INHUMATE
(August 1 1999)
Here's a real nice interview through E-mail with Fred,
bassist in Inhumate, some of the most eXtreme and brutal grind-death
french band...
OK Fred!
First, are you fine today? doing well?
Yes, thanx. Everything’s alright today.
Your
latest album was out on 1997... it's quite a while back now...
What happened since then?
A few gigs in FRANCE, BELGIUM, GERMANY. We also worked a lot on
our third CD Growth. Today we got 13 trax for it, but we need 2
or 3 more to have a full time CD. We will arrive to ½ hour with
no intro (just listen to all the new CD of fast playing bands,
and you’ll see that they all have a bit more than ½ hour
but with intros – and if you don’t consider them you
just bought 25 minutes music…). So, we can’t give a
precise date for this CD because we are still 100% underground
and we still selfproduce it. Besides this we also put out a few
split tapes with MAGGOT SHOES, TRAUMA TEAM or EXHUMATOR (nothing
really new on them, but it shows how INHUMATE sounds live ‘cause
most of them got some), and we appear on 2 CD comps, Sometimes
Death is better (SHIVER Recs), Gore is your master (RAZORBACK
Recs).
You talk
about grindcore in your songs, but I think you still have a
bigger death metal feel. How would describe what you're playing?
When people ask us
this we usually answer that we play Grind/death and not Death/grind…
Just inverse the 2 words… We were all listening to death
metal when we were teenagers and we still like this. But since
the band has this line up when feel the need to play faster and
more brutal. It’s just a feeling and not something we
decided. Trying to be more clear : Nowadays we like a lot the
grind core attitude (simple attitude, no special look, feeling
free to enjoy life…) we also feel more this music when we
play in a kind of old school sounding riffs. We are leaving
behind us the death metal attitude (I mean some bands seems
machist or too much proud …).
It also
seems you get more grindy with the time no? How sound the very
new material? Since the band started back in 1990, did you
already have all this intensity and energy then?
Growth will be more
into grind core I think. People who are really into death metal
might not like it, but this is how things go…We when
started, almost 10 years ago, we just wanted to play heavy and
slow death metal. But nothing was exactly established. In fact we
put some grind parts into our tracks when our 2nd drumer came. He
was crazy with old NAPALM DEATH. And then, with the actual line
up, which is what it is since 1995, we always tried to reach the
boundaries of brutality. Don’t ask me why… As I told it
before we do what we like, no label tells us what to do. This is
the underground freedom.
Can you
talk about the forth coming third album now? There's a concept
behind it like for the 2 first CDs... Can you leave some words
about it? And by the way explain the things for "Internal
life" & "Ex-pulsion". The next albums will be
in their continuity... It seems you already decided what will be
the future for the band! You already planned the concepts of
upcoming releases. After "Eternal life", you'll split
up? Are you certain of achieving the things you planned? Life is
not always happening like these states dont you think?
Our concept is
based on life and abolition of time. Normally life should never
stop because if things go in the right way all human people or
animal gives life to his children. That’s the base of our
concept. So, we try to put in through our CDs. Not specially in
the lyrics but more into the artwork, which is an original way of
acting I think … So, Internal Life, our 1st CD shows the
moment before life, when the future child is still just a fetus,
he lives the internal life because he is still in his mother, not
nothing, not conceiving what life can be… Ex-Pulsion (which
is a french word, so foreign people might have problems to
understand the concept only the ttitles only) is the hard moment
when the child appears, his first contact with reality, the cold
truth… Now I think that people can understand why we gonna
name our next CD Growth. This one will be the illustration on the
teenagers years and the adult life. The following stuffs will be
named Maturity, The wisdom, Death and Eternal Life. This last one
will mean that life never ends because it is given to the
children, so time is killed by the fact that people understand
that they are leaving just a part of it and none – except a
God maybe – can conceive that infinite concept. Of course we
know that we might split before this heptalogy ends but we will
try to reach that goal, it is made in the ancient geek tragedy
mind. I mean that INHUMATE knows its destiny. The band is now up
and knows – by the musicians – what it’s life
gonna be. I think this is also a new way of thinking, 100%
underground because I’m not afraid to say that if we can do
all this heptalogy I leave the band thinking that I’ll have
done the thing for which I was on Earth. About this last idea, I
wanna add that it just concerns me and not the other members of
INHUMATE. And if the band splits before we can finish this than
it will have been a good idea I think. Just hoping that someone
else could try to do this infifnite circle too one day.
Your
lyrics are very original and personal. I don't know any other
band with this kind of texts. In the beginning, I had hard times
to feel them fitting with the music, but now I think they're
great! Is everyone writing in the band, or is it one man's work?
I noticed one very different text from others on first CD, "My
sweet love", which is very violent and gory... it seems you
don't have any other texts like this... But well, Can you explain
what are you trying to express? Do you consider your lyrics like
philosophical? or whatever?
Most of our lyrics
are written by Christophe, the vocalist. But some were written by
the others, for example : David wrote Torture, I wrote the
beginning of In Quest, Transe, Perfection ; Yannick wrote Therapy
for dogs. We try to explain a lot of things which are out of the
usual death/grind concept. I’m sure you really read them
with attention because a lot of people don’t understand them
and don’t try to and then they keep superficial ideas on
them. Greeting to you man ! I think we got a special idea on that
music. We feel it far from the 15 years old headbanging teenager
that we were. We are now older (the youngest is 26) and as I was
telling it before we play with our guts, we play to say things we
have to say and not to cry against society, God or anything else.
Some of our lyrics, like My sweet love, are funny lyrics. Some
other tracks are more philosophical, we talk about things that
touch us in our life, our thoughts. We also talk a lot about
music because we try to understand what is pushing us to do that
for so long and with so much desire… Besides this we also
have tracks like Screams with no lyrics, this kind of tracks is
just for fun, only screams and cries to put out our energy …
Are you
sometimes inspired by movies or books? Are there movies you are
really into? Do you dig damn scary horror or gory trash flicks?
Do you watch TV?
We don’t take
much ideas into books. Of course, like in all metal band you got
2 of us who like gore movies but it has nothing to see with our
music. Everyone of us has his hobbies and interests but none of
us mix them with INHUMATE. INHUMATE is a kind of creature that
takes life when we all 4 play.
Were you
called Inhumate from the start? And is there any particular
reason for it? Do you think it fits to what you're doing?
We took the name
INHUMATE in 1992 I think. There is no particular reason for that
name. We took it because it was sounding well and didn’t
mean any precise thing. For I’m plyaing in the band of
course I think it fits to what we are doing, that’s a
question you should ask to other people… I’d be curious
to know the answer you’d get…
Can you
present the current line-up? Are you all 100 percent into the
band? Do you have different musical tastes... Can you talk about
other members who now left the band?
The current line-up
is Christophe on vocals, Yannick on drums, David on guitar and
backing vocals and me (Fred) on bass. Yes, I think we are 100 %
into INHUMATE. You know that self producing one CD is very hard,
and now we gonna do it for the third time with the same line up…
For the last years INHUMATE cost us a lot of money and time but
if you’re at 100 % into what you do, you don’t see that…
Of course we also shout ourselves, everything’s not always
pink, but in the heart of the feelings we all think the same
things. Before this line-up we had Stéphane on the drums, he
left us because of the army. He palys now in the only death metal
band of Strasbourg : APOPLEXY. He has been replaced by Valentin,
the drumer I was talking about before with whom we put our first
grind parts in INHUMATE. He plays now in a band called MARAUDERS
(it’s a kind of pop music stuff, don’t ask me why he
felt in this…). Olivier was our 1st vocalist ; he played
after INHUMATE in a few bands and now does our merchandising and
drinks beer when we go for concerts. He has been replaced by Sébastien,
who plays now in a metal band calle KROMLEK. So, from the
beginning just David and me are standing. But the actual line-up
is the longest and the best we had and could have…
Is it
hard to self-produce an album? Did you spend much money for
releasing and distributing it? Have the CDs been easily sold? Did
you release something else than the 2 Inhumate CDs, with the
label GRIND YOUR SOUL?
Yes it’s hard to self produce our CDs. We had some helps
from the city of Strasbourg but in all case we had to put some
money from ourselves. About distribution we did in with wholesale
prices, trades and selling the CDs at the gigs. We did 500 copies
of Internal Life and more than 400 are gone, about Ex-Pulsion we
did 600 copies which are already gone and now we repressed 150
ones. For this second CD we also did some promo CDs, more than
500, wich helped us to be more well known in the underground. We
sent them to fanzines, radios, distros, mags, etc… For
Growth we’d like to do some promo stuffs with only a few
tracks (not the whole album) but it’s more expensive because
it is considered like if we were pressing another CD for the
pressing factory. So you see it’s not easy for an
independant band to do everything by itself. But we try to forget
all those problems and to go on working like this. If one day we
can’t go farther then we’ll try to find a label that
proposes us a good deal. About GRIND YOUR SOUL it not really a
label, it’s a kind of association we put up to promote
INHUMATE, to manage the band. Until today GRIND YOUR SOUL is
constituted only by INHUMATE’s members. So, maybe if it
becomes bigger we will work for some other bands in the future,
who knows ?
Do you
know how most people & zines react about your releases? All
the reviews I've been reading about your CDs were positive! But
did you get some septic feedback?
We had a lot of positive reviews for Ex-Pulsion but of course
some people didn’t like it. I can give you two names of
zines which fucked us up : NIHILISTIC HOLOCAUST and CRYPT. I
talked to them and I understand their point of view. Everybody is
free to think what he wants. We never thought that we were the
best band of the world…
How your
2 demos, "Abstract suffering"(93) & "Grind
your soul"(95) sound like? Do you know how many copies were
made? Can we found the songs re-recorded on your current CDs? Do
you ever plan on re-releasing them now they're sold out?
The 2 demos are now totally sold out. We did only 100 copies of
Abstract Suffering and never distro it. We sold some around us.
It was our first studio and when I listyen to it now it makes me
laugh because it’s really not good. But everybody must begin
one day… Grind Your Soul has been made at about 350 copies
and has been reviewed in about 100 zines. It was our first
production with the actual line-up. Some tracks of those demos
are on our split tape with DISEMBOWEL. We did a very collector CD
(5 copies) with the 2 demos, but this one is not a real CD it’s
just for fun… About re-recorded tracks, you can listen to
Putrefaction and another version of Earth Fucking Earth on
Internal Life. Those 2 songs appear for the first time on
Abstract Suffering. On Internal Life you can also listen to Why
?, The Dream, Torture, Blood and My Sweet Love which were
recorded for the first time on Grind You Soul. Also listenable on
our first CD Incest (Just a Kiss) has been re-recorded for the
Stranger than Paradise CD compilation (DOLPHIN recs). Ex-Pulsion
offers only unreleased tracks and Growth will be the same.
How
often are you rehearsing and playing live shows these days? Do
you enjoy playing live gigs? What was your last show? Any great
dates/places, great fests, great bands you played with? Best
memories?
We rehearsal twice a week : Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
About live shows, we do some when people ask us for. Of course it’s
the thing we prefer to do. I think that it’s the best way to
feel INHUMATE. We are doing music and you can judge a band with
two things I think : their recorded stuffs and their stage
attitude. For me a band that has very good CDs and is pure shit
on stage is not interesting. That why we try to give all that we
have in our guts when we are on stage. We get in what we call the
« grind core transe ». It means becoming crazy and feeling the
music, either if it’s not played excatly like on the CD.
When I go at a gig as a fan all I want is to see something new.
If I feel the same thing that I can feel home, I mean watching a
poster and listening to a CD, than it doesn’t interest me.
Our last show was in july in Gent (Belgium) with DUST and VADER.
It was a good show. The big bands we have played with are
CANNIBAL CORPSE, IMMOLATION, SIX FEET UNDER, CRYPTOPSY, NILE,
VADER, ENSLAVED. I think it was also by our best memories. But we
also did some fucking underground gigs in Germany wich were
killer with people shouting « Inhumate ! Inhumate ! » and we
had finished the gig and were playing and replaying tracks for
those crazy people . We wzere fucking dead ans sweaty as hell but
it was great man ! ! The true underground spirit was there !
About big places, we never played in very well-known festivals or
so… Maybe one day…
What
bands & records are you really into these days, and what's
your current play list?
In the band we all
listen to different stuffs. David is really into Death Metal,
Yannick is more into strange musics, Christophe listens to all
kinds of music from Noise Core to Techno and I am more into
Classical Music or Grind Core. It’s difficult to answer you
when you ask me in what band I could be into these days because I
got a lot of CDs and tapes in my mail and often find some good
bands. But the really good ones I listened to in the last weeks
were ABORTED (from BELGIUM) absolute crushing Brutal Death Metal
dealing with serial killers and SANITY’S DAWN (from GERMANY)
a kind of sick Grind Core sounding like old CARCASS.
Well,
that's all! Maybe I forgot to ask something? What merchandising
is available from you? Please leave your last comments... Thanks
for all!!!
We also have some T-shirts in merchandising (red/black – 2
sided), and that’s all. My last comments will go to you for
this fucking great and interesting interview. I don’t often
see people who really listen to our music and who also try to
understand the spirit of INHUMATE. That’s really great from
you. And to all readers who arrive until here I just wanna say :
« feel free to write or E-mail me, everybody will have an answer
». STAY SICK !
INHUMATE (Grind/Death metal band)
E-Mail : INHUMATE@ifrance.com
Address : GRIND YOUR SOUL
8 rue du
chevreuil
67000
STRASBOURG
FRANCE
Phone : 33(0)3.88.21.98.82
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