À Rebours, based in Elmira, New York, started life as a project called Maxwell’s Demon in 2000. Ian Stone, the band’s vocalist, guitarist, etcetera, moved from Oregon to Arizona. The project evolved into A Rebours (‘Against the Grain’ in French).

“I wrote full songs and recorded demos, and I also did solo acoustic shows here and there to try and get my name out,” says Stone. “Eventually, a friend in an industrial band helped me get some of my demo work on something I could playback as backing tracks and did a couple of shows using those and electric guitars. I caught the attention of Final Joy Records, who I feel despite the stripped-down nature of the shows, recognized tremendous potential.”

The band was signed to the label in October, 2006. They released a full length CD, Vanish in September, 2007.

“Since then, I’ve moved again to upstate NY and I’ve continued to play shows. I’ve recently found a bass player, Ryan Holmes, who shares my artistic vision and is an astoundingly accomplished musician in his own right,” he says. “We’re playing shows as a duo now, working on a second album for 2009 and plugging away at the beast that is the music biz.”

Stone says the music is a mix of goth, progressive, shoegaze and electro.

“Along with whatever else suits our fancy.” he adds. ”My primary guitar is an Ibanez RG7420 seven-string. I love the feel of it and the pickup configuration is my favorite. I've done my own setup on it.”

He also has a Washburn -- the KC-70V Chicago series six-string with a Seymour Duncan JB installed in the bridge position.

Acoustically, he uses an Ovation Celebrity CS257 (kept on Nashville tuning) and an Ovation Elite 1778T.

“I have a Conklin Groove Tools seven-string bass that I used on Vanish and any other times I wanted to channel my inner Robert Smith,” says Stone. “It's a beast, but it sounds great and plays pretty easily despite the fact it's the size of an aircraft carrier.”

Holmes uses an Ibanez Ergodyne EDB600 bass.

“He liked the active electronics in it, and the overall shape and feel suit his playing style really well,” says Stone. “À Rebours also tunes all of our instruments down one whole step.”

For recording the band uses Propellerheads Reason for all the keyboard work. Then recordings are all put together in Sonar.

“The guitars and bass are recorded direct into SONAR using a Tascam US-122 unit that’s got a digital / analog converter for XLR and 1/4” as well as MIDI in / out, all into a USB port,” he says. “Guitars are recorded straight out of the mains on the guitar rig, and bass is recorded through a DI port on Ryan’s amp. I record and render the tracks in 48 kHz / 24-bit and then send those to the label where they import them into Pro Tools for the final production.”

For demos, Stone records vocals with a Shure SM58 with a pop filter into a Behringer MIC2200 tube preamp and an out through a BBE Sonic Maximizer.

“This, like the instruments, is piped through the Tascam unit into SONAR. However, for the final album recordings, we record vocals into Pro Tools at the label’s studio, mainly because they’ve got better mics and gear for it!” says Stone. “Drums for the demos are done on SONAR’s built in drum synth, although for the final recordings, a session drummer comes into the label’s studio and copies the parts that I wrote. This is recorded on two inch tape and then imported into Pro Tools.”

Their live gear set up does not really differ from what they do in the studio.

“I bypass all the ambient effects like reverb and delay so that the parts come in dry for the most part,” says Stone. “In some instances the sound of a pedal or effect unit is too perfect to pass on to a digital plug in and so I may record the part using it. Live, though, the rack and pedal board is awash in reverb, chorus and delay.”

More details on the bands live set up and gear love / hate relationships.