A Cody/Skold Production
Recorded in Sweden, February - April 1993
Produced by Shotgun Messiah and Cybersank at Atlantis Studios, Stockholm
Mixed by Stefan Glaumann at MVG Studios, Stockholm

"We constantly want to reinvent what we're doing, because this is a struggle for continued self-interest and release. We must achieve that release by whatever means necessary"
-Skold

Necessity dictated that Shotgun Messiah go back and record in Sweden (they moved to Los Angeles in 1988), enduring the grueling process of creating 'Violent New Breed', in a country which no longer feels like home.

Cody: "Socially and physically it wasn't a good idea because we remembered why we left the country. But it was important to get away from everything and everyone in Los Angeles. At one point, Tim called people at the record company and told them "I'm coming down to your house now and I'm going to kill you." It wasn't funny.

But now it's like 'mission accomplished' coming back from there with this music."

Skold: "Observe, adapt, overcome, that's how we got through it."

They had found a collaborator in Cybersank, a Swedish mix-master who shaved and honed Shotgun Messiah into the unholy allience of sounds, moods and reaction it is.

Cybersank had no time for candy-ass chartmongers; and easy listening was on no-one's agenda.

Cody: "Music should fuck with your emotions. That's why movies can be so cool, because they fuck with emotions. If you see a thriller, you've got to be thrilled or it's a dud; a comedy, you should laugh your ass off or it's no good; a porn movie, you should get turned on.

Our music has that sound-track quality, there's always something that tosses you for a loop. It's either giving you that eerie feeling or it hits you like a sledge-hammer.

This is an album that describes the world which exists in our head. For us it's hard-core. Violent, sexually, explicit and gross. This isn't an album designed to preach and open people's minds. We're very afraid of the 'sopa-'box' stance. For us emotions are far more interesting to deal with."

Skold: "The soap-box is cool but we're armed, you don't want us on the soap-box. You'd be disgusted."

Shotgun Messiah takes conventional music and plays with it.

Skold: "Manipulation, mutilating machinery, it all contributes to the sound. Like when Harry fuckes up a guitar it makes cool noises, fuck up a sequencer and it too will make weird sounds."

Skold: "It's a matter of draining your fix, the old fix from the last time doesn't do it any more so you have to go further. The things that jarred my emotions last time don't do it any more, so I upgrade the dosage and find myself in deeper, wilder shit."

W hy waste words?

Pointed descriptions of 'Violent New Breed':

"I'm A Gun"
Gonna beat you over the head, motherfucker; very brutal, very cocky.

"Come Down"
Slam; brutal danceable; a wall; air guitar.

"Violent New Breed"
Orwellian; A Clockwork Orange; big brother; anarchy.

"Enemy In Me"
Change whether it's AIDS, Cancer, puberty or just possession; a copuple of CC's on the wrong side equaling overdose.

"Revolution"
The emergency ward; tunnel vision; check my EKG.

"Monkey Needs"
Love-hate; dependency; pain; sweetness; musical freight-train; hard.

"Rain"
Revenge; Taxi Driver - some day your rain's gonna come down; blood; a lotta bad people out there who should get what's coming to them; heads with a roll

"Jihad"
Imagine Hunter S. Thompson going to the Middle East doing too many drugs, becoming too paranoid; Thompson meets Salman Rushdie; heads like scuds.

"Side F/X"
Psychoactive smart junk derivative.

"Sex"
Want you from behind; as tacky as they get; another fuck-song, every band should have one and this is ours.

"Overkill"
Drugs; fictional feature film vibe; ALMOST tounge-in-cheek.

"I Come In Peace"
Captain America Nosferatu.