Canadian electronic music group Delerium were formed in 1987 where the band was a two person project but the only constant member throughout the band’s history has been Bill Leeb. Leeb was an early member of industrial dance pioneers Skinny Puppy but when he left the band in 1986 the artist created the band Front Line Assembly with collaborator Rhys Fulbe.
During an interview with mxdwn.com Leeb describes what his relationship with Fulbe is like.
“During our first tour, I made him quit high school, I think he was 16 or 17 when we did our first Front Line tour. He doesn’t miss that education, he did okay. We then went down that road together and then he stepped away for a while and was producing for metal bands, and still does. He produced four of the Fear Factory albums, and he does a lot of remixes for bands like that, Machine Head and so forth. Then he kind of found his way back and got married and had a kid and then decided he wanted part of this again. I kept this going, so we’ve sort of come big full circle and now we’re pretty interactive again.”
The Delerium project featured guest vocals from Camille Henderson, Leigh Nash, Kristy Thirsk and others but Leeb and Fulber found success when they performed collaboration with vocalist Sarah McLachlan called “Silence,” which was first released in 1997 on their album Karma.
The tune reach number three on the UK music charts and three years after the album Karma was released, the original track of “Silence” gained a lot of airplay on the radio but the remixes of the tune received most of the airplay.
While being interview with mxdwn Leebs describes how he began working with McLachlan on “Silence.”
“Well, one thing with Sarah is she’s done very few collaborations. I actually met her for the first time when she was 18 or 19 I think, in Vancouver. She came here from the East Coast and was a new artist, but nobody knew her, and was mixing her album. We were in the other room and we just talked and then we all ended up on Network Records. Delerium and Skinny Puppy were on Network, and so was Sarah, and we just stayed as casual friends, and I saw her at the label and stuff.”
Leebs adds: “Then when “Silence” was literally being mixed, we were in the studio, and I sent her some demos to see if she was interested in anything. As we were mixing it as an instrumental, the phone rang in the studio and it was Sarah. She said, hey, I think I have an idea for this particular song. I mean, she didn’t know we were mixing it at the time, and we were like, okay. We took a lunch break, and she came down with the manager and did two versions of it, and the rest is history.”
Despite the popularity and success Delerium have received for the tune “Silence,” Leebs has now mentioned he does not want to collaborate with McLachlan in the near future.
“I don’t think I’d ever want to approach Sarah again because that song became so big, and it’s so big. I think anything we would do with her now would get compared, and if it was something great and people would like, yeah it’s good, but it’s not “Silence.” I think it would be kind of pointless. I wouldn’t even attempt it because like I said, this last month two new versions have come out of that.”
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