| About | INTERVIEW WITH SKC |
| Source | RIFRAF (French Edition) |
| Issue/date | December 1998 |
| Author | Bernard de Keyzer |
submitted by JEAN YVES LESTIENNE
submitted by JEAN YVES LESTIENNE
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Interview with Stef Kamil CarlensSource: RifRaf (french edition)Issue: December 1998 Author: Bernard de Keyzer Transcribed by Jean Yves Lestienne (jyves@HONET.BE)
ZITA SWOON L'étrange Noël de monsieur Stef (1) At the time of the release of Zita Swoon's new album (I Paint Pictures on a Wedding Dress), Stef Kamil Carlens explains everything about his music, the Antwerp scene, dEUS's adventures and his small world which is his protection from his hometown turning brown (2). Dressed in clothes he designed himself, he answers kindly and with a sad humour to our questions in the baroque place that Greenwich Café, rue des Chartreux, Brussels, is. RR : Do you believe there's an Antwerp sound ? SKC : I wouldn't say it does exist. Well, some people do sound similar, but most bands don't, we don't sound like dEUS or Kiss My Jazz. I think that sound derives from the fact all of us are friends, we all played in the same band in the beginning. I know almost every musician in Antwerp, but se are different bands. K's Choice's sound does differ from ours, and so does Cinerex. There's more and more music making in Antwerp and in Belgium on the whole. I believe disc companies opened their eyes after dEUS and K's Choice's success : they've thought they can also sell discs by Belgian bands and so they began signing with some of them. And the already existing bands have had the opportunity to make records, to enjoy the disc companies' support and promo and could have an efficient distribution in other countries, England and the like. RR : What was played at your home ? SKC : My mother doesn't really listen to music, only to the radio. My father loves classical, he hates pop music. I bought a guitar when I was 14 and ever since I've never stopped playing it. I used to listen to Queen (which I still like), then Kiss and Prince (the Dirty Minds album) at the time I began playing the guitar. I funded a band at once : I played the guitar and I sang, and we used drums made out of washing powder packs. We played anything, we were under several influences : we liked the Beatles, I also listened to punk - Exploited and the like – but I don't listen to that kind of music anymore. I studied drawing and I still do it. Thereafter I played with lots of bands because I was a quick learner at guitar, I really felt like a musician. I was 18 when I met Zita Swoon's drummer and ever since we've always played together. We released only one record with A Beta Band, our first group, 1000 copies were printed. It's said people spend 4.000 franks to get hold of it. This is crazy ! But, even though it wasn't bad, we won't reprint it cause I think we were still rather young. RR : What do you think of the term "friet-pop" ? SKC : I've never heard this, but it's funny. I don't eat fries anymore because I ate too many in the past :). In the Netherlands people talk about belgpop just as they talk about britpop. I live in my own world, I don't feel I belong to Belgium nor any other country, nor to Antwerp even though I did feel Antwerpese before. Too many bad things happen in that city. It's turning into a bourgeois city. People don't realise they're getting more and more bourgeois, and it's the same in all Flanders, though more in Antwerp. The city must absolutely remain clean, everything is hidden. Antwerp is the most right-winged town in Belgium. The alliance which was set up to fight the Blok (3) could fall apart because of a liberal candidate who adopted a more right-winged line to attract typical Vlaams Blok voters. The Northern part, Borgerhout, is a rather Moroccan district, it's very cool because it's lively despite of its poverty. The Southern part, where I live, is Turkish, but it's getting a little more bourgeois. People, artists they say, have bought houses and repaired them. It's somehow like Antoine Dansaert Street in Brussels, with some fashionable shops. And of course there's the old centre, with the cathedral, and the station district, the Jewish district actually. I know there're always nice parties in Antwerp, but I don't go out very often, and in the past I used to go to pubs. RR : From time to time you're seen in Brussels in front of the Zebra SKC : Yes, I attend gigs in Brussels, we don't have lots in Antwerp, here they have the AB, the Beurs and plenty of other venues. RR : Why did you record your latest disc in New Orleans ? SKC : I often move abroad for recording, and this time it was because Malcolm Burns, the producer we worked with, prefers working in his own studio which is there. I was searching on the Internet and I came across his name and I remembered he was thanked on a Daniel Lanois album, precisely my favourite Daniel Lanois album. So I checked his other works : Bob Dylan, Lisa Germano, Neville Brothers, Iggy Pop's "American Caesar" and Patti Smith's "Gone Again". That's how I chose him. Even if things didn't run as hoped : our collaboration wasn't terrific, but the result sounds cool. He's very open-minded, and that's exactly what I was looking for because that's how we are, too : our style is having no style. RR : Can you explain it anyway ? SKC : We rarely explain things among musicians, it's rather instinctive : you do it and then you try to explain it during interviews. According to me, is something has soul in it, it's good. You can't explain music but with music itself. I'd have to write a short piece of poetry in order to explain my music. RR : Tim Burton wrote a poetry album stuffed with drawings. His work made me think of yours, especially because of an almost automatic writing … SKC : It's a compliment but I don't think we're surrealistic. Automatic writing, it's funny cause it's a term I've already read in a review about my music. But I don't use that method, even though I like the fact it induces pictures. My texts are thought over but I try to make a "moviesque" music with sentences clashing like pictures. With the limited edition of our latest album, there's an extra CD on which we play moviesque music, in a way as in dEUS's "My Sister = My Clock", our first trial in that style. To come to to such a result, I record lots of music and I mix. RR : As in Burroughs's cut-up ? SKC : That's for the writing part, but one can make the same with music. That's how David Bowie recorded "Outside". But it's no dogma. I record the music which goes through my mind as it comes, in the small studio we could finally afford and so I can mix it all. The new guitarist is working on some stuff and tonight I'll work on that. RR : Your latest album sounds more structured and less experimental than the other two. It sounds more pop, more adult. SKC : I think there's no real breech in our career. But I like doing plenty of different things, not only pop music. For example we're now setting up a drama with dancers for next year. On our latest album, I don't push up my voice as much, it's a bit as if I were using less effects, as if I had less pedals for my guitar. We had 25 songs, and the poppiest ones won the selection contest. RR : And how's dEUS going ? SKC : They're recording a new album, and I don't play with them anymore. I haven't seen them very often this year, I toured. Rudy doesn't play with them either, but I'm still with him in Kiss My Jazz. ____________________ (1) It's a play on
the title of a Tim Burton cartoon called "L'etrange Noel de M. Jack" in
French, I don't know the English title so I left it in French. |
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