Jean-Marc Lederman and Emileigh Rohn joined DJ Zuul on March 2nd to discuss collaboration, modular synths, experimentation and making music only to please yourself in the context of Forbidden Planet, Rohn Lederman’s new album out on March 4th 2025.
DJ Zuul, On The Edge:
That was “Policy of Truth” from Rohn Lederman. Sitting down with us tonight is the one and onlyor the two and only Rohn Lederman. Thank you very much for joining us.
Emileigh Rohn, Rohn Lederman:
Thank you for having us.
OTE:
This is not the first rodeo here for either one of you, correct? If I’m not mistaken, Emily, it’s been
20 years since your debut album came out. Is that about right?
Emileigh:
Yeah, the first one was released, yeah on a label in 2001, so.
OTE:
2001, so we’re rolling up on it. And Jean-Marc I would like you to tell me about “Jimmy Joe
Snark the Third.”
Jean-Marc Lederman, Rohn Lederman:
Well, I’m an ancient. I taught Keith Richards how to play Guitar
OTE:
Excellent. And a fine job you did, I must say!
JM:
that gives you – well,the name “Jimmy Joe Snark” comes from the days of the Weathermen,
which was a band I had in the 80s. It was a surname given to me by Bruce Geduldig, the singer
of the band.
OTE:
And I understand that the Weathermen started as a joke and then ended up on Play It Again
Sam.
JM:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We just did it because we wanted to make something funny out of EBM
because we thought everybody was so serious, you know.
OTE:
And they still are, man! It’s almost amazing how no one has been able to let go of this in forever.
So we’ve got a new album coming out on the third? On the fourth. We’ve got a new album
coming out Tuesday if I’m not mistaken.
Emileigh:
That’s correct. Yeah, the fourth.
OTE:
Excellent. What should we play off of that album for Seattle so that everyone can hear how
awesome you are after so many years of toiling alone and together?
Emileigh:
I would go with either “Urban Jungle” or “Chaos.” It’s like the beginning or the end.
OTE:
Jean-Marc has to choose. Which one, Jean -Marc? Which of those two?
JM:
“Take Me Out” or “We Crawl Back.”
OTE:
(Laughs) Okay, you’re fired. Which one, Emily?
Emileigh:
“They Crawl Back.”
OTE:
“They Crawl Back,” Rohn Lederman, On The Edge.
OTE:
We are sitting down with Emily and Jean from Rohn-Lederman. As we discussed, both of
you’ve been at this for a really long time – this is your second, your third album together.
Emileigh:
(laughs) We’re so old!
OTE:
Dude, we’re all old though. I mean, it’s disturbing how old everyone is. But as another band
pointed out to me, this is about the only genre where being old actually counts for something.
Emileigh:
Yes! I think it does, you know, just having that experience!
OTE:
Yeah, no one else worships Elder Goths, you know, it’s kind of like, it’s a thing!
Emileigh:
Right?
OTE:
So, you guys have been at this individually and apart. I want to know, Emily, how, how did you
and Jean-Marc first start collaborating?
Emileigh:
Okay, yeah, I got this weird message on Facebook once? and he was… I was like, who is this
guy? He’s like, hey, I’m putting together this sort of, like, compilation-vocalist-thing. And I was
like, well… Like, I had to look up who he was and he was actually, like, super famous.
OTE: And then your jaw dropped, yeah.
Emileigh:
And then, and then I was like, oh my God, how do I not know who this is?
OTE:
“I better be polite!”
Emileigh:
So I went with that and he was happy with what we made together, so we just kept going.
OTE:
So Jean-Marc, if you could give me one song from Emily that made you reach out, what would it
be?
JM:
Actually, I hadn’t heard any.
OTE:
Really!
JM:
Yeah, it was a friend, a common friend, told me, “Well, you should check that person,” and I
listened to “Disorder?” Possibly?
Emily:
Yeah probably.
JM:
From “A Distance,” and within 30 seconds I said, “Okay, fine. It’s good.”
OTE:
So she was suggested and then she passed muster and then you reached out.
Emileigh: Yeah that’s what it sounds like!
OTE:
Excellent! What song did you listen to again ‘cuz we’re gonna play that.
JM:
“Disorder.”
OTE:
“Disorder!” By Chiasm. On The Edge.
OTE:
Rohn Lederman is joining us. And you guys are neighbors basically, right? You live right down
the street from each other.
Emileigh:
(Laughs) Yeah, what is it like 7,000 kilometers or something? I think Jean-Marc knows.
OTE:
Right, because Emily, you’re joining us from Michigan? You’re joining, where are you joining us
from?
Emileigh:
Yeah, yeah, I’m close to Ann Arbor, like Metro Detroit.
OTE:
A lovely spot. And Jean -Marc, you’re in Belgium.
JM:
Yeah, Brussels, yeah.
OTE: So what does the collaboration look like? How does this start? Because you’ve done this for a little while now. So what does the process look like?
JM:
I usually write a skeleton, a short ID of a song which is very, very bare. And I send it, and every
time, Emily says, “Yeah, that sounds great. Let’s do something.” And she takes a few days,
writes the lyrics and the vocals. And I say, “Yeah, that’s great, but now the music doesn’t fit
anymore.” So I change the music and after that we have a song.
OTE:
That’s marvelous! What’s a track that really surprised you? That you thought it was gonna go
one way and then Emily took it a different way?
JM:
Well, I should take them one by one, but I think most of them had that result because that’s the
great thing with Emily, is that it’s always a surprise lyrically and vocally and that gives me new
ideas. So the song that was the base of it disappears, and there’s a new song there.
OTE:
Emily, if you could pick one track where it really changed a lot after you touched it, what would it
be?
Emileigh:
I was shocked by what he did with “Open Up the Floodgates.”
OTE:
What were you expecting and what did you get?
Emileigh:
It was more, like, almost dark to start, and then when it changed, it became like super beautiful.
It’s just a great track. It’s one of my favorites.
OTE:
“Open Up The Floodgates” by Rohn Lederman, On The Edge.
OTE:
One of my favorite things when I get to talk to bands is find out what they’re listening to when
they think no one is watching. So Emily, I would like you to give me a track that would surprise
your fans that you’ve been into lately.
Emileigh:
Well, I would say as an entire album something that totally…We actually wound up doing a
cover of but I started to get obsessed with the “Into The Spiderverse” soundtrack and there’s all
kinds of fun like hip -hop stuff on it. We wound up doing a cover of “Sunflower.” Because I really
liked it.
OTE:
Well, let’s play that then! “Sunflower,” Rohn Lederman, On The Edge.
OTE:
Jean -Marc, because Emily cheated me into playing another Rohn Lederman song, I’m going to
ask you, as a producer who’s worked with all sorts of incredible acts on incredible albums, what
inspires you to do what you’re doing that is outside of what everyone might expect?
JM:
Just surprising me.
OTE:
Okay…
JM:
I have no absolutely no interest in pleasing anybody else but my partners, whether it’s a friend
called Jacques Duval or Emily or the people, I’m doing music for them and for me. And the first
thing is I must be surprised by what I’m doing. If I’m not surprised, if I’m bored, I just switch off
the modular and just do something else, watch a TV series. And just say, “well, that was a
fucked up day, wasn’t it? But it’ll be okay tomorrow.”
OTE:
And if you’ve had a fucked up day, what do you listen to?
JM: I don’t listen to music if I have a fucked up day. I mean music is the last thing I want to listen to because I cannot not analyze what I hear.
OTE:
I see. All right! So if I were to ask for your desert island tapes, you wouldn’t have any. You’d sit
there in silence.
JM:
No, in silence? No, because I could fan, I have tight hands, so silence is impossible for me! But
I would say “let’s listen to the sound of the sea and maybe we can hear a trawler coming
around, you know, a big boat that’s going to save us from the boredom that is in this island!
(laughs)
OTE:
(Laughs) Well, this is not working out for my purposes at all because Jean -Marc does not know
how to play the game… so I am going to simply ask what is another track from Rohn Lederman
that you would like Seattle to hear?
JM:
“Spinning.”
OTE:
“Spinning!” Is that on the new one? Where
Emileigh:
“Spinning Down,” yeah.
JM:
“Spinning Down,” “Spinning,” that’s a very weird track because it is, first, a very weird track but it
took the attention of Chanel, you know the French brand?
OTE:
Oh, Really?
JM: And we were in the last bands in competition for one clip, one advert that they were doing and it surprised me that they took you know the most weirdest songs that we have.
OTE:
The weirdest song Rohn Lederman has, “Spinning,” On the Edge!”
Emileigh:
(laughs)
JM:
Well, I mean, listen to it. It’s very out there. It is a lesson, you know. Everybody’s trying to make
the, you know, the “dance song” or everybody’s trying to make “the single” and there’s so many
of us now it doesn’t matter anymore. What you have to do is really go to this wild place and do
the weird stuff because that is the fun stuff to do that’s the most funny thing.
OTE:
I’m gonna play it. “Spinning” (Down), On The Edge.
JM:
There’s a funny thing because a friend of mine, who’s also a journalist, and who makes reviews
and who’s going to review the latest album, “Forbidden Planet,” told me “you’ve done industrial
jazz.” And I told him “if you use the term jazz you are killing us, you know that.” (laughs)
OTE:
People are so about the labels, man. It is all about the labels.
JM:
It is! It is!
OTE: and… I had, I had Raymond Watts on here. and when I asked him what inspired him, he said
he goes to the opera twice a week. So we played Tosca and I’m all about that because frankly
nothing exists in a bubble. Everything is influenced by everyone else and it’s all about finding
out how to make what you’re doing better based on what everyone else is doing, right?
Emileigh:
It is. I think Jean-Marc should talk about the Modulatron because he rebuilt his entire setup for
this album which makes it different from the previous ones.
OTE:
Oh, we definitely need to hear about the Modulatron, then!
Emileigh:
Yes. Yes.
JM: Well, the Modulatron is quite a big modular system I built last year because I wanted to kill the way that we were making music… or the way I was making music, because I was too aware of “where is the right plugin, what is the right sound,” and I wanted to have something totally
random. So I built this modular which is based on analog modules, not digital modules. It was
impossible to beat and to tame. It was so complicated because nowadays you just press a button and Logic does it all or you know, Cubase does it all. And we wanted to kill that, but we
killed it for good. So it was really complicated to be able to do just one track because that’s not
the way that all synthesizers function, it’s not the way that modern programs, software, music
software works where everything now is quantized. In the Modulatron, nothing is quantized. The
sounds are just so wild! But it really grabs your attention because they’re so raw. And so that
was the good point. And on this album, Forbidden Planet, this is what we tried to do, to put
together one crazy modular system with Emily’s way of putting things in perspective. And so this
is what we do with it and it was complicated but really very fun. And the end result is industrial
jazz.
OTE:
So I have three things to say. The first thing is thank you, Emily, for bringing that up because
that was priceless.
Emileigh:
You’re welcome.
OTE:
The second thing is Jean -Marc, can you send me a picture of the Modulatron to include with
the interview?
JM:
Oh god, I’ve got thousands of them!
OTE:
Excellent. Just send me three, you know, and I’ll use a good one. The third thing, is what song
on the new album features the Modulatron the most prominently, because we should play that.
JM:
Okay, okay. I should take the album. (scrutinizes vinyl)
OTE:
Yeah, take a look at it.
JM:
I don’t know, Emileigh, what do you think?
Emileigh:
I think “Chaos” does an amazing job. They all do.
JM:
Which one?
Emileigh:
“Chaos.” Like I said in the beginning, either “Chaos” or “Urban Jungle,” I think probably did that
really well.
OTE:
Let’s go “Chaos.”
JM:
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, for instance, Urban Jungle, the first song on the album, it is a five
minute, or I don’t know, yeah, about three minutes long, improvisation I was doing with the
Modulatron, and there’s the voice of Emileigh on it, but there’s no correction. There’s no “oh,
let’s tune this” or whatever.
OTE:
You just did it live.
JM:
Just Yeah, just go, yeah, just go for the flow
OTE:
We’re totally doing “Urban Jungle” On The Edge.
JM: and just do it.
OTE:
And just do it!
JM: Yes!
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