 |
  |
Arno's Jus de Box
Multi-lingual Belgian rock
Paris
29/01/2007 -
RFI Musique: Your new album seems to be a lot more energetic than the last two. It sounds very 'old school', in fact. And there's an occasional 1970s feel to it…
Arno: Well, the 1970s are my musical roots. And I'm sick to death of the 1980s – I lived them to the full and now they're over and done with! I think the main reason the album sounds a bit reminiscent of the 1970s is because I recruited a real drummer to work on it. These days, drummers are just typists, guys who sit tapping away at their computer keyboards. They play with their heads. But I wanted to find a physical drummer, a guy who could play with his head but who'd primarily express himself through his body. That's why the whole thing sounds 'old school' I think.
Was it hard to find a drummer like that?
Oh man! I must have tried out at least eighteen drummers before I finally found the right one. Real musicians like that have become extremely rare these days.
The basic structure of your songs – simple verse-chorus stuff – also seems to add to the 'old school' sound…
I wanted to keep the whole album very sober, very pared-down. A lot of bands out there do that 'playing from a riff' stuff and I've done plenty of that myself in the past. But now I want to do real songs. In theory, it looks pretty easy to whip up a verse/chorus/solo structure. But take it from me, it's actually really hard to come up with good choruses and melody lines. So when you do manage it you feel pretty damn chuffed with yourself! I'm sure you couldn't sit there and sing a big techno hit from ten years ago – but you'd know a rock song from 25 years ago, no problem. Those songs stick to you like a wet sheet!
How do you go about deciding which language you're going to use for which song?
It depends. I could never imagine singing something like Hit a Night in French, because that's a song I wrote in a totally 1970s spirit. In general, when I use French it tends to be linked to something I've actually experienced in French… with a French girl, for instance. It's like the old (French) saying goes "When you sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas!" Actually, I've also done a song in Ostend dialect for a film.
You're lucky being able to express yourself in so many different languages…
Well, maybe that's because I live in Belgium, a country bang in the centre of Europe, a country that doesn't really have any national identity. Belgium's only existed as a country for 170 years. People speak four different languages there besides English and Arabic. It's funny, a Moroccan friend of mine pointed out to me the other day that Belgium's the only Arab country in the world right now where there's not a war on! (Laughs).
Brussels has become a bit of a rock hotbed in recent years, too, with bands like Ghinzu and Vénus…
Belgium's always been very rock. Look at Jacques Brel! In my opinion, Brel was the real rocker. He was a lot more rock than those guys you see walking round with 5,000 tattoos on their backs!
Do you ever look to Brel for inspiration when you're writing material?
No, I don't. Brel's Brel in the same way that Gainsbourg's Gainsbourg and Brassens is Brassens. I have a bit of a problem with 25-year-olds wanting to be Brassens, Gainsbourg or Brel. You have to be true to yourself, just be who you are, you know. At 25, you shouldn't even want to be Brassens! And I think guys who do are basically old before their time. They should be getting up off their arses and doing something different!
You've stopped working with a producer on your albums. Is that because you know exactly what you want and you don't need any outside help?
I've worked with producers in the past. I used to give them demos of what I'd done and they'd just leave them as they were. So naturally I ended up wondering why the hell I was using them and why I was paying them for doing something I could do myself. I prefer to work with my pianist. He's a better musician than me and he knows how things work in the studio, too. I'm pretty crap when it comes to all that, but I always know what I want at the end of the day.
There's quite a surprising track on your new album, a duo with the rapper Faf la Rage. Was that one of your ideas?
No, that was Universal. They asked me to do a rock song that would be sung by a rapper. So that's what I did, but I never laid eyes on the rapper. Everything was done over the Internet. That's the first time I've worked like that and it was pretty weird. Like washing your feet with your socks on!
Was Faf la Rage happy with the result though?
I don't even know. I've never spoken to him! It's weird. I know this Belgian guy who made a record with a bassist from San Francisco that he never saw either. It's amazing, I guess that's just the way people live these days. I've got an 18-year-old son who speaks a completely different language to me and who lives in another world! But I'm happy because my son listens to old Tamla Motown stuff. He's always coming in and nicking my records.
There's a song on the album, Mourir à Plusieurs, where you talk about the dangers of new technology and raise a number of environmental issues. Are these things you worry about in your day-to-day life?
Do you realise that if we continue to sit back and do nothing in fourteen years' time the Normandy beaches will be in the Paris suburbs? That's the reality of the situation. People should go out and see the Al Gore film – it's a real wake-up call! I treat the subject in my songs in a humorous way, but we are really in the shit. I do feel very concerned actually and I don't understand why politicians aren't getting more involved. It's the people's fault as well, though. We're the ones that pay them and vote them in in the first place and then we don't check up on what they're doing. All I'm saying is, it's a bit funny that we seem to have spring eleven months a year now!
Arno's tour starts in April and includes two concerts at Le Bataclan, in Paris, on 4 & 6 June.
Emilie Munera
Translation : Julie Street
