In honor of Dual Core's most recent release Super Powers which I reviewed earlier this month, I had the pleasure of sending a few questions their way about their latest release and what the future just may have in store for one of nerdcore's hardest working duos. Read on to get some insight as to the making of Super Powers.

1. How did you guys come up with the idea to make a song about Super heroes and villains. Were you guys looking to do a themed album and decided on this, or did the idea of rapping about super powered people come before wanting to do a themed album?

eighty: I had wanted our music to give some focus to traditional comics, and doing a themed album seemed to be a good outlet for that. The whole dynamic of superheroes and supervillains has always been of interest to me. You have counter-acting forces, equal and opposite (re)actions, and one side could not exist without the other. In a way, that relationship is reflected in Dual Core with c64 making the beats, and me rapping over them. I certainly wouldn't be around without c64.

c64: I think we were finishing off tracks for our Zero One album when Eighty suggested the Super Powers concept. There was so much scope for creativity that I just had to go with it. Soon after, we both started firing all these crazy song concepts back and forth, most of which ended up on the album! It didn't take long to put the project together, as we had so many different ideas floating around.

2. What things have changed for you guys since Zero One came out. Any change in your production or writing? Anything change since getting pretty famous, being linked from Penny Arcade and everything?

c64: I now get hounded in the street on a daily basis, and have to fight the paparazzi off with a stick! However my production methods are pretty much the same. On the Super Powers album I tried out some more electronic/synthy-sounding beats than on Zero One, but the way I make tracks hasn't really changed. Also I met int eighty.

eighty: There haven't been that many changes from my perspective. Arguably, c64's beats have gotten better, but I've always been a fan anyways. Probably the most significant change has been that we have actually met in person now. We had only worked over the internet up until July of 2007, and as you know Zero One was released in April of 2007. Other than that, it is "business as usual".

3. What made you guys decide to have a couple guest tracks on this album?

eighty: We pretty much made Zero One in a vacuum. There wasn't any exposure to any other nerdcore, we were just having fun making songs. After the release, I discovered other artists, and it seemed like it would be fun to work with them.

c64: Who knows what will come in the future...

4. Do either of you have a favorite track on the album? Was there any track that was particularly easy or difficult to do?

c64: My favourite track keeps changing, but it's currently End of the World. I wanted the song to have a strange, eerie feel, like in a movie where there isn't much time left and the world is about to end. Eighty really delivered with the rhymes, and Stephanie did a great job on backing vocals. I believe that we ended up with a really strong track.

eighty: My personal favorite is Orbit. It was actually rather easy to write for some reason, everything just came together right away.

c64: The most difficult, simply from a mixing viewpoint, was probably the bonus track called 'Just Made Up'. I was over in America to visit for a week or so in the summer. We decided to finish the album off by showcasing Eighty's considerable freestyle skills, so we called in Odub, threw on one of my beats, and the song was literally made up on the spot. The guys were going back and forth on the mic for probably 20-25 minutes, and I had the job of editing down all of the recorded vocals and mixing the track. It was still lots of fun, but pretty time consuming!

5. Have you guys already set to work on a new album? Any ideas for another themed CD?

eighty: Our third album is well under way; and we will just say that I am very excited about everything, especially the production.

c64: The album will be not be themed in the same way as Super Powers, but will be very good!

6. Finally, do you folks have anything else you'd like to add about the making of Super Powers? Any interesting stories to be told?

eighty: The only actual story that comes to mind is from August of 2007. We were playing a show at Defcon in Las Vegas, and then another show at the CCC Camp in Germany a few days later. We planned to do an unofficial US release of Super Powers at Defcon, then an unofficial EU release at the CCC Camp. Everything was going well at Defcon until we sold out of the CDs we'd had pressed. I was really excited at first, then realized we didn't have any CDs to sell in Germany. Fortunately, we were able to create some less-official copies with the help of CCC Camp attendees.

c64: It was funny, we had three or four borrowed laptops all burning Dual Core CDs at the same time! Many thanks to those people for helping us out.