both were indeed lovers?

BEN: Actually, it’s not that far removed from what our relationship is like now (laughs) We don’t have a relationship in the manner you suggest, but we certainly have an intimate relationship. I don’t know what our roles would be though.

Would you cook?

BEN: Oh yeah, I’d cook. (Laughs) I would definitely be the domestic. I am totally happy as a homebody.

So, you would be a bottom to XIREN?

BEN: Uh no, I think that part would be completely different (Laughs) There is equality to our relationship. Even as friends, there is equality. When it comes down to the guts of the relationship there’s no hard and fast role. As far as the external, sure, I’d be the domestic. As far as getting down to the nitty-gritty of our musical relationship, there’s a seamlessness about who leads. When we play, it’s like neither of us knows what’s gonna happen in the next 10 bars of the song. So if we were lovers, it would never be about, “You’re the top, I’m the bottom.” Our relationship would be totally fluid…and by that I don’t mean dripping fluid (Laughs)

Tell me about your musical past.

BEN: I grew up being both a singer and multi-instrumentalist. I came from a very schooled tradition. I was singing European master’s chorale works as a small child. I came into my own as a teen, around Jazz and Jazz piano. I was a hard-core Jazz piano geek. This was between the ages of 14 and 24.

Weren’t you in Opie Gone Bad? How did that come together?

BEN: Jake approached me when he first had the idea for Opie.’ Jake and I had sung together in a Do-wop group together in high school. It was called The Wayfarers. We also sang choral stuff together. We were also both in musicals together, stuff like that.

Were you and Jake lovers?

BEN: (Laughs) Uh, no. We both once fondled a woman simultaneously. That’s about as close as it got (more laughter.) So anyway, when Jake approached me about Opie, at first I declined. I just wasn’t that into it. I was such a hard-core Jazz fiend. I loved Rhythm and Blues, but it just didn’t feel like my home.

Had you been in any groups?

BEN: Yeah, I had played in small groups. My first professional gig was as a solo pianist when I was in my teens. So while I initially declined being in Opie Gone Bad, I had a roommate at that time that joined. He was a really good guitarist. He came from a Jazz background, but definitely was into Rock and Roll. So I thought, “Well shoot, I might was well take a look into it.” I basically got it going musically through getting various musicians through my connections. That’s not to say Jake didn’t provide great leadership in his own wacky way, because he absolutely did. It was his group, really. But my role then was very similar to what it is now. I was an arranger. I played with them for years. I even went to Saudi Arabia with them. (Laughs)

They are on my hit list. I will kill them. Why did you leave?

BEN: Honestly, I didn’t see the future as that big with Opie. They are doing great as a working band, but I saw it as the pinnacle for them. I’m not claiming that I’m right, that’s just what I saw. I realized it wasn’t as diverse as I needed to be as an artist. It wasn’t a case of not having success. We had Brendan’s (Pub) every other weekend, three nights a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, pulling capacity crowds. This was not hard for us. We worked as much as we wanted to. And I thought, “Well, if this is it, I don’t want to be a part of it.” I was no longer fulfilled.

XIREN music is kind of tricky to give a label to. What area of a record store should XIREN CDs be stocked in?

XIREN: I have a tendency to over-simplify it by calling it pop-rock music. I definitely think the market we are going for is the alternative pop direction. We’ve been shopping around to different labels recently. We’ve heard some interesting things. We’ve heard some people say it’s definitely alternative music. Another guy called it World music. I think if you have to fit it into some category in a record store, it’s gonna end up in Rock.

BEN: I would definitely want it in the Pop-Rock file. What we always listen for is the relationship to the Pop and Rock history. Whatever comes out, I want the guts to be in that tradition.

Did you nail the sound you were looking for with your first CD?

XIREN: I think musically, every artist deals with the gap of what they hear in their head and what the stranger on the street that hears it thinks. What’s interesting is the way you perceive yourself, as an artist can be very different than the way others perceive you. Every artist starts out imitating someone. Led Zeppelin started out thinking they were being that Blues band they were covering. No, they’re not that, they’re Led Zeppelin. They’ve got that mystical, ethereal sound. But they thought they were a tribute band to someone else. So a lot of times, an artist’s writing has more to do with someone else they are hearing in their head. When we work on a song, sometimes we look at what the essence of the song is and say, “Well, how would Brain Eno and Seal have come up to the solution to this problem?” That’s what we did with “Saoirse” we looked very heavily at drum arrangements, bass arrangements and melodic arrangements from Seal albums.

I would assume you were listening to Sting albums

XIREN: It’s funny. A lot of people hear me as having a big Sting sound. I can’t remember, ever setting up a production take to a Sting song (Laughs) A lot of people think I have a huge Sting influence. And even U2 is often a comparison. I listen to those guys, but when it comes down to production and arrangement, we end up going with Peter Gabriel over U2. We look for the more intricate arrangements that I think are a little more advanced. We like challenging ourselves. We’re trying to pull ourselves up that level. Sting’s arrangements are awesome, but I don’t think we’ve ever pulled one of our songs out and tried to examine it parallel to that.

You put albums together very quickly. You released Bullets and Rainbows only a year after your debut. Why the rush?

XIREN: The problem with the whole first album was the production. I think the writing is good, but not quite on par with Bullets and Rainbows. However, the production is embarrassing to me. People really like it, but we’ve moved so far away. And to be honest, I already had much of Bullets and Rainbows written already. When Ben came into the picture, we were both so excited about what we were creating together, that we knew putting it out was the right thing to do.

I noticed you re-recorded “Circus” for Bullets’

XIREN: When it came to the song, “Circus” I knew that song was better than the way it appeared on the first album. It’s a song we’ve always had requested, but when I’d listen to it (on the first album) I would cringe. I felt it didn’t communicate the vision of the song. When Ben and I got together and worked on it, it was clear we wanted to reinvent it and really give it life.

What other song off the first CD would you enjoy reinventing?

XIREN: “El Boracho.” Some of the songs off the first album have found a whole new life when we perform them live. When we do “El Boracho,” it just fuckin’ rocks! But it’s hard to sell people the first album when “El Boracho” doesn’t do what it does live.

Ironically, I feel “Get Your Groove On” loses some of its power when you perform it live.

BEN: Part of it is just pragmatism. Ironically, that song is probably my least favorite cut off the first album. I felt it was somehow living in a realm between Funk and Electronica, which is a very uncomfortable place for me. So when it comes to performing it live, what we can do, like in the next 15 minutes is increase the funk and give it more space. In other words, simplify it and deliver it reliably.

XIREN: I would really like to work on that song with Ben. It’s got to the point where we find ourselves in a real dead zone with that song. Ben just doesn’t hear it yet. I could really hear that song having the potential of being kind of like U2 around their “Pop” era; just kind of a cross over to electronic Rock. I’d really like to do more with it and really get it well produced. It was nominated out of 35,000 submissions as “Best Dance Track” with the “Just Plain Folks” award.

Some of your songs have been remixed, as dance songs haven’t they?

XIREN: Yeah, two guys, Collin and Reiser. They created a group called LifeScience. The two of them are kind of a dynamic duo as far as production and engineering. They do strictly that sort of electronic, DJ dance vibe. Currently, they’ve remixed all of Bullets and Rainbows. When it comes to a song like “Get Your Groove On,” rather than wasting a lot of time on an area that Ben and I don’t see eye to eye on, I’d rather give it to them and let them produce the track the way they want.

The first time I heard that song, I thought it was a female vocalist

XIREN: (Laughs) Yeah, I hear that all the time. People always ask if it’s my girlfriend or my partner.

Where did the title Bullets and Rainbows come from? I read the little explanation in the CD, but it doesn’t make any damn sense

(Much Laughter)

XIREN: The explanation in the CD wasn’t an explanation as much as it was sort of a context. So there are really two answers. There’s “what does Bullets and Rainbows mean by itself?” and then there’s the writing in the album. The liner notes were very specifically intended to paint a picture of the randomness of the whole album. You’ve got everything from “I’m Gonna Let it Shine” with its weird, funky, Moby-ish vibe, you’ve got this rock song at the beginning called “Leave Me,” The Paul Simon-ish Island tunes in the middle – all this weirdness going on. We wanted to create a context for all of it so that people realize that the randomness of the album was actually a self-expression. When we listen to an artist, we expect every song to kind of have a similar sound. We expect to be able to identify that artist all the time, which is fine. But if you look at my record collection, I’ve got everything from Metallica to Vivaldi and everything in-between. For my music, and me it’s about expressing that range. Bullets and Rainbows is a declaration much the same way my inventing XIREN is. It’s a declaration for my personal commitment to making a successful career run in the music industry. Bullets and Rainbows means the ups and downs, the ins and outs about the music biz. I was acknowledging the brutality
and competitiveness of the music industry and my place in it. I was acknowledging the roller coaster.

Why didn’t you just call the album “Roller Coaster?”

XIREN: Because Bullets and Rainbows sounds cooler (Much laughter)

What would you say is the most important thing a person must possess in order to make their dreams come true?

BEN: Responsibility. Being 100% responsible and owning your dream illuminates the path you need to walk.

Everything falls into place. Being responsible for your own dream brings freedom.

XIREN: It’s about getting your whole life around something. Jumping in with your whole heart. Giving every single
thing. Not holding anything back. That, and getting your community behind you.

There is a spirituality to your music, even though the songs aren’t necessarily spiritual. Do you agree?

XIREN: If there is any spiritual theme of the album it would be the mystery of exploring spirituality. The album is basically me saying, “What’s going on here?” The album is about the little chip in the reality I’ve lived my whole life. I was raised Christian Science, which says this reality is an illusion. As far as me being here, I’m simply an idea of God. So, in other words, my existence is God sitting up there thinking I’m sitting here. That all I am is this idea. It’s
a very bizarre concept, but I try to keep an open mind (laughter)

There seems to be something almost spiritual or magic happening with XIREN as a creative presence.

XIREN: Yeah, it’s funny but that is something I haven’t talked enough about. Bullets and Rainbows is an interesting album that has a whole other level to it. “Summer of Love” is a song I wrote about an Indian spiritual leader that I currently know very little about. I started having these dreams about this spiritual leader named Sai Babba. Now, it turns out, a lot of people in the world know who Sai Babba is. There are like a million followers in India. The guy was the spiritual counselor of one of the two owners of The Hard Rock Café. If you go to the Hard Rock you can see his picture. He’s a short, ugly, Indian dude with a big afro. (Laughs) He’s horrible looking. Anyway, he’s this spiritual Indian leader that came to me in a dream. No big deal right? Turns out, that is a pretty big deal. I started inquiring what this guy was all about. I found out that followers of Sai Babba were extremely impressed and in some cases envious that he was coming to me in my dreams. I heard some people waited 20 years intending to have dreams with Sai Babba. I guess the process is that he actually picks people to come to. So anyway, when he came to me in dreams, it was a little fucking freaky (Laughs). In fact, I was waking up in cold sweats.

Did you bolt upright in your bed like they do in the movies?
(Laughs)

XIREN: Actually, I rolled over to Heather and kind of hugged closer (Laughs). Anyway, it was a bizarre experience and a little jolting to my reality, because true or not, it was freaky. What would happen is I would start falling asleep and he would say, “Hey, are you there? Are you ready yet?” and I’d wake up and be like, “What the fuck?” (Laughs)

How did Heather react?

XIREN: Heather was really great about it. She really understood. She told me to just make him go away and tell him I’m not ready. So that’s what I did. I told him I wasn’t ready and that was it. I haven’t had a dream since. So he started coming to her in her dreams (Much laughter). So all these weird coincidences started happening. The most recent was with the music video for “Summer of Love.” Heather’s mother is one of these people that knows about Sai Babba. She flies to India to study with him. Now, the thing is, you don’t get to meet Sai Babba. The closest you get to Sai Babba is in a group of 10,000 people. He picks and chooses who he’s gonna talk to and then leaves that group. She brings Bullets and Rainbows over there and he blesses it. It’s like this big deal in front of 10,000 people. In fact, she called us from India to excitedly tell us Sai Babba had blessed the album. BEN and I were high-fiving each other going, “OK, what does that mean? We don’t know but it sounds cool!” (Laughs) The next day, I get a phone call from Chris Magyar,who at the time was the editor of Go-Go magazine. He totally loved the CD and wrote a great review. He called to ask if he could do a music video for me. He listened to the CD and said there were a couple of songs he’d like to do a video for, but “Summer of Love” was the one he got this incredible idea for from start to finish. In fact, he had the whole storyboard completed. So, what ended up happening was we ended up with this great video and all I paid for was the catering for the crew that was filming it. (Laughs) There are always weird little coincidences like that happening.

Does any of your music come from dreams you’ve had?

XIREN: Yeah, it’s interesting. A lot of the album lyrically and melodically came in dreams. I get a lot of inspiration from dreams. One of the people contributing to that was a muse named Scott Joplin. He was a famous composer in ragtime. He’s obviously not alive in the human world anymore. The last song on the album (“Let It Shine”) was about a friend of mine named Fred Hopkins, who died during the making of the album. We took a church recording, chopped it apart, had some of his friends over who re-sang the back up vocals. Ben and I then rearranged and put music to it. Noted new age author, Jean Peterson, channeled Fred. He was so excited about the song. He said he was standing next to Scott Joplin. Scott said, “look, I really have an interest in helping you finish Bullets and Rainbows. I want to collaborate with you.” Again, I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded very cool (Laughs) So, I guess the way it manifested is I started having all these dreams about the music. It worked great because what ever part of song we might be having trouble with, I’d go to sleep, get these dreams, wake up the next morning with the perfect part, the perfect solution for the song.

The last and most important question! If XIREN were Spinal Tap for a day, who in the band would be the most likely to wear the cucumber in his pants?

XIREN: Oh that’s easy. Jerry Lentini, our bassist.

(Much Laughter)