On July 29th, 2012 we talked to COWARDS from Paris, France. These rookies have released their album “Shooting Blanks and Pills” on June 15th through our friends at Throatruiner Records. Press the play button below and go for it!
Good to have you guys. I must admit that from my point of view “Shooting Blanks And Pills”, along with THIS GIFT IS A CURSE’s full length, is probably one of the most interesting records of the year. Please tell us about the post-release time, how it was received and how are you happy with it.
It’s actually the shortest we’ve had to wait to have a record out. Throatruiner showed interest even before the final master was done. In the meantime, given the free download policy of the label we already have about 30 reviews out, most of them praises, with of course the occasional cold feet here and there.
We’re all really satisfied with it, as far as music, artwork, sound and lyrics are concerned. It couldn’t have been any better.
Cool. How long did the band work on the outing? Tell us about how the music grew for this collection of tracks.
We’re actually still not a band per say: we’ve never played the songs all together with vocals and all. We wrote the music with guitars, bass and drums on one side and worked on the vocals and lyrics on the other side.
I don’t like when singers come to practice and just sit there listening to work in progress. I like to have something somewhat final, record it demo style and then lay down some vocals. We worked about 6 months on it, I already had one song I previously wrote for another band a year earlier and another song from 5 years ago, from a band we played in with the bass player, and he contributed to another song, riff wise.
Most of the rest just came up playing together with bass & drums. We recorded two more songs that we decided to set apart for another release, probably a split. There’s a cover in there we’re quite proud of.
How have you been enhancing your musical experience before this band? Tell us about your other projects.
We all come from different backgrounds, different bands and different styles. The one thing that might tie us all together is that we don’t listen exclusively to heavy music I guess. As far as enhancing my musical experience, I have no idea what that means. The singer and I played together for a short while and we worked together on the last SICKBAG release (Shades Among Shades), the drummer and the other guitar player play together in DACAST, they’ve played together for a while already and I’ve joined them recently. As for the bass player, we’ve known each other for 7 years or so and we used to play in a thrashier band we had to stop when we fired our drummer. They still play together within COLOSSUS OF DESTINY, and he plays the guitar with EIBON. I also used to play for HANGMAN’S CHAIR and HELLBATS and our singer has joined another band recently, COLOHM I think, and also sings for DEATH MERCEDES.
Nice, lots of bands to check out [smiles]
Who and why do you call COWARDS?
That is entirely up to you. Read the lyrics and make up your mind. Just know this: we don’t point fingers, we don’t lecture anybody and we reserve every right to be judgemental. So anybody really and why not?
How did you end up on Throatruiner Records? How’s Hellbound Records helping you out?
If I’m not mistaken, our singer has known Matthias for a while and anytime we would discuss releasing our material, the only labels I would think of would be BONES BRIGADE because I’ve worked with Nico for a while and he’s one hell of guy, probably one of the best around, and Throatruiner, because they seemed like the only label in France that releases the kind of music we do.
It turns out Matthias seems like a great guy and he sure knows his business, plus CALVAIIRE is a really good band, so what’s not to like? If you’ve never checked them out you should, especially the lyrics in french that are perfect which is rare enough for french lyrics in heavy music. In the end I don’t think Bones Brigade would have liked our record and Matthias was interested from the get go and that’s always a good sign. So here we are.
As for Hellbound, it’s the name a structure we built a few years back when we used to promote shows in Paris. We had our time and lost our faire share of time & money so we stopped it. It got it’s second life when COLOSSUS OF DESTINY’s singer and guitar player needed a structure to release his material. Since we paid a small share of the LP’s pressing we decided to slap the name on it, just for the sake of it and dedicate it to the simple men because we help ourselves really.
You have 2 French shows scheduled for November. What about the rest of the Old Continent? Any plans to hit the road?
We’ll have more shows announced in the near future for sure, and we do have plans to tour anywhere we can. But nothing is set in stone as of now.
So what’s the next step for COWARDS?
Obviously playing shows, get back to practice and write new material. I don’t want to jinx anything but I would like for us to release stuff at least every year. Keep it mean, simple & stupid.
What are a few of your current favorite heavy bands to listen to? What inspired you to take up this particular sludgy metallic style?
I know our singer really digs SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP, VERDUN and SANNHET at the moment. The bass player is into GEHENNA, SANGRAAL, LEVIATHAN (US) and FLESHPRESS. I’m still hung on KICKBACK‘s No Surrender, BLIND TO FAITH, SHINING‘s Halmstadt and SECTION 8 as far as heavy music goes. I wouldn’t say anything inspired us to play any genre, especially not « sludgy metallic style ».
Sure I love EYEHATEGOD, but that’s as far as I go for sludge, with CROWBAR of course. To be honest the idea for the band was to play modern holy terror, and not refrain from whatever we thought sounded good. And at the end of the day, I’ve always been more of a thrasher, PANTERA, SLAYER, early THE HAUNTED, so there you go.
The lyrics are what color the music in my opinion. For example, far away from what we play, take a band like TURNSTILE, they got a good groove going on, sound is heavy as can be, sure it’s not original (but then again, originality in music often rhymes with gay ass shit), well TURNSTILE, as good as they sound, ruin it all for me with their sappy, consensual, teletubbies love lyrics if you catch my drift.
I take huge pride in our lyrical content, and I stand by every word of it.
Tell us about your favorite bands, venues and stuff related to Parisian metal/hardcore scene. How would you describe your local scene?
I love EIBON’s songs on the split with HANGMAN’S CHAIR, as well as most of their album, Entering Darkness; The boys in COLOSSUS OF DESTINY are friends (most of them anyway), and they have a couple songs I really dig. I still follow HANGMAN’S CHAIR, although I’m having difficulties finding what their first singer could transmit, their guitar player and drummer are probably one of the best pair of musician around. I really like what COMITY has been doing these days, although I must admit I’m more on the You Left Us Here EP than their latest release. I was really impressed with Clem from L’ESPRIT DU CLAN‘s vocals in The Prisonner album… I really like DEATH MERCEDES, our singer’s other band, especially live, they got a good energy. BLACK SPIRALS also, I think they’re my favourite band in Paris, although I haven’t seem them live for a while and I’m still waiting for their follow up release.
Great, thanks!
So besides the music… What do your daily lives look like? What do you do besides the band?
What do you think they look like? We earn our living and then spend it all recording 38 minutes of music.
Thank you kindly for taking a few moments with us. Feel free to add anything you want.
Thanks for your interest and support.
