Formed in 2020 by former members of a bunch of major bands of the French punk rock and hardcore scene, members of Gummo, Stupid Karate, Penny At Work, and Supermodel Stitches, LE TUNNEL DE L’ENFER have released their debut EP late as a “tribute record” to the movie Daylight (1996) via Minga Records. We sat down with Théo, Mathieu, Cédric and Denis to break down each track from the EP below!
Their influences range from fast punk, hardcore, punk rock and even grindcore. Bands that influence them the most are Limp Wrist, Suicidal Tendencies, NOFX and Coke Bust.
For fans of : Limp Wrist, Tromatized Youth, G.L.O.S.S., Suicidal Tendencies…
“This group is in some ways a product of the Covid-19 pandemic.” – says the band. “The songs were composed without any member of the band rehearsing together. Everything was done by messaging and video conference.”
Asked about their plans for 2022, the band says that they want to release their second EP, which will pay tribute to a different movie!
“We tried through our 7 titles to make reference to different scenes of the movie Daylight by Rob Cohen released in 1996 with Sylvester Stallone but also to other movies we like.” – comments the band.
1. Sly is a doer
The lyrics of this title are a double reference. First to the scene in Daylight where the survivors start to be submerged by the rising water in the tunnel. Secondly, to the completely stupid scene in Michael Bay’s film Pain and Gain where Ken Jeong explains that in the United States there are only two types of people: the do-ers and the don’t-ers.
2. Lieutenant Stan
There are three references in this song. First, we openly copied and pasted the lyrics of the very bad song Bodies from Drowning Pool. Secondly, we quote an excerpt from the movie Forrest Gump where Gary Sinise explains that because he has lost the use of his legs, he can no longer walk behind God. Finally to Stan Shaw who in Daylight plays a policeman who also loses the use of his legs. Hence the name of the song “Lieutenant Stan”, in reference to Gary Sinise’s role as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump.
3. Roy Nord is a turd
Roy Nord is the character played by Viggo Mortensen in the film Daylight. He is an absolutely unbearable character whose death is the mirror of his stupidity barely veiled by an immense egocentrism. The texts also refer to the movie Point Break, explaining that Roy Nord would like to ride the wave of success forever but he has none of the intelligence of Bodhi (Patrick Swayze).
4. Street Octogone
This text is a reference to both the final scene of the film Daylight where Amy Brenneman explains that she is now homeless and the film Scarecrow by Jerry Schatzberg following the adventures of two vagabonds played by Gene Hackman and Al Pacino.
5. Satanic mom
At the beginning of the film Daylight, one of the protagonists explains that his mother does not like dogs, nor him. We started from there to write the lyrics explaining that in fact his mother has nothing against dogs but against God, that she is in fact a Satanist and that her son tries by all means to persuade her to stop to listen to Burzum.
6. Not a G movie
The texts are an extract of our favorite scene from the movie Daylight, the one where Sylvester Stallone makes the tunnel explode. In this scene he has this cult phrase while addressing the tunnel: “I found your heart! And I’ll blow it out of your body!”
7. The tunnel of love
For this track Theo tried to imitate Lemmy from Motörhead. We thought it was funny that Theo took an old alcoholic rocker’s voice to talk about love. Because every band must have a love song right? It’s a must. And who better than Lemmy to speak about love?
