Absurity interview

The advanced readers may heard about the french band, Absurdity. I asked Erik about the band and everydays. Sometimes zNo, the samplerist and backgorund vocalist spoke too, I made another interview with him, but I’ll talk about it later. Let’s see, what’s up with the industrial death metal monster!

Greetings from Hungary and i’m happy that i got the chance of the interiew. First of all, please introduce the band, who is in which position, and since when they are members?

Erik: Hi Zoli! Well, we are really proud to feature on your pages, so thanks indeed. Here we go:

ABSURDITY is a 6 members combo, including Olivier (Vocals), Cédric (Guitars), David (Bass), Arnaud (Drums), zNo (samples/Backing vocals) and myself (on Guitar as well). We started playing together back in 2002, in Strasbourg, France. We still have the same line-up for a year now, and actually, only the singer and myself are from the original line up.

Would you tell a little about Naked Scarecrow and Inhumate? What is good to know about the samples, Ricardo Gomes (tha is zNo)?

Erik: There are friends of us, living in the same home town. Actually Ricardo do play with Naked Scarecrow. Inhumate is a kind of reference for the grindcore scene over here.

zNo: These bands shows us what is real madness….

The situation is that, i get into contact with many little odd french bands through the years, like with the industrial experimental noise Whourkr or the crossover gore foolery Cadaveric Hunter, and you know what is suprising? They do not have or had a label even though they do fine quality music, thus they release/d their materials by themselves as you do/did. That muchly there isn’t any reasonable label in France, or the musicians don’t want to close themselves into incorrect contracts? Anyway do you know the mentioned bands?

Erik: Actually, I didn’t ever heard about Whourkr, I went straight to their band page…Damn, these guys plays amazing stuff… but I knew Cadaveric Hunter. To answer your question, there is plenty of good labels up here, BUT, with that record crisis (people are downloading more than ever…), they seems to be cautious before signing up a new band. Actually, we didn’t get any serious propositions for a record deal, in sense of we didn’t look for one…But now the new record is out, we will be searching for a Label, yes.

zNo: that’a music for me 🙂

Which bands make you proud, please feature some of your homeland scene?

Erik: Hey, everyone knows GOJIRA now, they still are our leaders, representing France worldwide. We such have plenty of great bands, the ones that comes in mind yet are Loudblast, Dagoba, and the whole DIRTY 8 crew  such talented bands. Even if one of them (SUPERBUTT) is from Hungary :}

Which bands had an impact on you?

Erik: I would say every major bands we played with, such as Gojira, Suffocation, or Dew Scented for example..They had a direct impact on us, because playing with such acts makes you improve your attitude and even your musicianship…If you meant in general, then I would tell you bands like Hatebreed, Fear Factory, Napalm Death, or Sepultura and Morbid Angel

In my article i mention the english deathcore band’s name, Ted Maul too (only they are much more industrial and experimental), do you know them? How did that come that from the trash-death and HC mixture at the beginnings, now you play deathcore? Isn’t that orientating towards the trend?

Erik: Yeah, you’re right, Ted Maul sound more Drum n’ Bass/industrial than Absurdity, but I really like their way to play music, and they got a great sound production! About our musical orientation, I would say it came naturally after playing all together..We all do listen to different kind of music, some are more “straight death Metal”, some more into the Hardcore vein…When we mixed it all up, then we create that hybrid style, build on all our influences…..There is no fashion-stuff behind what we play, only the music we like.

Actually, what do you think of metalcore, and the third or fourth generation HC and deathcore dudes? Isn’t that sad, that these 15-year-old youngsters don’t even heard the name of Agnostic Front or Cro-mags?

Erik: Haha, sure, such a pity! I know what you mean, how do you want to talk about Hardcore if you don’t even have a clue of who are Agnostic Front, Madball, or even Biohazard… Actually, I don’t really give a fuck about what do people listen to, which kind of music is fashionable, and until when it will be…It seems that kids has always been listening to what Major companies told them to, speaking for France. In fact, some of these metalcore bands sounds pretty good to me, but most of them is playing the same stuff, hard to guess which band is the copycat…

Loads of songs have been borned through your 8 years of activity, don’t you think, it would be good to release an album at last?

zNo: You’re right Dude, we really would like to record a full length album. The thing is, we made that E.P in order to search for a label to help us growing up…Making a full cd is really expensive by now, and we cannot handle the full costs of a whole Album. Especially because we are not distributed, even if we just signed a deal with BELIEVE DIGITAL to have our songs on legal downloads platforms. You know how hard it is to have a record and no one to spread it…

This question is a little out of place, but in my opinion apocalypse and suffering aren’t far away from your lyrics, and i’m really curious how do you see the whole thing. So, in your country how much do you feel from the crisis? Do you beleive, that better days will come, or you only have a little hope int hat? In what do you see the whole situation’s cause, and what could be the solution?

Erik: Well, Absurdity is more like an “observer” of the whole thing, what did man to mother earth, we are obsessed by the impact of our consumer society on our planet…Watching men in self destruction doesn’t make us feel like humanity will get better in the future, but we still hope for a global awakening of the mentalities…In our own country or every elsewhere the crisis is just a consequence of all that business/profit crap of the leaders, economy rules the world man!

Let’s switch to much more pleasant topics, beer or wine? Haha

Erik: According to my own way of life, neither of it…I don’t drink and I am vegan since a long time ago…

zNo: Speaking for the rest of the band, I would say both! Maybe wine, in the way there is more alcohol contents :}

Do you have something in your mind for the readers of Fémforgács?

Erik: You guys got a really beautiful country, the cutest girls in the world, the best beers, and what else? .Aoh, you got such talent bands like Isten Háta Mögött, Superbutt, or Blind Myself! So there is nothing I could say except “you lucky bastards”!

Anything by the right of the last word?

Erik: Thanks to you once again, for your time and support, please come and check our stuff at www.absurdity-music.com , we would proud to come and have a couple of gigs in Hungary! Stay Metal!

Thanks for the interview, i hope, that once we gonna meet, take care!

Zoli