Michael Television started performing in 1996 alongside two college friends Neil Leonard and Sean King. They initially started covers of songs by The Wonder Stuff, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and the early grebo sound of Pop Will Eat Itself.
Neil went on to play in a handful of other bands whilst Sean and Mikee wrote industrial tracks under the name of Everything Automates Disaster [EAD], which would later be named Women Respond to Bass after Sean moved onto different musical projects. During this time as EAD they wrote using a guitar and an ancient Casio keyboard to compose the music, hoping to convert the sounds over to something that resembled a hard edged electronic sound, rather than a garage band sponsored by poverty. They worked with the guitarist D-Menture for the first time. Songs for EAD never got released but it was a good start. Oh happy nostalgia!
A decent sounding drum machine was bought and sat crossed-legged on the floor Mikee fed loops for hours at a time through phasers and distortion pedals, inspired by DHR related bands. The time was filled learning how to sample by hand and it is this technique that is applied to create loops for the band. The fingertip recorded and spontaneous approach helps give the samples a more organic sound as well as the insurmountable experience that each song is crafted by meticulous live looping and a bit of digital trickery to help clean up the overall listening experience. Eventually, armed with the aforementioned drum machine and a sampler, Michael Television started a solo project under the name of Interloper. D-Menture returned before leaving the country. Though the contributors have been many, the project has never yet realised a permanent set up for any length of time. The idea was for Mikee to write enough tracks by his lonesome and arm a live band with material for a handful of live gigs. Interloper was, during 2002 a five piece band practicing with a live drummer, six string bassist SubDog, keyboardist / flautist Miffysox and included the then guitarist Russ Payne who now plays keyboard and guitar for failedadult.
As more gear was collected to help shape the sounds, the songs have become more diverse. Samples added and guitar sections have morphed over time to become more tuneful, while still keeping a firm grip on the elements that make the band noisy and aggressive in delivery. This has given Michael Television's Interloper a unique mix of electronica, punk, rock and hip-hop that form an honest urban sound and enthusiastic sense of delivery. You won't hear anything that sounds quite the same as each song carves ideas into the cranium. You'll see a wink and a nod here and there to certain bands, genres and even films and people. No thought process has been left unturned and no bitterness left unexplored to craft songs of bad relationships, sorry situations and anthems for boys and girls who feel like spitting a bit of venom back at the world. All with a firmly fixed smile.
In 2004 Mikee introduced Felix to his material and went about the tasks of practicing the material together to lay down guitars onto the tracks. They moved up to London together and while Felix gigged non-stop with his band British Beef, Mikee worked on two more songs and completed a lot of the old material that was left to gather dust while he pursued full time employment. He has spent the summer of 2005 travelling backwards and forwards to arrange his gear to get writing creatively in every spare moment, alongside D-Menture, for the third time who added lyrics and guitar to the new tracks. As Misc was working on design content it seemed only fair to invite him to join the band due to his large output of music and mash-ups and when the chance arrived Mikee insisted he join and contribute his skills to the fray. D-Menture is taking time out for life commitments and so the current line-up is handled by Mikee, Misc and Felix and they hope to start gigging into 2006, as well as releasing material via twistnotpush.com