16Volt

16 volt
Origin
Genre(s)	Industrial rock
Years active	1988–present
Label(s)	Metropolis Records
Website	16volt.com
Members
Eric Powell

16volt is the one-man studio project of Eric Powell with other members added mostly for live shows. Members have mostly included Mike Peoples (bass), Kraig Tyler (guitar), and John "Servo" DeSalvo (drums).

History

Powell became interested in music early on, and formed 16volt in 1988. While shopping his demos several years later, he met up with a college-radio music director who agreed to release the recordings on his newly formed Re-constriction label. After working with Skinny Puppy's Dave Ogilvie on production, 16volt released debut album, Wisdom, in 1993. Skin followed in 1994, after which the project met Hate Dept. on the Remix Wars EP. 16volt's third album, LetDownCrush, signaled the end of Powell's relationship with Re-Constriction; SuperCoolNothing, issued in 1998, appeared on the Slipdisc imprint of Mercury/PolyGram. Demography appeared in fall 2000. They also provided the combat soundtrack for the game Primal which, despite positive reviews, failed to sell as expected. A sample CD was provided with the limited edition version of the game, along with a commercial soundtrack sold later which both boosted interest in the band (especially in countries outside the US where they were not well known).

16volt had a cameo appearance in the Cult PS2 game Primal, where they played in a club in the opening cut scene as well as supplying combat music such as Happy Pill, Suffering You, And I Go, Keep Sleeping, At The End and Alkali.

The band made a highly successful recent comeback with their first release of original material for nine years, with 2007's FullBlackHabit. This album included Suffering You, a track originally included as a demo on SuperCoolNothing V2.0.

Another album release is planned for September 8th, 2009, as Eric Powell has announced on http://16volt.com/. Updates on Twitter and recent video blog posts have suggested that drums and bass guitar have already been recorded. The album, 16volt's sixth major studio album, was originally going to be named "AmericanPornSongs," however Powell has since suggested in interviews that he regrets the decision to name the album so early and is in the thought process of naming the album once again. In addition, on the official site, 16volt's entire back catalog was available to download for free.

Discography

Albums

• Wisdom (1993)
• Skin (1994)
• LetDownCrush (1996)
• SuperCoolNothing (1998)
• Demography (2000) - This is a collection of early (pre-'Wisdom') demo work, including the entire 'Imitation' cassette (1991).
• SuperCoolNothing V2.0 (2002)
• Whisper Cure (2002)
• The Best of Sixteen Volt (2005)
• FullBlackHabit (2007)
• American Porn Songs (2009)

Singles/eps

• The Dreams That Rot In Your Heart (1996)
• The Remix Wars: Strike 3 - 16 Volt vs. Hate Dept (21st Circuitry - 1996)

Compilation appearances

• "Shut Up Kitty" (1993)
• "The Dreams That Rot In Your Heart" (1996)
• "The Remix Wars: Strike 3 - 16 Volt vs. Hate Dept." (1996)
• A Gothic-Industrial Tribute to The Smashing Pumpkins (2001)
• Various Artists - Hordes of the Elite (Glitch Mode Recordings - 2006)

Appearances in other Media

The Rage: Carrie 2

The movie, a sequel to Stephen King's Carrie, contained their single, 'Keep Sleeping', as part of the soundtrack.

Primal

In 2003, the videogame Primal was released, containing twelve 16volt songs as the combat soundtrack, most of which were from their fourth album, supercoolnothing. An official CD release of the soundtrack was later produced by (the now defunct) Dark City Music, but has since become out of print ^[1]

Repo! The Genetic Opera

The Band contributed to the soundtrack of the cult musical film, Repo! The Genetic Opera

Wizard of Gore

In 2008, the band helped to remaster the soundtrack for the movie for the directors cut release ^[2]

Side projects

To date, 16volt have contributed to three major side-projects, of which only one (h3llb3nt) has seen a commercial release. ^[3]

H3llb3nt

16volts first, and most successful, sideproject, H3llb3nt, was a collaboration between Eric Powell, Jared Louche, Bryan Black and Charles Levi. They released three albums and a 'best of' together between 1996 and 2001.

Ringer

Ringer was 16volts second side project, a rock group featuring talent from several industrial artists. The main lineup consisted of Eric Powell and Kraig Tyler on Vocals, Carlton Bost (from Deadsy) on guitar, Paige Haley (from Orgy) on bass and Mikey Cox (from Coal Chamber) on drums. The finished roughly an albums worth of material, which could be downloaded from their website, and played several gigs before splitting up.

Graphic

The latest 16volt side-project, Graphic is a collaboration between Powell and Bildeaux, which has so far only released one song, 'The Things You Do' on the 2006 compilation album, Komposi003.

A full album is apparently in the works, utilizing female vocals.^[4]

References

• 16volt History

External links

• Official site
• Official Myspace