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Post-hardcore, yeah. That's how we come to describe every
non-metal band we dig but don't understand. Enter Gentle Veincut, they totally rip. Up until now Germany was mainly known
for its beer, sausage, cars, the Scorpions and its fascination
with David Hasselhoff, but Concrete Landing, the new
effort by this Teutonic post-hardcore band, promises to change
that for good. Well, only if you pay attention.
Vocalist/synthesizer She-Dog, guitarist Monsieur
Hybrid, bassist/guitarist rbrt and drummer Tee-Rex joined us and were gentle enough to
answer our questions. Read on!
 :
You guys come from Eschborn, as of 2004, population 20,580.
It's also at close proximity from Frankfurt a city that in your
bio you regard as meaningless. How did the band come together?
Why is Frankfurt meaningless'?
MH: We did not live in Eschborn, but there
we had a practice-room in a local youth-centre. 1990 we started
our first punk-rock attempts. It's just like in a cheap novel-
we formed the band in high-school. The set-up was vocals, two
guitars, bass and drums. The parents of our former bass-player,
Volkan, felt relieved that we finally found a space to hit the
shit out of our instruments and left their
row-house-basement...We practised a lot but it took us about 3
years to record a tape and 5 years and several personal shuffles
till we recorded our first CD 'Cupid Mount Etna' in 95. It's
quite psychedelic and among other things we experimented with
metal-percussion, samples and a horn-section. There were plans
to release it on a label called 'Hazelwood records' but their
distributor feared that it wouldn't sell the way they wanted. I
am sure he was right, but who knows? Anyway, we produced 1000
CD's and still have some copies left. The insignificance of
Frankfurt is a cultural one in the first place. The city
pretends to be a big cosmopolitan player, but in fact: it is not
and has never been. It may be the city of financial traffic and
phallic architecture but in terms of (sub)cultural diversity you
can call it a desert compared to Berlin, Hamburg or Cologne.
SD: Well, for me personally Frankfurt ain't meaningless at all, cause I grew up here and have just
been away for 4 years as a child (my father was working in
Istanbul - so I lived there in my teens) and I think if I lived
somewhere else - let's say for example... hum... Hawaii... I
might not do this kind of singing in this kind of band! I think
our music's sound is quite aggressive and dark (sometimes) - so
is living in this town (sometimes). We all like to talk bad of
Frankfurt, like: “the bank-city, cold-people-city,
nothing-happening-city...” But I don't know if I'd be any
happier or unhappier in another town - though it would be great to
live at the seaside, large forests, mountains, deserts, nice
friendly people... o.k., I'll stop this nonsense!
RT: Um. Oh. My mommy met my daddy and they did the things that
parents do in order to become parents. If you meant this with
our beginnings. Originally I am not from Frankfurt but from Ruesselsheim, some city nearby. It sports a huge car factory,
owned by GM. Lovely place.
:
Tell us a little bit about the beginnings of the band. How did
you find each other? How do you think the band has evolution? Has it at
all?
MH: As I said - I met two of the former
band members in school and the others were friends we used to
hang around with. When we founded the band in 1990 we had no
objectives. We wanted to have fun and turn up the
volume-switches of our amps as high as possible. Our first
concert took place in the gym of my school. We started and
nearly everybody was bolting towards the exit-doors covering
their ears. Three or four guys stayed, banging their heads and
raising their fists. After some songs the mixer cut the
electricity and someone poured a bucket of water right into the
face of our drummer, cause he kept pounding the drums for 15
minutes or so. I forgot what happened next but this was our
debut. In the beginning our songs were very simple and raw. This
changed when our old drummer left us and a new one (Stefan)
joined. He also played guitar in a band called 'Sud'. They
sounded like an absolutely successful mixture of Dinosaur Jr.,
Smog and Sonic Youth and would have topped The Beatles if they
would not have split up. He had a big influence on the
development of the new songs, which became longer and more
complex. But the drummers changed and so did the music. They
always had a big influence. Tee Rex plays the drums for more
than 10 years now and Rbrt joined us 6 years ago, when our old
bass player Volkan moved to Berlin to become something like a
Gangsta-Rapper. I never felt a creative stagnation but maybe we
should retire, so that we could reunite after a couple of years
like everybody does now. For example The Stooges, who released
an absolutely needless and boring new record.
TR: Rbrt used to play keyboards/sampler when I joined the band,
and at that time there also was a saxophonist playing - the
sound in total was quite complex and varied. They both quitted
shortly after, but it surely had a certain influence on the
style of the music and how it was structured.
:
Gentle Veincut sounds like suicide, I mean if I was to cut my
veins even though it'd be my last act, it just seems as if it
was something that I'd do carefully? Why the name Gentle Veincut?
SD: I like the name of the band (it was
Monsieur H.'s idea), cause it's mean - and we are mean
destructive people, playing mean music to a mean audience!
Honestly, I don't think that the name was created with any deep
meaning or thinking... it just fits well to our sound.
MH: The phrase 'Gentle Veincut' occurred one morning after I
spent the whole night thinking about different names. I would
agree that it was not created with a deep meaning. Many people
told us that they didn't like it, cause it would glorify suicide
or at least sound very depressive. I've never thought of cutting
my own veins, rather the wrist of some asshole. Meanwhile I
would say that the name is a perfect symbolization of our music.
I like the obvious contradiction, which results from combining
completely oppositional associative terms. Cutting a vein is a
brutal act associated with pain, blood and sharp items. Doing it
gentle doesn't fit into this picture at all. You read it as
carefulness, whereas I prefer tranquility or delicateness. This
is exactly the way our music works- like a blade wrapped up in
cotton candy. First it makes you feel comfortable or safe but
the moment you reach a relaxing point and are having a rest
there is something waiting around the corner, ready to split and
slit.
:
In my review of Concrete Landing I referred to it as an angular
punk rock record. Reading back on it I feel as if I
short-changed the band, because the record itself can't be boxed
into just that category. How is it that you would describe your
sound?
MH: You're writing for a zine, so it is
your 'job' to find expressions, which describe the music in a
way the reader can sort it into a drawer. This is not easy and
maybe you often find better descriptions than a band by itself.
Concrete Landing is for sure an angular punk rock record. At the
same time you are confronted with rhythms other writers call
mathematical. The next contradiction- abstract and straight
forward, clean-shaved and scrubby. Head versus ass. Till now I
failed in finding a suitable definition for our music. Angular
Punk Rock is a new specification in our expanding collection.
SD: I'd describe it as
'aggressive-into-the-face-romantic-this-is-not-a-love-song-core'
- but that's not an existing music category, is it?
RT: Oh wow, 'angular punk rock'!! For me it's a huge
compliment... since I love angular punk rock...We already had
descriptions like 'intelligent punk', and I felt quite offended
by the term 'intelligent'...because I agree with MH on 'head vs
ass', but 'intelligent' sounds as boring as 'Eschborn'.
TR: One of the worst descriptions that we ever had was
'pop rock'! I think it was for a show somewhere in the
Netherland
However, when reading your review I don't have the impression
that you are boxing the record into just one category. For
example you describe it as a mixture between AmpRep and Sonic
Youth - and I think somewhere you are also using the word(s)
'post hardcore', which I think also fits. Anyway, I think
'angular punk rock' is quite a nice 'label' for it.
:
Tell us a little about the writing of Concrete Landing. How long
since your previous release Last of the Atomic Angels? I haven't
heard that one so was Concrete Landing a different approach to
songwriting or was it natural? Why so few songs? It left me
craving for more.
TR: Our previous release was a self-titled diy-CD from 2005.
'The Last of the Atomic Angels' was published
in 2003 and was the first release with Rbrt. The approach to
songwriting hasn't changed since then - at least not knowingly:
either Monsieur Hybrid comes up with some new guitar-riffs or
even a complete new song he has prepared at home and then we
tinker with them until we have some nice parts and try to put
them together, or often we develop new parts during the
rehearsal by playing (and talking). In any case everyone puts
his or her oar in; so nearly every song is a result of
co-operation and sometimes also bargaining. Most lyrics are
written by She-Dog, but there quite a few which are penned by
Monsieur Hybrid. The idea of recording a new CD came up
because we wanted to expand our merchandise with new material
for the France/North-Spain tour in September 2006. And we didn't
have much time for it. Originally we had recorded 8 songs for
'Concrete Landing', but our aim was to be completely satisfied
with everyone of them and sadly 2 of them didn't pass the
'Gentle Veincut capability-test'. We just hadn't played them as
tight as the other ones, so we decided to leave them out. But
the good news is that we're about to make new recordings and
that new versions of these 2 songs together with 2 or 3 complete
new ones will be released on a 4-way-split by the French label
Gaffer Records in summer this year - if things work out!
:
I love the guitars in the record and how each chord seems to
feed of the previous one. What can you tell us about it?
MH: Thank you. I do not really know
what to say about that. I am quite a perfectionist or nearly a
maniac in questions of sequencing chords, melodies and rhythms.
Sometimes the others get really pissed, when I want to play the
same part over and over again, searching for the perfect riff or
tone. And I am experimenting a lot with detuning my guitars,
which sometimes results in unusual schemes.
: She-Dog also has like quite the voice for the band. I mean her
approach is totally correct and paired up with the music it
compliments it. How was it in the beginning? How did she get to
this point? Or was her approach as a vocalist to Gentle Veincut
natural?
SD: Hope I'm not a Gentle Veincut-natural, hihi… I started the
band shouting in uncontrolled tones and tunes, showing the
audience my back and being quite offended by any kind of
criticism (I'm still!!). But I did not give up and also the
music did change after the many years that passed and made it
easier to squeeze some singing in it. Well, it's always the
music first, then I listen to it (during the rehearsal) and
hopefully get an idea for lyrics... sometimes I even get the
boys into changing parts I don't like or changing length for the
singing. As we all are individuals, we have different ideas of
the meaning/feeling of the song, so we discuss a lot about parts
and structure… but what comes out at the end is quite good, I
think. We don't have a boss to be master of music, luckily.
:
I think the record is awesome and if worked correctly it should
open a few doors. What are your expectations of this record?
TR: Because 'Concrete Landing' somehow was
a quite spontaneous production, we didn't have any honest or big
expectations of it in the beginning - at least not more than we
had of our earlier releases. But when the CD finally was
finished we realised that this package was just too good to
equate it with the previous ones. As it already was our 3rd diy-CD
in a row, the aim was to convince a label to release an
'official' version of it, like we had tried it with our previous
CD 'Gentle Veincut' but without any success. After the tour,
which had made us a little more well-known in France, we got to
know a nice little French label called Whosbrain Records and
they were immediately ready to release a digipack-version of it.
This was of course already a big success to us. And now, as a
matter of fact, the CD is gaining more and more attention,
especially in France and in the USA and I indeed have the
feeling and hope that it will open us some more doors. As we and
the label still have a very limited promotion and distribution
capacity, it would be great if we could involve another label or
any kind of organisation that would like to promote and
distribute the CD.
:
The production is great. It lets every instrument breathe
freely. How was the recording process? Who produced you? How on
the target it is compared to what you had in mind before the
recording?
MH: We all are very happy with the sound
of Concrete Landing. It was a hard piece of work but definitely
worth every second we spent debating and checking out different
settings. We recorded it directly on a hard-drive, although we
would have preferred a tape-machine. The guy, who did the
recording and the mixing is called 'Highlander' and he is a
fucking genius. He built up a small studio inside of his
living-room and he can rave on about Russian microphones for
hours and days like Steve Albini. He is an autodidact, getting
better and better with every recording he does and he really
knows a lot about rooms, echoes, reverbs, effects, but also
about the persons behind the instruments. He plays in a fabulous Noiserock-Band
called Confused and a Crust-Combo called Capgras
Syndrom and we know him for many years now. He also recorded
Gentle Veincut, the CD before Concrete Landing, and we like
both of them much more than Cupid Mount Etna and The Return
of Mrs. Brain, which were recorded in a big professional
studio. Concrete Landing gets very close to the sound we
imagined and you have to keep in mind: His studio is his
living-room and not Electrical Audio, in so far the sound is
as outstanding as possible under these conditions.
RT: The Highlander, MH and me even had a band called Elektropudel
together in the mid-90ies. Anyway, he is getting so good at what
he's doing, that in return, we (or at least me) realize that our
instruments/playing almost doesn't stand up to the quality of
the recording... So, an invitation to work it well… that's fine!
:
How did you hook up with France's Whosbrain records?
TR: Well, this is a short one and could
actually be merged into one word: MySpace! They sent us a
friendship-request one day and after having viewed their profile
and visiting their official site we asked them if they were
interested in bringing out our new CD. So things developed. At
that time they (David and Olivia from Whosbrain) were living in
Munich/Germany and earlier this year they arranged a very nice
show for us there. So we also had the chance to meet them
personally.
:
Is there a scene in Eschborn? Any bands form your area worth
searching?
TR: Not that I'm aware of. Maybe some
pseudo-phat teenie hip-hop-pranksters battling against each
other. I really don't know. We nearly have nothing to do with
Eschborn, except for that in the beginning the band had it's
practice-room there. Meanwhile we practise (and also live) in
Frankfurt and right now I can't think of any local band worth
listening to except for Confused, Stressseuche and maybe Daturah.
SD: ... just get Eschborn out of your mind - it's a waste of
braincells!!
RT: The most spectacular thing about Eschborn is how incredibly
boring it is. About Frankfurt, TR has already mentioned the
contemporaries. Some time ago, there were also Kimusawea and Schmerz
which I think were absolutely great bands.
MH: There is a recently formed duo called Mule Spareparts and
I really like them. They will have a great future in Noiserock-Heaven…
:
I am always searching for records I may have overlooked and I am
particularly fond of obscure music. Regardless of this, please
give me a few records that you regard as important, or
influential to Gentle Veincut.
MH: The Jesus Lizard/Goat, Sonic
Youth/Confusion is Sex, Big Black/Atomizer, Can/Tago Mago, The
Residents/Mark of the Mole, The Birthday Party/Prayers on Fire,
Lydia Lunch/Queen of Siam, Dog Faced Hermans/every record…
RT: The 'No New York' sampler from 1978, featuring 'The
Contortions', 'Mars',' D.N.A.' and some really raw 'Lydia
Lunch'. Nowadays it's often mentioned in the 'No Wave' context,
but the music is just off any context. I bought it in 1986 and
it simply blew my mind.
Recently, it's the 'Ex Models/Chrome Panthers' and the
'Lightning Bolt/Hypermagic Mountain', also the second-to-last
'Todd'-album. I guess that one is agreed on by all the Veincuts.
Ah, and 'Socrates' from France, also on Gaffer Recs... just had
that for breakfast.
TR: France by the way has got a very huge and marvellous
noise-scene with lots of interesting bands and many people who
are dedicated to this kind of music! Just check out our friends
list on myspace - they're just too many of them to be listed
here! Ok, to name just a few: 'Fordamage' (one of my favourite),
'Room 204', 'Choo Choo Shoe Shoot', 'Gâtechien', 'Marvin',
'Socrates' (as RT has already mentioned)…
:
What's next for the band? Touring, record, etc etc
TR: As already mentioned, we will soon
record some new songs for a 4-way-split-CD coming out in summer
on Gaffer Records. And we're in the process of arranging an
East-Europe tour for September this year, together with the
noise-soloist Sheik Anorak (Gaffer Records) and a local band
called Driving Range. I guess the next big thing would be an
USA-tour and considering the attention the CD is gaining over
there it doesn't seem to be that absurd anymore.
RT: I am not so sure about the USA, especially since most bands
from over there that we meet are just very happy to be touring
in Europe...What they say is that Europe has a far better
structure to support independent/d.i.y.-bands, fun-wise and
money-wise… Anyway, I wouldn't mind touring over there, if it
wouldn't mean that we have to pay to play. But its not a big
dream for me, the big dream would be going from there to Latin
America. Because I would like to carry our music to places where
it normally doesn't get, and also to play for people that maybe
don't have a chance to see an angular punk show so often.
: Got it. Thanks. And don't you
forget it people, let's forget about Eschborn.
Read our review of
Concrete Landing
Gentle Veincut MySpace
Gentle Veincut Official Site
Whosbrain Records Site |
