Les Oiseaux Exotiques Interviews... Starfucker

Starfucker was playing at Il Motore last Sunday. I had my last exam the next morning, but I knew I’d regret it if I missed their show... and I had scheduled an interview with them so I would have been stupid not to go.

They played one of the best show I had seen in a long time. It was a scandal that there were so few people though, but Simian Mobile Disco and Bell Orchestre were playing at the same time, so it was just a bad time I guess.

They released a self-titled album last November, and it’s so great that I decided to officially give it a 10. If you all buy it, they promised they’re gonna come back to Montreal to play a house party where you’ll all be invited. What are you waiting for? It's right here: 

... and their mini-album Jupiter will be out on May 5.

Thanks to Catherine for the great camera work, to Eve for the cool pictures and to my sister for having nice friends such as them… and for chronometring the interview.

Interview with Edmund from Hexes & Ohs

N : Are you guys big Tic Tac To players?
E : (laughs) I guess so but it never really lasts more than 40 seconds.
N : So it's not the reason for the name?
E : No, it comes from… well, there’s many things with X and O. It could be like hugs and kisses you know… but it comes from a song by a band called On!Air!Library! that’s called Ex’s and Oh’s so it kinda seems to suggest that it’s about relationship, like ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend, so I found that a clever play on word. But then we wanted to make it a little bit different, so we made it Hexes.
N: Hexes ans Ohs is not your first band with your girlfriend Heidi. You were in a band called Jolly Bean before and then Vertical Mosaic. It took you quite a long time for you to get started. Do you think things will get easier now?
E: Yeah, I mean Jolly Bean was 4 people and Vertical Mosaic were 3 people and it seems to get easier when there’s less people (laughs). You know Heidi and I are a couple. We live together and do a lot of things together. It just seems a lot more natural…
N: But do you think more people attend your shows and buy your records?
E: Because of it…
N: I don’t know, maybe you evolved in the songwriting.
E: Yeah I think we’re just a much better band. It’s different so it’s hard to compare it. A large part of it is that we’re more clear on what we wanted to do. We became better at it. We understand how to market ourselves a bit more. Lots of things like that. And with the experience from playing shows, we’re just better live than we used to be. It’s the overall experience. But I think we’re just more tuned in into what works for us.
N: And did you expect all these good responses?
E: When we did the first album in 2005, we really didn’t expect anything. We were just making something that we liked. A label wanted to put it out so we were just like ‘Ok let’s try it out and see’. The responses were lot better than we expected. So yeah, we’re kicking a lot more seriously than we would have assumed 3-4 years ago. The responses are better than expected for sure.
N: When we listen to your music, we feel a kind of teenager nostalgia. Given the fact that you’re 29 and that you’re not using msn, you’re definitely not teenagers anymore. Do you think music a way for you to get back to that period of your life?
E: Maybe a little bit, because definitely, when we play music and we kinda jam and rock out and stuff, it definitely feels like it cause that we’ve been doing it for so long. You know it brings us back to playing in my parent’s basement and just playing music for fun and not really having any goals. In a way, that comes across still in the music. I think the other things is just we have young-sounding voices so no matter what we do, even if the song itself is very serious, it kinda comes across that way. Cause we did a cover of a Tears for Fears song and the song itself is very serious, but we just sang it and it became really kinda young and fun (laughs).
N: Will you try to make more serious music in the future or you still like that kind of light music?
E: I think it’s nice to try different things. For a long time, we made really sad music. With our last band Vertical Mosaic, it was very slow, post-rock, we tried really hard to sound sad and dark. With this band, we really wanted to do something different. But now that we’ve done it, we’re definitely open to do things that are a little bit darker. We’re always open to do different things.
N: This band is so electro-pop that I was a bit surprised when I heared your other project You and Me, that’s more like traditional acoustic music. So, what’s your true musical identity?
E: I think I did a lot of different things growing up. Like I played a lot of different types of music. I think the main things that connect everything that I’m interested in is melody and pop basically. Cause You and Me is very pop. They’re folk but they’re still pop. I could easily take one of those songs and make it a Hexes and Oh song changing the presentation. I don’t really feel limited by style. Style is just style. It’s the songwriting that really counts for me. So I’m into good songwriting.
N: You guys always you fresh stuff happening like I see. After the release of your second album Bedroom Madness in September, you did a clip for H-H-Highschool, you toured Canada for two-weeks, you recorded a Tears For Fears cover, you did a clip for clip for Wildlife and obviously you played a couple of shows here and there. What is happening for you guys in the next few months?
E: We’re working on some remixes. Sloan and us are trading a remix. (laughs) That‘s gonna be interesting cause I don’t think Sloan’s ever had a remix done before. I’m doing one for them and Patrick from Sloan is doing one for us. He has a side project in electronic music. That’s gonna be interesting. Then we’re having a remix done by Montag. So far, that’s all we’re doing. We’re gonna get more remixes done and probably put out like a free download EP maybe. That’s what’s working on.
N: Alright, thanks a lot.

Interview with Rasmus from Efterklang

N: Efterklang, how do you prononce that?
R : Ef-teur-klan-gne (laughs).
N: What does it mean?
R : It means ‘reverberation’, but it also means ‘remembrance’. ‘Efter’ is like ‘after’ and ‘klang’ is ‘a sound’.
N: Why did you choose that? Did you think it fitted the ambiance of your music?
R : I think we liked the word. We didn’t put that much though on it.
N : It’s rarely the case with band names (laughs). Your first record, Tripper, was compared with Montreal-based band Godspeed You Black Emperor and your second one, Parades, was compared with the also Montreal-based Arcade Fire. Do you think these two bands had an influence on your music?
R : Yeah, I think we’re influenced by a lot of different bands, contemporary bands, but also older stuff. For sure, Godspeed and Arcade Fire, both bands, are huge inspiration to us.
N : I’ve heard you worked with the Icelandic string quartets Amina, who also worked with Sigur Ros. Do you feel it helps your band to be compared with Sigur Ros so much or you feel a little bit in their shadow?
R : (hesitation) When we did our first album,Tripper, people compared it to Sigur Ros a lot and, I mean, at the beginning, I was just honored by it. We liked Sigur Ros, it’s a huge band, it’s a great band. So for us, the debut was very good and people said, ‘If you like Sigur Ros, you would also like this band’: that’s a compliment. We get compared to them, but we also get compared to a lot of other bands as well. I think it’s fine. I’m happy about it.
N : Talking about Sigur Ros, they said they wouldn’t feel authentic if they sang in English. Here in Montreal where we mostly speak French, it’s also a hot topic. What do you think about that?
R : I don’t write the lyrics in Efterklang. But first, it feels very natural to sing in English. It feels more natural than singing in Danish. A lot of it has to do with the fact that a lot of the music that we grew up listening to and that we like listening to is in English. Some are very good at writing lyrics it Danish and singing in Danish, but it’s kinda hard actually. It feels more natural for us to sing in English. It’s just the way the words are pronounced, the sounds that you can make. It works better for us. But the lyric side of our music is not that important. We like words and we like nice sentences, but we’re not trying to deliver a certain story or a certain message in the song, so the vocals has always for us been like an instrument compared to any other instruments. It’s part of the music we create. It’s not something on top of the music.
N : So what do you want to communicate with the music?
R : (hesitation) I think what we’re trying to do and what we like to do is sorta to… Our music is not really related to anything on earth. What we try to do is create feelings and create pictures and landscapes that are dreamy and maybe otherworldly. So the music should be like a trip to something unknown, something new, something strange. It should take you away from your daily life.
N : Well, it’s very successful that way. You founded your own label, which is called… wait a minute (checking my notes)… how is it called?
R : Rumraket.
N : I read that it’s related to Grizzly Bear.
R : Well, the first signing we did was Grizzly Bear. I released the Grizzly Bear record in Europe. I debuted the record in Europe. It was our first signing so that’s why it’s related to Grizzly Bear. Then, they got huge afterwards (laughs).
N : So you’re the one who made them known. They owe you something don’t they?
R : (laughs) No, I only put it out in some countries in Europe. They owe to themselves.
N : And what's the mission of the label?
R : The mission of the label, I mean, it changes all the time, but in the start, it was just (hesitation) feeling very good about sharing good music with other people. If we found music we really liked, we wanted to share it with the people. Then, it’s also very nice for us to have this sorta family, cause we have so many bands to work with and it creates this very family life feeling. That’s about it. And then also, Rumraket works as Efterklang’s home in Denmark. We put out our own music on Rumraket in Denmark.
N : … which is probably the place where you sell the most records.
R : We sell a lot of records there but Denmark is so small that it’s not really that many. But it makes it possible for us to record expansive records and invest and stuff, I mean, buy new instruments…
N : You’re active since 2001. So eight years and you only have two LPs. Why do you wait a lot between records?
R : (hesitation) Well, you know, we did two full albums but we also did two mini-albums which are thirty minutes each. The first album we did was in 2003. I mean, we take a lot of time recording. We don’t write songs that fast. It takes a long time for us to write a song and then, since Parades came out in October 2007, we have basically been on tour for a year and a half now. The way we make music, we don’t sit down with a guitar and then make a song, it happens in the studio. It’s a process that we have to be at home, we have to be in our studio, we have to be with all our instruments, in order to be able to create something.
N : The core members of the band are five of you and live you’re playing nine people…
R : … this tour we’re seven.
N : or seven, why is it important for you to invite extra-musicians on stage?
R : Well, we’re just four people actually. The fifth guy, he doesn’t go on tour with us. We just need extra people to play piano and violin and guitar for us (laughs), because we can only play drums and sing and bass and electronics, and then we need some more people to help us out with these.
N : So you really want to get the sound of the record live?
R : No, it’s not about getting the sound of the record. I think it would be pretty boring if we were just the four of us (laughs). We would have to do a lot of backtracks and we don’t really like backtracks. We prefer to create things live on stage as much as we can.
N : I think it could give a kind of minimal feeling, but obviously I have nothing to say about it (laughs).
R : The thing is that the four of us who have the band, we’re not trained musicians, we are self-thought. One thing about Efterklang is that we’re not skillful musicians. I think we are very good at composing stuff and getting ideas and finalizing stuff.
N : … like most bands actually (laughs).
R : Yeah maybe. So it’s very nice for us to have extra people and the people we bring in are very good instrumentalists and often they do many different instruments, which makes it possible for us to do very nice arrangements which we need to.
P : Is there a reason why you don’t include the other musicians in your band?
R : (hesitation) Well, the four of us, we’ve been together for a long time. Two of us have been together for seventeen years. Three of us have been together for eleven years. We feel a very strong connection to each other and we are often agreeing. When there’s something to figure out, we always think the same about almost everything. We never fight. Everybody has this clear idea about where we’re going and how we should do it. To bring people into that is hard and not really something we’re interested in doing. If it ain’t broke, you shouldn’t fix it right? (laughs) So that’s just why I guess. In that way, we kinda stick to that, but then on the other hand, we bring so many guest musicians and we’re working with so many people that we do sorta both things.
N : What can we expect from you guys in the future?
R : In the fall, we’ll release a live DVD, which was recorded last fall with a classical orchestra. We played our album Parades from start to finish with a 50-pieces classical orchestra. It was filmed and it was recorded and it will all be very nice (laughs). It will be out in the fall. Right now, we’re working on our new album. We haven’t recorded anything yet, but we have a lot of new songs. We’re gonna play some of them tonight. When we’ll get back from this tour and throughout the summer, we’ll record our third album.
N : Will it be a similar sound or you’ll still evolving?
R : It will be a different sound. I think it will still be very clear to people that this is still Efterklang, but we’re trying to do something new actually.
N : To conclude, here in Montreal, we have nearly no idea about the Danish music scene. You’re in a label so you probably know most of the music in Denmark. Can you name a couple of Danish bands that you think we should check out?
R : We only have one Danish band in our label, all the other bands are from outside. The one Danish band we have is called Slaraffenland. They’re very good. They’re inspired a lot by this Montreal scene as well. Then there’s a band that we used to be very influenced by is called Under Byen. I think they have a record on Paper Bag Records, which is a Canadian label. There’s a duo called Murder that I like. There’s a lot of good names actually. I think you should go on myspace and look up Danish bands and look at their friends.
N : ‘Tak’ and good luck for the show.