Junkyard Birds
sept 28th 2002 - email interview with Mathieu
by SEB WOOd
je vais donc maintenant répondre à l'interview dans la langue de j'expire.
1) Can you introduce yourself ??
hello freaks, I'm Mathieu from JUNKYARD BIRDS. I'm the singer / bass player of the band. I'm specialized in very low vibrations and flashy trousers.
2) How everything started ??
It started in the first days of 1996. I was totally obsessed by the fact that my last
born dead band was unable to play the music I loved at the time (stinky-feet blues rock in a Johnny Winter - Rick Derringer - AC/DCstyle : burning leads and big crunchy guitars, mixed with a lot of feedback and simple but thundering drums & bass). I wanted to do gigs, gigs and gigs, with a guitar in my hand and a fully cranked amps behind me ! So I left the band I played in, and founded JUNKYARD BIRDS with a couple of friends at the bass and the second guitar (I played guitar at the time), and some months later we had a drummer and all the things were done !! So we did the first 13 gigs over 14 months.
3) Is "Junkyard Birds" a reference to the Yardbyrds ??
Yes. I love this band. Jimmy Page was in, Jeff Beck too, and a lot of great british rockers !!! At the beginning of the band we were a garbage-dump version of the Yardbirds : greasy, noisy & a little bit trashy. Some kind of local garage band, as we played decadent, dirty & electric 12 bars blues from our own.
4) I know it is sometimes boring to talk about your influences but it might be useful that you discuss yours to make people who don't know you want to listen to your music ...
from my point of view : the who, the stooges, the MC5, motorhead, black sabbath & fu manchu, monster magnet, cathedral.
from my brother's point of view : every (and only !!) good music
from david's : I don't know what he thinks, for me he's as mute as a dolmen lost in brittany land.
5) I saw you live twice. It was really great and fun, which is quite unusual for a stoner band. Why do you like hard rock clichés ??
We like all this fuckin' shit 'cos we 're a fuckin' rock'n roll band, and we live as speed and as hard as on stage : I ride every morning one of my 13 Harley Davidson to get my piece of bread at the local bakery store ! From a serious point of view, rock'nroll is circus, and we're all entertainers. So we give the people whet they want : entertainment. And hard rock clichés are entertainment, and moreover these clichés fit very well with the music we play. moreover, we are true hard rockers, as we used to read '"hard rock mag" for years.
6) Can you tell us how did you record "Doomed to be underground..." ?? and could you tell us why did you release a live album prior to a studio album ??
It was recorded on a gig wich took place in Monblanc, Turbodome, gers, (may 2001). This album is a rough tape (a dat) right from the mix table. I just powered up the sound with a hifi equalizer, and shazam! the tapes went fast to the CD factory. For us, it was cheaper to do this way than to record 8 numbers in a studio. we just didn't have the money to do the classic thing.
7) Did you release something before ??
2 k7 tapes : "maquettes #1", with Pablo the 1st drummer
"into the maze of gloom", with Richard the 2nd drummerand a cdR in 5 years : "anthems for the son of a bitch", with Romain the 3rd drummer
8) Do you plan to release a studio album with a great powerful sound ??
We hope that, but it's too soon to really plan something serious.
9) I heard you thinking about releasing a special "Wall of Gold" cdr for your growing fanbase, is that true ??
maybe, maybe .... I know that this number seems now to become the first anthem of JUNKYARD BIRDS .... so I think seriously about it.
10) Is the title of your live cd meant to show that it is a bit difficult to be an unsigned stoner band ??
Yes, in some way. you got to be the driver, the roadie, the manager and at last the musician in a single gig. it's quite difficult. A the end of our 6-gigs-in-15-days tour last may, we were really exhausted. We needed to rest a bit before starting another round of rehearsals.
OK, now here are some siiiilly questions:
Was you ever bit by a dead bee ??
I'd rather be bit by a zombie in the graveyard of a manor lost in the hills of Wales
What becomes of the broken-hearted ??
they fall in the abysses of outer spaces very far away. I 've got no heart, but a piece of steel, so I'll never fall in the abysses of outer spaces very far away
What is your favorite curse word (it can be in French) ??
puteborgne
fuck
Black Sabbath or Spinal Tap ??
both
What question would you ask in this list ??
Is it true what you (I) have the biggest dick & balls between all the rock bands in Toulouse ??
What is your favorite chord ??
a dropped B with a palm mute on a Marshall stack : crounch, crounch, crounch ...
Do you know Satan ??
I had some Ricard with him few hours ago, and we planned to go to Megeve next winter for skying with
Bin Laden.
Favourite band and worst favourite band of the moment ??
Favourite : the Rebels
Worst favorite : loft story (it's not a band, but it deserves a big napalm carpet bombing !!!)
How do you look like in a tuxedo ??
Simply beautiful.
PS: worship evil !!!! see you on next tour with our new guitar player !!!