Powerplant Fuses Raw Synth Energy With Hardcore Attitude

Transmission 120: Interview with Powerplant

Powerplant is a London-based synth-punk band featuring Cam Pickering (synth), Theo Zhykharyev (vocals), Karim Newble (bass), and Lloyd Clipston (drums). Formed as a solo project by Zhykharyev, the group has evolved into a full band, combining a range of influences from punk, electronic music, and hardcore. Initially, Powerplant started as a fast-paced, synth-driven project, with Zhykharyev handling all aspects of production. Over time, with the addition of new members, their sound has expanded, incorporating elements of London’s hardcore scene while retaining their electronic core. The band gained attention with their 2019 release People in the Sun, blending garage, punk, and psychedelic influences with high energy performances.

Powerplant’s Bandcamp & Instagram

Could you share some of your earliest influences and what started your initial interest in making music?

Theo Zhykharyev: As a kid, I was into 50 Cent a lot, but then I heard Black Sabbath, and that put me on the path of guitar music. I kind of forgot about guitar music for a while, but my love for it was revived by Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees around 2016. That really got me back into making rock music and just liking rock music. Liking it so much got me into making it.

I think those are the early influences for myself and Powerplant. It’s Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, and the rest of that California generation of psychedelic garage rock. Then internet punk came along for me. My friend who drums in Powerplant, Lloyd, showed me a lot of modern internet punk—a lot of Mark Winter stuff like CCTV, Coneheads, Hank Wood and the Hammerheads—all that music. That kind of got me into modern punk, I guess.

What led you to take the leap from listening to music to actually creating your own?

I have a big thing for imitation. Whenever I like something too much, I get really obsessed with trying to do that myself. When I was a kid, I really liked filmmaking and movies, so I figured out how to make films on my own through stop motion and clay motion. But I didn’t know how to make music on my own until I heard on the Needle Drop podcast that Jay Reatard does all his music by himself. That opened my eyes to the fact that you can actually make everything yourself and don’t have to do it with a group of people, especially in rock music.

Finding out about one-man bands really opened my eyes. Jay Reatard does everything on his own, then I found out about Ty Segall, and I realized I could do all this stuff myself. Mac DeMarco around that time was also making all his music on his own.

What was the atmosphere like in the London scene when you were starting out? How did it impact Powerplant’s evolution?

I started doing Powerplant around early 2017 and got into the London punk scene maybe late 2017, 2018. Until then, I wasn’t really going to any punk shows because I didn’t know anyone who went. Lloyd, who drums in Powerplant – we started living together and he played in many bands. I started going to shows that he played.

By attending his shows, I met everyone and got involved with that kind of music. I don’t think it impacted Powerplant specifically too much because the London punk scene, at least the one I’m aware of, is mostly hardcore music. Powerplant is adjacent but not exactly hardcore – we have different influences. I was influenced by stuff I found online from everywhere.

With time, getting put on London hardcore bills impacted Powerplant as a live band. That was the beginning of things. I’m grateful for that and happy to have met all those people. Being introduced to a punk community translates to other punk communities across the world, and they’re all really friendly.

Can you recall a moment where you realized that you needed to break away from traditional band setups and embrace a more experimental approach?

I can’t say there was ever a point. I come from strange music backgrounds and I’m influenced by various things, and that combined just ends up in Powerplant. None of this is deliberate – it’s whatever feels right at the moment. It’s whatever I like.

How did your approach to recording “People in the Sun” differ from your earlier solo releases like “Dog Sees Ghosts” and “Quiet at Night”? What changed for you creatively between those records?

Recording-wise, with those earlier releases I was just recording things without any technical reasoning. It was just plugging guitar into a computer with no mixing – whatever pedals I had, every instrument would go through that effect pedal. With time, I got better at producing, recording, and mixing music.

Those first two releases are like joke releases – I was doing it for fun. I did “Dog Sees Ghosts” in two or three days with simple songs I wrote during that time. “Quiet at Night” took about two weekends, maybe four or five days. The more time you spend doing something, the more thought you put into it and the better you get. I became more intentional with making music later on.

How does the DIY approach influence the sound and the way you navigate and interact with the music industry as a band?

It comes from having no money. The people that do shows don’t have money, and everything is done off of goodwill and interest in making it happen and excitement for the music. It’s really good when something is driven purely by interest in making it happen without having budget dictate the quality or possibility of something occurring.

Sometimes it’s lonely to be alone and sad to be alone, but sometimes it’s also easier because you don’t have to agree with a team of people on everything. You don’t have to find middle ground – you just do what you think is right because it’s up to you.

What were some of the influences for “Stump Soup”?

I really love the soundtrack for the video game The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. That was a huge game for me – I have the logo tattooed on my arm. I got into black metal around 2019 and realized there are these crazy interlude tracks that are atmospheric and have nothing to do with the rest of the music. Then I learned about the history of Dungeon Synth, which is like just the interludes.

There’s a great YouTube account called Dungeon Synth Archives that has classics – all the top ten albums on that are phenomenal. Through Bandcamp, I found this album called ASFD by an artist that’s just periods. It’s weird, kind of half-jokey Dungeon Synth, and that showed me you can make this a little bit silly. That made me think I could try it.

Questmaster is awesome. Vindkaldr’s “Enchantments of the Old Lore” is probably one of my favorite albums. It’s essentially just black metal into Dungeon Synth. Everyone in Dungeon Synth, all the old heads kind of hate the comparison to video game music, but for younger people, it makes a lot of sense.

Was there a track in your EP “Grass” that turned out differently than you initially planned?

Those are all really old songs, mostly from 2019. They’ve been demos forever, and I redid them three or four times, so they always sounded more or less the same. I like “Broodmother” a lot because it’s a weird track and I’m glad that it’s weird. “Walk Around, Hang My Head” was probably the only song I wrote as I was recording it, whereas everything else was done long before I recorded the final versions.

Can you share any details about what’s next for Powerplant? Are there new concepts or genres that you’re looking forward to experimenting with?

We’re doing a Halloween tour at the end of this month – five shows in the UK. It’s our first tour with three bands; we’re doing it with Middleman and The Strongest Tool, who are good friends of ours. We’ve never done a tour with local friends as a three-band tour, so that’s exciting.

After that, we’re not going to play for a while. I need to take a break from touring because I have a lot of music that needs to be recorded. It’s all demoed but not mixed properly or needs to be redone. The next album is going to be called “Bridge of Sacrifice,” probably out in spring. It’s essentially a black metal album – half black metal, half strange rock music. It’s like a take on funny black metal or black metal-inspired music.

After that, I just want to record all the music I have next year. At this point, there’s too much unrecorded music, and I can’t wait to just have it as files on my hard drive so I can tour again with new music.

Photos courtesy of Powerplant

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others