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Interview section

In this section, you can also read an interview (in French only) of SEVEN HATE, these amazing French punk-rockers.

HERE YOU CAN ALSO FIND AN INTERVIEW ABOUT NEW RECOVERY

You can also read this new recovery interview in French or German

MACHINE INTERVIEW This interview took place in Nevers (France), on 26 april 2003
It's been quite a while that New Recovery is out. Why did you wait so long to release Machine? Some perfectionnism maybe for this one... General laughs. Jean: It's never perfect... Aziz: We're striving for perfection, but... Jean: I think it took three years to get a little bit better, so, I think it would take another ten years to make a perfect record... Aziz: Yeah, somebody asked us to record this cover we do by X, one of our favourite bands, and we said no, I told him like: "Yeah, we'll do the cover for a seven inches cover songs for it, but we might have the practice for another ten years before we can give a you a good version of it." And he was: "No, I think it's great". No, no, you don't understand. Tjeerd: Maybe like if you're drunk too much... laughs Jean: Everything that's spontaneous, we have completely lost it. Aziz: Yeah, the spontaneity is gone. But three years is not that long if you consider that there's been a lot of persons and stuff going on, with the family for Jean. It's not been too long considering what happened and what we did. And we were going in the studio also in November of 2001 when the Burning Heads called us for the punky tour. That was the exact time we were gonna record this album, so then we decided to go on tour, which was great, because we played all these songs on tour with the Burning Heads. They were really new and like spontaneous for us. I think it was a real good thing. Jean: We find out that these songs were good but that we were not playing them good enough. So, we spent some time after that to work on them to play them a little bit better so. So it took a few month extra before we went to the studio. Aziz: We were really serious about it because we decided not going to the studio immediatly after that (the punky tour) because we've already planned in November 2001 to go in the studio. We really decided like:"Now, we really need the practice first to make everything better and then we'll see whenever we're gonna record". We had no obligations to anyone anymore. Since the last record, New Recovery and this one, there's no pressure from labels going on like: "You need a new record now!!!". Everybody loves whatever we come up with. So Machine was great, it was the least pressured record. Maybe that makes it sound a lot different too [...], I don't know but I liked it a lot.
You said that the road to New Recovery was long and boring, was it the same for Machine? Jean: It was less boring because it was harder work. It was when we came of the tour with the Burning Heads, we went to a little help to get to the next level of playing because we had to like just a lot of things we were doing. With New Recovery, it was just boring because we rehearsed and... Aziz: But nobody knew why... Jean: We wanted to make it better, but we didn't know how, we didn't know what we were doing. Aziz: And there were some people in the band that didn't know why. They were like:"we don't care about this music or something" . Especially for Pepijn, he wanted to quit a year before that and he said this: "I don't like this music anymore". And we said: "you've been in this band for 10 years, you can just play it, maybe it's just a period, just look at it a little bit longer". And after a year, he said: "No, I just have the same feeling". So, he quit right after New Recovery was recorded, so actually Tjeerd did the tour of New Recovery already. When it came out, there wasn't Pepijn that did that tour. So, it was great that he made the decision with us, that he decided to stay a year longer. He wanted to quit a year before that, but we've forced him basically. We said no: "This record is gonna be so good". I felt it, i was like "This is the record that's gonna have like a lot of stuff in it". I wish I would have played on. Some of the songs are the songs that I would play, that I could play the songs and put it on a compilation tape, some are almost my favourites maybe. That was the first time I really had that feeling that I hadn't for other records we recorded. I mean other records are like I'm ashamed of how bad we are. I mean, don't take that seriously, but it's a little bit true.
			Yeah, but it was just the best you could play at this moment... Aziz: Yeah, yeah, at the moment it was just the best because of our lack of capability to play music, to control. I think when we see Oil playing, it's very sobering sometimes, they are fucking kids. Look at these guys!! When we were their age, we were just starting to play in this band. They're so far ahead musically. Jean: I think the quality of how we played wasn't the matter before and it hurt we didn't worry about it too much. It hurt too much because we thought it was always good enough. When we now listen well to all the records, we know it wasn't good enough and that's what we found out when we were like preparing for Machine, it wasn't good enough for what we wanted to make. I think it was the first time that we really found that out. It wasn't good enough, in retrospect we can hear it on all the records that are before Machine. For instance Leaded, I mean, I like the songs, but it's played like ... crap, it's fuckep up. It's really badly played, it's really badly played. Aziz: Basically, we always felt like we need to record these records. The basic recording needs to be done in one day. We were striving for recording in the record, it's gonna be the basics of the records are all recorded in one day. I remember Leaded, the basic songs, like the drums, bass, guitar tracks were laid down in one day. We made this band in two and half weeks until we were happy with that... Why did Sven leave NRA, just to keep on playing with Human Alert? Aziz: He never gave me a reason directly. Jean: He told me he didn't like playing with us anymore. I told him it wouldn't be better than it was at the time. I couldn't make it more fun than it was at the moment. Aziz: If this is no fun for you, I can't make it more fun than it is right now for you.
And so, do you think that's easier for you now to play with only one guitar? Aziz: I think the most important thing was that we needed to go back to the basics of writing good songs and making it work with just the least... Tjeerd: It's so funny, if you make a complicated song that these guys can't play because this song is complicated, but if you strip it, and if you can't play the easy stuff, if you can't play the basics, it's never gonna work. Aziz: I mean, that's scary. When you start playing with one guitar, when you start playing with Tjeerd on drums who plays very basic, it's all very simple. It just strips down the music to the most basic essential punk-rock. That's very fucking scary because if anything goes wrong, it's disastrous. And before, we just laid everything in a fucking wall of guitar sound and bass sound, and drums simple sound. It didn't matter what you played, if you played like a fucking piece of shit, it was great, it was punk-rock, it sounded great. And for the time, it was great. We had a lot of fun playing this and we had a lot of people enjoying it. But if you look back, I didn't wanna play the same way than we did ten years ago as we are now. So it's good that we tried to progress a little bit.
Are you pleased with Tjeerd on drums for the composition of the songs? Aziz: Of course, obviously, we are not pleased, we hate Tjeerd. He's a session musician, he's paid a lot of money.... laughs Tjeerd: It's funny you can't get somebody better... laughs Jean: We lost a lot of harmonies in the guitars, that's why I think on the new record, we focused more like on the vocals lines. The instrumental side is very very basic, very stripped down and it's something I wanted to do for once. Maybe the next time for the next record, we'll find another guitar player because there are some things that we'd like to do... Jasper (OIL) who was hanging around with his guitar starts to play louder... "Who wants another guitar player?" Laughs Aziz: We wouldn't wanna make the same record as Machine again, we didn't make the same record as New Recovery again or Leaded or any other records. The funny thing is I still have a lot of good memories about a lot of these old songs and I still wanna play a lot of them but I think they're so irrelevant nowadays. They were very relevant when we played them and when we made those songs back then but we're not so relevant if we'd play them right now. We don't wanna be the UK Subs that put out one good record or two good records in 1976 – 77 or 78, and they're touring for 25 years and they're going on tour for every fucking year. I respect all of them because the guys are very fucking nice, he's great of what he does, he's great at doing the fisrt album, but they put out a new record every fucking year and they don't play any song of the new record. But they really enjoy what they're doing, I think that's music on a whole different level, if you're just playing your first two records because everybody tells you it's the only thing they want to hear, then you do something wrong, you do something terribly wrong.
The sound of Machine is what really hurt me first, so how did you get that sound that reminds me the fisrt Clash record, or the Hives in a way? Aziz: I think all those bands that strip down their music, if you see that documentary on the Clash, that's basically what they're saying, they decided at one point that were doing something completely wrong and they decided to strip down their music to somehting essential of what music is, which is basically a song. Jean: I'm not a fan of the Clash at all, but there's some Clash in this record. Cause we were playing, like when we were working on "lines", it wasn't good the way we played it, so then we incorporated the – ta-ta-ta... (lines intro) Tjeerd: Don't give the secrets, don't give him the way... laughs. Jean: Obviously, we thought it would fit the song to play it in that kind of way. If there's any Clash in our records, it's in this one. Aziz: We found out that a lot of the music that we are very enthusiastic about is stripped down. It's very essential, essentially simple. That's what we tried to do on this record. I think we did the best job at it because it's so stripped down sometimes. But it was scary to play that way, especially as a drummer, it's gonna be the worst thing because you hear everything you do. We worked really hard on that. And it was the same for the vocals that have a place now. I can't fuck up that much anymore. Tjeerd laughs. And before, this was just like this produced sound, it didn't matter because there was the wall of sound.
		Are there gonna be different versions of the record on the five labels? Aziz: No, I think only the American version might be different because Mike Lavella of his own gives his view on it. He already said he didn't like one song that much. I think everybody didn't like that song that much. Tjeerd: It's the fastest one. Aziz: The Poison Idea's song. Laughs. It's how he called it, "Media control". Our friends said like:"That song should just go, it shouldn't be on this record". I'm realistic, it is like: "Ok, that's not a good song, we will throw it off the record". I think it wouldn't be a problem to anyone. It's a song we tried and we played it, but we never found out like playing live. It's not a bad song. Jean: It's not part too much with the rest of the record. Aziz: That's what he said: (in a very passionate ton) "This song is not this record, this record is a story from the beginning to the end, and then this song is... Poison Idea!!!" He was freaking out. "I like Poison Idea, it's one of my favourite bands". "Yes, but this shouldn't be on this record!!" OK, I can be realistic about that, I see your point, a lot of people said the same thing... but that's funny, some people want the song less. If you can put less songs on the record and make the quality better because of it, then I'm all for it.
How did you land on Gearhead? Aziz: We ended up on Gearhead because I've been a friend with Mike Lavella for a bunch of years, I think since Geardhead #3 came out, I met him in San Francisco, I stayed in touch with him. But I don't think I very mentioned my band. Maybe I mentionned my band, but not really. Because I don't try to sell my band like: Listen to my band!!!! Somebody comes across, then it was funny because I would always go to him, he had a little office in Franck Kosik from Man's Ruins office. I gave Franck Kosik the CD "Leaded" years ago. So then, Franck actually likes that CD, for some reasons... laughs. He listened to that CD, then Mike Lavella came across that CD, and he's like : "Oh this is Aziz' band!!". It was really weird because I had never given Mike Lavella a CD. But I gave Franck Kosik a CD. And then Mike Lavella, because Franck Kosik was playing the CD, took that CD basically and asked me for like : "Do you have anything new out that would be interesting in listening to it?" He didn't have a label back then either, but he was so interested in what I was doing, which is really cool. I was like:"I'll send you our new recordings on our little demo before New Recovery". And so, I sent him the demo, he called me up and he was like: "I fucking love your fucking demo, it's just wicked out!!!" I was like: "I don't know, it's just trying to make me feel good or something..." I didn't know what's going on. He told me that story that a time he was in a car with a friend of his, that works as an A&R. She was like: "This band I'm gonna sign, that I discovered..." She played the tape, he just took it out: "This is shit! Listen to THIS demo!!" And he put our demo. Then, he told me all these stories and shit and I was like:"This is fucking funny, you know" He must really like it, he was like: "I played your fucking demo a million times, I keep playing it, I love it". In the end, he was like: "I would love to put out this record". Then, the record already came out in Europe because we sent him our demo and time just passed, and time just kept passing..
Jean: He knew a lot of people, we asked him if he could help, like get us a deal in the US. So he said yeah, he passed the demo round, so he played it for everyone. At one point in time, he decided that he really wanted to do it with himself if he had a label, and from that it progressed... Aziz: Then he started this label and then basically he put out a couple of records, maybe it's not a typical Gearhead band, but he decided like: "No, it is a Gearhead band because I'm all punk-rock and I love this music. This is the fucking music that I love right now. I love listening to this record. I should put this out" Nobody was interested. He chopped it at Look out!, Man's Ruins and all these labels. And he bugged everyone to put it out, and nobody was interested, so then he put it out because he had a label. Jean: And now, we're all rich and famous laughs Aziz: Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling... Jean: But that's nothing compared to how we signed for the new record. [...] Aziz: "You, guys, are like the Hives!!" I was like: "No, Mike, you don't understand, I would love it if we would sell as many records, I would love it for you, I wouldn't care about it. It would never happen, it's great that you're that enthusiastic about it." We're looking for people that are enthusisatic about our records. So, everybody who puts out the record seems to be very enthusiastic about the record. No, it doesn't seem to be, they all expressed their enthusiasm about this record. So, that's the only thing we asked for, like anyone who put out the record is their enthusiasm about it. The way we do it is that we put out the record ourselves, we paid for the recording, sent to the different labels, they all paid a little bit. It works out fine, everybody gets paid in the end, everybody pays their expenses and shit. So, it's amazing, if you can do your record on this label, and actually we're selling up records to Break Heaven. It's an amazing thing.
About Leaded now, did you finally get the rights back from Virgin? Aziz: No, we don't. We just say Fuck Virgin. We never gave them the rights. I don't know, because I've just seen that Dialektik put out Leaded with the fisrt 1000 copies of Machine. So, you have the rights or nobody has the rights? Jean: We have the rights. Aziz: Yeah, officialy, we have the rights. They could sue us and say "we paid for the recording" which is the only thing they did. If they would sue us, that's fine with me, because I would fucking get a baseball bat, go to their office and fucking destroy it. And you could call me on that and it will happen. That is like fucking evil. They know we can't afford a fucking lawyer, so they would fucking fuck with us, I would fucking go over there with a baseball bat, and beat a crop over their whole office. I'm serious about it.
	Do you think it was a mistake to work with them then? Aziz: It wasn't a mistake, it was a mistake that we didn't hold the tight haste. It just went like: "First, you need to sign the contract before you put out the record" We put out the record and we never signed the contract. We get signing the contract back and forth as they all demand. They promised us that we could write our own contract, and then they said: "you're not Michael Jackson", so... Jean: It's always a friend you have who work there. It's great, he likes the music but you don't see that he's not in charge. There's somebody in charge that you won't never meet because he's like head of Virgin, of EMI Europe. So, you'll never meet this guy. So then, there starts moving some people around and they looked at NRA. "What kind of crap? It's Virgin Holland that put it out. NRA? Get rid of this band." Aziz: Get rid of this crap. Fuck'em, they're not Michael Jackson, Fuck'em. Fine with me. So I talked to the manager of Virgin Holland, and I told him what I wanted, and he said yes. And I thought they were all cool. But it the end, it didn't work out. In the end, it could have worked out if they would have been honest about it. They're worms, they're a bunch of assholes about it. We had like seriously fighten, like we send letters back and forth. They e-mailed us like: "You're getting back your rights, january fisrt 2000, the rights for Leaded back". So, it hasn't been printed for more than three years now. We're really emotionnal, if they would fucking do anything, I would use physical violence because I can't go to Court with them, because I would loose. Jean: No, I'm pretty sure we'd win. Aziz: We can't afford. So I have to use physical violence. Jean: We can't afford a lawyer but we can go to Court and I'm sure that we'll win. Aziz: We don't give a fuck about they say. So, if they have a problem with it, sue me, but I would go there and fuck them up. I'm serious about it. I'm very emotionnal about it because it's so bad that our record has not been in print for fucking three years because they're stupid, because our music is not available, and it's a record people still asked us for every fucking day, so that's bullshit.
How did you get the six different sleeves for Machine? Aziz: We don't know either Laughs Tjeerd: I can explain it. Because New Recovery had two album covers, one in the US and one in Europe. We figured out it was the same price if you print the sleeves anywhere. As since we have like six releases, they'll be printed in different countries. So we decided as it's the same price, why don't we make six different sleeves? We all love those cartoonists so they could take it as friend favour. We put this idea and they all loved it because they all like to work for each other. They were like: "oh, man!! It's like a project with all of us, together!!!" That was really nice. Aziz: They loved the idea because they're all like each other favourite cartoonists. Tjeerd: "YEAH!" So everybody was so into it, because "he's working, he's doing it too?". So everybody got payed a hundred euros, which was just nothing. But they immediatly said yes, we'll give you 100 euros which is all we can pay, we were honest and they all loved it. They loved it. They loved the idea and they all wanted to do it because these people live off their work. Everyone we asked said yes, without doubt. So for us, it was like: "Thank you, you guys are the best". Tjeerd: Also, if you look at the Dutch version by Luuk Bode, you must know his work is never appreciated as rock'n'roll work. He always wanted to make a record sleeve, because he never did, so when we asked him, he was really like: "Fuck, a record sleeve, I was dreaming for a punk-rock record sleeve". He didn't want to sleeve for the Golden Earring album, cause he doesn't care about that music. So, he was really honest to do a sleeve for something that he likes.
Don't you think there's a mimatch between the sleeves pictures smoothness and the rough sound of the record? Aziz: Yeah, there might be a misinterpretation if you see a comic sleeve. And people think: "Oh, it's a comic sleeve, so it's a fat record". People see like a drawing, a comic, they immediatly think of something that you can't take seriously. I think you should take very seriously. What these people do, i mean comics, is even more art than music. Actually, make a draw for yourself, and to live off, I think it's harder than becoming a musician. Cartoons are the most underground artforms. Jean: We're not going to all the things that come easy. It's very easy to get this music into a certain type of way, and market it to a certain type of people, and maybe it even changes in the sense that people would like it more. We don't go for that, we wanna have some weird looks in it. You have these comics covers, it's great comics art, and if you open it, you have like this crazy photo that don't have like anything to do with comics arts. We're not here to please people in the sense they don't have to think anymore, that they just can sit down... Gwynn: We don't follow the rules, all the rules... We make our own rules... laughs Aziz: Exactly, we make our own rules, it's true. We don't believe in any fucking set or given rule, like 99% of the bands that follow the rules, they walk in line... Gwynn: It's like any NRA CD, ok, that's NRA music, but with every CD, you don't know what to expect exactly, you can get a different sound, different songs, whatever... Jean: It's also, if you look at OIL. They could have gone the easy way and kept on playing that music and people would like them more, than they like now. All the thing is that they're not interested in it anymore, so they do what they do and maybe there's not a big audience for them yet. But anyway they do, because they believe this is what they should do and that's also what we like to tour with this band. They're not gonna take the easy road, they're just gonna do what they like, put their hearts in it, that's what we like, like the Burning Heads, because they do what's in their heart... Aziz: People like the Burning Heads are friends. Sometimes, people ask us like: "Do you like this record from the Burning Heads?" I like the songs from the Burning Heads, when I tour with them, I love this song better than that one, I don't like the majority of the stuff that they do musically, but I love everything that they do personnaly, like from the heart. All their stuff is like they believe in what they do. They do their own way... When we first met with the Burning Heads, I think musically, we were bery close, we were both doing the same thing, then we both went our own direction, and that's great, maybe that goes on this direction or that direction, they love what they're doing, they do it with the heart. Obviously, you can never say that they don't do stuff with the heart.
How was the Gearfest last year. Did people know NRA well there? Aziz: Oh, it was amazing even if nobody really knew us. There were two rooms, and they headlined us for one of the two rooms, which is weird because we were no band and we were playing with with all these people and bands that are heroes to us like since nineteen fucking whatever, 1979 or something... All these people are fucking our heroes, we were just here. Us is a just a bunch of fucking worms, we made it out here, because somebody loves us and he's telling everybody that they need to listen to our music. So then we played and everybody just went like screaming, we couldn't believe it. Jean: It's like funny because Michelle who works at Gearhead told me, because it was the first time that they saw us: "I expected to be good, but I never imagined it was this good". It was crazy. It was like a group of people that recognized our music where it's coming from because all these people that were there are like involved in punk and alternative music since a long time, so it's like the people that are the most receptive to our music. They hear the influences that people can not hear because they've never heard this band before, which is not a problem, but still, it was very good for us. Aziz: It was amazing to me, because one of my favourite musicians of all times, Tim Kerr from the Big Boys, was at the show and fucking watched the whole show, he was like dancing, shaking his body... I mean, this is just ridiculous, and he came at us after the show, said he loved it, and he wanna record one of our albums... Jean: Which is funny because we talked about it in the past, who do we really wanna work with in the studio, and I mentionned Tim Kerr, because he's doing some great things. So he comes up to us and he says: "OK, the next time you're here, come with me in the studio and I'll record something with you". Aziz: He just went like when they played: "This is my new friends from Holland..." He is like the nicest fucking personn, this is a guy that we have listened to his music for ever and respected and found it was like one of the most brilliant people in the world, of all the people we worked with throughout the years... A lot of people strife for something stupid in music, they strife like for fame and fortune and all this bullshit.
	That's whas the song "Bad" is about, ain't it? Jean: Yeah, it's a little bit about that. Everybody's gone for something that's not really important in life. Aziz: Fame and fortune are like expendable. They come and go. But something like that, I literraly experienced the feeling... After recording with somebody that is sort of your hero, like Tim Kerr, it makes me feel like: "this is the moment to die for". I swear to God. I would totally think: "that's it, I've done everything, I've seen everything, what else do you need in life when you've experienced something like that?" And that feeling is just the best feeling in the world and nothing can replace it. No money, no screaming, no 18 years-old big tits girl... Jean: Which sometimes happens... laughs Aziz: I like to look at, like at certain things too... laughs What do you think of how punk evolved throughout these 14 years of NRA? Jean: I don't know, I'm not a punk fundamentalist... Gwynn: He can tell you everything about the blues... laughs Jean: I listen to music and I don't try to define things if that's punk or that's not punk. I think there's a lot of intersting stuff going on, there's a lot of bands that play interesting punk, but for me, I don't know too much about it, about punk and the evolution of punk. Sometimes bands that I like are considered as emo punk or whatever, and I also hear a lot of band that I think are shit that are also considered as emo-punk... I don't have any meaning or deeper thoughts about this. I think as long as there are bands that get out there, and have a great idea, and work on it, that's what's interesting. I don't even consider ourselves punk all the time in the sense that we are still very traditionnal to write pop songs. We're not the greatest in the evolution of music, we play pretty basic music, in a sense, what we do is pretty traditionnal. Should people expect another record after Machine? Jean: I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm working on some songs for NRA. I will probably continue for a while but you never know how the next record's gonna be. When we made New Recovery, I always thought it was gonna be Leaded too. For me, now, it hasn't much to see with Leaded, it's a completely different record. So everytime, it takes some steps, some things change and you're influenced by some other kinds of music, you write different songs then. But I don't have a very big idea about the future. We'll see what happens...

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