Police des Moeurs Interview

Here is the original French interview.

The content of your texts, your name Police des Moeurs, you can tell us more about your evocative universe?

I am fascinated by everything related to control, not in a strict police sense, but by everything guiding our habits in a way to adopt a so-called “normal” and “useful” behavior for the society. The Police des Moeurs, for myself, is the insidious one in our heads that is unconsciously driving us do not deviate from the norm, be it a social norm or a norm in a more marginal group.

This fascination is also expressed in our texts, along with other topics: nostalgia and the passage of time, the illusion of rebellion, loss of ideals, the absence of emotion.

How did you start composing / songwriting in duo?

In fact, to date, I wrote all the texts and composed all the music. But I do not like to sing and I do not sing very well. Anouk is a very good long time friend and we had worked together in another project. So I asked her to join for vocals.

After, Fred joined us to get ready for concerts. I wanted a geek that can deal with machines and stuff because I have less interest in this technical aspect. After a few concerts, Catherine joined the three of us. Eventually, the fact that I now work with other members will probably affects the way the songs are written.

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Posted on November 10th, 2012 under Interviews,

Agent Side Grinder Interview

Here’s the Original Swedish interview.

What is the significance of your name?

Our band name may make allusion to an angry man grinding throughout the power as a grinder would do.

What other projects have you been involved with and how did you meet the other members?

During the 90′s, I have been playing with my band Berliner 6 Bahn that had continuously changed of forms to experiment with new approaches. The best way to describe it would be some kind of circus and synthesis music. In the early 2000 years, i started to collaborate with my colleague Mattias Leidebjer AB from the independent label Lobotom Records. From 2000 to 2005, Lobotom really was at the heart of the Stockholm music scene.

In 2004, I started to think about starting up a new band, when I meet Johan Lange, during a recording session with the Thomas crew. I have been impressed by Johan’s talent, and Johan has been impressed with my instrument collection and this is how it started. We started to meet once a week and experiment until we could put together some song fragments. Only 6 months later, we got in contact with Kristoffer Grip when his girlfriend, that I already knew, convinced us that Christopher was the singer we were looking for.

During 2005 and mid 2006, we tried to find the sound we were looking for. In the summer of 2006, we had our sound set and we made a concert in Amsterdam at the Hex club were we meet Martijn (Enfant Terrible label) who asked us right after the concert if he could release a 7″ single with us!

By the end of 2007, Johan went in the U.S. for almost 19 months, this is when we were working on our recording techniques that we decided Henrik Sunbring and Alexander Blomqvist would join the band. Since everything was working good, we wanted Henrik and Alexander to become full time members, and when Johan got back from the U.S. we were 5 members instead of a trio.

After listening to the upcoming album teasers released by Enfant Terrible, when I compared it to first LP, I had the impression Henrik and Alexander brought a new dimension to the band. How do you explain this evolution towards a more upbeat and aggressive sound?

ASG is always doing this, even when we produced the album it was an objective to get our music more dynamic, our interaction is one of the principal pillar of our music. Now that Henrik and Alex are with us Johan and Henrik can focus on the hard and solid play to concentrate on the melodic layers while Alex is following their bass lead, and I play with my tape loops, pedals and other sound machines and Kristoffer are all in the show! All this probably means that we can now be more brutal than before. But there is the dynamic that we are which is our focus!

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Posted on November 1st, 2009 under Interviews,

Sickdoll Interview

Here’s the original Deutsch interview.

You released the first Sickdoll 7″, Sohn Geht Ab! in 2006. Did you ever worked any other musical project in the past? When did you started composing music?

Yes that’s right, 2006, the first EP came out. Before that, a 7″ and two CD compilation samplers were released.

As a child, I learned a few years of electric organ at a music school. But then puberty hit me like an hammer, I worked a lot next to the school and bought myself an outrageously expensive electric guitar at that time. A Fender Squire Fat Strat protons in a fairly hot black paint and silver pearl. So I became one of the worst guitar player the world had ever heard and started with a few equally talented players in my school to form a grunge punk band.

We were so poor that it was stripping the walls with our sounds. But of course we did not realized it at the time, and found ourselves quite a toll. At some point, the whole thing got lost in the sand and we did split apart…

Then I had some large debts and I had to sell the hardly earned guitar for a mere pittance. From that day on, I vowed to NEVER AGAIN take a guitar in my hands (and the world was probably a little better off this way). But I did not say I would never do music again, in the attic I played the organ from time to time. Later on, I moved aimlessly out into the world with a thousand ideas in my head, any instrument, a lot of anger in the belly and a lot of potential in the ass.

So after a while, I started to write lyrics again and collected everything that was cheap to get. Joined medium shot guitar effects at cheap keyboards and such a trash. That saved me over the crazy times and brought me back to life. It became a passion. I then made some demos to survive has I had no job… Well then came a couple of live appearances. I collected a couple of synthesizers and other stuff. Eventually, I no longer wanted to play alone, but nobody wanted to join my moronic borderline project. Well understandable, but somehow tiring…

But at some point a guy told me that because he knows a guitarist … she would like to live an experience and wanted to get involved in a project. Well – we met and it went from Sickdoll to Sickdoll & The Nuclear Shades. Anyway, I wanted some change. At first I did not want Alex to integrate because of the coolness factor – that is the guitar, but I got with a guitar again because you can play something different and can create other sonorities. I just wanted more.

Now I want still more. I want to expand the project to create more bandwidth. Today nobody wants to play with us. But – who cares – the Katzenbölzer must go on…

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Posted on October 1st, 2009 under Interviews,

Automelodi Interview

Comment as-tu rencontré les deux autres membres de ton groupe?

C’est particulier, parce qu’en ce moment même il y a des changements. La structure a été assez mobile. Le fait est que le concert qu’on donne le 12 la semaine prochaine est le dernier avec Patrick Gosselin que j’avais rencontré via Guillaume. Guillaume, je l’ai rencontré en mixant pour le premier album de Plaza Musique en 2006. Avec les membres de Plaza Musique s’est développé une amitié au travers la collaboration. Il y a donc un rapprochement qui s’est fait. Puis, durant l’été 2006, je me suis retrouvé dans une phase de réflexion par rapport à Echo Kitty (mon projet de l’époque). J’ai senti le besoin de repenser le concept et de repartir à neuf. Je commençais à collaborer avec Guillaume à ce moment là et Guillaume a accepté de venir jouer dans Automelodi, pour ce qui est de la batterie, des percussions et des synthés.

Mauricio était le guitariste au début d’Automelodi parce qu’il avait rejoint Echo Kitty sur la fin et c’était mon voisin d’en bas. Il était venu me voir dans l’escalier “Hey man I heard you are looking for a guitar player”. Ça a bien adonné et ça a bien connecté. Il a été notre premier guitariste, jusqu’à Novembre 2007, et ensuite il est parti faire des contrats à l’étranger. Par l’entremise de Guillaume j’avais connu Patrick Gosselin qui est aussi dans un groupe qui s’appelle Le Couleur qui est son projet principal. Donc Patrick a remplacé Mauricio de façon permanente à ce moment là.

Très récemment, Patrick s’est aperçu que ça débordait un petit peu dans sa vie et qu’il avait différentes priorités. Patrick va donc plus se concentrer sur Le Couleur. Ça coïncide aussi avec le retour de Mauricio qui était revenu de ses contrats. On s’apprête à faire le dernier concert avec Patrick au sein de Automelodi et ensuite ce sera le retour de Mauricio.

Est-ce que vous travaillez ensemble pour les compositions?

Notre structure est essentiellement celle d’un auteur compositeur entouré de collaborateurs créatifs. J’ai tendance à développer de façon assez rapprochée les paroles et la musique pour les apporter, par exemple, sous la forme d’un démo ayant une base mélodico-rythmique assez nette qui peut être présentée à d’autres collaborateurs. Ensuite, on développe par rapport à ça. Que ce soit avec Patrick, Guillaume ou Mauricio, il y a un travail créatif qui a été fait en studio.

Donc oui, jusqu’à un certain niveau nous travaillons ensemble, mais c’est plus au niveau des raffinements et des arrangements, ou au niveau de la performance des musiciens pour développer par exemple des mélodies de guitare… bref, pas nécessairement la structure de base de la chanson, mais tout de même une foule d’éléments et de détails qui, je l’espère, rendent le son d’Automelodi unique.

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Posted on September 3rd, 2009 under Interviews,