|
The
foreseeable unforseeableness Interview with Tom Barman, dEUS leader The English elected them as the best rock from the Continent. They come from Antwerp and like the name dEUS, their music is the normality reviewed as oddity. They released "In A Bar Under The Sea", which came as an excuse to a conversation with Tom Barman; where we discussed Kundera, fast food, and metaphors. Born in Antwerp, 1992, dEUS were created by the composer, guitarist and singer Tom Barman. Instead of making up a conventional band he bonded people from other arts, namely painting. They started from a strange noise collection released as an EP enough to appeal the "major" Island; where they recorded their debut album "Worst Case Scenario" (1994). Instead of the usual hostility, the British media elected them as the best European rock band. Two years later comes a second album, spectacular as well, yet not for the same reasons. Tom Barman boasts in the interview, as a symbol, a foreseeable unforseeableness. Interviewer - When one hears dEUSs' CDs gets a feeling of seeing a plurality of universes. What's your musical strategy? Tom Barman - Whilst doing music we don't compel ourselves to any kind of constraint, if jazz occurs, it's OK, but if it is punk, it won't get censured for that. Everything is possible and that's why each song appears as its' own personal world. Our guitarist elected one of Kunderas' (*) books as his favourite and he usually compares it to the music we play. Kunderas' book is a book about books; our music "talks" about other music genres. Habituation examples I - There is, however, a common line between all that diversity. It' s that dEUS music illustrates claustrophobia. TB - My favourite CDs are the ones I "taste" in short and progressive doses. That is, on one hand I live with those CDs as interlocutors during several months. On the other, nowadays there are too much CDs being released in the market, and one might reduces the music to "fast food". Therefore we work really hard to make each album and we wish the listener would work a bit on his side as well. I hope they'd get used to our music for some time. I believe that after some time, that claustrophobia feeling you are saying will disappear. I - I've read an article in which the manager who hired you to Island declares that dEUSs' third album is the one which is going to be for real. Could it be possible that he thinks you're going to be a "hits machine"? TB - What I think is that he is going to be mistaken. It's true that "Little Arithmetics", this albums' first single, is getting well accepted in English radios. That suits our expectations, because it is, intentionally, a "poppy" and accessible number. Yet it doesn' t fits to a changing direction plane. We've always worked with rhythm and melody, which are the most important things in music; it's casual when, in the middle of the work we're doing, comes a "poppy" song. Island way of thinking is a bit different: the typical calculating company, seeing the groups' success at a long term. I - But this album does changes from the moment "Little Arithmetics" ends. TB - We wanted to start the album with an affirmation like: "BANG! Here we are!" and then be more intimate from that song on. But in that line, the record goes from neurotic, with "Guilty Pleasures" to "Sepentine"s' quietness. I - As a kind of preamble to "Fell Of The Floor Man" one can hear someone saying, "you got to be your own dog". What does it means? TB - Americans' group: "Girls Against Boys"s' singer once said it, and we decided to use it. I don't know what he meant by that. I just figured it sounded OK. I - Anyway, as that statement, your lyrics fluctuate between the nonsense and an encrypted emotive speech. Why do you refuse the narrative speech? TB - In this album you'll find "Disappointed In The Sun", which is the first narrative song I've ever written. It's the story of a man, sick of being here on earth, who doesn't wants to fly because he is afraid of heights so he decides to go deep down in the sea. It's precisely this image that inspires the albums' name "In a Bar Under The Sea"; that makes us think in an imaginary, yet familiar plane, which implies some oddity. This exact mixture is the essentials of dEUS. Back to the question, I like the narrative form, but I'm not a good storyteller. I'm more at ease whilst doing small poems that, probably, bring sublime sentences combined with familiar elements, as the furniture or the Italian pasta I had last night. A Flemish scent I - But won't this second album be a traditional structure one? TB - It has both. Some are traditional, but also some others are experimental. Anyway I don't believe we're able to make conventional songs. Even if we think that this or that theme is somewhat more "mainstream", it's curious, because people listen and they don't have that opinion. Maybe the essential point is that we've become too foreseeable in our unforeseeableness. I - All dEUSs' CDs covers are Rudy Trouvés' (who occasionally also plays guitar with the group). Why? TB - Rudy, besides being a painter also does exhibitions. But the painted covers are orders we do to him. We hope, that with this, who's seeing all records' covers gets a continuity idea. Even because Rudy was our guitarist during two years, he knows well the groups' spirit, and his paintings have a poetry and metaphorical character related to our music. These paintings aren't nor too abstract, nor too naïf and it is a bit between those two perspectives we find dEUS music. I - By the time of your first albums' release English music magazines said you were the best rock band from the Continent. Won't it be because your music is somewhat like the Anglo-American alternative rock concept? TB - I believe our influences are above all in the other side of the Atlantic. I like the English Massive Attack and Steroelab, but I'm mainly influenced by American artists such as Captain Beefheart, Pavement, Sebadoh. I believe we mix it all with Flemish and French musical culture, and something fresh comes up. I - It's a bit weird an Antwerpian group with cabarets' influences, singing only in English. TB - I write Flemish texts, and it won't be long until I decide to sing them, the same way with French. The only problem is that up to now we haven't find a reason to do it. (*) - "A Insustentável Leveza do Ser" (Portuguese name) which in English is something like "The Unbearable Lightness Of The Being", or more grammatically correct "Beings' Unbearable Lightness", is the only thing I can't translate, I'm really sorry...
|