Circle of Dust - On leaving REX Records
Do you want me to call you Klay? Or is that just your new "stage name?"
"Yes, you can call me Klay (I prefer it) and no, this is not another of my infamous stage names. I'm done with all the ‘Tox,' ‘Dred,' ‘Deathwish,' etc., pseudonyms. Hindsight is 20/20 and with that vision I realized that I wasn't establishing myself as any one individual and it probably hurt me more than helped (Most people don't even know that I did the whole Argyle Park CD with Buka, for instance.) ‘Klay Scott' actually in many ways represents a new beginning, so to speak. I've changed quite a bit since I last was in the public eye and the name change reflects that. I never thought Scott Albert sounded good anyway."
Why after all this time did you decide to do another Circle album?
"Ca$h. I ‘disbanded' Circle in '95. The REX Records situation was a joke and I spent the next year and a half in legal disputes with them. (The whole story revolving around the last 2 years would be a whole magazine's worth of info by itself.) I have been fully involved in ‘Angeldust' since I put Circle to rest, but since a project of Angeldust's proportions takes much time to develop and refine, there wasn't much in the way of income. There were some labels asking if I'd ever do another Circle CD, but good ol' REX was keeping me from doing that because they weren't going to let me out of my useless contract. I really wanted to do another Circle CD and not another project. Circle of Dust is me and I wanted to be self indulgent — I 've spent so much time on other projects and wasn't getting a hell of a lot of recognition from them, partly due to my ‘anonymity fix,' although at the time I couldn't legally sign to any other label. To make a long story shorter, I was released from my REX deal earlier this year and within a few weeks signed a deal with Flying Tart. I'll explain later why I made that choice. And for the record , although a large reason there is another Circle CD coming out is because the prospect of having no $ and therefore starving and having no place to live wasn't too exciting, I want to make perfectly clear to the people that care that Disengage is by no means a half-(bleep)ed project of half-(bleep)ed material I had laying around. I spent a lot of time on this record from the music to the artwork and layout, and this is what I feel to be the best disc I've done to date. I know there has been confusion surrounding Circle of Dust for a long time, but one thing I knew I did not want to do is go around telling everyone ‘Goodbye. Circle of Dust is breaking up so come to see all our shows and spend lots of $ on our merchandise because it's the last time you can,' and then putting out more records and doing more tours anyway. There was never any official pronouncement about the demise of Circle because I didn't know what would happen in the future."
One thing Circle fans and critics probably got tired of was the fact that there wasn't a new full-length album every year and a half or so. While this may seem ungrateful, due to the fact that they were getting nice remix things, like metamorphosis, and special reissues of the Brainchild album, etc. ... Why only a 6-cut EP release after all this time? Is Flying Tart releasing a new full-length album? I received this 6-song remixes of Refractorchasm, and I assumed that this was the long-awaited new release from Circle of Dust.
"There is a CD single with 6 remixes of ‘Refractor' & ‘Chasm' called Refractorchasm due out in October. There is also the Full-length CD which has 11 songs called Disengage due out in November. The full-length has 11 songs on it, and Refractorchasm has 6 remixes of ‘Refractor' and ‘Chasm.' Technically Disengage will be my second Circle of Dust release (the first being the self-titled one), so keep in mind six years have passed since I actually wrote specifically as Circle of Dust. The real reason it seems like the same CD's were released and re-released and re-released and re-released was mainly because of the Distribution deal REX had secured with Relativity. Finally, I was going to have my music in the real world. We needed to get a release out pronto and we all felt that Brainchild was the strongest CD. Just one problem... Brainchild was a project and was never intended to be a Circle of Dust CD. After weighing our options we decided that since this was going into a totally new market, who would know or care That ‘Circle of Dust — Brainchild' used to be ‘Brainchild — Mindwarp'? Well, It seemed some people were confused, some people were pissed off, and most of the rest didn't know the difference or care for that matter. So the CD goes out through Relativity and starts to sell a good amount, and garners some pretty serious attention from some pretty serious publications, individuals, bands, TV, etc. We realized that we needed to get another album out fairly quickly. The problem was that we needed to continue to tour to support Brainchild and if I had to write a new CD, it would take many months. The suggestion came up to re-release the original Circle CD. I already knew that could never happen. That original release was an abomination as far as I'm concerned. I hated the release when I walked out the door of the studio I had just recorded it in, in 1991. (I still have hopes that every copy that still exists will somehow dematerialize permanently.) At this point, I had my own studio and knew it would be much better if I could re-record it before it was released. So it was obvious to keep the momentum of Circle going, I needed to spend a month re-recording the old material, (which I liked, but couldn't live with sonically) as opposed to spending 8-10 months writing an entirely new CD. There was at some point a suggestion to change the CD artwork, and the only reason I declined that suggestion was because I thought fans would think I was deliberately trying to pull some scheme off and make a little cash. Trust me, I wouldn't have been the one making the cash."
Why sign with little ole Flying Tart? (Certainly you were popular enough to garner a better deal elsewhere)
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Comments
Is there a way to contact Klay? This man needs the lord in an incredible way. He's right about a number of things regarding the church and I really like how you handled the interview with him. Myself being a fan of there music and also being a Youth pastor, I can relate to both sides of the fence.
Klay is a great guy...after rereading this interview after so many years, I now see how much I really relate to him. WOW.
Thats really too bad I`v been a Scott Albert(Klay Scott) fan since the brainchild album. But God never forgets his children. Remember the prodical son.
A very interesting article. I've recently done a speech on the Christian music industry and found it to be much for corrupt than most people see it as. I myself am a COD and Celldweller fan but I'm also a Christian. I listen to POD, Blindside, Project 86, so on. It's really too bad what happened to Klayton. Really sad.
or maybe you can just leave him alone. thats what he wants, get over it. you cannot force beliefs on anyone, don't you understand that was his whole point. he's not trying to force himself on anyone, nor does he want anyone forced on him. its understandable.
and what exactly do you plan on saying to him? heh.
I agree with Pastor Chris, I am also a fan of Klay and would love for him to see the light on Christian life. In a way, Klay Scott's story reminds me of Manson somewhat. NOT SAYING that Klay is anything like that. Klay's a good guy.
