So, do you feel surprised now when you know you have fans in a country you’ve never been to? Besides, none of your albums were released here officially.
Yeah, of course, it's hard to believe, but if it's the case, that's fantastic. What more could a band want than people 4000 km away is actually listening to tone of our songs in the evening, in the car, in a bar... That's perfect, it's what you want to achieve when you
start playing music. So thank you Ukrain and thank you internet!
It is obvious that 90% of your music here is being downloaded but not bought. Can you live with that?
I'd say it's probably closer to 100%, but whatever, let the rich Swiss pay for music, you guys can party for free...
Before we talk about your new album I would like to make a few steps in the past. It’s been a while since the release of your previous album. What did you guys do all that time? Is it that easy to just make a pause in ‘being a band’?
Yeah of course, after every album/tour, we take a while to just see if we still want to make music, and if it's the case, if we still want to be in this band. Then, if the answer is yes, we talk about what we like and don't like in the band, what we can do to make the
band as cool and as fun to be in as possible. And for this album, we took more time to write songs. We didn't want anything to be kind of « yeah, that'll do just fine », it had to be « yeah, this part is GREAT! », so that when you play live, you're not thinking « damn, why
did we write this instrumental part, it's aaaaaaawfullllll »...
Your webpage reads you had some problems with vocals – doctors even asked you not to sing for a year or so. Did they dislike Favez that much? ? As far as I know these are typical problems for a great number of ‘loud’ singing vocalists. I hope that’s in past now.
Not really, but it's better. The thing is, my voice sounds better when I'm singing a bit higher and more forced, or when it's really quiet. If it's in between the two, it's quite boring, so yeah, I have to go for the higher notes, strain the vocal chords, and then
eventually I'll lose my voice again. But actually, I've started smoking, and that gives them more strength, so the voice is a bit stronger now, thank you Dunhill.
And now you’re back – with new band members, new music and perspectives. Once you wrote that ‘Old and strong’ was a height you would probably never reach again. Has your opinion changed now when ‘Bigger…’ album had been released?
Basically, we climbed the same mountain for seven years, and when we got to the top, we looked down and felt pretty good, we were happy with the sound, the songs, the performances. But then, we looked around and realised that we were surrounded by other mountains (some
of them bigger), and we decided to move on, check out what was going on elsewhere, so yeah, same travellers, different places....
Could those two albums be comared? I might say is that in latter release you’ve removed all the ‘sharp edges’, if one could say so… Besides, keyboards make it sound calmer, sometimes a bit like old rock… and for sure much less hardcore!
Definitely less hardcore.... We would always try to put a bit of organ in our songs, since 1999, just to get away from all that «melodic hardcore » stuff we'd be thrown in with, try to make our songs sound a bit less like the year they were written in and a bit more like something that's part of a bigger history, say from Dylan to REM to Chokebore to Band Of Horses to the Hold Steady. In the end, we thought why not take one on stage, and while we were at it throw in a piano. We've always loved to have a wall of sound and with the keyboards, it's even cooler. As for the sharp edges, like any older band will tell you, after a while you just start pretending you have them, and you have to fake. Sharp edges come from having sharp youthful personalities, and we don't want to be cheating on our ages, we're quieter than we were before, a bit more mature and the band reflects that. Quite normal and quite natural...
I’ve checked some videos on YouTube. You sound live really awesome (no surprise). Haven’t you ever thought about recording a live show and releasing it as a separate album/dvd? Which songs would you like to have on it?
Nah, live albums, I'm really not sure I ever really liked one in my life, and the singing has to be a bit tighter than what I'm capable of live... But if we ever do one (as a free download thing maybe), we'd put our current set list and it would be from one of our last
three shows, which were so far my absolute favorite.
Tell me about your best and your worst live show.
Worst show would probably be Aachen in Germany, must of been in 2001, where the promotor had put the wrong date on the posters, there was a free hardcore show down the street, the venue sounded horrible, Guy Borel had a skin infection and looked like Elephant Man, the venue was so cold we were wearing sweaters and that's when a photograph came for our first cover of a big German zine called Trust, where, above the photo of us looking grumpy in a sweater, they had mispelled our name and written Faves instead of Favez. It doesn't get much worse than
that.
Where do prefer playing live – clubs or open air stages?
Clubs, you can joke with the people, I love it so much. On big stages, if you want the audience to participate, you have to make them clap their hand, « all the girls say yeaho », I find festival stages sort of anti-rock. But let's admit it, 10'000 people yelling
for you is always quite nice for the ego...
I wanted to ask about the bands you were and are influenced by, but I guess it would take lots of time for you to name them. So I'd rephrase: which band would you like to support during the tour or single show? Which band would you like to be supported by?
I'd love to support the Hold Steady, we loved supporting Fireside or playing with the Pixies, I know our drummer Fabrice would kill to support Iron Maiden (his favorite band since he's 5 years old), the thing is, you don't want to support bands that are too good, it's
always nice kicking the main act's ass of stage once in a while... And we love playing with local supports, once in a while, one of them is really good and you're all fired up when you go on stage, you get really nervous and excited, great feeling...
Are you satisfied being an indie band? Have you ever thought about moving to a major label? Or is it a principle decision to stay at the independent label? And what does it mean to be an indie band nowadays?
Nah, we love our jobs, we wouldn't want to throw it all away for two years of living off Warner's money, then having to go wash dishes fort he rest of our lives. I just want to make good records and have fun on stage, the rest means absolutely nothing. Especially not in
2007, where Arcade Fire can sell millions by just doing cool records on Merge. In 2001, we needed money very badly cause we were broke from a US tour, so we signed a deal wih Warner Chappell for the publishing, flew up to Hamburg to meet them and they were the biggest
assholes I've ever met. We had to sign the deal cause our financial situation was so dramatic, but we've managed to keep pretty safe in the last few years. So I guess being an indie band means only working with cool people who understand what your music is about, not the same assholes you'd meet if you had decided to work in a bank....
Weird videos were created for each song of your new album. Who is the author of these painting-videos?
We needed some teasers, and a bunch of friends of ours have a drawing collective called «le joli collectif» (means «the cute collective» in French), so I just went to them with a camera and a discman, each one of them came, listened to one song and made a drawing live to that song before the album was released.. Very fun... We actually liked the drawing thing so much that we asked another friend of ours to make an animated video for the track « naked and
gasolined », it's just finished and it should be on youtube by now. We're psychedelic rabitts, I find the video hilarious.
More stupid questions. On all new promo photos you’ve posted on the site Yvan is always
standing in a front of the band. Why? Is it because he is the only person in a band having such a great tattoos?
Absolutely! If we put somebody else up front, we look like a bunch of insurance salesmen. Yvan is a poser, he gets to pose. Normal.
In ‘Looking for Action’ video you were using a turned on lamp instead of microphone. I hope you didn’t burn your lips!
I did, really bad, I had to spend 2 weeks in the hospital and I couldn't speak for a month. How did you know? But it was worth it, man was it worth it.
ray:
