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Montevideo turn up the bass
Hot new debut album
Paris
16/10/2007 -
Montevideo! Nothing to do with Uruguay! Just four local Brussels boys: handsome lead singer/frontman Jean, his brother Pierre (known for his solid drumming and his wacky T-shirts), Julien, the band’s marathon bassist with a Brussels accent so thick you could cut it with a knife and, last but very much not least, Manu, quirky guitarist and major progressive rock fan. A foursome whose musical influences appear to set them worlds apart but who have ended up creating one of the most original sounds around.
"When we started playing together, we could really feel that we all come from very different backgrounds," says Jean, "Me and my brother, Pierre, were more influenced by funk and jazz, whereas the other two were obviously more into folk and rock." "Even when it came to rock," Julien laughs, "we were worlds apart. Personally, I never paid any attention to the production side of things before. I just enjoyed the music directly without thinking about how it was structured, whereas Manu was totally the opposite. He was really into bands like Pink Floyd. I think, given all that, we’re just going to continue going from strength to strength, because we’re communicating more and more with each other now. And that means we’re constantly pushing back our music boundaries, although there’s always a rock base at the core of our sound."
When it came to channelling these diverse influences on their first album, Montevideo came up with the bright idea of playing musical pick’n’mix. The band’s eponymous debut features everything from the instantly danceable pop of Sunshine to the feisty riffs of Boys from Brazil and the thundering brass of I’m A Trouble Maker, each track generating its own share of musical surprises. In other words, don’t go looking for standardized Belpop chart hits here, you won’t find any! The Montevideo sound is feisty, fierce and full-throttle, largely thanks to Julien’s driving bass which propels us from the opening track, Groovy Station, right to the end of the album, his virtuoso playing restoring bass to its rightful place in the music hierarchy.
A new twist on rock
The stupendous Drunk for The Last Time confirms that Montevideo are not afraid of mixing rock and electro effects, either. In fact, Julien insists the fusion is a logical one. "Right from the start," he says, "we were experimenting with very hypnotic rhythms, the same sound you hear on early Sonic Youth albums. We functioned with gut instinct a lot. But working in the studio gave us a bit more perspective on things. We were able to stand back and really think about what we wanted. The album actually sounds more electro than the stuff we were doing before. Mika, the bassist from Ghinzu, came along and helped with the arrangements. He’s brilliant at arranging and we profited from his years of experience in the business, too. Besides, I think the electro you hear on the current scene is basically rock with a new twist. It’s basically the same spirit, the same energy. I really believe that when you’re sitting in an Irish pub listening to that sort of good old ‘roots’ sound, that’s rock, too!"
And what about reconstituting the finely-honed Montevideo mix live on stage? "Well, I don’t just sing on stage," reacts Julien indignantly, "Yeah, you dance as well!" laughs Jean. "No, seriously, I’d say the keyboards play a pretty important role in our sound, the way they mix with the bass. It’s the keyboards that add that electro touch."
Not Walloon nor Flemish either!
Montevideo prove to be more open when it comes to answering the third question journalists always ask about their relationship with those other Brussels guitar gods Ghinzu. It all began back in 2005 at a certain showcase where Jean gave one of the band’s demo tapes to Ghinzu’s sound engineer, Christophe. Blown away by what he heard, Christophe offered to work with Montevideo at their live shows and started raving about them to Ghinzu’s frontman, Johnny Stargasm. After attending a live gig (that Jean still considers to be the worst in the band’s entire career!), the latter signed Montevideo to Ghinzu’s own label, Dragoon. One in the eye for all those conservative Belgian labels who had been scared off by Montevideo’s musical audacity!
After the three standard Montevideo questions, RFI Musique chose to wrap up our interview with a politically-charged one of our own. Where do Montevideo stand on the Walloon/Flemish divide? "I don’t actually think there are too many barriers between bands on the music scene," muses Julien, "But there are certainly things that could be improved between the two communities. As things stand, each region subsidises its own culture. I wouldn’t say we’re a ‘Belgian rock’ band, though. We think that term’s completely obsolete. We’re like any other band from a big cosmopolitan city like Berlin, Paris or Milan. I’d say if anything we’re closer to the local electro intelligentsia, to Flemish-speaking bands like Deus and Das Pop than we are to typical Walloon groups… Let’s face it, Belpop is a label that was stuck on a couple of Belgian bands that happened to break through in France at the same time. It doesn’t go any further than that!" Montevideo Belpop? Most definitely not!
Ludovic Basque
Translation : Julie Street
30/08/2007 -
