Franky, the musical brain behind Darkmen has a growing interest at the age of 14 for electronic music. Amongst his biggest influences at the time are Depeche Mode, the leading Belgian acid and new beat movement, Front242, and of course EBM (The latter still has a big influence on the Darkmen sound.)
End of the eighties Franky starts some basic experiments using synthesizers and drum machines with the likes of Casio SK5, Boss dr550,... emulating the vintage sound of the early eighties, trying hard to compete with the musical heroes.
Together with companion and long life-time friend Thomas, the duo starts creating their first demo tapes calling themselves “The Belgian Beat Corporation”. Time slips by and slowly their stack of synthesizers starts to grow, ending up in a current massive list with gear such as Roland mc202, Tr808, Tr727 & 707, juno1, Akai MPC2000, Korg Dss1, Poly800, Electribe's, Yamaha Rm1x, Tx81z, Rx5, Boss Dr55, Dr110, ...
When changing the name of the band end of the nineties both friends manage to crawl on stage doing some massive live gigs under the name ‘Analogue Fields’. ‘Analogue fields can be described as sonic trance and techno experiment.
Slowly both Franky as well as Thomas got more and more influenced by the newly rising Electronic Body Music movement and they started writing music that got more and more inspired by the old school EBM sound, inevitably leading in the blessed year 2005 to a new band: Darkmen
With a through and through old school sound they create songs with the use of vintage 80's
synthesizer (Roland Jx8P,Alesis Hr16drums,Yamaha's Tx81z sounds,...) combined with some of the new available gear (Roland Sh32,KOrg Electribe,Yamaha A3000 and Rm1x).
After a heart breaking goodbye to their analogue 8 track tape, some more digitalization entered their world by the use of two Roland digital recorders (VS840 and VS880).
Evolution grabbed both Darkmen by the throat and so it did happen that Darkmen started using
Reason (Propellerhead), mainly because their close friends Ionic Vision warmed them up for this tool.
Darkmen from here on gave boost to their sound in every aspect and they even did set up their
personal recording studio : BONG13 STUDIO
Darkmen records a handful of demos and decides not to remain a studio band, but to highlight their massive electronics on stage. By doing some warm applauded gigs across Europe, from Antwerp to Marseille, over Sandersleben to Leipzig (and expect more to come)
they baffle friend and enemy with a wall of aggression crashing into each listeners ear.
This does only good to the reputation of the band and some labels start putting their grabbing hands onto this Belgian duo, they are wanted, they are good, they are there, they are Darkmen!
Darkmen though decides to stay true to the EBM roots and gets attracted by Machineries Of Joy, the worldwide known EBM stable, hosted by the American/German major COPintl. None less than their friends and EBM ancestors Ionic Vision will become their label mates. Darkmen is end 2007 on their way to invade EBM land, to earn their place amongst the bigger names.
Completely supported by Ionic Vision, Darkmen gets even more in the picture when they invite a set of major EBM acts on their first release (like Orange Sector), the pounding hammer release Guilty EP (MEN001). The story continues with a full album, Guilty By Association (MEN002) set to create a high new standard for new coming EBM bands.
No chance any EBM head can and will resist this Belgian duo, learn them, feel them, choose them, they are loud, they are EBM, again, they are Darkmen and that’s solid enough!
http://www.myspace.com/darkmenebm
http://www.darkmen.be
