La Rumeur des Chaines is a musical project, isnt' it? When and how you decided to start it?

We could say that this project is born two times. The very beginning was in early 2001, when Alexandre and me decided to play music together. We had no place for rehearsals, so our first collaboration consisted in creating songs on MIDI sequencers and submitting them to one another. The only thing that we have kept from this period is a small record, with only the guitars really played.

Then, two years later, as we lived again in the same city, we tried to find new musicians to play the new material, having rehearsals, etc… what every band is supposed to do. Sylvain (bass) joined us at this time, and another guy, Alexis at the keyboards. But still no drummer nor singer. After a short period we've had to stop the rehearsals, but several songs were ready to be recorded, just waiting for enough free time.

At this point, I was handling most of the composition and Alexandre lyrics. The three songs we had were working together but we didn't intent especially to keep this artistic direction and line-up for our future releases. It was simultaneously the death of the band and the birth of a new way of working, one release for one project, one project for one band. La Rumeur des Chaines is the first one.

Your first album, La Rumeur des Chaines, is self released, won't you look for a label to release it, maybe with more songs? 3 tracks are not enough for listeners, we want more!!! 

No, we want to keep it that way. You know, songwriting is a very long process for us. The short 25 minutes of LRDC took us three years, and it is quite hard to make songs fit together when there is so much time between them. Instead of adding old songs, or waiting again to have more material for this release, we preferred to focus on the quality of this album. Okay it's a bit short compared to the usual CDs, so let's consider it like a mini-album!

In the future, we will maybe try to get a distribution deal so that we can spread our music on a larger scale. Even if the Internet helps a lot, a fast connection is still not possible for everybody. And it's really nice to have direct contact with people, but selling and expedition take time that would be better to allow to music only. A real deal could also be nice, but I'm doubtful about labels reaction concerning our ideas of independent projects. Anyway, that's not a priority. We have other projects in mind and the earlier we start working on it, the earlier you'll hear from us.

 

Your music reminds me to bands like Bal-Sagoth or Ancient Rites, with all the orchestral parts. Do you listen to those bands? Which are La Rumeur des Chaines influences?

There is particularly one band that made me fall in love with classic arrangements in black metal music, the Norwegians Obtained Enslavement. They're an important influence to me, Emperor as well. Then, every attempt to add orchestral music in metal (Haggard, Waltari, Hollenthon…), and, for orchestrations, compositors like Mussorgsky, Rimski-Korsakov and Dvorak. I've entered the classical music world only several years ago, and its place in my references is still growing. I wish I would have learnt music at school because it surely could have made the composition easier (and faster!). But I'm trying to learn the faster I can, by listening artists from a wide range of styles, looking for the original rhythm or melody that could be funny to integrate in my music.

 

Why you decided to include jazz features in your songs? Why do you mix jazz with black metal music?

Such an experimental song wasn't planned at all. We were total beginners in jazz, and the idea we had from it didn't refer to any specific musician or any artistic movement. The basis of Erythème has been written by Alex, in a much happier version, sometimes sounding even close to ska. It was very weird, but the main theme (that we have kept) was really haunting. As we were hesitating about which songs to record, we thought that trying to make something with Erythème was much more interesting than completing the several more conventional ones we had. We've had to adapt it slightly to the other songs, keeping the darker side of the first version, and even during this process, new parts even jazzier have been created.

We don't intend especially to play again this blend of black and jazz elements; it was more like an exercise. However, small unassuming influences may probably appear in the future.

 

What about the band's future? Any new recording or maybe any concert is near?

We're not playing on stage, at least until we have enough time and money to give birth to an interesting gig. Anyway, LRDC is everything but a "rock'n'roll" project. I mean that every single note, single strike of drums having been programmed, written on a computer score, it doesn't let a lot of space for live interpretation. And we don't consider playing live that way. However, playing a song like Erythème in collaboration with a brass orchestra could be an exciting experience!

About recordings, I'm now starting working on the next one, and all I can say is that the composition process won't be faster than for LRDC. I hope you won't have totally forgotten us when it's ready…

 

Personally I have to congratulate you for a great job with this CD. How are going the sells?

Thanks a lot! We're sold out, even it doesn't mean a lot when you released only 50 copies, and distributed the half for promotion! But we've been pleasantly surprised to see people interested. New copies may be released soon, so watch out!

 

Well Yann, thank you very much for answering my questions, and I hope you have good luck 'cause you deserve it!!

Thanks again. Keep on going with MetalKlown!