cEvin Key

Kevin William Crompton (born February 13, 1961), known professionally as cEvin Key, is a Canadian musician, songwriter, producer, and composer. He is best known as a member of the industrial music group Skinny Puppy, which he co-founded in 1982 with singer Nivek Ogre. Initially a side project while he was with the new wave band Images in Vogue, Skinny Puppy quickly became his primary musical outlet after landing a record deal with Nettwerk Records in 1984. When Skinny Puppy disbanded in 1995 following the death of keyboardist Dwayne Goettel, Key's main project became the electronic noise group Download, whose first album, Furnace, was released that same year. His first solo album, Music For Cats, was released in 1998 on Subconscious Communications, an independent record label he took over following Goettel's death. He reunited with Ogre in 2000 for a one-off performance as Skinny Puppy at the Doomsday Festival in Dresden. The pair officially reformed Skinny Puppy in 2003 and released The Greater Wrong of the Right a year later. They have since released the albums Mythmaker, HanDover, and Weapon. In addition to his work with Skinny Puppy and Download, Key has had several side projects, most notably The Tear Garden, a project started in 1985 with Legendary Pink Dots singer Edward Ka-Spel. His other projects include platEAU, Doubting Thomas, Cyberaktif, and Hilt. Key was raised in Vancouver in what he considered a dysfunctional family. Due to an alcohol problem their father developed following his service in World War II, he and his siblings, an older brother and younger sister, had to learn to fend for themselves at a young age. His mother, who he considered "glammy", often put makeup on him and was untroubled with his use of marijuana. His father initially disapproved of his behavior, but changed his attitude when Key began dyeing his hair at the age of 17 and would later come to fully support his career as a musician. Key would often turn to music as a way to escape his home life and the difficulties of high school, and he soon found himself learning to use drums and synthesizers. I had a weird and very dysfunctional family. There's no training for dysfunction ... Luckily my family had a piano and an organ that had one of those weird drum machines in it, and I sort of had the luck to be able to have these things around me, to take out frustrations on. In 1978, his parents sent him to live in Japan with a Japanese family, an experience that he considered valuable to his development as an individual. He was required to learn Japanese as his surrogate family, who treated him as a son, could not speak English. He said of his experience: "When you are that age, a whole new culture is a major upheaval. But for the better". He 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. Key began his career in the late 1970s playing as a drummer for the Vancouver rock band Bastille. He also performed as a multi-instrumentalist in the punk band Illegal Youth, which featured Al Nelson, the future vocalist of Hilt. In 1981, 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. Dave Ogilvie, a local music student, also joined the group as a producer and engineer. Taking up the role as the band's drummer, Key utilized a Simmons electronic drum kit. The band found success touring throughout Canada and opening for groups such as Depeche Mode and Roxy Music. Images in Vogue released their first single, "Breaking Up", in April 1982, and their first EP, Educated Man, shortly thereafter. The EP was a success, selling 10,000 copies in a span of six weeks and topping a number of college radio station playlists. Bill Leeb, Key's friend from Vancouver's late-night club circuit, had introduced him to early industrial bands such as Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, and he soon found himself recording his own songs. Key met Nivek Ogre (Kevin Ogilvie) at a party in late 1982 and asked him to provide vocals for the songs he had made. Ogre accepted and the pair recorded the song "K-9" under the name Skinny Puppy. The pair began using stage names to avoid the confusion of having two people named Kevin in the same band. Key left Images in Vogue in 1985 shortly after the release of their first album, In the House, to focus solely on Skinny Puppy. According to Key, the concept behind Skinny Puppy was to create music from the point of view of a dog whose "tail's trodden on" and can only bark and growl. The self-published EP Back & Forth was released in 1984; only 35 copies of the tape were produced. Key brought in Leeb (under the name Wilhelm Schroeder) and Dave "Rave" Ogilvie to help record their second EP, Remission. Terry McBride helped pay for the production and signed them to his new indie label, Nettwerk Records. A follow-up LP, Bites, was released the following year. Key hired Dwayne Goettel to play with Skinny Puppy in 1986 after it had become apparent that Leeb was uninterested in touring. Key felt that Goettel's technical abilities and knowledge of sampling helped give the band a new identity. Key's partnership with Goettel strained his relationship with Ogre, who they felt was more interested in pursuing a solo career. 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. Key's relationship with Ogre continued to worsen during the recording of Last Rights. In a 1991 interview with Propaganda magazine, he expressed his frustration regarding the recording of the album: Ogre is a different person from what I first knew, and I just can't bear to deal with it. It's something that I have to walk away from ... Every year there seems to be a promise and hope that we'll be able to talk, and we'll forget about all the things that have a lot to do with ego. Forget about ego and get into the studio and do something we originally wanted to do, which is just to make music that we'll listen to and be genuine fans of. When their contract with Nettwerk ended in 1992, the band signed with Rick Rubin's American Recordings and moved to Los Angeles to begin recording The Process. Ogre quit the band in 1995 and Goettel died of a heroin overdose shortly thereafter; Key managed to salvage The Process, and released it in 1996. He disbanded Skinny Puppy following Goettel's death, saying, "I found it appropriate at the time to put an end to the group ... It's always difficult when you lose a close friend like that". In 1998, Key ran into Ogre at a Bauhaus reunion concert and discussed the possibility of working together in the future. As his relationship with Ogre improved, German promoters began asking if they would be interested in performing as Skinny Puppy once more. On August 20, 2000, Key and Ogre reunited in for a one-off performance as Skinny Puppy at the Doomsday Festival in Dresden, and in 2001 Key performed with Ogre as a touring drummer for the latter's ohGr project. The pair reformed Skinny Puppy in 2003 and signed with European label SPV, releasing The Greater Wrong of the Right a year later. 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. The band followed the album with the release of Mythmaker in 2007 and HanDover in 2011. Skinny Puppy released the album Weapon in 2013 and later sent an invoice totaling $666,000 to the US Department of Defense for the use of its music during torture sessions at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. 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". Download was created by Key and Goettel as a Skinny Puppy side project in 1995. Other members