For over 30 years The Cassandra Complex have been at the forefront of electronic rock music. One of those cutting-edge bands that have been around so long they’ve actually outlived most of the labels and genres that have been applied to them!
The Cassandra Complex have no limits
Developing a cult following among those who follow underground music, this band has consistently offered their own unique blend of darkly energetic music. One of their skills is mixing up the Goth, EBM and Industrial labels they have been tagged with. Putting electro touches on goth-style songs, rock touches into EBM music, flourishes of ambient, classical and more, to make the result much more interesting and memorable.
Diversity is important
We are honoured to welcome these heroes of the electronic, gothic, industrial scene to the Infest stage!
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Read the full band biog:
Thirty years ago, Rodney Orpheus bumped into Paul Dillon in a Leeds nightclub while both were dancing to an early Die Krupps record. Next time they bumped into each other, they talked about how shit most alternative music was, and decided to form a band to show they could do it better. A journalist called Andy Booth came to interview them a few months later, and ended up staying to play guitar. They built a studio, made a single called March, and the career of The Cassandra Complex began.
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From the beginning the band were fascinated by drum machines, synthesisers, and computerised rhythms, but unlike most other bands of the time, they also wanted hardcore distorted guitars over the top. And so industrial rock music was born… When the band released their second single, Moscow Idaho, it quickly soared the top of the indie charts all over the world, got played to death on alternative radio stations, and influenced an entire generation of bands to come. The band started touring like crazy, bringing in Jez Willis and Keith Langley (later of Utah Saints) to augment their live sound. They followed the success of Moscow Idaho with a trilogy of classic albums: Grenade, Hello America, and many fans all-time favourite, Theomania.
Although up until this time The Cassandra Complex had lived in the UK, they never had much acceptance in their home country, and had been spending more and more time touring all over the rest
of Europe. Eventually Rodney moved to Hamburg and the bands lineup changed. In came Juergen Jansen (later to join Project Pitchfork) who helped re-invent the bands direction on the seminal concept album Cyberpunx; and Volker Zacharias, whom Rodney had met while producing Girls Under Glass. Volker soon became a lynchpin of the band&s sound on the bands most romantic album The War
Against Sleep, then the ultra-aggressive hard electro-rock that was Sex & Death, released in 1993.
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During all this time Rodney had also been carving out an alternative career as a writer (he wrote the very successful book Abrahadabra, now in its third edition) and as an expert on sound production, as well as touring with bands such as the Sisters of Mercy. Eventually he moved to Los Angeles and began running one of the first web communities for musicians as well as teaching seminars on electronic music production techniques to a new generation of musicians. Volker meanwhile was making a successful career in music business PR, and so the Cassandra Complex was put on hold for some years during this time. However on a visit back to Hamburg Rodney and Volker met up in a nightclub, and after listening to how shit the music was all night, realised that it was time to make another Cassandra Complex record; and they began work on what would become the Wetware album, released in 2000.
They toured successfully throughout the USA (playing the one and only ever support tour of their entire career, with their friends Front 242) and Europe, adding Mera Roberts (Mercurine, Faith & the Muse), Chris Haskett (Rollins Band, David Bowie), and Mindy Kumbalek (Goethes Erben) to the live band, culminating in a blistering performance at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig in 2002.
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https://youtu.be/jI5qkG0o1GI
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Unfortunately around this time Rodney became seriously ill, and became unable to play. The band was forced to cancel concerts for the first time in its 17 year career, and was put on hold indefinitely. While Rodney recovered he continued to pursue his career as a producer, working with bands such as Future Sound of London, LTJ Bukem, and Kraftwerk. Eventually he returned to England, and met up with Andy after many years. Over dinner they agreed that alternative music, twenty years later, was still shit, and that The Cassandra Complex still sounded more modern than most new bands.
With the addition of long-time friend of the band Axel Ermes, the band continue to work on ground breaking new material and playing more festivals and club shows across Europe.