English translation of the article:
| Interview by "Christof Rutten" for "Het Belang Van Limburg", Wednesday 28th.October 1998. |
Belgian Bleeps Big In Japan Ex-NewBeatproducer makes popular music filterbank. Question. What have The Prodigy, Björk, U2, David Bowie, Chemical Brothers, Madonna, Pete Towsend, Ken Ishii, Depeche Mode, Lenny Kravitz, Stonesproducer Nick Lowe and Dead Man Ray in common? Nothing. That's at least what we think. But one thing we know for sure, they all use the Sherman Filterbank in their music. The what? The Sherman Filterbank, boys and girls, is a clever machine that can a hoarsely buffalo make sound like a bird. It can transform all kinds of sound. Herman Gillis is the proud father of this machine. Herman (35) does more then inventing alone. In a previous life he became the second in Humo's Rock Rally (a rock contest) with the band "The Primitifs", later he played in bands like "Running Cow", "Volt" and "Poesie Noire". In the 80's he was 1/3 of the producerstrio Morton, Sherman and Bellucci, who made a lot of New Beat records which brought Belgium for the first time on the international musicmap. "Every week we played in Flemish discothèques where we playbacked our hits "Move your ass and feel the beat", laughs Herman. It was fun in the beginning, but it became borgin after a while. I also didn't like the music, it had all to do with money. Money that went to the record company. But I am proud of the fact that Belgian music finally got some international recognition." After the NewBeatboom Herman kept busy in the musicworld. "When I played with Running Cow, Marc De Wijngaert, the keyboardplayer, asked me to make an "handy machine" that could make soundeffects. After one year and a half the filterbank was born. And because it was too expensive to make one, I make immediatly 40 of them." The Chemical Brothers got one of the first specimen. After a successuful introduction in the underground scene, it became available in music stores. The Shermanfilter bank is already sole in 18 countries and Herman has got contacts in Paris, London, the USA and Japan. "Especially in Japan is the filterbank very popular. I get about 20 orders every 3 weeks. Only the USA are the sales not so good, musicians think too conservative overthere. They ask themselves what's the point of changing a sound." The reason why the Sherman filterbank is so popular is its unique sound. Herman: "I like a rough sound, because I always played the guitar. I tried to put that aggressive sound in the filterbank. There is hardly no competition, so I keep the price deliberately low, only 28.000 Belgian francs." There is almost no contact with the artists using the filterbank. Salesmen sometimes tell him or he hears it on the radio or he sees it in a videoclip. But not so long ago he got a phonecall from William Orbit who was producing "Ray of ligh", the latest Madonna. Herman: "There was a little lamp broken in the filterbank and he asked me where he could buy some new parts. But it was not necessary, we solved the problem through the phone." |
by Patrik Kruse & David Hulet, translation by Jürgen Vanvlasselaer. |
09/04/1999 |