48 Facts About CEvin Key

CEvin Key is best known as a member of the industrial music group Skinny Puppy, which he co-founded in 1982 with singer Nivek Ogre.

CEvin Key reunited with Ogre in 2000 for a one-off performance as Skinny Puppy at the Doomsday Festival in Dresden.

CEvin Key was raised in Vancouver in what he considered a dysfunctional family.

CEvin Key was required to learn Japanese as his surrogate family, who treated him as a son, could not speak English.

CEvin Key had been planning to live in Japan and was offered a job at a Tokyo radio station as an interviewer when he received an invite from Gary Smith to join Images in Vogue.

CEvin Key began his career in the late 70s playing as a drummer for the Vancouver rock band Bastille.

CEvin Key performed as a multi-instrumentalist in the punk band Illegal Youth, which featured Al Nelson, the future vocalist of Hilt.

In 1981, CEvin Key joined Images in Vogue, a successful new wave group based in Vancouver who had put out an ad looking for musicians with their own equipment.

CEvin Key met Nivek Ogre at a party in late 1982 and asked him to provide vocals for the songs he had made.

CEvin Key left Images in Vogue in 1985 shortly after the release of their first album, In the House, to focus solely on Skinny Puppy.

CEvin Key brought in Leeb and Dave "Rave" Ogilvie to help record their second EP, Remission.

CEvin Key hired Dwayne Goettel to play with Skinny Puppy in 1986 after it had become apparent that Leeb was uninterested in touring.

CEvin Key felt that Goettel's technical abilities and knowledge of sampling helped give the band a new identity.

CEvin Key was displeased with Ogre inviting Al Jourgensen for the 1989 production of Rabies, telling Alternative Press that he believed Jorgensen had intended to break the band up.

Ogre quit the band in 1995 and Goettel died of a heroin overdose shortly thereafter; CEvin Key managed to salvage The Process, and released it in 1996.

In 1998, CEvin Key ran into Ogre at a Bauhaus reunion concert and discussed the possibility of working together in the future.

CEvin Key said that the way the band recorded music had not changed much from before, but that the advancement of technology had greatly improved the process.

CEvin Key explained that he was troubled by the use of their music as a means of torture and that the invoice was not meant for "financial gain".

CEvin Key told Terrorizer magazine that he thought of Goettel as "an unrecognized pioneer" of electronic music and, following Goettel's death, used Download as a means of keeping his spirit alive.

CEvin Key was a brilliant teacher and he's really blown a lot of people away.

Van Bebber, who had done video work for Skinny Puppy, approached CEvin Key to write music for the film; CEvin Key's goal in making the soundtrack was to create something that was "uneasy, unsettling, just plain old uncomfortable".

In late 2018, CEvin Key announced that he and Western had finished work on a new album titled Unknown Room and that it would be released March 8,2019, through Artoffact Records.

CEvin Key came in contact with The Legendary Pink Dots by way of The Elephant Table, a compilation tape shared within the tape trading community.

CEvin Key met Pink Dots singer Edward Ka-Spel in 1985 while working as a sound engineer on Ka-Spel's solo tour.

CEvin Key presented Ka-Spel with some recordings he had made, believing that Ka-Spel's voice would work well with them; Ka-Spel agreed after listening to the tapes.

CEvin Key said that most of the material from Sheila Liked the Rodeo was recorded by engineers in secret while the band was in the midst of a jam session.

CEvin Key later opened the label to other musicians, particularly those he had worked with in the past.

The unsupportive attitude taken by American Recordings during the production of The Process led to the construction of the Subconscious studio, where most of CEvin Key's projects are recorded and manufactured.

CEvin Key believed the creation of the label was a natural consequence to being involved in the music industry and used it to "license the appropriate releases to the appropriate labels".

CEvin Key used his pet cats to help make portions the album, sometimes allowing them to walk across keyboards to see what sounds they would come up with.

CEvin Key moved Subconscious Communications to Los Angeles in 1998 and worked on his next solo album, The Ghost of Each Room, which was released on August 14,2001.

The photo, taken by CEvin Key's girlfriend, was inspired by a dream he had at age 11.

In 2011, CEvin Key held the SUBcon Beyond Fest in Santa Monica which featured a number of artists signed Subconscious Communications, including Phil Western, Mark Spybey, Download, PlaTEAU, and Tokyo Decadence, and local talent such as Cyrusrex and Wet Mango.

In 2018, CEvin Key released a number of rediscovered recordings from when the band was called "The Flu".

CEvin Key named Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Portion Control, and the album The Bridge by Thomas Leer and Robert Rental as early influences on Skinny Puppy.

CEvin Key told Chart magazine in 1998 that he considered acts such as The Prodigy, Aphex Twin, and Basic Channel to be at the forefront of the electronica scene.

CEvin Key mentioned that the intention behind Skinny Puppy's music was to create something that had its own unique and original sound, set apart from groups such as Nitzer Ebb, which he considered "all beat and no music, with lyrics that don't capture what Ogre does".

CEvin Key considered the Lexicon PCM 41 delay to be an essential piece of equipment for his early music, and said that he didn't believe "any of our music could be in existence without a digital delay".

CEvin Key made frequent use of instruments such as the Roland TR-808 and Roland TR-909 drum machines, which proved central to his original setup for Skinny Puppy, and the ARP 2600.

CEvin Key considers himself a pacifist and is a keen animal lover and supporter of animal rights.

CEvin Key is especially fond of cats and made a dedication to them on his 1998 solo album Music for Cats, claiming they played a major role in his upbringing.

CEvin Key's affection for cats came from his mother, who was a cat trainer and breeder.

CEvin Key stopped using hard drugs in 1994 and supports the decriminalization of marijuana.

CEvin Key endured several injuries while performing a stunt on the set of Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation.

CEvin Key suffered a broken kneecap, and required 31 stitches, eight of which were on his face.

In 2016, CEvin Key had reconstructive surgery on his nose and face following the removal of a basal-cell carcinoma.

CEvin Key said in a Facebook update that the cancer had started in his nose before spreading up to his eye and down to his lip.

CEvin Key had a similar surgery 15 years before which left a large scar on his nose.