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Bill Leeb has been in the dark for over two decades.
Yet, while that fact surely qualifies him for a seat in the Senate, the Front Line Assembly mastermind has no intention of changing careers.
Changing gears is another matter. In the 20 years since the Austrian native left industrial pioneers Skinny Puppy, ditched his temporary identity of Wilhelm Schroeder and formed FLA, Leeb has been a remarkably prolific recording artist with many an extracurricular identity to his credit.
Delirium. Noise Unit. Cyberaktif. Intermix. Synaesthesia. Equinox. Pro>Tech.
Some of the above-mentioned Leeb side projects have existed only fleetingly.
Most have returned to live again. And like FLA, who were counted out by many when Leeb's longtime co-conspirator Rhys Fulber left the fold in 1997, none has been officially retired.
Leeb's fertile mind has a seemingly limitless capacity for new concepts and projects. Even FLA has reinvented its hard-edged industrial-techno sound several times over the course of a 30-plus album career.
The only concern facing Leeb these days, in fact, is the threat of developing writer's cramp.
"I've had guys come up after shows who've collected everything we've ever been involved in," Leeb says. "It can take over an hour to sign it all."
But, for all his dark aura, it's not surprising to learn that Leeb will devote that hour to a fan of his work. Few bands can boast of a closer relationship to their fans. Fewer work harder to feed the followers' habit.
"I feel privileged that it's kept going on and on," Leeb states. "But we went into this with the intention of doing it for a living. And the only way to be able to do that is to be diverse. If you want to stay in the business you have to be able to do different things."
The 'we' to whom Leeb refers is likely himself and Rhys. But it can be extended to include cEvin Key, the man who brought Leeb into the darkness with Skinny Puppy in 1985.
Puppy's intense sounds, largely inspired by Europe's avant-garde, sparked an international industrial revolution from the unlikely setting of Vancouver.
"I remember reading a review of the first Skinny Puppy record in the New Musical Express that read, 'From the land of Gordon Lightfoot and Anne Murray ... Where did this come from?' " Leeb says with a laugh.
"It's a good question. It was certainly a novelty in Canada. But cEvin had been in Images in Vogue, who were kinda dark, and I was really into dark experimental music.
"We just sort of spawned this whole era of things. With the whole concept of Puppy, we just seemed to get love right from the first tour. But at the end of the day we were doing it just because we loved doing it. It was about doing something we felt nobody here had done before."
The endurance of Leeb and FLA is a testament to the potential of hard work and originality.
You won't hear them on commercial radio or see them in the charts (though Leeb notes Delirium's hypnotic 1997 release Karma reached the top in five countries).
But FLA's place in the story of contemporary music is nonetheless notable for it.
"This sort of music has always had a knock against it," Leeb asserts. "Critics dismiss it as dark, unemotional, electronic ... but there's a lot more to it. It takes just as much skill for us to put together an album as it takes a band like The Strokes. But it's always been an uphill battle."
Waged, fortunately, on many fronts.