As anyone who uses a Macintosh is undoubtedly aware, an errortype: eleven is an all-too-common, fatal systems error that causes one's computer to freeze up, often erasing files, and always frustrating the user. But, more and more, the term has been cast in a positive light, thanks to Arty Shepherd's band of the same name. For years Arty played in Mind Over Matter, one of the quintessential Long Island bands, which he formed in 1990 at age 17. He went on to play with Bad Trip and World's Fastest Car, the latter with Walter Schreifels, formerly of Quicksand. All these projects having gone bust (and after months of "horrible, demeaning" time spent playing acoustic in coffeehouses) Arty hooked up with guitarist/vocalist, Phil Hanratty (formerly of Clockwise), bassist Scott Martin (also from Mind Over Matter) and drummer Erik Matheu, and formed Errortype: Eleven. The sound was instantly new: ET:11 's first, self-titled LP was a muscular, propulsive affair, which drew as much on pop as hardcore. Now, one bassist later (Adam Marino), released their second full-length Amplified To Rock (Some Records) is a massive, churning record, with seemingly no genre, and "Next Big Thing" written all over it. It is sincere, proud, introspective and brutal all at once. They've been on the cover of the LI Voice, featured in CMJ.and have widespread, international recognition. Not bad for a punk kid from Long Island. Arty tells us now, in an exclusive interview with The Island Ear, about his new record, and breaking free of the hardcore, emo, and, worst of all, Long Island scenes. ISLAND EAR: Is the name Errortype: Eleven supposed to portray you guys as tough computer geeks? ARTY SHEPHERD: No. Basically we picked the name so we wouldn't be confused with bands that have really bad emo names. We wanted to have a name that just didn't say anything. Unfortunately, people don't understand me when I say it, because I have a Long Island accent; they go "era-type eleven," or they go, "what?" Do you guys consider yourself an emo band? We're not an emo band. If you consider the Promise Ring and the Get-Up Kids the quintessential emo bands, then we have nothing to do with it. We're AC/DC to their f**kin' Kajagoogoo. How big do you think the emo scene is gonna get? I think it's reached its peak. Unless one of the bands gets signed. Honestly, you don't ever have the chance to sell millions of records unless you're signed to a major label, the Offspring being the one exception. I don't know if it's a genre that will ever progress beyond the underground. Which is cool; I love it, that's f**kin' fantastic. I hope it never does. 'Cause that'll ruin it. What about the Long Island scene? We're pretty removed from it.
But Mind Over Matter was like the genesis of the entire scene. We were, but only because there was no scene, so everything was kind of spawned from us and what Artie Phillie did. I think what gave the Long Island scene an identity was a sense that you can do things that are different, and it's cool. You don't have to be straight-ahead, tough guy, shitty hardcore. You can be a little avant-garde and people'll f**kin' dig it. So if we gave anything to Long Island, that's it. That and finding places to play, and getting kids into music they'd never heard before. That's how we created the scene. [As if accepting a Grammy] And I take full credit for it, along with rest of my old band and Artie Phillie. Thank you. What do you think of the Long Island scene now? I live in Queens now, and we play on Long Island, like, once a year maybe. There's some cool bands: Edna's Goldfish are awesome, Silent Majority, there's always V.O.D. I just heard the new Movielife EP and that's pretty interesting. Unfortunately, geographically, the Long Island scene doesn't seem to branch out across the rest of the country, and is looked at as being cheesy from New York City. That is, in a little way, why we stay away. We were reluctant to do that cover on the Long Island Voice because we didn't want to be thought of as a "Long Island Band." The first record is more hardcore, but the new record is called Amplified To Rock and there's definitely more of a variation in the songwriting. Was it a conscious decision to branch out as more of a "rock" band? No. The first record was written in the first four months of our existence, so basically we didn't have an idea of what our sound was gonna be, and after hearing the first record we kind of figured it out, and then it took off. I play games with songwriting, just to see how it comes out. We basically knew after the first record that we were a rock band and that that was our strength, because of my voice. You just let loose and play. And we have no boundaries on what we do. Acoustic, psychedelic, everything. I just feel like we could really do something special that people are gonna remember. Did you make a conscious decision to try and break yourselves as a bigger band with this record? It's not a conscious decision. We basically wrote the songs, and we kind of looked at each other and said, "Uh, this is pretty good." The greatest compliment I ever get is, "You guys sound so much bigger than this club." And what that means to me is, you guys shouldn't be playing here, you should be playing someplace huge. With a light show. Like f**in' Pink Floyd. Which is what I think we should be doing too. So why did you choose to stick with an indie label? We had some offers; we had been getting interest from A&R people before the first album, so we felt like if we held out that we'd get a better deal and we'd develop an indie following we'd be able to do the right thing. And we needed to get better. And this scene is the best place to do that; you automatically have a crowd, and you automatically have fanzines writing about you. You have all this stuff that normal rock bands in New York City don't have. And that's what we wanted, and it worked in our favor, in that we have this commercial sound, and we also have a crowd. So we do have this interest from major labels, but honestly, I don't even know if that's what I want. What's the next step for Errortype: Eleven? We wanna be the arena rock band of the emo scene, before somebody picks up and realizes that we're geniuses. I have this dream of arena rock: I close my eyes and I'm at Madison Square Garden. If there's ten kids there, I'm doin' the same thing, it doesn't matter. I still act like an arrogan rock-star asshole. And that's my fantasy. What else do I have to do? I'm 27, I'm playing in the independent scene, I'm broke, I basically have no future, so I may as well live in a fantasy world. That's what I do, I'm completely delusional.