Inhumate
Wywiad przeprowadził Bartosz Donarski
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO INHUMATE
I guess I don't make mountain out of molehill if I say French INHUMATE is one of the leading grind core bands in European underground. Consequently pushing the limits of ears' vulnerability the Frenchmen develop their concept of "life and the abolition of time". The third chapter is fulfilled and even though it's entitled "Growth" showcases band's maturity in musicianship. In Poland the newest sonic accomplishment of INHUMATE will be soon available via Mad Lion. I had an opportunity to send some questions to rapid as hell and disembowelled any years ago bassist Fred. Find the sickness between the lines!
Explain yourself and tell me why you have a constant beef with silence?
Fred: "Silence is when death is here... Noise is when a kind of life is around... and organised noise as INHUMATE does it, means that this kind of life is throwing out its fucking urges (he, he)!!!"
"Growth" is a third part of well-prepared concept of your albums. But doesn't this limit you in terms of creation? You know, you thought all the things out before it is published.
"You know the only thing that is already sure in advance is the albums titles and that's all. We are still thinking to what the artworks will be made of. This concept is only a way for us to unite all our work and not to make CD after CD without anything between them. The band is united (same line up for 7 years already), the artistic side will also be united. And our lyrics don't have to deal with the concept. Many tracks have other topics, for example "Müensterturm" is dealing with the Cathedral of Strasbourg, "Grind to the core" is dealing with music, "Thank You" is dedicated to all women ! So, you see this concept is absolutely not restrictive for the artistic side of our work."
Even though "Maturity" is comprehensible, then what "The Fifth Season" will be dealing with? A bit enigmatic title, I'd say so.
"Well, the best way to explain this is to explain the whole concept... So, we are doing an heptalogy (7 albums concept) dealing with Life and Time Abolition. The first CD was "Internal Life" and the topic (especially in the artwork) was the life before life, intra-uterine life. The second CD "Ex-Pulsion" is dealing with the exact moment of birth, the 3rd one "Growth" is around the growing years, the years when the person is making its own personality and begins to learn what Life is !Next will be "Maturity" (but this title will change for sure ! Can't tell the definitive title here as it's not absolutely sure). The 5th chapter will be titled 'The Fifth Season" because after thematurity time, the end of the life is like a fifth season... It's a metaphoric way to explain the years of wisdom... Last years on Earth and maybe the years where people really understand what they were on Earth for. 6th CD will be titled "Death", doesn't need much explanations I think, the last one "Eternal Life" is telling that Life never ends and when you've listen to that stuff you can just begin again the whole concept with "Internal Life" INHUMATE is not dead and rebirth every time the concept is listened... So, I hope I was clear enough... It's not really simple to explain those things and especially in English..."
Will you put your band's existence to end after releasing "Eternal Life"?
"I'm really sorry but we don't have the answer to this question... 3 solutions ! 1st : INHUMATE
releases some more stuffs (who knows...), 2nd : we stop to play under the name INHUMATE after that CD 3rd : the band's already dead for years so "Eternal Life" has never seen the light..."
Ok, let's be more contemporary. "Growth" kills actually, there's not much more to add. Very well produced, so what studio did you enter to obtain such devastating sound?
"First of all, thanks for your great words!! We recorded it in a small studio near the city where
we live. This studio is called DOWN TOWN STUDIO. The guy (Didier) who owns it is totally devoted to music and is now a good friend of us. So, when we want to record something he listens to hundreds of underground stuffs we bring him and he tries to give us the best sound he can but still original. And I think it's very important to be able to have something that is not the exact cloning of this or that well known band... And now, after so many years, I consider Didier a bit as the 5th member of INHUMATE! Be sure that the next album will be released in his studio again and will have a better sound!"
Do you think French grind scene is strong comparing to other ones?
"I think that the French brutal (grind but also brutal death) scene is getting bigger and bigger. But
it's still small if I compare it to the Eastern Europe scene (Czech Rep, Slovakia, Poland) or the
South Asia scene. You know the French scene have something very strange: it's that we have many "funny" grind bands and those bands can be listened only by French people because the lyrics are totally funny and stupid and if you don't understand them you don't really appreciate the music. So, I think those bands can't be known abroad and the make the scene smaller than what it is. But we still have some very interesting bands like FATE, IMPERIAL SODOMY, GURKKHAS, FLATULATION, DEPRAVED, SOLDATBLEURKTHAL, SUBLIME CADAVERIC DECOMPOSITION, etc..."
What the signs on the cover mean?
"The signs you can see on the back cover of the CD are the zodiacal signs of each member of INHUMATE. This can be strange but they explain that the entity that's growing with this album is an entity called INHUMATE and this entity is made of 4 other entities called Christophe, Yannick, David & Fred (INHUMATE's members). So, you see we come back to the concept and you can understand why the band is united and that the concept is the materialisation of a physical experience we're living through INHUMATE."
Don't you think track entitled "I Want to Kill Some... (Part III)" is a bit too long?
"Hum, no! ah, ah, ah!!! We couldn't do it shorter... But I think the part IV will be a bit longer
ah, ah, ah !!! This track is a kind of joke, because it's not because we try to have a serious
concept and thought around our music that we're not having fun playing this ultimate soul grinding music!"
What can you say about Grind Your Soul? Are you satisfied with them?
"Of course we are because Grind Your Soul is INHUMATE ! This "label" was put up by ourselves in 1996 when we decided to self produce our first CD. So, with Grind Your Soul we try to promote INHUMATE as much as we can, we try to support the French underground out of France and we try to help the whole underground with our distro list (free copy at professeur.burp@libertysurf.fr) and our SOUL GRINDING FESTIVAL, only dedicated to unsigned bands or bands signed on small labels. Fuck the mainstreams, fuck the fashions!!!"
Any plans considering this year's touring? Any festivals?
"I'm gonna have a child just before summer so it will be impossible for me to do concerts for a
moment. And we will use this time to make some new tracks for the next album; I think we will make some gigs again after the summer. Unfortunately we can't do tours for 2 reasons : the first one is that because of our jobs and family life it's difficult to book dates and go away for long periods, the second one is that we try to give the most energetic show possible (I think that people who already saw us understand me) and it shouldn't be possible to do that every night for 1 or 2 weeks without giving bad shows, and we don't want that. We don't see the interest to play such a brutal music with a stupid statue or rock star attitude!"
Is this true you play that fast, for there's something wrong with ejaculation of yours?
"Ah, ah, ah!!! I don't think that ejaculation is so wrong as I'm gonna soon be father for the 3rd
time!"
Have you ever had sex while listening any kind of grind? And certainly how the girl looked like afterwards?
"How can I explain that... Do you know GOREROTTED "Mutilated in Minutes" album cover? Just have a look at it and you'll have the answer!!!
Is there any profound meaning concealed behind grind in general? A lot of opponents of the music state there is no sense. Fuck them anyway!
"Fuck them! I think grind core can have several directions : political and social attack (like
AGATHOCLES), gore acts (like SANITY'S DAWN), shocking ideas (like BLOOD). And to all mother fucker that think that grind core is no sense, I wanna say, just come and an INHUMATE gig and you'll understand what's a band that tries to give its guts to musical sickness!!!"
