Inteview with Laxity
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{ MEGA INTERVIEW OF THE ISSUE } ___________________ _LAXITY_OF_KEFRENS_ ___________________ Mop / Alcatraz Laxity is surely one of the most popular scene personalities at the moment. No one can neglect his great talent, both as a capable coder and also as an astounding musician. He made all our dreams come true with his Desert Dream, and astounded everyone at the Hurricane party with Guardian Dragon 2. Laxity needs no particular introductions, still many sceners might be interested to know something more about this Danish hero. Mop made a quick trip to Haslev, Denmark, home town of Laxity, so get ready for a long investigation into the secret life of the most talented all-round man, the scene has ever seen... - You are most known, both for your excellent coding abilities, and for your melodious acoustics. How do you manage to combine all of these talents and divide your available time? Well, through my life, I have always been told to use my creativity to its full extent, and always seek new possible ways of expressing my state of mind. I believe our gifts do not come from above; if we are lucky, we experience the fascinating world of creativity in an early stage of life. I know I have, and I think that is the answer to your question. I just want to experience every way of being creative, so beware, the day will come when I will start releasing hard graphics! - Do you think that you dedicate more time in developing your code or do you prefer to spend more hours of happy protracking? Actually, I cannot tell. Though, right now, I am 95% protracking and 5% coding. But do not think that this is a static effect; I have BIG signs of biorhythms; I can code for several weeks, then suddenly I won't look at anything but Protracker! No, it is impossible to tell certainly, but to take a wild guess, I would say that I am mostly making music, though 90% is just experimenting! - If at one time in the future, you would be pushed, because of time problems, to choose from stopping coding or stopping making music, which one would you prefer to leave behind, without having any regrets? Or isn't this possible for you? I would say that it is totally unimaginable for me. However, if I actually should be directly FORCED to quit something, I would stop coding. Coding is no fun; just pain! No, of course not, but it is just that I could never neglect my musicality; it is a too much big part of me. - Let us now forget Laxity THE musician for the moment. Can you maybe try to remember why did you decide to start coding, in the first place, and did you have any experienced coder, willing to help you out? Actually, I cannot remember why in the world I wanted to become a coder. I think that I have always been very curious to figure out complex systems and to find out, how impressing tricks, in general, are made. When I was a little boy and watched magicians and artists, I wanted to know how they did their tricks. Whenever I saw something imposing to me, I would do anything to know how it was done. Then, when I got my first computer, needless to say, I started coding immediately. I saw the games and the crack intros, and I wanted to be able to create something by myself. But it was only a good deal of time after I got my Amiga 500 that I got in contact with an experienced coder. Up until then, I had learned everything I knew, through magazines and books. But then one day, I met this great coder, who I do not think was at all appreciated as much as he should have been. His name was Tron, and at that time he was a coder in a small Danish group called Anubis. He was fantastic at figuring out how other coders made impressing routines, so I guess you could say that I looked up to him quite a lot. Later, he joined Scoopex, then Dexion, and when they died he left the scene. A great talent had left us, but I think that he had just got tired of coding. I learned a lot from him, and I am still very thankful to him for being such a very great friend when I was nobody. Thank you Thomas! - Most budding coders are always moaning about the fact that no experienced coder wants to help them out. Don't you think that this is unfair, or do you believe that the best way to learn is still the hard one? As I said before, I learned a lot from a great friend, but I think it depends very much on the type of person you are. You can learn a lot of basic coding tricks from others, but you can NEVER learn to hard-code from others. It is something that comes from your own initiative. You must have a big desire to become famous and appreciated, and above all, you have got to be willing to spend at least 70% of your spare time with an assembler! - You surely are being asked all the time, some little coding hints and tricks. Have you ever neglected your help to someone? I was really afraid that you were going to ask me that. I am so sorry, to all those newcomers out there who wrote to me and never received any answer. I must say that I am sorry, but if you want to share knowledge with me, you have got to do better than just send a disk and ask for sources. That is NOT the way to become a coder! About sharing knowledge, I might add that I and Vention have been working very closely when coding, and we have sort of inspired each other and both learned a lot from our cooperation. Without Martin (Vention), I could never have been what I am today. - How much is it important for a coder to always come up with new and innovative routines and ideas? Innovative routines are not very important. Some coders think that all routines in a demo should be innovative and totally uninspired. But, let us face the fact, that it is never possible anyway, so why bother? Instead, you should spend all your time making routines that generate images that look as great as possible. Of course, it is always nice to be able to say that you have figured out how to make a 256 colour full screen vector running in every frame. But why dedicate all of your time to making this fantastic routine, if the result will look ugly? Almost all of my routines start by some vision, I have had, and then, if I am lucky, I am able to make it a record, simultaneously. - Chaos of Sanity is telling us all the time, that the good coder can only be judged from the complexity and originality of his routines? Do you agree with all this, and how important do you think that demo-designing should be for the coder? Oh, Chaos... You have a wonderful way of expressing yourself. So narrowly and one directioned. What you claim here is like telling to a teacher to judge an essay only from the spelling. It is probably the most narrow minded way of seeing the scene, for years. Do not be offended, I just hope that you will consider judging coders for other reasons either than speed. After all, you have been working on "Broken Promises" for about 50 years, haven't you? As I hinted above, the main goal for a number one coder is to make his routines worth THE perfect demo, and that is achieved by designing the demo yourself, as a coder! Everything should have relevance to the entire demo; else the work is lost. - You have worked on the design of Guardian Dragon 1 and 2 and also on that for Desert Dream. Don't you think that the designing job should be left for the graphician, or do you believe that no-one better than the coder can give an appropriate visual form to his creation? Again, that depends on your personality. If you are very team-spirited and you are able to work at the best together with a graphician, then just do it! The problem with little Laxity is that he has a vision which he wants to realize, and only Laxity knows how this is done. So, unfortunately I do not draw on the computer (though I have considered to start as a graphician, too!), so I tell R.W.O. or one of the other great graphicians we have in Kefrens, exactly what I want, and then, if I am lucky, he produces something really good. But I am a hard critic, and if I do not like it, I draw it by myself! Actually, if you should judge the graphics in Desert Dream from quantity, I made about 80% of it. But, since R.W.O. drew the alien and the rotating wolf, he is the winner in quality AND amount of work. - You live in the same town as R.W.O. who was responsible for a great part of the graphics in your demos. Do you think that having a graphician handy all the time, is of vital importance, especially when working on big projects like Guardian Dragon 2 or Desert Dream? Well, if you (as for instance Vention!) end up with a bunch of random, chaotic pixels every time you touch the mouse in DELUXE PAINT, you need a graphician to deliver all the graphics for your productions. This is, I think, not the case for me, so therefore, I only ask R.W.O. to draw big pictures or detailed fonts in many colours, and things like that. Unfortunately, I do not communicate all that well with R.W.O, so it is only for big productions that I ask him to participate actively in the demo. It is nothing personal, you know; It's just that we are just two unlike types with different attitudes. article continues... ...continued from previous article - Sceners always seem to turn out to the most popular charts, to decide who is the BEST, in our case, coder. Do you think that this is fair towards the whole coder community, and do you believe that the average scener can really judge how good a certain coder is, without being an actual coder himself? After all, coding, unlike graphics or music, is an invisible effect which cannot be judged by simply seeing or listening. I do not agree with you that coding is not visible. Coding is the main factor that scales a production's quality from FANTASTIC to SUCKS LIKE MY 12 YEAR OLD BITCH. I think that charts should never be seen as a quality determination. Charts are the opinions of all sceners, and they only tell how popular people or productions are, and in my case, because of the work I have done. I know that the fact that I am a member of Kefrens improves my status a lot, but after all, I have a lot of credit for the popularity of Kefrens, though we would never have been as popular if it were not for the ones like Vention, S.L.L. or R.W.O. - Still on the subject of charts, many have suggested that only coders should vote for coders, thus making charts more reliable, but do you think that this is fair? More than often, coders don't express themselves in an unbiased way. That depends on the type of chart. You see, most charts have, due to unsatisfied readers, been forced to entitle the charts as "Most popular" or whatever. That is good to me, but if this is the title, then every one should have a chance for voting. However, if the title was "Best Fuck", then only the ones, who knew how to fuck, should be able to vote, if you get my point! - What do you think is the main determinative fact that pushes a coder to decide if his next production will be a single-file demo or a trackmo? Some have suggested that some coders released a single-file demo, just because by doing so, their work would have stood more possibility to stand higher in every chart. Do you think that this last statement can somewhat sound credible? Of course it is a fact that the decision results in the ranking in two different charts. And that is too bad, I think. So to all chart-makers out there: Why not create a new chart entitled: "Most popular production". This way, you could see both file demos and trackmos ranked separately, and you could also rank the production in relation to other trackmos, file demos, intros, dentros, mentros... Anyway, I do not know how other coders decide whether they should make a trackmo or a file demo, but I know that I will probably never again create a trackmo, since compatibility is decreased rather much in a trackmo, and since I am a hard disk owner now, I want to be able to store the demo on my hard disk and load it at warp speed! - Coders have always been moaning about the limitations of the A500, which until some months ago was seen as the "Scene machine" simply because of the large number of sceners that owned this particular model. One year ago, Commodore released the A1200, which was an immediate success, and everyone agrees that this machine, together with the A4000 has nowadays become a standard. In your opinion, what particular demo-effects are now possible to achieve just because of the higher specifications of the AGA machines, and which were only a dream until some time ago? Naturally, everything which contains more than 32 colours or 32 + 32 half bright colours will now be possible. Also resolutions of 1280 * 512 pixels are now possible, though I doubt it will be used very often. The fact is, I am afraid to say, that the A1200 is not very much faster than A500, once the instruction cache is disabled. This is probably because of the not so clever memory arranging in the AGA systems, which makes the A1200 seem as something that was released before it was tested properly. But if the cache is used properly, you will achieve processor speed that is impossible to imagine if you only have an A500, especially if you have some 32-bit fast memory installed, and together with the new graphics features this is all the reason for trashing your old A500 and buying this, after all, wonderful machine. - We have heard that now, because of the large user base of A1200 owners, most productions will boast 256 coloured pictures, and longer music with larger samples. Don't you think that all this will impose new limits to the poor coder? After all, an unexpanded A1200 just has 2Mb of memory. It is of course sad that the A1200 does not offer more than 2Mb of chip memory. One could easily require at least 4Mb with all the new features, especially when the operating system takes over 512Kb of lower chip memory! But if you trash the system in the start of your program, you will have full access to the 2Mb chip memory, and, believe me, unless running an animation of 1280 * 512 * 8 resolution, you will have plenty of memory for the first thousand kind of routines. - How can a coder possibly feel, without any specific Hardware reference manual for the AGA chipset? I don't know! 2 weeks after I bought my A1200, I had a complete AGA Hardware reference manual, so I simply do not know, what you are talking about! Still, I would not like it without my references, but you could always find Deluxe Paint 4's copper in memory, and then see how it uses all the colours and resolutions! - The A1200 is now more than 1 year old. Do you think that in all this time, most coders have already discovered all the secrets of the AGA chipset? Can you recall any AGA production which you found especially astounding? Not one! Yet I am determined to produce a demo in the next year, 1994, which uses AGA to its full extent; nothing less, nothing more! Besides, who knew, when the A500 was released, what kind of demos we were able to produce, a few years later?! - You told us, in the end scroller of Desert Dream, that your next productions will work exclusively on AGA machines. Don't you think that by doing this you will automatically cut out a small part of the scene, or better, those who haven't still farewelled their A500's? Yes, and I am proud of it! Because if they have not got the money for even purchasing an A1200 without a hard drive (in Denmark they cost about 3000 KR today), then it's just too bad! I mean, when I quit the C64 scene, I also cut out the C64 owners from seeing Desert Dream, didn't I? So do you still think that I should have made Desert Dream compatible with the C64?! - Compatibility has always been the main coders' nightmare, now especially because of the great number of A1200 owners. Is it fair to accuse coders, just because a particular production does not work on an AGA machine, taking into consideration that the poor coder had never had the possibility to get hold of one before? Does Laxity also fear compatibility? Oh, yes, surely! But then, no, actually not. I mean, can it be my problem if a certain part of the scene cannot see my production, because they are too lazy to walk 500 metres to the A1200 owner nearby? Of course, I will try my best to produce a system which will accept any Amiga, but if some A6000 or so slipped the routine, then I do not care! - Ripping is a very ugly word to use nowadays, but still, it always seems to sneak in every coder's small talk. Do you think that nowadays the resourcer has become an indispensable tool, just like the assembler? Yes, of course. I mean, why code a half-speedy line routine all by yourself, if you, by peeking in another coder's source, can see how he sets 3 billion lines per frame? Always choose the easiest solution, I would say, though I think you gain nothing from just resourcing a complete routine and then inserting it in your own source. You learn much more by resourcing a bit and then re-coding the routine; perhaps you could even improve it, so you can set 3 billion + 1 lines per frame! article continues... ...continued from previous article - At this point, we would all like to hear your personal opinion, on some of your fellow coders. It would be a real pleasure if you could possibly detail their coding style, innovative ideas, and how well their code is implemented. Chaos of Sanity is a quality coder, not very productive, but still very good. His opinions, I will not comment here, but his productions are certainly worth while, especially the WOC 1993 demo, which for the first time contained some nice colours! Very innovative and fast routines! Mr. Pet of Sanity has many good ideas, but not very efficient when it comes to speed. He has a good way of solving problems, but he does not optimize his code well enough. Hannibal is A VERY good coder. He has all the efficiency that Mr. Pet lacks. Fast routines, good quality, though he has never made a routine that fully knocked me down off my chair, as Chaos has. One word for you, H-animal: Design your ideas a bit more, they could be much nicer if you looked twice at the screen when coding them! Dan is the cutest coder. Good ideas, funny and original design, but never that innovative. Average style. Vention of Kefrens... Yes, I think I recall him... Wasn't he a member of Cycron?! Stop beating me! Well, he has many nice ideas and a lot of will to code good routines, and sometimes, he even succeeds! Though, he lacks optimizing a bit, many details he just ignores, resulting in a routine which could have been a lot cooler. VERY nice colours and design, though he ALWAYS releases things TOO SOON! Look at D.A.N.E. for instance... right? I remember some French coder who did a goodbye intro for Silents, and there was also something about a Dragonball, which has never been copied since! Well, Performer of Melon has many good ideas and a good way of constructing his assembly. Nice design, good colours, but perhaps a bit too French. I like your X-rated movies, though! BannaSoft of Melon. Now HE IS WEIRD! Peeled banana split with ice cubes to go. Though he does NOT control contest arranging AT ALL, he has many good ideas and a rather nice style. S.O.S. stinks, but I liked the Tetris intro VERY much. His mirror ball rules! Dr. Jekyll of Andromeda is a really good coder, efficient, not all that innovative, but... One thing: HIS DESIGN IS TOO NICE AND I HATE MIND RIOT! Okay, the 5 bit planes glenz is indeed very nice! Mr. Hyde of Andromeda. Well, well... I guess, it's hard to say, he has cooperated so much with Dr. Jekyll that I rather see them as one, but I guess that is quite good according to their names! I guess he is quite good. The Spy of Crionics. Now, he's my man! Many very good ideas, though a strange way of coding them, but it almost always works. However, if it weren't for Mikael Balle, Hardwired would have never entered the Eurochart. Hornet of Alcatraz? Horny of Alcraschmudts? Cannot remember him! Did he code Odyssey? - Do you think that there are some especially talented coders which we involuntarily forgot to mention, and which you especially like? Nah... - Most of the times, it is not very difficult to judge a demo by its graphics and music. After all, graphics can be seen and music can be heard, so the average scener can tell if something is really good or bad. But unfortunately, code is something invisible, and so it is very difficult to derive how simple or complex it is without knowing the limits of this machine, so listening to a coder's point of view on this subject is always enlightening. Could we have your opinion, on the following productions, all of which were released in 1993, before the Party 3. Extension by Pygmy Projects has good ideas, but the worst design since Elysium by Sanity! At first, I thought that the Romantic demo by Melon! was a hate demo, but in the end, it was just another poor Melon Design. However, the guitar music is VERY nice and VERY innovative! So, credits to you, Bannasoft! Rink a Pink by Lemon. is a another Lemon. production! Mobile by SpaceBalls! HAAARH HAARH HARH! Please, stop before I laugh my guts out! Von mand, von rroutin! Has he got ANY other routines? Interference by Sanity is my clear favourite file demo up to date! Very cool, nice coding, good ideas and good design. THOUGH THE SECRET PART STINKS! Mind Riot? AAAAAARRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHH! Puke! 242 by Virtual Dreams is another Virtual Nightmare! - If you remember well, some time ago, some of the most known coders were given the opportunity to express their opinions about Guardian Dragon 2. Chaos of Sanity, told us that the loader was positioned at a critical memory address, making us see you as a mere beginner. He even accused you that you made a fake zoomer and that your glenz vectors seem more like a tortured cube. Saviour of Complex said that you should have focused more on quality routines, and not just on the big number of effects you used. LoneStarr of SpaceBalls said that the whole demo was totally boring. On the other hand, Wayne Mendoza of Masque was pleased with your efforts and said that the demo was nearly perfect. Dr. Jekyll of Andromeda liked your exploding cube. Don't you think that there should be a bigger sense of fraternity amongst coders, or do you think that in today's scene, friendship between the various groups' members is impossible? I don't know. I think that many coders have potential problems. When they criticize other coders, it is probably because they have some deep psycho problem. About Guardian Dragon 2; I actually don't care if famous coders like my productions; I see my production in the 2nd place in the Eurochart, and I know that for some reason, people must like it. That is more than enough for me. - You have managed to hit the charts also as a musician. How and when did you decide to start composing? I started composing immediately when I got SoundTracker 2.1 from a friend in the start. I've always been told that I had great musical talents, though I do not think that the techno music in Desert Dream, displays my talent at all. The next time I will create a file demo, I will surely include much more interesting music. My favourite right now is TRANCE! Get the feeling! - Most musicians own a synth and some other music-making equipment, which they also prefer to play, apart from using it as a sample source. Do you think that making music on the Amiga is much simpler than playing an instrument, or do you think that the Amiga has much more limitations in this area? The Amiga and Protracker together make a perfect combination for music! I just miss some more MIDI functions for my Ensoniq synthesizer, that's all. I love making Amiga music, it's just too bad that the A1200 does not contain a 16-bit sound chip as standard. 8-bit is after all not very good. Anyway, I am not the kind of musician that cares a lot about how you make your music, like those punks called heavy bands, but I want to hear good music, and if it's good, I don't care whether it is acoustic or synthetic. - A synth is the best source for getting samples from, and most musicians put a copyright notice on "their" samples. But don't you think that by doing so, everyone is breaching the copyright law, because after all, the internal sounds of a synth are all copyrighted by the various synth-manufacturing companies? No, I think you misunderstood something. You see, a synthesizer, as I know it, is an instrument with which you can create your OWN sounds entirely from scratch or edit default sounds and use them for whatever purpose you might like. A Keyboard is an instrument, like small Roland keyboards, which does not contain any possibilities of editing sounds. Anyway, I don't think that it is very important, from where the sound comes. If somebody uses a sound that I sampled, then I don't care, AS LONG as they note that they took the sample from my production. - Some musicians have been heavily accused, just because they borrowed some samples from other musicians. Do you think that borrowing samples from others is strictly prohibited, or do you believe that if you spot a fabulous sample, then there is no need to digitize it all over once again by yourself? I think that I have already answered that question. It is totally alright with me if others use my samples, just as long as they write my name or production wherever they use it. And I think that one should use the samples he needs, not caring much if it has been used before, as long as the MODULE is changed! article continues... ...continued from previous article - Some of the most popular musicians always seem to seek different music styles. Do you think that finding an own style and develop it further is the right move for the starting musician, or do you think that one should always try and experiment on all possible kinds of music? Absolutely the last. I think for myself that it is VERY important to experiment with all kinds of expression, that has always been my main goal. Of course, there will always be one style, which you fancy the most, but for me, it comes in periods. - How much do you think that melody should be important in a tune? Not very much. As long as the music is varied and interesting, it does not matter if the module contains nothing but bass and drums! Or perhaps no drums, just melody, but who cares! - We common sceners are always hearing musicians talk about the advanced technical moves they use in protracker. Is it possible to judge the technical part of a piece of music, just by listening? Yes, I think so. Yet, the thing is not to be as technical as possible by using many effects, but to show that you can control the commands completely and that you can achieve any effect you desire. - Bjorn Lynn has recently said, that Amiga music had already reached it's outmost peak some years ago, and that musicians have already discovered all the possible ProTracker techniques, since ages. Do you agree with all these statements? Well, yes, that is probably true. But if it sounds good, then who cares? I mean, just because the piano only contains 12 notes per octave, you still have endless ways of composing them. It is all wrong to think like Bjorn, I believe, he must have misunderstood something. Originality is not at all important when writing music; what is important is that you create something which expresses precisely your feeling at that time. If you do, the result will almost always be worth listening to. - Judges, after sample-rippers, are the most hated thing for you musicians! Is this also the case with you, and have you ever entered any music competitions? No, never. It is probably because I never fancy music competitions much myself. It is not that I am afraid of losing, it's just that I always end up making some images along with the patterns, and there you have it... It always ends up as a demo! - There are a lot of talented musicians out there, yet we would still like to hear your opinion about the following stars. We would especially like to know something more about their composing style, melodies, quality of their samples, and maybe also something about the innovations they brought amongst all musicians. Jester has a very professional way of composing, a very good sense of rhythm and melody, and though his samples are almost unbearable to listen to when played alone, he always manages to make them sound great! This seems to be the best way of protecting against ripping! A very fine musician indeed! Moby of Sanity is THE king. I need say nothing more, just that he controls all styles and does it with such supremacy, that I really envy him. S.L.L of Kefrens... Well, I guess he is good with mixing, but he has always seemed a bit too poppy for me. Then sometimes, he suddenly creates a very nice melody, like for instance the introduction to Guardian Dragon 2. That was VERY nice! Bruno is a very, VERY fine musician. He has all the quality of a professional musician. I especially like his reggae pieces. Cool sense of beat! Travolta of SpaceBalls is quite good, really nothing less or more. He is very appreciate. - Do you think that there are some especially talented musicians which we involuntarily forgot to mention, and which you especially appreciate? Yes, in fact Scott of Spaceballs has a very good technique and is an overall good musician. - You are the main man behind the music of Desert Dream and DANE. But, as far as I know, you always seem to do tailor-made music for particular demos. Is this true? Can you maybe tell us something more than we already know, on the time when you made the music for Desert Dream? As I said before, I always end up with modules for demos since I am a perfectionist. I always think that there is something that ought to be changed. Actually, the first module of Desert Dream was created at about 6:00 in the morning at Vention's place. I bet you've noticed the resemblance between the drums in this module and the soundtrack in Terminator 2. Well, it is probably because I love that soundtrack, and I wanted to make a demo that was just as majestic as the movie. Then, a couple of days later, Vention and me joined our ex modem trader, Raxor, who's a really great guy, where we spent the rest of our autumn holiday. So, there I started designing and coding the introduction; the space ship part. I drew the credit logos, and meanwhile, Vention told me that I should not expect him to be in Kefrens next time I would visit him! I guess he was going through a phase. Anyway, that was probably the main reason, why Vention didn't code anything on Desert Dream. But it soon passed, and we are very good friends now. Back to the Subject; Module 2, the part that starts with the alien, was actually made in an interrupt. You see, my brain is very good at interrupts, so while coding the various routines for the demo, I, once in a while switched to ProTracker to do some more music. And when I got an idea for timing the music, I just switched between the two wonderful programs and tested the result. Eventually, the demo was on its way! The rest is a VERY long story, so I will leave your little minds to guess what happened later. Perhaps I will write a biography sometime, so you all can get to know the secrets of Laxity and his Amiga! - Can we expect to see, at one time in the future, a music disk by you? Perhaps, but I don't know! I can't imagine myself composing a bunch of modules that all sound good to me. You see, nothing that I produce is ever finished. I could go on and on rewriting music if there wasn't anything called deadlines. That is why I never release anything outside parties. I just can't get it finished! - Good music disks are very rare these days, yet groups like Andromeda came up with something different with the release of Mirror. Do you think that also the graphics and code DO MAKE UP a music disk? Of course they do! To me it is not that important what kind of production it is, as long as it sounds good, looks good, and even tastes good. I only use the type of production to refer to it. - You also did the sound effects for Guardian Dragon 2 and Desert Dream. Do you think that spot sound effects have become a standard in demo making? No, but to me they are. The sound effect when the cube exploded in Guardian Dragon 2 was taken from an 80 minute mix by Uncle Ben, and that was the main fact that ensured the 1st place in the demo competition. - We have said a lot about Laxity THE coder and Laxity THE musician, that one might tend to forget to talk about the actual productions you worked on. Do you think that a GREAT production is enough to make one gain total popularity? Yes. If it is as breath taking production as Desert Dream seems to be, it is far enough for me. - In 1991, you released Guardian Dragon 1, which was more or less, Kefrens' comeback in the demo scene. You worked on the main code and design for this demo. How important was this demo for you, and how much time did you spend on this production? About 2 minutes. Let it be said; The demo stinks! In fact, I do not see why you credit me for design at all! The best part was that it made all the way to the 8th place on the Eurochart! - At the Hurricane party, you then released the much acclaimed sequel to Guardian Dragon. Once again you worked on the code, design and sound effects, but this time you had the opportunity to work with Vention, although you were responsible for the main code. Has this division of work made things easier, and what do you think is the actual stress that a coder has to stand, when such big projects are commenced? I was very thankful that Vention wanted to put so much work into Guardian Dragon2. I don't know if it made it easier... Well it did, but mainly it made the demo longer. Some have claimed that this is poor, but I think that as long as every effect in Guardian Dragon 2 looks nice, it does not matter if you've seen some effects more or less before. article continues... ...continued from previous articleĆ°n - Guardian Dragon 2 reached the second place in the EuroCharts just after it was released. Did all this maybe inject in you a kind of unique satisfaction? Yes, of course it did. It is always nice to know when your hard work is appreciated, and although I know many coders hated the demo for all the success it got, it all seemed fair to me. - We all know that Guardian Dragon 2 won the demo competition at the Hurricane party. We also know that the organisers refused to give you the promised prize. After all this time, can you tell us if you ever managed to get what you deserved from the organisers? Nope! Not one single banana! Anyway, now I do not give a damn, but after the party I was of course very depressed, but still, I had the honour of producing the best demo that summer! Plus the fact that Guardian Dragon 2 made it straight to the 2nd place on the Eurochart and stayed there for several months! - At the Gathering 2, you released Desert Dream, which once again won the demo competition without any problems. You always seem to win every competition you take part in! Do you plan to continue going on like this? Yes, of course! - You told us that Desert Dream has been 6 months in production. You did the main code, design, some graphics, sound effects, main music, and wrote the screen play. How important was Desert Dream for you, and did you enjoy every second you spent working on this production, or was there some time when you were almost on the verge of giving up? Well, I guess you could say I nearly killed myself between Christmas 1992 and March 1993! I had absolutely NO inspiration in that period, and whenever I think of it, I only see a vacuum. Desert Dream was VERY important to me, because since I did practically all of it, it was very much "me". Confidentially, Zeus only coded the part with the 5 circles, so it seemed too idiotic to list the parts with credits, since I coded everything else, and even the replay routine and the track loader! I cannot tell you, how glad I was when I faced the fact that Desert Dream had won the demo competition in Norway. Suddenly, all the hard work seemed worth while, and I will surely never forget that moment! - In Guardian Dragon 2 you divided the coder's responsibility with Vention, but in Desert Dream you teamed up with Zeus. Do you prefer working more with Vention or Zeus? Don't take any offence, Zeus, but what you offered for Desert Dream wasn't much compared to Vention's work on Guardian Dragon 2! One man, one routine! - The start of Guardian Dragon 2 seemed to be like a "condensed" Odyssey, but then the rest of the demo turned out to be something similar to HardWired. Did you really mean to produce some kind of combination of these 2 particular demos? Oh, come on... I mean, if I wanted to combine two shitty demos into one, I'd say it, wouldn't I? Seriously, I know that I was inspired a lot by both productions. But at the time when Odyssey was released, nothing similar had been seen before. It was a new way of telling a story, and of course it seemed nice to me. I always wanted to capture my audience in a good story, and so far, only CHAOS dislikes the story. Everyone else has only complimented me. - Desert Dream has finally topped the EuroCharts, and you also have the compensation from the Gathering 2 competition. Do you think that this demo deserved all this, and do you see any current rival at the moment? Naturally, the demo is the best ever! No, frankly, I think nothing like it has ever been produced, since it is unique and inspired, but aren't we all? I mean, which is the most desirable, to be an ignorant innovator or to be able to evaluate your impressions and combine them in a creative result? Struck you, Chaos! - Chaos of Sanity labelled you as a lousy storyteller, so can you tell us who is really behind the texts in Guardian Dragon 1 and 2? You can judge it from the spelling! Guardian Dragon 1 contained about as many spelling errors as words, so evidently it was R.W.O! Guardian Dragon 2 was a bit inspired by the theme in Guardian Dragon 1, but was a lot more exciting and contained nearly no grammatical errors, so therefore it must have been me! Now, about Chaos; I think he has been very depressed since he could not see our demo because of my poor loader. Eventually, I take it that he must have liked the demo very much, though he has always seemed like an angry little boy to me. Has it got something to do with his child hood? - Even if Chaos of Sanity dislikes your stories, still, we all love your poetical texts about King Kefren and the power of the Ankh. Do you think that it has become a new trend to build up such colourful descriptions around one's group? Do you think that sceners really do believe that King Kefren has passed onto you the power of the pyramids? Probably. Anyway, that's my impression. Furthermore, who are you to question the King's existence? Beware, unfaithful, for thou might suffer from pain in thy soul eternally! Chaos has long ago doomed himself to ever lasting pain, since he has disregarded the holy scripts of the King. Have not the same destiny as this poor soul, unite with us believers, and thou will always be granted luck. - Kefrens is surely amongst the most elder groups in today's scene. I think that everybody knows that. At one time, after all those years of scene activity, Kefrens decides to pack up and close down definitely. Later on, sometime in 1991, you decided to rise back from your deep Egyptian tombs, but I must admit that not everyone seemed to like your comeback. Were the texts in Guardian Dragon 1 and 2 really directed towards Melon? Nope. Only a little bit. Actually, the texts were referring to a lot of former Kefrens members and stupid ones who for some strange reason claimed to have a right on our group? The world must really stink to those people! - The introductory part in Desert Dream surely had some sort of meaning. We know that after all this time, Kefrens and Melon have sorted out all the misunderstandings between your groups. Can we maybe expect to see some kind of co-operation production between both groups in the future? NOOOOOOOOOO! MELON SPLAT! MELON RIV! MELON KNUS! Hi Henrik, you old stud! - Well, today we have learnt a lot of new things about Laxity, but we have never mentioned anything about Anders Hansen. Do you think that you would still be looked up to as an important personality, if you maybe presented yourself at a party just as Anders, and not as Laxity of Kefrens? Do you believe that the scene is basically just made up of group names? Yes. By the way, who is Anders Hansen? - Do you hate being referred to as Laxity instead of Anders? How do you think that the two mix up in everyday's life? Quite well, I think! Though I have some difficulties remembering whether I actually AM Anders, or if Anders is just a pseudo for Laxity Hansen?! - Every interview must have an end, and I must really admit that when one is talking with Laxity, there are so many things to discuss that one never seems to reach an end. We hope that we would have the opportunity to host you once again, here in Compass, but in the meantime, we would like you to end this interview by putting down your last words. Sure, just leave it all up to me to end this interview. Did you know that the hardest bit is always the end? Don't you watch any Schwarzenegger movies? Well, to all my scene friends and enemies out there: Don't take the scene so seriously. You know, outside the monitor, there is actually a world besides our imagination. And making friends is always much more fun than making enemies!