dEUS - A Small-Big Secret
Blitz, 23 March 99

Translated by Isabel Gabriel

It’s known, dEUS will be again among us on 5 and 6 June, for two sporadic apparition in Lisbon and Oporto, which are supposed to be moments of generalized aclamation.

After all, we aren’t blessed by the divine presence every day, but the truth is that dEUS were also here almost unnoticed lask week, in one more action of his doctrine’s propaganda. We spoke with him and concluded, dEUS exists but his health is shaky.

Who told us the bad news was Craig Ward, guitarist and vocal of this belgian band (even though he’s scottish), at the same time he complained about the main vocals, Tom Barman, who didn’t carry out his promotional commitements, refusing to give more interviews; “bunch of selfish” he shout. Therefor we had to interview Craig Ward and we couldn’t be so lucky: graduated in philosophy and literature, this formely street musician is an excellent talker.

Before leaving to the TV studio where dEUS recorded 2 songs for the TV program “Miguel Ângelo Ao Vivo”, Craig showned, apart from a stoic patience while he was being interviewed by several portuguese journalists, sincerity and surrender to this promotional scheme of the music industry which contrasts with what is common in other bands.

Quite the opposite of the usual cassette shoot by the interviewees in numerous reunions with journalists, Craig was willing to respond in detail to every question, without avoiding to talk about the less pleasant stuff about the band. I mean, being part of dEUS doesn’t mean to have a great life.

Before getting onto the implications of being a member of a band called dEUS, it’s interesting to know how a band coming from a small european country, like Belgium, with a small record market even if compared to Portugal, has become in a band with international structure, with tours with more than 160 dates across all Europe.

The answer by it’s logic and simplicity, wasn’t difficult to predict: “Basically, this happened because we signed to an international label in London. As you know being to an international label and making long tours across Europe it helps a lot. At least, here in Portugal it seems that worked just fine! Which to us it stills a true mistery... (laughs). In the beginnig we toured in Belgium, but we also played a lot in Spain. For no reason at all, except the fact that our manager has some kind of connection to Spain, where he usually spends some time, which helped us to make some tours in that country, even with low budgets.”

Now it was necessary to catch the artistic part of the thing. I’ve already noticed that dEUS were smiled upon by fortune when they signed to a major international label, capable of distribute their records around the world. But do dEUS think about an international public when they compose their songs? Craig Ward assumes his attitude of an artist and refuses to be taken as a “product”: “We are only concerned in making things right and making them better and better. It’s all we can do to get to more people. Of course that when we are writting a song, sometimes, we have the feeling that some themes will please a certain faction of public, but it’s completely impossible to control these kind of things. It was necessary to point to an especific public and we are musicians not business men. And we are very proud of that.”

If their sucess happens due to the fact that their music is available, either in records or concerts, everywhere, the traditional question is if the musicians prefer the stage or the recording sessions.

Craig, as we said, before joining dEUS spent many time as a street musician carrying his guitar from a place to another, inclusively in Portugal before he was known. However, his answer goes on the other way. If we were expecting a passion for the presence on stage and for touring, we couldn’t be so wrong. Besides, with time passing by things change: “Nowadays i prefer to record. Playing live is good, but being on tour is awful. To me, some time ago being on a stage was a tremendous excitement, today is just a nightmare. Living on a bus for months is shity. All the thrill caused by being on the stage disappears in two days. I’m more interested on the perfectionist and artistic side than in some kind of spontaneity. More and more i prefer things elaborated and materialised in an immaculate way. On the other hand, now i’m married and i don’t like to be separated from my wife 2 or 3 weeks.”

Life on the road for long periods is not that paradise we imagine, only acessible to a limited number of rock’n’roll stars. And it’s not just the nomadic life that provokes damages after some months of life spent in hotels. The relationships between the members of the band start to collapse. There are few people to confirm this but Craig Ward has the courage to do it: “I’m ok, but if it’s necessary i disappear and meet the rest of the band at the soundcheck. But the truth is that nowadays i’m much more peaceful than some time ago. I used to drink a lot and i quit drinking a year ago. There’s an enormous difference. When we are on tour it’s easy to get in this cycle. We drink every day because we feel awful and because we are so drunk we feel terrible! We don’t sleep well, we’re always tired and in the afternoon we have interviews to be done and we are exhausted. So i stoped drinking when i realized it’s an easy trap to fall into. I had to stop. This tour we’re starting it’s the first one i’ll be sober!” What about the other members of dEUS? “Oh, they keep being a bunch of drunk bastads, but i like the idea of being sober surrounded by people who drinks!”

The Ideal Crash, the last record of dEUS, exposes these differences of perspective and perhaps the dark sonority of the album is due to that rupture. It’s known that this wasn’t predicted but is undeniable that this is the most coherent album of the band, so far. Craig doesn’t disagree and add “ This is an album with a very constant atmosphere. On the other records there were many ups and downs from song to song, but in this one there’s a dark and intense ambience across all the record. The songs were written in a slowlier way in Antwerp. Everything was more difficult and it seemed endless. On the other records we found proliferous phases where we felt inspired and in 2 or 3 weeks we wrote a lot of songs. Things happened. This time, the songs were written after a long tour, we were very tired and the truth is that we should have stopped a while to rest. But attention, we can be something dark but we aren’t gothics!! We are sincerely dark. If you were on the studio while we were recording the album you would noticed how angry we were and the atmosphere wasn’t friendly! Listening to the album he sounds exactly like that. In our band there are several strong  forces. Tom has a precise idea of how thigs should sound, and the same happen to me but in other direction. That’s why we work in a very strange way. We don’t even talk to each other. When our drummer went to the studio to hear some stuff, two days after the recording sessions he didn’t recognize the songs! “Oh! This is like that now???” Communication is a hard thing when it’s concerned with dEUS.”

Among this lack of communication is more or less evident that the idea of break up as already cross someone’s head. I asked that to Craig and he answered without blinking, speaking with no problem at all about this difficult subject. “At this present moment everything’s fine. I mean, we have a tour to make and we’re going to play the new songs for the first time. Although i hate the tours. But the songs, namely  the one’s we never played live, are part of our life. When they are recorded in the studio they became in something conclusive. Then we have to learn them so we can play them live, and sometimes we get to attached to the album version. But some songs, we have to transform them. The funny thing is that after play them 10 or 12 times, it seems that they became new songs. It’s a second nature. The first times we play them live we don’t like them a lot, because we are worried about what we have to do. After a while that job is more confortable and it seems, sincerely, that we are driving a car. It’s not necessary to think a lot. And that is great! It’s what make things move forward. At this moment we finished the album and we’re going on tour, the truth is that we have no idea about what we’re going to do next year. I know the tour will end in August and nothing more.”

dEUS biography’s distributed by their publisher, or even those we find in the internet, are unanimous considering Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart as references to the belgian band. Even without denying the importance of these two names, Craig says that inflences are relative and shows some surprise when i say the name of a scottish project, Band Of Holy Joy,: “That is new! The Band Of Holy Joy? I remember the name and i know i’ve heard their music, even though they are scottish like me. I have to listen them again. Nowadays i’m not in touch with what’s being edited and every time i listen again to Captain Beefheart i get more convinced that he is a charlatan. It has nothing genuine or sincere.” This didn’t hold dEUS of working for a long time with one of Captain Beefheart’s man, the sound engineer Eric Drew Feldman, who worked with Pixies, Frank Black, Pere Ubu, and was recentely in Portugal not only as a sound tecnician of dEUS, but also as a guitar player of PJ Harvey when she played at Festival Sudoeste.

Appealing to the wisdom of several internet sites maintained by dEUS fans, i thought it was fair to ask what happened to 2 songs, which apparentely, aren’t in The Ideal Crash. “God Of Small Things” and “Sam Peckinpah’s Daughter” are the songs. “The first one became “The Magic Hour”, which, by the way, is in the album. The second, is a song we played live for a couple of years, that’s why we didn’t put it in the album, it’s not a new song and so there wasn’t much enthusiasm for it. It’s a pop song a little frivolous that didn’t fit with the dark atmosphere of the album. Besides we never recorded that song. There are three songs we never finished but we’ll do it later.”

The interview ended with a question intended to satisfy the curiosity about the small tour of Craig and Tom in Belgium. After all it’s really true and, by the way, pay attention on Craig’s musical preferences: “By the end of 1997, we made a little tour of 15 dates only with our acoustics guitars. Some of the songs were original, others were covers. We made covers of “New Partner” by Will Oldham, “Teachers” by Leonard Cohen, “Thirteen” by Big Star, “Black Eye” by Uncle Tupelo ­ which broke up becaming in Son Volt and Wilco, but none of them are as good as Uncle Tupelo... Before being with dEUS i knew a lot of music and i was in touch with everything that was being edited, because i was playing in the streets and i was already playing Uncle Tupelo and Neil Young. In the beginning of the 90’s i was on top of every american bands: Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Sebadoh, Jesus Lizard. Now i’m not interested in these bands because since Nirvana became so popular, they stop being my small-big secret.”

It’s curious because this is the way portuguese public still see dEUS, as a small-big secret, less and less well keept.