enemies of the secret hide-out

The Enemies of the Secret Hide-Out is quite an unlikely set of New York City popsters, whose somewhat tongue-in-cheek motto since forming in the summer of 2004 has been (to quote the title of the 1982 Bauhaus song) "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything". That summer saw bandleader and songwriter David Voigt emerge from his self-imposed exile in the world of twirling knobs and cutting tape...

After a couple of years as "rock guy-with-crummy-day job" in the early 90's, Voigt decided to go legit and put his many years of 4-tracking to good use as a professional. Ignoring the advice of his mentors who insisted that the time/space continuum of a serious recording engineer was incompatible with the demands of fronting a band, he plunged head first into the life of small colored lights and 24/7 work habits.

Of course they were right. He soon found himself locked away and practically living in recording studios working with musicians as diverse as Debby Gibson and the Sun-Ra Arkestra. He once spent 2 weeks at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios with John Cale and 12 lovely women - - and while he did find time to play bass in the new wave memphis-esque group Champale and form the experimental art rock trio The Weeds of Eden with Sean Eden and Lee Wall from the NYC band Luna - his own writing and music inevitably took a back seat.

Fast-forward to 2004: As the industry changed and the studio work slowed down, David realized it was time to get back to where he once belonged - writing and performing his own music; "I had a lot to say but no time to say it. I realized that if I was gonna make a go at it again - I had to start soon."

Most of that year was spent writing and recording what would become the Enemies of the Secret Hide-Out's debut release "Our Experience is Unique". Recorded with a broken microphone, one guitar, and a sequencer - the album is a tale of life's opposing forces that threaten to break us all apart yet also bind us together. Written, produced, and played as a one man bedroom project, the music careens from pin-drop minimal to Floydian rapture.

The obvious next step was for David to make the Enemies a real band. "I wanted the emphasis to be on the words and vocal arrangements, so I first set out to find some harmony vocalists."

Enter Karen Hou, a trained industrial engineer who ditched it all to strike out as a fashion designer and singer (much to her parents dismay), and Leslie Graves, a midwest transplant with a dreamy voice and even dreamier outlook who moved to NYC for college and stayed on to make a name for herself in music and theater.

As for the rhythm section, David says: "Of course punk was a HUGE influence. I was listening to the Minutemen and Stiff Little Fingers back in the early 80's - but I kinda had this dual thing going on. The energy of those years was infectious, but I wasn't ready to throw away my ELO records". I wanted bandmates with the attitude of the Clash, with the vibe of say - King Crimson..."

Enter Luke Mitchell, a bass player who knows his way around the low end and plays with enough grit to keep it real and leads a double life as Senior Editor at one of the oldest magazines in the country - and Kevin Sport, whose drumming speaks for itself. He is a trained percussionist and music teacher who can make a 4 piece kit sound like anything in nature.

But, as David says of the group today, “The song is paramount, we may play it wildly differently each night - we may shift the emphasis from this to that, but the framework is always there."

Indeed, the Enemies of the Secret Hide-Out are more concerned with addressing universal feelings than sucking madly on a stylistic teat or fitting nicely into any specific rock and roll subgenre. Which is not to say they don’t have musical heroes and influences - they have many: Duke Ellington, John Lennon, The Clash, The Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie...and ELO - just to name a few.