Richard Pike is the frontman for PVT, an experimental, electronic three-piece from Australia. You might remember them as Pivot, but last year they had to excise the vowels from their name after some awful band from America tried to sue them over the rights to it. We caught up with Richard to talk about the band’s new album, thieving Germans, and pleading with Gary Numan to turn the synth up.

Vice: Tell us about the new record. Have you re-invented the electro-wheel?
Richard Pike: I’d like to say it’s a progression. We didn’t want to do O Soundtrack my Heart volume two or anything like that. The way it occurred was very gradual and over a period of two years while we were touring. We wanted it to have a live element and challenge ourselves to do something completely different.

How did you find time to record being on the road for two years straight?
Whenever we had time off we’d record. We did some sessions two years ago, so we had a lot of material to chop up and play with. We recorded in London a bit, but most of the recording and mixing was done in Sydney, which is where we recorded the previous albums. We worked with Birk Reid which was really comfortable because we’d worked with him before and he’d heard the recordings in their infant stages, so we figured he was the best guy for the job.

What have you been writing about on this record?
When we play live we do a lot of vocal improvisation–Dave will take live samples and I’ll harmonize with them. We wrote this record with vocals in mind. Having that extra aspect to our music gave us a new challenge and allowed us to voice our opinions on a lot of things. Like “Church of No Magic” for example, was about seeing through facades, like the Church being an institution having no substance behind it.

Have you prepared yourselves for the fundamentalist Christian backlash?
We haven’t said we’re bigger than Jesus or anything, the whole idea can be taken a number of different ways. A lot of the lyrics were about what’s real and what’s not, substance, purity, and wanting something real and positive from human existence.

Heavy. Are you guys still bummed about having to change your name?
Nah it’s fine, we didn’t change the name too drastically but it was still a pain. Thanks to MySpace any old arsehole can start a page and claim you’ve stolen their name, even if they’re not signed or haven’t released anything. We could have fought for it but it would’ve taken a lot of time and money and we’d rather spend the money on a new record.

You’ve got a pretty massive tour coming up, where do you look forward to playing?
I’m looking forward to playing Australia again and London, France is always fun, we only have a few shows in Holland whereas last time we played heaps of shows, this time we’re only playing Amsterdam and Tillburg, where we’re playing in this great arts center. You only get places like that in Europe. Touring is really stressful because you’re always worrying about your gear and are constantly dreaming of sleeping in a nice bed. One time in Cologne we had to stay in a hotel near the airport in this really shady area. Luckily we took all of our main gear out of the van and just left the drum kit and amps in huge boxes–some guys tried to break in but saw how big and heavy our stuff was so they left everything apart from a digital camera on the back seat.

Are shows in Australia like a homecoming?
It’s a bit like a homecoming because we don’t play there as much as we used to. It can also be double-edged, because the fans get excited but also complain about us not playing there enough. I hope we don’t get lynched.

Didn’t you tour there with Gary Numan?
Yeah. It’s hard to be into synth music and not like Gary Numan, it was weird touring with him though because he’s really industrial now. He has this big guitar band behind him and it was very Nine Inch Nails-y. I kept thinking to myself: “Gary turn the synth up mate.” He’s a really sweet guy though and it was great seeing him play his hits. When he played a music show on Australian TV he covered one of our songs, which was really awesome.

You also played Luminous festival with Brian Eno right?
That was amazing for us–he’s more of a direct influence on us than Numan. It was a dream come true. The only thing better would be if he produced one of our records. I have no idea how he picks and chooses what he works on though, he’s such a luminary.

HENRY LANGSTON