It could be said that ET:11 shocked me when they opened for HR on their tour at the end of last year. How could a band this good be third on the bill to anyone, let alone playing tiny UK clubs? Anyway, they put it behind them and picked up a fair few fans, putting on a great show. Frontman Arty answered some questions for us, having told us all about his

personal habits earlier that day. They have charisma, they have stage presence, and they have the songs. They only need exposure.

1) How do you define your sound? Who are your strongest influences?
Our sound is big anthemic power drinking arena rock, but in a classic sense.  I like the idea of being able to do anything sort of like the way Zeppelin or  more recently the Smashing Pumpkins did.  From pop to metal to rock to acoustic, if we think it is good, we will use it. The influences are all over the place, we all listen to very different music.  I get so many ideas from old prog rock records like Yes or Genesis or more recently I have been listening to a lot of U2 and Led Zep. We then filter them through our context.  Our context sort of being a more modern day power driven guitar rock, once it gets filtered, it becomes us. Sometimes it is a blatant rip off and sometimes it is just a feeling.  It seems to work really nicely. 

2) Where has your best crowd been when you play live?
New York City, our  home.  We have had some epic shows.  In the US I would say Boston is a close second after that nearly every show we played with Hundred Reasons on this last tour.  The crowds were really receptive to us and just seemed to have a good time, which is exactly what we are doing on
stage.    It is very different from the crowd we play to in the US.  I just want everyone in the crowd to  let their inhibitions loose and have
fun.  I do it everynight on stage.

    3)  Does the state of the music industry annoy you, when so many smaller bands don't get the recognition they deserve?

These days everything frustrates me.  The music industry is run by under acheivers who got lucky and guessed well a few times about bands.  It is sad.  In an idealistic world, bands would be smaller because they aren't
as good as bigger bands.  BUT that is just not the case.  Everything is driven by money so if you don't have a lot of money behind you then you are helpless.  Bands get money when they get signed to big labels.  Bands
get signed to big labels for so many reasons other then their music, whp they know or just luck and good timing..  We have no money, right now everything we do is self financed.  The thing is that we have a sound that
would go perfect on radio and would most likely sell millions given the chance. Honestly, I do this because I love the music and hope that someday someone will realize the magic in what we do and its potential.  Till then
we still have the music and what the industry misses is their loss. 

3)  Have you ever been to the Superbowl? And why is your song better than the Superbowl?
No I have never been to the superbowl, I am not an american football fan.  The song got its title from a kid in Virginia at a show.  At the time it had no title, he said the song was Better then the Superbowl, which was
being played at that very moment, there it was.  That stoy is in the liner notes of "Amplified To rock".

4)  Out of all the bands you've played with, who was the best, in terms of performance and of personality?
That is an unfair question as we have played with so many great bands.  Right now Hundred Reasons is my fave.  They are amazing as people and as a band.  Really really really special people.  Hell is for Heroes are also
very special people and a great band as well.  The best part of being in a band is travelling and meeting people you would have never met had you not been in a band.  I have been doing it for ten years so there are too many
to mention here.

5)  Can you envisage ET:11 as a big band say the size of Incubus?
Bigger. Much bigger. [healthy ambition I say- ed] Every band that puts somehing out has a dream of some
sort of success whether they want to admit it or not.. If you don't then there is no point to putting out records, just sit at home and play in the basement.  For us the music is what really matters.  We would never go out of our way to write a "hit".  WE just write things that we are proud of and hope others,  many many others, like it.Being huge is a  good dream to have and even if it never happens, you try to have as much fun as possible while trying to get there. Believe me, I have. 

6)  Where does the name Errortype: 11 come from?
It is a system error on a mac computer.  We needed a name cause we had a show booked and our guitar player got one of these errors on his computer and thought it would be a good name, we were desperate for a name and it stuck. 

7)   If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
My bank account, Nu-metal wouldn't exist, Hannah S club would be my wife,  and everyone would love prog rock (and the et:11).  That is more then one sorry, I am a greedy guy.  Oh yeah Robbie Williams would have his own talk show and Oasis would be the first guests where they would perform "Little James", but it would be "Little Chef" instead…."Little Chef breakfast all day" ….sweet.  I see a future for Liam as a jingle writer. 

8)  What inspires your songs and your lyrics?
My lyrics are very inspired by the results of my drinking binges and the psychology behind it all.  In the USA I am considered an alcoholic but in your country, I am pretty normal.  It is a weird cultural thing.  I like to write about those things.  It is all a vaguely descriptive story of my slow suicide.  Not to say that I am Bukowski or something but even my love songs have references to alcohol abuse.  It inspires me and destroys me at
the same time.  I hope that all makes sense. The music comes from all of us.  It usually comes together very quickly.  A few riffs then I go home and put it together, we throw more ideas around
there it is….. 

9)  On the H*R tour, what was your best memory?
I have so many, the arm wrestling contests between the 3 bands in Swansea. We won. so that was fun.  Honestly that tour was the best time I have ever had in my life and every moment is etched in my mind (minus the blackouts of course).  I slept walked quite a bit, which was a bit of a freak out for the HR's tour manager who had to deal with it.  My most vivid memory is when HR's wheel fell off right in front of us. They really looked they were going to go over.  WE gave them our van to go
ahead to the show in London, we waited for 3 hours on the side of the road for a box truck, which had no heat in the back and proceeded to sit in Friday London traffic for the next 4 hours.  All we had was a bag of beer and a shitload of pot. IT was fun but when we got there we only had 20 minutes to get on stage and play.  That was rough, but great at the sametime.   

"We started in a basement in Queens NY 4 years ago.  Within 3 weeks we played our first show, within 4 months we  had recorded our debut record for Some Records and ventured off playing everywhere in the US we could for the next year or so.  We then went into the studio and did an ep for Crank! Records and our second album for SOME records which were both released in 2000.  We then followed with more touring with bands such as Hot Water Music, Grade, Samiam, Gameface (whom we did a split ep with on Revelation Records) and many more.  Two tours of Europe and countless American tours led to  early 2001 when were chosen to play on a well known national USA TV show called Farmclub. This was a crazy experience (celebrities, limos, the whole thing)  for all of us and brought us a lot of mainstream exposure in the US.  Since then we have been playing around the states and demoing our new songs and paying our rent (we live in NYC, it ain't easy).  The most recent thing we have done is get our song "Better Then the Superbowl"  on the NHL HITZ 2002 computer game soundtrack.  It features Korn, Limp Bizkit, Staind, Fuel and the ET11. I know it is weird for us too.  That brings us to the most recent HR tour. We plan on releasing a UK only single in March 2002 (we hope) and touring the UK with Stapleton and Douglas in later that month." Arty