Five for the A-side, five for the B-side
FM4, 27.03.2008 - original in German

Interview by Holzmann on the website of FM4, an Austrian radio station

Vantage Point

For dEUS the new album Vantage Point came to life comparatively quick. Only a three year break compared to the six years, which lay between The Ideal Crash and Pocket Revolution. Why did it go faster this time?

Tom Barman: Actually it was only two and a half years. But we still want to work faster. The long break before Pocket Revolution had many reasons: after Craig (Ward) left the band, we didn't want to look immediately for a new guitarist. Actually I wanted to take a time-out, but then came the film Any Way The Wind Blows. Instead of a short-film it became a big movie. Then we had a bad start, with all the problems, which were there when we recorded Pocket Revolution. People left the band and came back again. That took up a lot of time. At the end we were on the road a lot, played 150 shows with Pocket Revolution and already started writing songs for the new album on the day after the tour. We built our own studio with the intention to go on tour more strategically, that we are no longer on tour for a long time but can go back to the studio in between. The next dEUS album should therefore appear already at the end of next year.

This line-up must remain together

Was the last tour something like an acid test whether the current line-up holds together for more than only one album and a tour?

Tom Barman: Yes, hopefully. The atmosphere is very good, everyone of us seems to enjoy the situation in the band and therefore I would like to do everything, in order to hold this Setup together.

For the last album you went to the studio with definite song ideas and in the course of the studio work every song grew into a little monster. This time the pieces are very compact, each song sounds very closed and complete in itself. What changed there?

Tom Barman: This time we worked together with Dave McCracken, an English producer. The Englishmen are just very song-oriented. When we worked with Eric Feldman, who has worked with the Pixies and Captain Beefheart, it was different, he was a producer from a total artistic, wild corner. The Ideal Crash was with David Botrill, a producer who had more the task of a band psychiatrist who had to check constantly that not everyone hits each other on the head. With Dave McCracken it was different, he has this love for pop songs. And that's probably why the songs became so compact. Dave gave clear instructions, that is too strong, that better not - and we said: who the hell are you? To realize at the end: yes, he's right. It's always a sort of gamble to work with a producer because he could take the whole thing out of your hands. He can kill your thing, without you noticing it. But in this case it worked out very well. We wanted to have something compact, that you like to play live. We wanted to have something that jumps directly into your face. Vantage Point is the album that Pocket Revolution should have become.

Everything was difficult with Pocket Revolution

With Pocket Revolution one rather had the feeling that each song is an album for itself.

Tom Barman: Pocket Revolution was in the long run an inside directed album. It was shaped from the feeling that one isolates himself from the world, closes himself in to be busy just with himself. Everything was difficult with this album. It is to that extent surely not the most coherent, but from its development probably the most important album. Vantage Point however was made in a more playful, energetic environment.

Electronic Vibes

The album has a very electronic pulse in addition to the classical songwriting qualities one knows from the band.

Tom Barman: This is strange. Because there's only one song with a synthesizer. We played/recorded everything live, without any post-editing on the computer - except "The Architect". But it's not the first time that one asks me about the electronic vibe of the album. That's probably the influence of Dave McCracken. He comes, because of his work with Depeche Mode, from this electro-sequence generated music.

Tired of syncopes and breaks

When dEUS played for the first time in Vienna, the concert was a small orgy of breaks, syncopes and similar elements.

Tom Barman: Yes, but that really bored us with the time. At the time of WCS we played some really bad shows, because we had to improvise all the time. That did have its charm at that time and we also made some good things. But one day you have enough of it. The Ideal Crash already meant the departure from this kind of free kind of music. We now had 150 shows in the legs, went into the studio and brought it to a point. McCracken constantly spurred us there. He was speechless, to experience a band where everyone is so close to one another.

10,000 Days

Will dEUS remain live with this compact structure or will the songs then become longer, as usual?

Tom Barman: No, no, they are already 2 minutes longer... don't worry. "Is a Robot" is in the live version rather progrock-y and that fits in this case also the topic

The middle of "Is A Robot" again goes rather forward...

Tom Barman: ... yes, that is the effect of the last tour. Each night, before we went on stage we listened to Tool...

... Tool?!

Tom Barman: Yes, we heard "10,000 Days" again and again, before we went on the stage. That had to settle somehow. Tool are simply great.

Slow, the key song

On the dEUS website fans already debate about the meaning of the term "Vantage Point", that is also in the song "slow" and also, if the line "If you can slow up, I can slow up too..." is meant positively or negatively.

Tom Barman: I read an article by a Dutch sociologist, who said, if it's clear to you what goes on in the world and you possess a certain degree of intelligence, then you develop with the age a healthy measure or distance from things - which should not be confused with indifference. I found it amazing, because I'm the total opposite of that, I have to react immediately. That kills me some times. Actually "Vantage Point" is a song about our guitarist Mauro Pawlowski. I admire the way certain things simply pass him by. If I see a glass falling from a table, I would jump only to catch it. Someone else, like Maro, watches the glass fall and thinks "Oh... Shit". Actually the song is about developing a more stoic attitude, a certain measure. "Slow up" is of course a wordplay. And it's also the name of the label of our first producer.

Is this also your "vantage point"?

Tom Barman: Yes, it is in a certain way a question how one regards things, how you see things. One can write songs about how one is, how other people are. One can also write songs about coffee machines. And one can also write about what one wants to try or achieve. For us as a band this song is very important, because it was made at the end and because we wrote it together. There is a difference, also when singing, if the song developed while jamming. To that extent "Slow" is a key song, because one plays after certain rules and so an everlasting song develops. And also we all sing for the first time together in a song.

Lies Lorquet

The Song "Eternal Woman" was made together with Lies Lorquet from Mintzkov...

Tom Barman: Yes, she already participated in Pocket Revolution. I have searched for years for her. Here everyone wants to sing like Beyonc? nothing against a Beyonc?ut I was looking for a clear, beautiful voice, in the style of the 90s, like Juliana Hatfiled or Kim Deal of the Pixies. Lies Lorquet has it and will be part of every album from now on. She is really nice and straightforward and not to unnerve. We love her all.

New generation

Has dEUS created a kind of typical sound, which now the next generation in Flanders, like Mintzkov, carries on?

Tom Barman: Oh nice, I didn't know that Mintzkov is known in Austria. I think that a whole new generation develops now. Some of them are more dance oriented, like Goose for instance. Because the Antwerp factor is asked again and again: The people like to proclaim certain scenes. I think that the people work together because the country is so small.
Although in Belgium it is different than in Holland, where everyone works more for himself. So maybe it's really a Belgian thing. Of course there are band leaders who are jealous if people play in other bands too. I have to say, I love it, as long as it's clear that dEUS is the most important. When we don't work on an album or on a tour, it is clear that everyone works on the projects that are in his heart.

No prohibitions for other projects

So Mauro Pawlowski can continue to work on The Love Substitutes?

Tom Barman: Sure. That's what he does at the moment, since I make the whole promo work. He has time. And I would never stop him.

Maybe the impression of an "Antwerp scene" comes up because certain people always pop up again. Like Rudy Trouvé who can be seen in the video to "Ideal Crash" as a policeman.

Tom Barman: I am quite loyal there. Rudy Trouvé is a great artist. People like Rudy were very important for me. When I started with dEUS, I was very young, Rudy was 30 and had all the information that he brought into the songs. He was very important. It would be funny to work together again, although he finds it probably less fun to work with me.

The order of the songs

dEUS has played quite early with a DVD with additional, unpublished multimedia material. Do you think about releasing albums like Trent Reznor or Radiohead on the internet?

Tom Barman: I'm not so technology-oriented. I follow these things, that means I read about them. People often ask me what has changed in the last 15 years. Nothing much changed. We still make albums, promote them, play them live. Only on the side of the labels you never know if the person you work with at the moment is still there in 2 weeks. We never made much money with money out of CD sales, because what we earn, we have put again into our music. Always good music is made and played everywhere, people go to concerts more than ever. The only thing I regret is, that the album as a format disappears. That young people don't know the feeling of going home with an album under their arm, coming home, ignoring the mother because they have to get into their room to listen to the A-side and then to the B-side - that is then their loss. I defend the concept of an album. Anyhow, it also concerns things like the order of songs, which is a constant subject of controversy in the band.

Then it's still the best to use vinyl.

Tom Barman: Yes, definitely. That's why we made 10 songs. 5 for the A-side, 5 for the B-side.

Interview by Holzmann - Translation by lovedeus