TEAM RNS PRESENTS

RIPPER: Team RNS

1hr 16min total-110.6mb

RELEASE DATE: 0000-08-26
RIP DATE: 2003-08-07

Meet Rob Overseer, a sonic producer who
appreciates the finer ironies of life
and music while crafting thunderous
soundscapes brimming with bristling
beats and layers of post-apocalyptic
power chords. With the release of
Wreckage, his first full-length album,
Overseer signals the arrival of a
massive new sound on the high-tech

Despite his grandiose moniker, this
Leeds, England-based bloke stands a mere
five-foot-four. "I don't oversee
anyone," Rob laughs. "The name gives
off the impression of a big entity,
which is how I like the music to sound."

Though they may not know Overseer by name
(yet), millions of Americans are already
familiar with the man's music. Many of
the songs on Wreckage have had massive
exposure through their use in television
advertising campaigns, major motion
pictures, video games and extreme

More and more, high-tech video game
designers, producers of cutting edge
television advertising, and purveyors of
extreme sports action are finding
usages for the exhilarating rave-ups of
Overseer. The scorching track "Horndog"
has recently been picked up for the
television ad campaign for the new

Overseer's increasing popularity in the
video gaming community is a bit ironic,
considering the fact that Overseer does
not yet own a PlayStation 2. "I do have
a Nintendo," he deadpans. "It's been
sitting around gathering dust."

Perhaps that's because he already
treats music like a three-dimensional
futuristic game. Working in a medium of
frantic blips, bleeps and breakbeats,
Overseer has something of a checkered
musical past. As a teenager, he played
guitar in school bands, dressed in
all-black and worshipped The Cure,
Smiths, Pixies and Sisters of Mercy. After
hearing Pop Will Eat Itself, Public
Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest's first
album, he fell in love with the
possibility of throbbing beats and
pulsing electronic rhythms. Meanwhile,
his brother pumped British heavy metal
into the Overseer's music 24/7, and, in
1995, the two styles fused to form the
blueprint of the Overseer signature
sound. To think, that all this noise and
assault comes from the brainpan of a
closet melody freak who name-checks
Neil Young, Frank Sinatra and
Radiohead as a few of his personal

"There's always been a rock element to
my dance music," Overseer says. "My
brother listened to AC/DC and Mot rhead
and I picked up on that. I think of
everything in terms of sounds. If I want
something that is going to push that
button, which is the equivalent of a
big rock number, lots of times you have
to go back to the guitar."

Once the Overseer project was properly
launched, he released two indie EPs --
"The Zeptastic" (1996) and "Hit The
Tarmac" (1998) -- and began receiving rave
reviews (including a big two-thumb's-up
from Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook). After
doing a bit of live DJing and
performing nearly two dozen live dates
in the UK, Overseer signed with Columbia