Alaska Highway

First of all, enlighten us about Alaska Highway and yourselves.
- "I'd like to thank everyone at Neurozine for this interview, it's always fun sharing our music with new people. Alaska Highway consists of primarily two people: myself (aka Moose) and Anthony. We are working much more as a single unit these days so splitting the workload in to separate blocks assigned to individuals is not too easy. Generally, we bounce ideas between us until we are both happy with a particular song's development. One day Anthony might come over with a song in his head, but other days I might have chord progressions sorted out on the computer for Anthony to write counter melodies and lyrics. On the second album we've added a guest guitarist, Rich Ford, who also helps out live too..."

The band name, Alaska Highway, is the name referring to the real Alaska Highway (crossing Dawson Creek and according to bellsalaska.com the highway is supposed to be world famous) or how come you choose that name?
- "I was watching a TV show on the building of the Alcan highway in the 1940's, a major development to supply American troops with supplies up in Alaska during the second world war and, for some reason, the more common name for the road, Alaska highway, stuck in my mind."

'Attitudes of a difficult mind' was your debut album and was released in 2003. This release is your latest, except a live album released in September 2005, what could you tell us about this release?
- "We know that a lot of our fans can't make it to our rare live shows so we record them all and release them as a limited edition home-made CD-R for fans to buy. Officially, 'Attitudes of a difficult mind' is our only release, though that will change this summer with the release of the follow-up 'Breaking the broken'."

Your first release was a limited live album called 'Reddevillive', how come you choose to release a live album even before the debut studio album?
- "We wanted to hear how the tracks would be received by the audience so did a couple of shows before the debut studio album was released and, as previously mentioned, we made a very limited run of CD-R's. A couple of the tracks underwent major reworking but most of the tracks stayed in the same format for the album."

It's soon three years since you released 'Attitudes of a difficult mind', any new album on its way? Please give us some input!
- "Yes, we've been working hard on the follow-up album, now renamed 'Breaking the broken', which should be available for release some time this summer. Many reviewers loved the first album and those special few who have heard the continuing mixes for the second have been blown away."

The world is filled with electro acts, but somehow Alaska Highway seems to be different and outstanding, why?
- "The biggest problem we have is that we are not an easy band to pigeon-hole. I mean, we aren't synth-pop, electro, EBM, darkwave, industrial, power-pop or whatever but are a seamless mixture of several of these styles. This makes listening to our music very interesting as the listener doesn't quite know what to expect next."

Since you released two live albums, you must be quite proud of your live set? Is Alaska Highway better live than on album?
- "We are very interesting live as the performance is totally remixed from the album versions, plus we have live guest musicians too, but I think I've covered the live CD issue!"

Any tour plans to Scandinavia or Europe in the near future?
- "We'd love to but, as always, money is an issue. With the free music internet download issue continuing unabated many bands, like us, are receiving very little money from our hard work so find it difficult to take on the high expense of international touring."

Any last words to our readers?
- "Thanks for reading this far! Seriously, we love what we?re doing as a band and the continued positive feedback worldwide is amazing, even three years after our debut was released! We'd like to thank everyone for their support and will hopefully be able to see our new fans very soon..."

This interview was written 2005 and initially published on Neurozine.com