"We encourage you to rethink your preconceived notions, question authority and create other methods for survival"
This is our motto taken from a sleeve of a record. We are here to spread the word and to learn the world, join us in the celebration of new and not so new bands, join us in the celebration of music.
Os
SerVo estrearam-se em Portugal no inicio deste verão. Esta estreia
foi proporcionada por uma excelente parceria entre o Sabotage Club e
a Fuzz Club que traria várias bandas portuguesas e também
internacionais ao palco do Cais do Sodré em duas noites. Uma
sucessão de desaires e coisas menos boas levou a que o festival se
viesse a resumir a uma noite onde actuaram os SerVo, Pretty Lightning
e os portugueses 10 000 Russos. Apesar de tudo foi uma noite
fantástica e a estreia dos SerVo não deixou nada ao acaso nem o
crédito por mãos alheias, desde as luzes preparadas pela banda à
projecção que se via quer no fundo do palco, quer outra mais
pequena projectada apenas no amplificador de um dos músicos. A sua
sonoridade que se pode situar nos meandros da nova vaga de post punk
atinge o seu máximo potencial ao vivo, e se por agora, foi difícil
encontrar alguma matéria sobre a banda, é seguro dizer que muito
provavelmente daqui a um ano não será bem assim. O próximo disco
já está perto de ser editado e a expectativa é alta.
Songs
to Nowhere – How did you got acquainted and began to play?
SerVo
- Louis (bass) and Arthur (guitar) know each other since
they’re born. They began to play music together in high school.
Hugo (drums) joined the band a bit later.
STN
– What does it mean SeRvo?
SerVo
-It is
the name of a song from the BJM. I think, at the beginning, we just
liked the way the word sounds. It’s
quite difficult to find an adequate band name and we thought this one
was not completely bad.
STN
– How would you describe the music you do?
SerVo
-It's
hard to tell. We sometimes say “psych / cold”, but it doesn't
really mean anything. Some people call us “postpunk” or
“shoegaze”. The thing is that we use a lot of reverb, delay and
fuzz but still try to avoid the “psych” stereotypes.We
like to describe it as ambient, mechanical and violent.
STN
– Could you disclose us a bit about your song Love#2 or anyother
you would like to talk about?
SerVo
- It's
all about love and being ready to love.
STN
– Where did you all learn to play? Did you have lessons or anything
like that?
SerVo
-We
mostly learned by ourselves. Our drummer used to learn the clarinet
when he was a child, but it is not something that's really usefull
for the band.
STN
– Can you tell us how was your first rehearsal?
SerVo
-We
don't really remember the first rehearsal, but we're almost sure it
sounded awfull.
STN – How was it your first
tour?
SerVo
-For
our first tour, we were with another band called Greyfell, we went to
the east of France and Switzerland. It was mostly in squats and
self-managed venues. It was cold and there were as many dogs as
people during the shows, but we had fun.
STN
– How the local music scene for you? Are there venues that were
anyway crucial for you?
SerVo
-We
live in Rouen, which is not a very big city, there is not many venues
but we've been supported by Le 106, a local venue where we can
rehearse too, and the people who work there are really helping all
the local bands. The other venue is Le 3 Pièces, which is a bar with
a small scene in the cellar. We have to confess we spend a lot of
time there. But there is actually a lot of bands in Rouen, and the
scene starts to be really interesting. We created a collective with
some friends that is called SOZA. It is meant to gather bands we like
in Rouen.
STN –
Which bands most influenced you?
SerVo
–To
name a few ones : -
Black lips, A Place to Bury Strangers, Metz, Holograms, Dead
Skeleton, Scrap Dealers and especially the opening song of Pokemon ..
STN
– Could do us a short resume for dummies of French musical scene?
SerVo
-There
is a lot of bands, and some of them are actually really good. One of
our favorite french band is Korto, you definitely should listen to
their album.
STN
– If you could time travel, were would you like to go see a show or
play?
SerVo
-In
the future. Or maybe for dinosaurs.
STN –
“The Lair of Gods ” was out in 2016. When can we expect a new
álbum?
SerVo
-We
already recorded the new album. We're currently working on the mix,
and we'd like to release it by the end of the year.
STN
– You’re playing in Portugal in the last week of June, can you
disclose what’s to be expected in your shows here?
Alber
Jupiter is a french duo from Rennes, Nicolas Terroitin ( Bass,
Vocals) and Jonathan Sonney ( Drums, Spds ). It’s like they say,
Follakzoid ( I love Foolakzoid ) and others they mention on the
interview bellow are a really big influence in their sound, but they
definitely managed to escape to a collage and were able to do
something of their own. Their debut "We Are Jus Floating in
Space" was out in May and since then they've been touring France
and UK and now Portugal, with two dates in the next week: on the 20th
Figueira da Foz with Heavy Cross of Flowers and the next day Oporto!
Another chance to listen to a band that will clearly grow and is
taking all the right opportunities to do it. When we exchanged emails
I still didn't know Alber Jupiter were coming to Portugal and
although I resent that they're not coming any were near, at the same
I'm very happy that a band is touring Portugal in their first tour,
and let's not forget that Portugal is not just Lisbon... Don't miss
it!! I could add a couple of things more but my suggestion is for you
to get a relaxed 42 minutes listening to the album! All the links at
the end of the interview
Songs to Nowhere - Could you introduce Alber Jupiter to our readers and perhaps talk about how you guys met and how the band started?
Alber Jupiter - We are a duet from Brittany, France. Jonathan plays the drums and Nicolas the bass. We are two friends, who met almost ten years ago. At that time, we were playing in a kind of prog-funk-rock band, mainly influenced by Mr. Bungle, it was totally different than what we are doing now. After the band split, we stayed good friends but didn't really play music together during a few years.
One day, we went to a festival in Switzerland and listened to a band we didn't know, Follakzoid. a krautrock band from Chile. We really stayed mesmerized by their concert and when we came back home, we started to jam, playing krautrock “like Follakzoid”. Of course, we couldn't play exactly like this band and our music was as well colored by other personal influences. Some of these jams were good enough to make a song of them.
STN – Is there a story behind the name of the band? Could you share it with our
readers?
Alber Jupiter - Nicolas saw the 1977 movie “The hill have eyes”, with a bad bad character called Papa Jupiter. We found the name funny, and we searched for a better word to change “Papa”. We found “Albert” funnier, then it became “Alber”.
STN – Is this your first band?
Alber Jupiter - We were each of us in a few bands, that played different kinds of music. But it is the first project we created from the beginning, that's why the compositions are much more personal.
STN – Where do you get your inspiration to compose and how would you describe your creative process?
Alber Jupiter - It is always the same: we start to jam together, eating a lot of chocolate (we are chocolate lovers) and we record it. After the jam, when we think it is good, we listen to it, eating a lot of chocolate (black chocolate, of course, the others are not chocolate) and we keep the good ideas, cutting and pasting, to make a beginning of the structure, a “draft”. Then we play it and try to improve it, eating a lot of chocolate (we love chocolate).
Alber Jupiter - Fangs
STN – Who did the álbum artwork?
Alber Jupiter - A friend of ours called Harry Hadler made it. His work is amazing, he sometimes makes artworks for other artists, like Miët, and his visuals are always great. You can have a look on his website https://www.harryhadler.com/
Songs To Nowhere - How would you position yourselves at this point in gender or more and how would you describe your sound and who are your biggest influences?
Alber Jupiter - After the spanking, we had when we listened to Föllakzoid for the first time, we decided to play krautrock music. So our music is consciously mainly influenced by krautrock, that is to say, the german psychedelic rock scene of the '70s, with bands like Can, Faust, Neu! … We kept those repetitive grooves very typical of this kind of music.
We also have other influences that bring, more unconsciously, other colors to this basis: we grew up listening to Pink Floyd, we also love Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Swans, Mogwaï, The Black Angels...
Alber Jupiter - We Are Just Floating in Space
STN – In this time, what were the biggest challenges the band had to face?
Alber Jupiter - When we decided to create the band after the first jams, we thought it would be cool to be only the two of us, just bass and drums. But it is a quite unusual line up for a band, and it was hard to make something “full”, like a “whole band” and not boring! We tried and experimented, and little by little we achieved to have something satisfying for us.
Alber Jupiter - The recording of our album was a big challenge too. It was our first “real” studio experience. We recorded most of the takes “live”, that is to say, we recorded the bass and the drums at the same time. It is more difficult than doing overdubs because if one of us failed, we had to start again from the beginning. But it was for us the best way to record an album because it sounds much better, more real, it has more energy and feeling. We were under stress and with the recordings, we heard all the music failings better. But Amaury Sauvé was very professional and knew how to record the best of us. He helped us to improve our sound, our groove. He is also a very good drummer and gave to Jonathan a lot of good advice. Now we are proud of this album.
Alber
Jupiter - Uber en colère (Live at La Scène Michelet)
STN – What about the internet and new technologies impact on music? Do you have an opinion you would do like to share about this?
Alber Jupiter - We think the internet is a very good way to spread music, and culture in general, all over the world. Everyone who has a connection can listen to all the music he wants, and discover new things every day, for free. Sometimes this “over information” can have disadvantages, it is hard to focus on something. But we discovered a lot of new things like that. And now, anybody can listen to our music, even on the other side of the planet... People from USA, Australia, Norway, Russia, ask us to send them a copy of our album. We always are very surprised.
STN – “We are Just Floating in Space” was out this year, pretty fresh yet. Did you have to left out any songs?
Alber Jupiter - We left a couple of songs out. When you record a vinyl, you can't record more than 19 minutes of music per face, otherwise, it will be to the detriment of the quality of the sound, especially the bass frequencies... All our songs are quite long, so we had to make some choices. But it was a good thing, as we realized those songs weren't good enough or too different from the others.
STN – When can we expect a show from Alber Jupiter in Portugal?
Alber Jupiter - Very soon! We will have a small tour in Portugal in September, you can check our tour dates on our Facebook or Bandcamp.
When I began thinking about an interview with a band I always try to remember which song of theirs brought them to my attention and when. Because I obsessively deal with music it’s not that hard to have a specific memory attached to almost every band I like. I remember listening to some songs maybe around 2013/2014, made some research on my playlists and mixclouds and I think I found the song that made me listen to New Candys. Pretty sure it was Blackbeat, Anyway it doesn't really make a difference, I would end up catching them sooner or later as they are also with Fuzz Club and especially because they already played some of my favorite festivals, (is it wrong to have favorite festivals even if I've never been there? I really don't care!)
New Candys
The truth is that more than 10 years have passed since their first steps in Venice, three lp's and two Ep's, at least that I'm aware of.
The way they sound the things that they're sound evokes in my memory is very vast and diverse, sometimes as dark as it can be, and others like light itself could hurt. New Candys assume they're ideas and present their inspiration; La Cicatrice Intérieure was a point of inspiration for the visuals of Bleeding Magenta, or that some of the inspiration of As Medicine came from "Maya Deren’s surrealistic films together with the Patent Medicines’ period, when drugs compounds were sold pretending to be medications with exclusive ingredients".
No excuses, check the videos and the links to discover more! New Candys are now touring europe, with The Warlocks and the Dandy Warhols, don't miss it!
Songs to Nowhere –
How did New Candys’ current lineup form?
Fernando: Dario and
I have been in the band since the beginning. Andrea recorded Bleeding
Magenta and put a lot of passion and ability into the creation of it,
so he naturally become a permanent member of the band soon after the
release of the record (because the original lineup couldn’t tour
anymore). When the band eventually needed a new bass player, we
thought about Alessandro since we were friends and shared very
similar taste and attitude towards making music and art in general.
STN –
What happened with the previous members of the band?
Fernando: I like to
think that Desire Lines by Deerhunter is the right answer to this
question.
STN –
Which is the song or album that you believe gave you more exposure
and why.
New Candys - We think our latest
album, Bleeding Magenta. Thanks to it we have been able to tour
Australia, North America two times and more of Europe of course.
Compared to the other records, in this album we have achieved the
sound that we initially had in mind.
New Candys - Blackbeat
STN -
Where do you get the inspiration for lyrics like "Excess"?
Fernando: For
Excess, they came from a personal experience of mine but most of the
lyrics could be inspired by images and dreams.
STN –
New Candys have been playing since 2008, what has changed in the last
11 years?
New Candys - It could sound
romantic, but we’ve become more aware of the importance and power
of music throughout the years, especially in the latest ones. Having
the chance of traveling a lot and connecting with people who
appreciate your music is really special and precious.
STN –
Who does your artwork?
Fernando: I take
care of the albums’ artwork.
STN –
Do you have any favorite songs that you perform during your shows?
New Candys - The new ones are always the funniest to play, in the latest tours we
played a couple of new songs we wrote together that will be featured
in the new album. Playing old songs that haven’t been played live
in awhile is fun too.
STN -
Are there songs you never played live?
New Candys - Yes, there are some:
Nibiru, Sermon, Lunar Day and The Outrogeous Wedding Part 2. We are
looking forward to playing some of them in future.
New Candys - Sun is Gone ('Till day returns)
STN –
Did you get some inspiration from oriental roots in songs like Salar
and Nibiru from Stars Reach the Abyss (2012) or Sermon (Bleeding
Magenta, 2017)?
New Candys - Not really, we have
always been listening to rock bands playing Indian inspired music,
but not original Indian music. We started to play the Sitar thanks to
Brian Jones, George Harrison and Anton Newcombe.
STN –
Could you tell us the story, if there’s any, behind The Outrogeous
Wedding I, II and III ?
Fernando: Those
three songs were kinda incomplete and I had this idea of creating a
medley directly in the studio, leaving space for improvisation. The
marriage of the three songs is forced, this is why the wedding is
outrageous - written Outrogeous because it’s the Outro of the
album. After watching “My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn”,
where you can see that he films chronologically, I thought about
taking the same approach to music, and that’s how the medley has
been made. We had a lot of fun recording it!
New Candys - Bleeding Magenta
STN –
What about Bleeding Magenta (Reprise)? How did it happen?
New Candys -When we were
practicing the song, we ended up with two versions and couldn’t
pick one. They were both interesting for different reasons, so we
included them in the album. We also changed the key and speed to
diversify them more.
STN -
Where and how did you all learn to play?
New Candys - We’re all
self-taught, Dario had six months of drum lessons in the beginning.
STN - How did you buy your first gear?
Fernando: My father
bought me my first electric guitar and amp when I was 16 (I was able
to play with the headphones so I wasn’t bothering anybody).
Dario: My parents
bought me my first drum kit in 1998 from my drum teacher. The drum
kit I’m playing with now was my second kit that I bought in 2009.
Andrea: My parents
bought me my first acoustic guitar at 8 years old. I got my first
electric guitar when I was 16 with my own money. It was an Epiphone
335.
Alex: When I was 10
my family asked me if I wanted a guitar or a videogame for my
birthday or something like that. My first real guitar I bought with
my grandma’s help.
New Candys Live on KEXP
STN -
Can you tell us how was your first rehearsal?
Fernando: When the
band started we were missing a drummer, we tried a couple drummers
before Dario joined. I remember the first time we played all together
and thinking “Now we’re sounding right!”. Everything started
coming together sonically from there.
Dario: I remember
that before our first time playing together I was given a playlist of
various songs to listen to and I learned one of the songs to play
together. At the time, I didn’t really understand the type of music
we were playing but I knew I couldn’t have found a cooler band to
play with. Andrea: I was excited to play guitar again after several
years. I was really focused on trying to get the right sound, messing
with the pedals and playing at first an EKO Cygnus, then decided to
customize a Barracuda.
Alex: I had to learn
the bass parts before practicing with the rest of the band. I
remember we were in a rush because we had a gig coming up in a couple
days.
STN -
How was your first tour in Italy? And your first international tour?
New Candys - Italy is not really
fun to play, and we didn’t really “tour” it. We always played
shows during weekends, but all over the country. As an Italian band
singing in English there’s no point to tour Italy extensively in
our opinion, we prefer to put all our efforts to play abroad, it’s
much more exciting and satisfying. As an European band we consider
playing another continent an international tour. Therefore Australia
was our first, and there’s too much to write here regarding that
tour. The experience in the end was one of the best.
New Candys - Welcome to The Void Temple
STN -
How’s the local music scene for you?
New Candys - There is none.
STN -
How’s the interaction between bands?
New Candys - Also none.
STN -
What Italian bands most influenced you?
New Candys - Jennifer Gentle and
Verdena.
STN -
Could you do us a short resume for dummies of Italian music?
New Candys - Since we don’t
listen to Italian music, we lack the expertise to answer this
question.
STN -
How are the radio and press in Italy? I mean regarding the
underground scene…
New Candys - They don’t exist,
and if they exist they can fuck off because we haven’t noticed
them, and since we are one of the few Italian bands frequently
playing abroad, there must be something wrong in our country. I’ll
give you an example: after a show in Italy an Italian guy came to us
and said he discovered us on KEXP. We think it’s crazy that we need
an American radio to be discovered by Italian people.
STN -
How did you got acquainted with Fuzz Club?
New Candys - They wrote us to
feature our song “Metdown Corp.” on The Reverb Conspiracy Vol. 3,
then we sent them our second record and from there we started to
collaborate.
STN -
If you could time travel, where would you like to go see a show or
play?
Fernando: I recently
got into Nine Inch Nails. My friends Lorelle Meets The Obsolete told
me about one of NIN’s touring guitarists named Aaron North. He was
crazy and played around with feedback a lot, I would have liked to
see them in that period.
Dario: 100 Club Punk
Special, Oxford Street, London. September 20/21 1976.
Andrea: I would go
back and see a Nirvana/Melvins show in Tacoma, WA in 89’.
Alex: The Jesus And
Mary Chain back in the eighties when they were playing for 25 minutes
and then rioting. But also a show at the Andy Warhol’s Factory with
the Velvets.
STN –
Bleeding Magenta was out in 2017. Are you already working on
something new?
New Candys - Yes, we are shooting
for a 2020 release.
STN -
When can we expect a New Candys show in Portugal?
