We sat down with Parisian grind powerviolence hardcore/metal animal BAIN DE SANG (English: BLOODBATH) to throw some spotlight on their excellent record “We Are The Blood We Are The Fear”, discuss their DIY punk & metal scene, their devotion to sonic hostility, and learn their thoughts on today’s filthy politics and social injustice.
“We Are The Blood We Are The Fear” EP by BAIN DE SANG is out now via Emergence Records (FR), Up2Eleven Records (FR), and Dingleberry Records (DE).
Wow. We Are The Blood We Are The Fear is a one hell of an unexpected, unrelenting punishment, serving us a maelstorm of noise, blasts and interesting textures. How’s the feedback been so far? How are you proud of this record?
Standardowy Cytat tego szablonu. Zobaczmy czy tutaj też są takie same odległości między wierszami.
Hi Karol! First, I wanted to thank you for this interview, I’m a regular reader of IDIOTEQ.COM and I do love the diversity in bands and tone of your webzine!
Well, thanks for the compliments! About feedback, it is mixed. Our music is somewhere between several genre, and it seems more complicated to people than we thought! hahaha I’d say people are either indifferent, either they pretty much like it. So far, I haven’t read much bad stuff about us or about this record. Most of the bad reactions I’ve read on our music came from people who didn’t understand why we played the Obscene Extreme Fest this year, I guess it’s related to the fact we’re not a typical grindcore or death metal band. I thought grindcore-heads were more open people hahaha
And yep, I think we are all proud of this record in a way. As many bands with a limited budget, we’ve recorded it in the “regular extreme conditions” hahaha. We had a really short time in studio, we played on some gear which were not ours, most of the guitar tracks are guide tracks, we reworked vocals line as we recorded them etc etc… but Jeff, the guy behind the desk, did an awesome job here and we’re pretty satisfied of the result. And it’s of course very pleasant to read the warm feedback and see people enjoying the songs, but also being very keen about the sound and production! So yep, I’m kind of proud!
How did you start BAIN DE SANG in the first place?
It all started three years ago with Julien and I, and we had the objective of playing the nastiest powerviolence/grind/punk/hardcore music we could! It took approx. 6 months to get a stable line-up (at least till last month). Julien is a long-time friend of mine, we met 15 years ago while he was singing in JUDOBOY, a chaotic hardcore band, and I was then playing guitar in a band called AENIMA, some kind of blasted hardcore with a rock’n’roll feeling. Getting back to BAIN DE SANG, it turned out to be much rawer and blastful than expected!
How about the rest of the guys?
As I mentioned, we had some change in line-up these last two months! Yves and Guillaume took their own way, either focusing on their private or professional lives. We’re all around 35, and it seems this is the time where some people start to look at their lives and then need to take decisions. I think they need to feel like things are changing and they grow up. I’m not like that, I don’t want to grow up!
Back to BAIN DE SANG: at the moment, Simon is playing the drums, he also plays in VALVE and KEEP ON LEAVING (go check these really cool bands if you don’t know them!), Nicolas is playing the bass (he also plays guitar in GRIST, the other band with Julien singing) and David is now playing the guitar with me (he played in tons of bands, like MOMS ON METHS, SOFA MAJOR, AENIMA, …). All this is pretty new and I still cannot promise this is the same line-up in 6 months! hahaha But we’re now a 5 piece band and we’re about to play louder than ever!
What was the Parisian extreme/heavy music scene at the very early stage of your involvement in making and promoting punk/metal? Also, how do you feel it has evolved since then?
Raphael: Wow, it’s kind of difficult for us to answer that question as we are not originally from Paris. I’d say the hardcore / metal scene was not a big thing 15 years ago in Paris, and a big part of the scene was under the control of the hype back then! I feel like this is different now… There are tons of bands at the moment. Most of them will record only one EP (if any), tour a bit and then die to create something new. It’s cool in a way, as it encourages the creation and the diversity in the scene, but on the other hand, it’s difficult to mention 10 major bands coming from Paris… And I don’t feel the same hype pression, maybe also it’s because I’m older and not hanging out with these jerks anymore!
Julien: As I’ve never been that much implicated in the scene, and I was mostly looking at it from the outside, I don’t really know what to say!
It’s mostly a feeling, but I have the impression that there is currently a mutual aid between bands that I used to see 15 years ago. For instance, when we looked for a drummer, we had help from a lot of people that spread the word and gave us contacts, even sometimes people we know that gave us the number of their own drummer, and being totally okay with the idea of us doing a test with them. I was honestly surprised by all these reactions, messages and kindness! I might be a bit naive you know, you can fool me with a kind word and then I’m happy!
What do you feel the independent music scene really needs now?
Hmmpf, my first answer would be “money”, but in fact, thinking about it twice, I think that developing the structures around the bands would help.
Of course, I’m not talking about the “global” indie scene, only the punk / metal ones.
I think that there is an audience for this music, just look at the amount of people going to the Hellfest. And there is also a good “offer”, as the average band quality is pretty high at the moment.But I also see lot of people who have to handle their personnal life, job, etc.. with their band, that’s our case for instance, and it’s pretty hard to manage everything correctly, your life and your band… So, yep, we try to be as DIY as we can, but at some point, we’re glad to have some help, like our friends from Emergence and Dingleberry who co-released our record, and we’d accept every help that can improve our band without asking for any compromise.
Alright, so lastly, back to your new record, what enticed you to re-visit this kind of crusty grind hardcore moods? How did you go on deciding what sound would work best for your current band involvement?
Raph: Well, the idea of the band at the very beginning was to play some classic raw powerviolence, and it ended up all riffs and moods were quite different! Our music is really a mix of all our influences, and they’re into all sort of music. I’d say our common denominator is the hardcore music, and individually, it comes from different genres like metal, grindcore, crust, but also all sort of indy music from the 80s-90s.
Julien: I don’t think we’re trying to revisit crust / grind or hxc. We have many different influences and it probably swallows into our music and makes it some sort of hybrid. This results in us being playing on stage with different kind of bands, crusty, grindy or hxc, and this is happening quite often. We are not stuck with one genre, and this is also helping us to enrich ourselves, our music and our sound.
For our concern, we’re listening to every kind of music, we’re very curious about every different sounds;
Bain De Sang’s sound and style came up naturally. We had only one leitmotiv: going straight and fast!
The first song we composed was “We are the blood We are the fear”. This has been our basis, our starting point for our sound, style and lyrics. Even though our new songs turn out to be more “violent”, more extreme, this song will remain Bain De Sang’s ABC.
And about our sound, we also had a few ideas, but there are so many factors that are getting into our creation process that I can’t really tell how we ended up with this result on the EP.! But I can tell you it will continue to evolve with the new line-up on our next release.
Lyrics-wise, what inspired these tracks?
Julien: To be honest, everything that happens around us! I don’t have a favorite topics, but I mainly write on things that bore me or that I can’t stand:
All the conflicts happening all over the world. They are absurds and they usually started on fake pretexts… My aversion to any religious extremism, all religion included, political corruption, all the state lies, nuclear power…
But also, my inspirations are death, mental depression, endless self-questioning… lust, human stupidity, violence…
An other recurring topic is the common and stereotypical images of the “normality” in our country, may it be family, work, and generally speaking the “Socialogically” and “Politically” correct.
In my lyrics, you have to read between the lines, not everything is to be taken at the face-value.
I am not a militant, I don’t claim anything, I don’t lecture others… I’m just observing facts, I spit things that are consuming my heart…
Considering the whirlwind of social and political upsets, what are your hopes for the future of France?
Raphael: Of course, I’m speaking for myself here, not for the band. So… Some time have past between your question and my answer… In the meanwhile, lot of things happen and your question does not have the same symbolic…:
Korea and USA started a nuclear war, Washington D.C. and Moscow have been removed from the maps of earth, we discovered that weirdo Trump is no real human but a humanoid puppet controlled by some crazy dissidents of the CIA (I mean, we all knew since his campaign’s meetings that he was not a real human…), same story with fucking Marine Le Pen and crazy Poutine. Also nobody seemed surprised when Macron declared he was not that young, but a member of the “eternals”, a secret society of wealthy people belonging the secret of the eternal life, based on a mysterious fluid extracted in shale gas mines – same with May and Trudeau. That makes quite a lot of news for a few months, right? So, any hopes? Not really, sorry… People keep on believing in conservatism and do vote for populists and racists, while most of syndicalists are spending more time doing politic and working on their own carrier when we’re expecting them to focus on others…
If any good thing happens or is being developed, it will come from local initiatives, small groups of people connected between them – out of political parties. Well, yep, just like punks used to do in the 80’s and 90’s in fact! It seems like punks had the answer since the beginning! hahaha
Ok, so finally, do you have any recommendations of good reads or recors to feed our creative souls?
I’d start by recommending Maximum R’n’r. I’m still surprised to see that a lot a hardcore kids, or grindcore kids don’t know this legendary punk zine! Also, you should have a read to EverydayHate blog, from the almighty Andy in Poland. You should also buy all the records from his label, only good stuff! hahaha Regarding bands I’d recommend, I’ll stick to French bands, and of course it’s un un-exhaustive list! Blockheads, Comity, Chiens, Whoresnation, Nesseria, Nine Eleven, Gasmask Terror, Morgue, Harm Done, Cowards, Alabaster…
Ok, so in closing, what are your next steps with BAIN DE SANG?
Hahahha, that’s such a question! Well, we’re having a few gigs this month, playing in France, Switzerland and Germany with awesome bands like GADGET, NOOTHGRUSH and ATTACK FROM THE MAD AXEMAN. Then we’d love to stabilize the line-up… We’ll record 5 or 6 new songs by the end of 2017, the idea is to have them released on 7″s. And well, playing much more in 2018!
Thanks so much for your time! Cheers for the interview and take care. The last words are yours.
Many thanks to you Karol for the interview, for your support, and generally for spending so much time doing this awesome webzine! We’re still looking to get any new contacts anywhere in the world, so if you read this interview until the end and want to get in touch, even if it’s only to say hi, well… Don’t hesitate to drop a line: baindesang[at]googlegroups.com, and the links below! Cheers to you!
BAIN DE SANG Facebook
BAIN DE SANG Bandcamp
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