Line Up:
Vocal:Fredz
Guitars:Adrian
Bass:JJ
Drums:Marco
Well,Friends Of Aristocracy!
We speak again of our newsroom, where in a little while, we will have, in all its emotions, the interview 175 of the Aristocracy.This time, we talked to a band that combines punk, sludge and hardcore in its composition and its modus operandi. A band that shows maturity, but mainly, intensity and ability to evolve and bring new listeners to your band.Today, we will start a new work method because we will have two interviews on the same day. The Daytime Interview is with JJ, but precisely the bassist of the Swiss band Sludge Reaptile. We want to thank him, his band and DMG for giving us this opportunity .Let's go to their song and JJ's thanks for doing our humble work.With that, we will start this unprecedented and exclusive interview for the Brazilian press. Let's go!
Hey Felipe!
I'm JJ, the bassist of Reaptile. Aurélien from Domino Media (DMG) forwarded me your message with your questions for an interview. First, I want to thank you for your interest and for the quality of your questions. I'm not kidding, it was a real and sincere pleasure to take some time to answer honestly.
Best regards from the swiss alps, and I wish you a nice weekend.
JJ / Reaptile
A1:Talking about the composition work in Humanidead?
Jean-Jacques Moix:After the split with DETRVIRE, to make it short, the guitarist and the drummer left the band. Themo wanted to concentrate on his main project and Raf lived too far away, it became difficult for him to motivate himself.The album was first composed on bass, then with Marco the new drummer, then with Adrien the new guitarist. The project was built step by step, stone by stone,while remaining very coherent. Moreover,Adrien and Marco became friends very quickly.They are lovely people. It's like we've been playing together for years.
A2:Can we say that some of the songs on this album are intricate?
JJ:It wasn't really our intention. But it's the exact playlist of what we play live.The songs look intricate because we built the set that way and tried to make it relevant.
A3:How was doing the split job with Detrvire?
JJ:DETRVIRE is a Belgian band from Bruxelles.The singer is a friend, he lived and worked in our city in Switzerland. We had 2 songs ready that we wanted to record, but we didn't really know how to release them. The idea came to make a split and release it on tape. DETRIVRE was excited to collaborate with us. We had planned to play some shows together, it would have been great and really brutal. But then Covid came along...
A4:Some literature or film inspire the band?
JJ:This is a complex question. Fredz (the singer) and I (the bass player) have a wide musical and literary culture. We have a lot of common and different interests, but we come together on many things. Fredz is an artist and a tattoo artist, so he has a lot of classic and contemporary graphic references. It's always been hard to name influences because our backgrounds have a very strong impact on our work, but we never wanted to look like something specific with an absolute reference. Adrien also has a very diverse cultural background which influences the “color” of the band. He knows a lot about video, internet, cinema, new technologies,... I don't know anything about it. So it's great.It's a very important contribution.
A5:What generated the band's hatred for this album to be born?
JJ:The last song of our first album is called "Forever at war". The video clip of this song illustrates our thoughts about humanity. It's hard to watch but it reflects reality. And it's hard to watch because it's real footage, no Netflix fiction. Our disgust of stupidity, egoism and individualism is a powerful motivation.
A6:How come emerged the invites to Arnaud And Julia?
JJ:Arnaud is a friend and sings in a great band called Charlene Beretah.He has a very intense and emotional "shamanic" voice. It's very complementary with Fredz's voice which is really aggressive. The last track is a bit... "Psychodoom". We needed Arnaud and he was perfect. Even better than we expected.We also wanted a female voice to contrast with Fredz's voice and to make a tribute to bands like F-MINUS. There is a great punk scene in the German part of Switzerland and we wanted to find a female singer from this scene first. We were lucky because Julia is Fredz' girlfriend and she was motivated. And she's a great performer.
When Arnaud and Julia are present for the show, it's a very important contribution. These are features that have a lot of meaning for us.
A7:What changes did the new guitarist and new drummer make for the band?
JJ:It was a huge relief to find them. Marco is a great drummer and a great human being. Adrien was a fan of the band before he joined us. They integrated very quickly and we went straight to the project of making a new album when they arrived. It's the best way to integrate new people: you start all over again. Tabula rasa!
A8:Why revenge is a strong and overwhelming feeling for the band?
JJ:The history of humanity is a succession of promises that have not been kept because of selfishness. From a meta and micro point of view. People of integrity always end up lined up with a blindfold in front of the guns.
A9:Does song eleven have any biblical context?
JJ:Yeah.So in real life, for Matthews, it's the verse that is in the introduction of Dostoyevsky's "The Devil" from I don't know which edition. it's an ultra puritanical thing like “if you check an ass, tear out your eyes”. Fredz made as usual some kind of cryptic text on human relationships and love.
A10:What´s the idea behind artwork´s album?
JJ:We wanted to collaborate with a Catalan artist for the artwork,but he didn't have the time. So we looked for someone else.Flore Lacoste is a friend of Adrien's girlfriend. She works in haute couture in Paris and in parallel she paints great paintings (oil on canvas) where she combines graphic elements with big contrasts.I think the idea is there. It is above all a graphic work. The meaning, it's up to you to find it. When we chose Flore, we chose one of these works to illustrate the album. We also each did this job of making sense Or not.
A11:What kind of subject don´t deserve a Reaptile song?
JJ:Anything can become an interesting theme. It depends on how it is treated.
A12:How band know about DMG Solutions?
JJ:We have been in contact since the first album. It's mainly thanks to the website http://www.scoreav.com. We also share the same interest for the band -16- for us it means that they understand the roots of our music.
A13:This album is conceptual?
JJ:No,but it could be a project in the future.We wouldn't like to do what we've already done so why not.
A14:Will humanity have an end or an uncontrollable decay?
JJ:Of course. It's the course of history as it is for all civilizations. I don't know when it will happen, but other species that survive us won't miss us much...except rats and pigeons.
A15:The band feel differences between Extinction Chronicles and now in Humanidead?
JJ:It's not exactly the same band anymore. Fredz and I have been there since the beginning and we have kept the main guidelines of the band. But this new album looks like who we are now. It was really our will from the beginning.
A16:What´s bands influence ours?
JJ:If you ask the question to the 4 members of the band, there will be 4 different answers. We are influenced by the last 40 years of punk and rock music.The youngest is 27 years old, the oldest is 43 years old. Reaptile is the synthesis of all that and that's what makes the project interesting.
A17:According to your songs, do you believe that the human being is an experience that didn't work out?
JJ:This is an excellent question because national identity is currently much more powerful than our identity as a species. And national identity is a social construct, it’s… pure vacuity, sorry. Our humanity is real. The human being is a biological accident in the long chain of evolution. Nothing more. I would say it has 49% construction potential and 51% destruction potential in it. Statistically it can't work. He will destroy what he has made and be the sole agent of his downfall. But it started with a good intention. Like many horrible things.
Комментарии