Elaine Walker (Interview)

MN: What were your reasons for leaving the New England area for your native Southwest and what have you been up to since the move?

EW: At some point, shortly after 9-11-01 I developed nodules on my vocal chords. ZIA continued playing every weekend for a couple of years after that, but in 2002 we stopped doing the screaming songs, and that cut down on band morale. I became convinced that the stress and bar smoke of NYC would make it nearly impossible for my throat to heal. Ironically, right around that time NYC passed the smoking ban, but I was already committed to moving.

My brother who lives in Phoenix invited me to come live with him. He's also a computer musician / keyboard player. I thought it would be good for me to live the Dan Walker lifestyle for a while. He's always so calm and collected and has a lot of fun in his life. I figured there couldn't possibly be anything stressful about living in Phoenix. (I was right) Once I was told I could keep my job as Pokemon music editor, I committed to moving. I thought it was so strange when I first moved here, after living on the East coast for so long, but I love it more the longer I'm here. It's like a giant resort - all neat and tidy with big parking lots everywhere.

MN: You single-handedly kept ZIA going for an amazing 11 years, what were your reasons for putting the project to rest?

EW: I like to think of it as "giving it a rest" instead of "putting it to rest" since I hope to get ZIA back together someday soon. Of course it will have different people in it since Liz and Matt are still in NYC doing their own thing. Like I said above, the reasons were that I had throat nodules that weren't healing, and a calling to move back to the Southwest.

MN: It's great to hear that you and Zia are only taking a rest, looking forward to hearing new stuff. What was it like living so close to the events of 9/11?

EW: Horrible. It felt like there was a giant dark cloud of doom surrounding me for months on end and I was so jumpy! It was so hard to snap out of it. Of course most people in NYC, including me, went right back to our "normal" lives as soon as we could. But nothing was ever the same - in my brain that is. Something up there definitely broke. I had lost a friend (whom the song Cosmic Rain is about) and my beloved Grandmother, Alice, not too long before 9-11. I also had an unusual amount of heartache that entire year, so 9-11 just put me over the edge. It's hard to mourn something like that too. Lighting candles in Union Square didn't do it for me at all.

I gathered a small amount of ashes from my car windshield wiper that had traveled the mile 1/2 over the river and snowed down on my neighborhood. They are scheduled to be launched into space on a Falcon 1 rocket later this year or next year. I really think that it will help me get over my angst about it all. It will be like lighting a giant candle for the people who died in the towers, their families & friends, the people who were close to the towers, the firemen and others that helped -- and also for the people like me who were a mere mile away, breathed it, saw the mushroom cloud over the city from my roof top, but have nothing specific to latch onto in order to mourn in any normal manner.

MN: I know about your belief in extropianism and space exploration in general, how did this interest come about?

EW: I'm not really sure because I don't remember thinking about anything like that until I graduated from Berklee, and then it was really all of a sudden. I do remember what made me realize it though. I got a Macintosh IIci as a graduation present and Lisa from D.D.T. helped me get it hooked up to the internet in 1992. I signed up for a bunch of newsgroups and email lists. When I sat back and look at the list I had picked out it was all futurist, technology, space, cryonics(!), physics & astronomy related stuff. I also was interested in learning about environmental issues. I think in a roundabout way the environmentalist newsgroups (especially Greenpeace) made me lean towards appreciating technology MORE. They were so anti-technology and it seemed clear to me that technology is what will save us, as long as it's in the right hands and we do the right stuff with it. I also thought about the fact that in order to survive in space we will have to get really good at recycling - EVERYTHING. Surely that research can apply to life on Earth as well.

MN: You have been very involved in the move to space movement with the various organizations and simulations you have been involved with. What are some of the highlights of that aspect of your life?

EW: The most fun I've ever had in my life has been spending my summers in the high Canadian Arctic on Devon Island with the NASA Haughton-Mars Project, filming a music video (which is almost done by the way!) and doing their official photo journal. I hope to go again in 1996. It has been a very surreal experience indeed. See the Field Reports link at http://www.marsonearth.org. I always enjoyed organizing National Space Society chapter meetings in Boston and NYC. They actually gave me an award for "Space Activist of the Year" for my musical contributions, and another for "Most Improved NSS Chapter" for the NYC Chapter I reformed, both at one awards banquet. I accepted my first award by singing words from my "Yuri Gagarin" song. That was totally off the cuff but I couldn't resist.

Singing at the space conventions has been a wonderful experience, however I actually get a little nervous when I'm star struck by my own audience! ZIA played in Houston at the International Space Development Conference in 1999. Apollo astronauts Buzz Aldrin & Gene Cernin were there and Bruce Boxlightner from Babylon V was there. Singing "Fly Me to the Moon" in Caesars Palace in Vegas for the first time was a highlight. I just returned from one of the most fun & fulfilling conferences I've gone to in a long time - the Space Frontier Foundation conference in LA. We're like a big family.

One amazing thing that has happened recently is that Space Ship One won the XPrize! See http://www.xprizefoundation.com. I've been a fan of the XPrize since it's inception in the mid-90's. I went to all three launches - the test flight, then the two winning launches. That was a year ago. And of all the places in the world, my home town, Las Cruces, New Mexico, was chosen to host the ongoing XPrize Cup! A spaceport is being planned north of Las Cruces too. It's almost too incredible to believe! The first XPrize Cup this October at the Las Cruces airport was amazing. I kept having to remind myself that we weren't at the Mojave airport. I met Eric Lindbergh there and handed him a ZIA CD. He said, "Don't tell me. I already know who you are. You're Elaine Walker who does the space music!" and he gave me a Spirit of St. Louis pin. THAT made my day! I also was approached by Alan Hale and he asked me, "Are you THE Elaine Walker of ZIA? I'm Alan Hale." I said, "THE Alan Hale of Comet Hale-Bopp fame?!" He said yes, and that he'd like to interview me on his radio show, so he interviewed me that following Saturday. It's odd getting interviewed by someone much more famous than I! Mike Kelly (formerly of Kelly Aerospace) approached me too and said, "Are you THE Elaine Walker who does space music?" I of course said, "Are you THE Mike Kelly?" :) I feel like I've been in the shadows these last few years, so realizing these people whom I admire know who I am and appreciate my music really lifts my spirits.

MN: When do you see the human race constructing a true self sufficient biosphere, so that the human race has more that one egg in one basket as we do now?

EW: I think that when we initially have stations on the Moon and Mars they won't necessarily have biospheres so much as we'll have small habitats, incredibly advanced space suits, smart ATV's & robotics, and pressurized long range vehicles. Biospheres will surely follow, however it will be a ways off. Maybe a century before we have a "pressurized mall on Mars"?

It's really hard to predict how political and economic times will play out. Of course I am overwhelmingly excited by President Bush's call to go back to the Moon and build a station there. Applause! NASA's plan stinks, but there is still time to change it. The space community doesn't have it's hopes up in that regard, but we'll hope and try for the best. That will of course only be for an exclusive group of astronauts, and what we want is for everyone who wants to go live outside of Earth's gravity well to have a chance. That will take a very long time, but it COULD happen in our lifetimes. At least, it could be that we see the beginnings of private human ventures to the Moon and Mars, Mars's moon, Phobos, and maybe even to the asteroids. I'm going to do whatever I can to extend my life so that I can be around to see it happen!

MN: You are well known for using instruments of your own design using, custom midi triggers, microtonal and non traditional musical scales. How did you begin your move away from the standard 12 note scale?

EW: I remember thinking about that when I was very young, playing the piano. I probably asked my Mom about it - "why aren't there notes in between the notes?" - and she surely explained a bit of history to me. But I didn't give it much thought again until I was at Berklee in 1990. Dr. Boulanger taught a computer music composition class. One day he played a beautiful and haunting song. He even sang to it which most of the students found humorous. My hair stood on end because there were notes coming from nowhere - like from outer space or something. It was a song written in the Bohlen-Pierce Scale which is a very odd but wonderful equal tempered tuning with no octaves(!). It's based on an octave + a fifth divided by 13 notes. Even though the tuning is strange, the chord progressions still resolved. It still had tension and release, just like any song does, but in an unfamiliar way. It was FREAKY.

I didn't write a 12 tone piece of music for many years after that. (Stick Men is written in the Bohlen-Pierce Scale, and I did a lot of research on that tuning at NYU a decade later.) I experimented with several different tunings and settled mainly on 19 notes per octave since it's easiest to write pop songs with. I also like using 10 notes per octave - all equal temperaments.

MN: What are some of your favorite memories working with some of the other Boston bands back in the day? (DDT, Sleep Chamber, You Sheik, etc)

EW: Every memory of playing with D.D.T. is awesome. It was the most fun I've ever had in a band. We'd ride around in Noel's black SUV blasting Madonna and throwing flyers out the window at people. Manray was our hangout and we would have so much fun making up silly dances. We never took ourselves too seriously. I also remember countless nights in some recording studio or other, alternating between coffee and champagne - our formula for staying awake indefinitely. We'd always do some happy dance when a newly finished song was blasting over the speakers. During our shows we tried our best to be scary with our fake burn-victim skin, machetti's in our boots, bullet belts, fake machine guns, fake blood and mohawks. Oh, and remember our "gogo dancers" with the chemical suits? I found it hilarious how we merged from that to the groovy techno we started playing after Noel came out of the closet.

I have a lot of memories of writing synth tracks for Sleep Chamber's CD "Siamese Succubi". John Zeewiz would be falling asleep on the couch. I'd say, "Do you like this? Is it what you're looking for?" "zzzzzzzz" "Well, ok then, moving on!" I preferred to stay behind the scenes since the bondage scene wasn't my thing, but next thing you know.... He hired me to play live with them for $100 a show. It was fun to play the part. John and his girlfriend, Laura (bless her heart), were always so sweet. Laura showed up one day with a birthday present from John, "John wanted me to bring your present to you." It was human ribs made into some creepy looking sculpture. She said I was supposed to hang it in the doorway of my bedroom and it would bring me good fortune. I had it hanging there for a long time, simply out of fear of what would happen if I didn't! haha. Still, it was very thoughtful. And indeed that whole period of my life was just pure joy.

ZIA and D.D.T. played a million shows with You Shriek, and of course, Marq (aka Raziel) from You Shriek played in ZIA for a few years. He was always fun. One of my best memories is the night we ALL played at Venus DeMilo on a Tuesday. Tuesday was the big local band night for a long time. There must have been a thousand people there every Tuesday. That night was a special electronic night which was highly unusual for Venus DeMilo. It was You Shriek, then ZIA (I was dressed in my usual spacey attire), then D.D.T. (I had to squirt blood all over me and grab my bullet belt and morph into my D.D.T. self), then Sleep Chamber (once again I ran into the bathroom, washed the blood off and put on a slinky bondage dress). Marq was in ZIA, I was in ZIA, D.D.T. and S.C., Lisa was in ZIA and D.D.T.... It was the most incestuous gig I can remember.

MN: Any chance we will be seeing the latest and greatest new version of ZIA tour anytime soon? Of course I am personally looking forward to a New England or Boston date myself.

EW: My goal is to have the band together before the end of 2005. Strangely enough, I just got a phone call from Dan Weingartner who was in ZIA in 1995. That was one of our most productive years. Dan might move to Las Vegas in November and says he's interested in joining ZIA again. He's been on tour with NSYNC and Brittney Spears and Meatloaf these past several years as a keyboard tech, backing-track tech and sound designer, so he's been around the block at this point! Boston & NYC are a ways off at this point but I will keep you posted! My voice may not be what it used to be, but I promise we'll still be bigger & better than ever if we get started again. It can't be any other way!

MN: It's great to hear that the reformation of ZIA in the works. Wishing you speedy vocal cord recovery and thank you for a great interview!

You can visit Elaine's Bio page here.

Elaine Walker External Links.

http://www.ziaspace.com Gateway to bluezia.com, ziaspace.com/ZIA, ziaspace.com/hosting, and ziaspace.com/beyond

Elaine's Journals from NASA Haughton-Mars Project on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic:

http://www.mars-frontier.org/blog (2003)
http://www.marsonearth.org/reports (2004)

Elaine’s future blog site http://www.myspace.com/elainewalker