Interview

THE BLACK HEART REBELLION

Vendredi 16 août 2013

How are you ?

Tim Bryon : Fine, thank you.

I noticed tonight the venue was quite crowded. Last time I saw you live, a few weeks ago, it was in a bike shop in Brussels. And it's a pretty big difference. You played big festivals like Dour and Pukkelpop in August. How your audience usually like ?

Pieter Uyttenhove : We have to find out, but I think it was quite nice today. There were a lot of people, also last week at Dour Festival. We were the opening band at the cannibal stage but there were a lot of people.
But for every concert, it's a surprise for us to see how many people will be there and how they react. I also think the longer we play, the better it is. The audience maybe needs some time to get into the music.
T.B. : To adjust.
P.U. : It was nice today, we had a good response.
T.B. : What I've noticed at Dour and here at Boomtown today too is that, yes, we do play a lot of festivals, but we are not a party band. We're not that kind of band. We're a bit more earnest and people in the audience follow that. And it's really cool to archieve that, even though it's a strange word to describe it. It feels like we can do something where everybody is concentrated, also in the audience. And I think it's something difficult. I'm glad that we can reach that point, also with the audience, that everybody's concentrated and really listening to what we're doing.
P.U. : If you can get the people to be quiet at a festival during the quiet parts, it's very nice, and it was like that today and also at Dour Festival, even in the big tent, people were quiet during the quiet parts, they were listening. It's nice for us on stage.
T.B. : If people talk too much, it takes you out of your concentration when you're playing music and that's never good for the concert. If it's a loud audience, you really have to focus to stay into what you're doing. And at Dour and here, we archieved that, we stayed into the music.

That's what I wondered about Dour, which is famous for having more of a party audience. So I'm glad it went well.

P.U. : It was surprisingly good.
T.B. : You could hear a needle drop, which was completely against our expectations. I was expecting the worst but everybody was really listening.

© ChamO

What your best live experience ? You played in many places, from small bars to big festivals, you even played Japan, so what's the perfect place for you ?

P.U. : It's nice that now, after eight years of playing concerts, we somehow get recognition in Belgium and we get to play some nice festivals. Of course it's very good for us to play there.
There's a big difference between playing at a big festival like Dour on a big stage in the afternoon or playing in a small venue at night.
T.B. : Everything we learned by playing in the small bars helps us now to play on bigger stages. That's why we played at that bike store in Brussels a couple of weeks ago, not to forget about that, about where we come from : small bars and really basic circumstances. Everything we do now comes from there in a way. So what's better ? I don't know. We have our story. The Black Heart Rebellion

The Black Heart Rebellion

Clique pour voir la fiche du groupe

is about the evolution we made from a band that's really starting to play together, to search what we want to do as a band , where we want to play, doing tours abroad, going to Japan, and then arriving here at Boomtown, playing on big stages and getting away with it.

It was a long road to get there but you finally released your second album, Har Nevo in January. Are you still satisfied with it ?

P.U. : I think it's very difficult for a musician to be completely satisfied. From the moment you write a song or you record an album, you always start thinking what you could possibly change. But in general, we are really glad about Har Nevo : the songs, the way we recorded it, the people we worked together with. We took some not so obvious choices but every choice we made has led us to do things like Dour Festival last week.
T.B. : I think this record is really a record on which you can hear that we are searching for a new sound, for a new language to speak, for a new way to bring our music, and that's what I like about this album. Everything is about searching and in that way it's a really honest record. The lyrics are about that. You can hear it in the music, in the experiments that are on the record. It's going in a lot of different directions and on Har Nevo we're not choosing. We're just displaying. We're trying out new stuff.
P.U. : But with a main vision.
T.B. : Yes, of course. The people we worked with, to record and produce the album, really understood that. It was the best record we could make at that point. Still now, I'm really glad that we had the courage to make it because it wasn't the obvious choice. The obvious choice would have been to make a guitar-based screamo album, a bit like the previous one. But that's not what we wanted to do anymore, we wanted to search for something else. That became Har Nevo.
It took so long because we needed so long. Everything on the album is really well thought of. Nothing is there by accident.

© ChamO

I had the feeling you got many positive reactions when the album was released. How was the response according to you ?

T.B. : There were more positive reactions, but also a lot of negative ones too. People were mailing us because they didn't understand why we did that. They wanted to know what got into us, why we stopped what we were doing before. There were some really honest and touching reactions that I appreciate a lot. We chose to do something else and some people don't understand that, but most did. It was a dream for us to have such a well-received album because I understand it's difficult nowadays to released album and get noticed. But I don't know, maybe we had the right story with it.
P.U. : We knew very well that it wouldn't be an easy record for the "fans" or the people who knew us from before. Even for us, when we were writing the songs, it was a challenge as well.
T.B. : That's why it took so long !
P.U. : So we expected it would be the same for the fans. But in general we got very good reactions from people. Maybe we lost some fans who were more into the previous sound, but I think we won a lot of new ones.
T.B. : What I always answered to people mailing about not liking the record is "Give it some time. Leave it and then listen to it again."
P.U. : It took us four years as well.
T.B. : It's not something that can be there in a day. You have to leave it a bit, and listen again and maybe it will grow on you. I really hope it did for those people. Like it had to grow on us.

On your Facebook page, you wrote 'Punk. Independant.' as genre. It it how you define your band ?

T.B. : We don't define ourselves.
P.U. : Maybe it's not a bad term. It's the right description of how we approach music, not the sound of the music itself. The independant and DIY idea is still the way we approach and think about our music. So in a way, it fits what we do.
T.B. : It's not a coincidence that it's there but obviously we know that we're not playing punk music or something. But very roughly, it's in that direction. We are a very independant band. We don't have a manager. We try to do as much as possible ourselves. We get some help from bookers who do a really great job, but we've grown from a band that's doing everything itself which is incredibly interesting. We learned a lot from it. That's why we're also proud to use the label 'independant'.
P.U. : I never thought about it but maybe the 'punk independant' label is not so wrong. It gives a good idea of how we think about our music and the things that come around, how we deal with it all.

© ChamO

Do you have an idea of what the future holds for you ? Are you thinking about a third album already ? What are your plans ?

P.U. : We are thinking about new songs, yes.
T.B. : At this point, we're gathering inspiration. We haven't really decided in what direction it should go. Da's waar, hé ?
P.U. : We have a lot of festivals and concerts planned this summer but after that, we plan to slow it down a little bit so we have more time to focus on rehearsing.
T.B. : I think we will have to cut down on live shows again. We were forced to do that with the second album too. We tried to play shows and write songs at the same time but it didn't work. We lost our focus and just couldn't do both things at the same time. We have to make a choice a bit after the new year.

When you look at your promo pictures, designs, videos, the lights used at the shows, everything seems connected. Who's in charge of that aspect ?

P.U. : The music decides of that. As Tim said, when we recorded the album, we were searching for the sounds but we had one main atmosphere in mind, no matter what instruments we could use. We just wanted to archieve that atmosphere we wanted to create. It's also the same with the visuals, with the lights, with the graphic design. We use whatever we want if we know it fits the atmosphere we try to explain with the music. That's why we try to take care of all those things as well like a "punk independant" band. Because you have the music as one thing to express something but it's nice if it doesn't stop there, if you can create a whole thing around the music. And I don't mean in a theatrical way or something...
T.B. : We're just not that kind of band but it doesn't mean the lights shouldn't be in sync with the music. It doesn't mean the artwork shouldn't be in sync with what's on the album in fact. We've always taken care of every aspect of the band, which means the artworks, releasing our own stuff and distributing it, everything in the chain of the music. It's logical to do that live too, to create something that is a whole, where everything fits. Lights have become very important to us. We used to play in small clubs and there were no lights, just one spot. It was really cool for a couple of years but now we get something more that we can play with. I really freak out when a see a light guy going crazy with the buttons as if it was a fun fair. When our light guy isn't with us, the only thing a tell the guy is "Don't make it as if you were at a fun fair, don't do too much". It's usually difficult for them to understand that, to just go easy and follow the music, but for us it's extremely important because it's a much a part of the experience as the music itself. Everything you see and you hear has to be one in a way.