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INHUMATE is quite well-known
in the extreme metal scene. If you are not familiar with them; INHUMATE
is a 4-piece brutal grind/death band from France, with an
interesting concept. "What concept?", you might say. Well, keep on
reading... |
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Greetings Fred. Sorry bothering you at this time of the year. I guess everyone in the world is quite busy either celebrating or spending the holiday during Christmas and the New Year eve. How about you? Like almost everybody I'm on
holidays and will go by my wife's parents this evening for X-mas. But
believe me I really don-t care much about it and prefer answer some grinding
interviews like yours!!! Yes, it's really a lot of work
to put this festival up! The other organizer (Good Time) is making all the
technical things, GRIND YOUR SOUL (and especially Yannick and me) are
contacting the bands, putting up all the things around that: their food,
their material on the stage, the hostel for the bands that come from far
away... And we also do a huge advertisement campaign (flyers, posters and
t-shirts especially printed for the festival). So, you were right, I'm
really busy nowadays with all that goes around INHUMATE and GRIND YOUR SOUL. Ah, ah!!! I understand that you
are not a common editorialist. You are very serious and try to understand
everything before asking questions!!!! And that's absolutely great to my
eyes !!!!! You're 100% right saying that. This festival is here to support
unsigned or signed on small labels bands. We don't want to have very well
known bands on this festival. We think that many interesting bands never
have the opportunity to make a REAL concert with professional structure and
that's why we put this festival up. And the ideology of that fest is that
it's only oriented to brutal death and grind core bands ! And the coming
year (2002) will play the following brutal death or grind core bands :
GOREROTTED (UK), IMPERIAL SODOMY (F), KRONOS (F), FATE (F), PUNISHMENT (A),
PUNISHED EARTH (B), REQUIEM (CH), BELCHING BEET (D). But also those ones
APOPLEXY (F) that play melodic death metal and ARCHAEUS (F) that play a kind
of black / death metal. Why do they play ? For a very simple reason:
APOPLEXY are our brother in metal, their drummer was INHUMATE first drummer
(in 1990 !!!) and they come from the same city as us. They're also an old
band that already have 2 CD out!!! Over here, in Strasbourg, they're well
known and it should be strange to have such an underground fest without
them, that's why we accepted them this year. And ARCHAEUS is also a local
band. And we try to put one or two local acts as opening bands. And the
underground scene is small over here so we had no other brutal and serious
band to propose. And when I saw them for the first time I thought that
either if the vocals were too black metal for me, the power was present and
they had the feeling of a band that wanna do something and not stay home
waiting for a label to pick them (what never happens...). So, hope you're
not angry about that ah, ah, ah!!! Hum, I think I already answered
to this question before... Sorry. I can say it again: a 100% underground
festival to give the possibility to underground bands to play with 100%
professional conditions. Other thing: we try to keep an international vision
to it with bands from several countries because we think that it's also
necessary in the underground to be international!!! Out of that I don't know
many serious festivals in France... I do just know the Brutal Fest that
takes place in the South of France (near a city called Cannes) and that is
organized by Guillaume (IMPERIAL SODOMY vocalist and runner of Criminal
Rec.). Yes, of course ! This line up is
the same since 1994 and we released 1 demo and 3 albums with it. And we all
think that this line up is the definitive one, it can't change. INHUMATE had
to be made with those 4 people and nobody else. And I think that is a big
part of INHUMATE strength. We are self produced because we
think that everything a label can offer us we are also able to do it by
ourselves. Of course we're not big and strong enough to be compared with
labels likes RELAPSE or so... But all small underground labels don't offer
intersecting deals to our eyes. Usually they propose to pay the pressing and
promotion. And the band gets 10% of the stuff. I think it's not very honest
because usually the label makes some profit and almost never pays the bands.
And the promotion usually stops when the labels has put another CD out, so
if the sells were not that good, the label forgot the band and it's like if
nothing had happened. We are self producing INHUMATE and self promoting it
too, and now I think that in the underground scene many people heard about
us. I don't think any label should have done that... And the biggest
difference is that I'm sure that if we are much known it's because our last
album is not too bad. Many many bands promoted by labels are known because
the labels paid some full pages avd. In mags and zines... That's bullshit
!!! We prefer to be known by our music first !!! It's also interesting to
get a direct contact with the people that listen to your music and the last
thing is that we know exactly how many albums we sell!!! Nobody can tell us
lies ! You know, when we discuss with bands we're playing with, most of them
say that we're right, acting in the best way, but all of them think that
self production is too much work, and I agree with them!!! Now, about Phil
(he is really a great guy and absolute underground supporter!!!) he always
supported us but as all the other labels we can't accept a deal for the
time. But maybe later will we be able to sign on a label, who knows ? If one
day someone propose us the "perfect" deal?!?! But I think it's only a
dream!!! Another time I already answered
a bit before... No, we can't do exactly the same thing a label can do, we
are not rich enough to buy some full pages adv. in magazines that's sure!!!
But through our distro we trade hundreds of CD and are spreading INHUMATE's
name all over the world. And then we sell those stuff here in France and it
helps both parts of the trade (the bands we traded and labels with and us of
course). This way is also the way we get some money back to pay the next CD.
We usually don't get money for our concerts because we ask just for the
money for cars, sleeping place and food, not extra money to play. About "Growth"'s
promotion, we did some promo CD for it and send them to all radios,
fanzines, magazines, etc who want some. More than 500 promo copies have
already been sent and of course it's fucking expensive but that's also the
only (best) way to make a true underground promotion!!! I think you're the first that
ask me what this is ?!?! So, Strasbourg is the city where we come from and "ville
de culture" means "city in which there is culture". You can find this small
logo because the city of Strasbourg helped us in the financial way to make
"Growth" possible. This can seem amazing but in the musical scene (all music
styles I mean) of the Strasbourg area we are a well known band and they want
to help us! Great isn't it? Unfortunately I think there's no
absolute formula to give... I think that INHUMATE is what it is because of
several things: the first one is a stable line up (I think it's maybe the
most important thing), the second one is that all of us have the same idea
regarding to music, third thing is that we are really motivated (I mean that
we were ready to loose money and time for years for the band), the fourth
thing is that we all work hard for that (answering e-mails, letters, making
interview) and the last thing is that we were lucky!!! But I think each band
can do it with only 2 or 3 of those ideas! Yes, we try to do a whole
concept with our CDs. This concept will be made with 7 albums that's why we
call it an heptalogy. Those 7 albums will be 7 steps of a human life and
will try to show that life never ends, so if life never ends then there is
no time left and we arrive at what we call the abolition of time. Some
people gonna tell me that life ends when a guy dies, and to this I answer
that in the normal way of life all person should give birth to a child, in
that case life goes on through the child, ok ? So when the parents gonna
die, life won't end because the child will carry it. And when that child
will die (in a normal age I mean) it should have been the same, that child,
when he'll be an adult, he should have given life to his own child. In fact the idea of that concept
came after "Internal Life". When we were thinking for a title to the second
album. We thought that it should be interesting to make something that
should follow (especially in the artwork) the first album, so we decided to
do something around birth and in French the word "expulsion" means the exact
moment when the child sees the light. After that Christophe and me had some
interesting moments of brainstorming and finally the whole concept arrived.
We try to have it particularly into the artwork (alos a bit in the lyrics
too) because we think that will push people really interested to see the CD
and then they'll understand another dimension of INHUMATE, a dimension
beyond music ! We try to think to everything, all booklet and CD artwork
took us a long time so we can explain each things of it. We hope to finish... We know it
should take many years and we all have several things to do besides the band
(we're all over 29 years old, so the easy life with the parents is finished
for a long time and now we have to really think about our everyday life with
job, family, etc...) but for the moment we're still very motivated. If one
guys wanted to stop, then I think that the INHUMATE entity (to which the
concept, the story of Life is happening) should die. INHUMATE is David,
Yannick, Christophe and me and nothing else. Of course all of us already had
bad moments regarding to the band, thinking to stop but every time the other
showed him that he had something to do with that fucking band and the things
went on better! Now, we just HOPE we will be able to finish it.... It should
be great isn't it? I don't care what people say...
We say we play grind death and that's all. Before it was more death grind
(more death, less grind), now it's grind death because it's the opposite!
Getting more and more brutal with the years. Another time I think we're not
following this mainstream because we never released tracks for anything else
than our own productions. We did several split tapes with bands like TRAUMA
(Hol), DISEMBOWEL (Gre), FUNERAL MARCH (Slo), MAGGOT SHOES (Ger) and a split
EP with ALIENATION MENTAL (Cz) but in all those cases it was live tracks
(taken from several concerts) or tracks taken from our CD. As we are self
produced, we don't look for labels and so if labels want to have some
INHUMATE stuffs, they have to take what we propose them, we won't release
especially for them. And I think it's not so easy to find many interesting
ideas to release some CD and the bands that act like this (releasing many
many stuff with new tracks all the time) have it more easy than us to
compose music, they're lucky on that side !. It's also a way for the band to
not be forgotten, if they release a split EP every 6 months, and also many
bands try to get recognition in making split stuffs with known bands !! We
never tried to do that because we try to be known for what we are only ! Yes, we should have made that
release, unfortunately I was long to send the stuff (I never sent it...), it
should have been a live one! The idea came from Doni (DELIRIUM TREMENS
vocalist) and when I had a good recording to send him I heard that he had
moved into I know BLOODY GORE, DELIRIUM
TREMENS, SADISTIS and so other I can't remember now. But I have most
contacts in Indonesia and Singapore. Are they the only countries with an
underground scene ? Good question everybody asks
me... I really don't know. I hope over 1 year, hope not more... Things are
going slower than what we thought ! You know it's more difficult to release
the 4th album than the 1st one! All readers feel free to contact
me at: |
