The first and today's most important question - WHITEHOUSE exists or not? Many times I've seen news that your band is R.I.P.

Whitehouse still definitely exists.

PHILIP BEST WALKS OUT ON WHITEHOUSE - PARIS CANCELLATION. Do you remember the news? Later you had your gig in Sweden cancelled. And then we got that news about WHITEHOUSE' death. What was happening with the band all that time (second half of 1999, October+)? Was it agony of the dying band? What is your opinion about the roots of those events?

This was all mostly caused by personal events - there is no animosity amongst us.

Do you plan any new Whitehouse releases/ re-releases? If so, when?

An album is being recorded during the year in UK and in Chicago with Steve Albini. A new track 'Movement 2000' has already been exclusively released and is currently available in mp3 format from

http://www.mp3.com//whitehouse

What are you doing right now? Any new projects/ producing/ etc? What do you expect from this 20th century's last year?

See above, also continued work with EMFW and other similar projects.

I wasn't able to listen to all your albums, unfortunately (the distribution here is very bad and the economical situation doesn't let us buy stuff via mailorders too often), but I got chance to listen to your Birthdeath Experience and Quality Time. Both albums are pretty different in sound and belong to WHITEHOUSE' different eras. How do you see the progression of the band over the years? Do you see any evolution in sound or your albums are the same soundlike and they are just different chapters of the same book?

There has been enormous progression and evolution over the last 20 years of the group's existence but I'm still fiercely proud of the purity of our music from the beginning to the present day.

Evolution of WHITEHOUSE it's the evolution of musicians or evolution of technology/ equipment?

Evolution of ideas and inspiration - we've never been dependent on any particular item of technology for the sound.

You have decided to release your full discography on CDs because you wanted to stop bootlegging. Have you achieved your goal?

That was certainly one of the reasons but I wouldn't say the problem has been totally eradicated, however it definitely made a huge difference.

What do you think about MP3 and illegal mp3 copies of your music? Will you fight with this phenomenon like Metallica did or you don't care? For example I do not support opinion that illegal mp3 affect someone's sales. I have loads of different MP3s (most of them are different shit I wouldn't buy anyway), but at the same time I always buy legal imported CDs of my favorite musicians. Take a note, that I live in the country where average monthly salary is equal to the price of 3 imported CDs!

What I can't stand is all this moralism - everybody's trying to self-justify what they do, the pirates and bootleggers are as bad as these bands like Metallica with their whining about how they're 'not harming the artists'. Give me a fucking break...

Do you think that we experience industrial revolution (like punk revolution, sexual revolution, etc)? Look: cyberpunk, Internet, new types of drugs, new design (distorted fonts, blurred unfocused pictures, «dirty» layouts), house/ rave music, etc.

There have certainly been some very profound changes in the last decade or so.

Jello Biafra believes that the main achievement of punk revolution is zine, that do-it-yourself publication so widely used in our days. Do you agree with him? And what is the main achievement of industrial revolution? May be do-it-yourself music you can make on your home PC?

The 'punk revolution', however you look at it, is totally meaningless - particularly to anybody under the age of 30 today. I am not interested in these philanthropic agendas to 'achieve', and 'improve the world' etc.

In one of your interviews you told that «we make music for our fans...». So, does the reaction of your fans affect your music? Will you change something in your music if your fans tell you to do so?

I don't remember the context in which I said that, however their reactions have no influence on the way our music sounds.

I know that you prepare every your album for quite a long time. Sometimes it takes years... So you have the music in your head for all that time or you use notes or something? I can't imagine how can someone script noise music with notes.

Lyrical and topical ideas are formed in notes, recording techniques and sounds can be recorded for future use, but as you say, a lot of the musical ideas are in one's head. They can become obsessive ideas that will stay there for months until the truth is forced out.

Usually power electronics bands write about sexual perversions/ serial killers. It's kinda fashion, trend. Only few dare to expose their political views, ideology. You don't like politics as well. Don't you think that all those fairytales about serialkillers and childpornography is nothing but fear of the real life? How can you avoid politics when politics surrounds us everywhere? You can be killed by IRA terrorist right in your house, this is the politics.

Most of the bands you refer to are heavily influenced by Whitehouse around the early 80s but our topics and inspirations have varied enormously since then. We're surrounded by birds and trees and tins of soup but that doesn't inspire new music. Politics is all about people's senseless agendas on how to improve the fucking world - far more interesting are personal, introspective ideas and inspirations of a much more sophisticated and visceral appeal.

This is pretty personal question so you may skip it if you want. You are quite old dude and as far as I know you are not married, no kids. Is that because you deny the institution of family or you just don't want to marry cuz you are too young:-)

Thanks a lot! - I don't consider being 39 being that old, but it's all relative, I suppose. If people want to get married, then that's their business entirely - I don't have an opinion about it.

I know that sometimes you work as a DJ. Could you tell me about this side of your life? What kind of music you play (Whitehouse I guess)?

Various esoteric musics - mostly along the lines of Susan Lawly output. There is broad playlist at http://www.susanlawly.com/ under 'textfiles', if you're interested.

Not long ago Suzan Lawly released EXTREME MUSIC FROM WOMEN. I got no chance to listen to it, unfortunately. Is that true that women can play REALLY extreme music? Do you plan any full-length releases of acts from EMFW?

We don't plan any full-length releases of EMFW acts, it's not our policy, but it's been a very successful and worthwhile release. The music these women have produced has surprised a lot of people.

Suzan Lawly's best selling album so far? What is the average amount of every title you sell? And who is Suzan Lawly?

We don't publish figures for sales - 'Great White Death' has probably been the best seller in terms of numbers. SL is nobody as such, but the name for the record company.

What do you think about latest albums from SUTCLIFFE JUGEND? Many people claim that When Pornography Is No Longer Enough and Victim As A Beauty are most violent and extreme in the genre.

Maybe the most cliched in the genre? I haven't heard either of them but I very much doubt they are what you say people are claiming. This is just the sort of thing we were discussing earlier - stuck in a 1983-era time warp. Things have moved on a long way since then.

What do you expect from 21st century?

Death?