Scene - Blogs - INTERVIEW Lords of Acids Praga Khan

INTERVIEW: Lords of Acid's Praga Khan
Published: 3/21/2011 12:22 PM
Last Modified: 3/21/2011 12:37 PM

Lords of Acid. Courtesy

_concert
Lords of Acid
with Angelspit, Radical G, Chant, Axis, Bedlam Emotion
When: Doors 7 p.m., showtime 8 p.m. Wednesday
Where: The Marquee, 222 N. Main Street
Tickets: All ages. $18, plus fees, or $20 at the door. Tickets available at tulsaworld.com/ticketstorm,
Online: tulsaworld.com/LoA

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Lords of Acid have been around since their heyday in the early '90s.

You just may not know about it.

The Belgian electronica troupe, led by keyboard and mix master Praga Khan have put out several albums. Its leader has been busy working on everything from film scores to — he’s even experimented with theater and ballet compositions, he said, calling his music “one big melting pot with magicians and everything.”

He also judged a season of Europe’s “X Factor” talent series.

Khan (aka Maurice Engelen) — and his iconic band — return to Tulsa for a one-night show on an exclusive American tour, Wednesday night at the Marquee, he said during a recent phone interview from his studio in Belgium.

He’s working on a new Lords of Acid album, which veers from rock to pure dance, he said. There’s also a new singer, DJ Mia.

Yes, new music — it’s first all-new studio album in close to a decade. He thanks American DJ Mia — and his U.S. fans — for the inspiration, he said.

“She is amazing for us,” he said. “Everyone told me she would be a perfect fit. The first time I heard her, I was like, ‘Wow.’ She was mine. She is Lords of Acid,” he said.

He’s waiting to finish the upcoming album until he gets feedback from Americans on this tour, he said. “My fans are always important to everything I do,” he said.

“This is a good tour for me to check Mia out as a singer,” he said of the Los Angeles-based DJ. “I’m getting to know her as a person and as a personality. It also will heavily influence me.”

She’ll join him in Europe as he gets closer to finishing the album, he said.

“There’s a lot of talent out there that doesn’t get much opportunity any more,” he said of his new work and his new music project, SonicAngel. SonicAngel’s a website that allows fans to fund, promote and earn money from bands they invest in. It also helps bands earn funding to record and promote their own music, he said.

The project’s already live in Europe, and kicks off this month with the launch of his Lords of Acid tour, he said.

“We need to put fans back in the middle of everything,” he said. “That’s my drive and my goal with SonicAngel, and with everything I do.”

As he readied for an American tour, which kicked off in Los Angeles, he also worked on finishing the visuals for the upcoming live shows. There are more props, more video segments, “It’s rock theater,” he said confidently.

With the intensely sexy, hyper-camp nature of the techno act’s music, showmanship is important, he said. This tour will be like none other.

“It has real energy and attitude, with dance elements,” he said. The trademark dance-rock grind of the longtime act is still in tact, he said.

The band did a small tour in the U.S. a couple of years ago with sex-rock colleagues My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, but other than that, it’s been 8 years since Lords of Acid crossed the states, he said.

“It’s easier to make a great album after a tour,” he said. “There’s more energy and experience, and this time there will be the vibes from an American audience.”

Khan writes and produces most of the lyrics and music for Lords of Acid, which was also known as Digital Orgasm in its earlier days. Khan’s a longtime dance music icon in his home country, both as a solo artist and with Lords of Acid. He began writing in 1988, mostly performing live on keyboards — but doing nearly everything in the studio.

And his fans are all-important to the recording process, he said.

“I have a lot of contact with my fans,” he said. “There is no ‘ivory tower’ for me. I have chats, I sign autographs, they tell me what they like and what they don’t like — and I listen to them, too.”

Of his timeless influence, he said, “These days, a lot of new artists are using the sounds that we used in the early ‘90s,” he said of music acts from Lady Gaga to Ke$ha and Britney Spears.

“Why not? It’s a nice mix of vintage hard electro music like Lords of Acid and new sound. I like it.”

-- By Jennifer Chancellor, World Scene Writer

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Barrelhouse: A colloquialism describing the low saloons at the turn of the century (19th) that served whiskey straight out of the barrel. It's also a reference to the type of music played in those venues. Ex: Barrelhouse music.

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