INTERVIEW MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL #359 - April 201

Vos bouches sont des cadavres ! La Flingue is a new band, with ex-members from Les Hatepinks, Gasolheads, Aggravation, Irritones, Les Jolis... They combine the cold English sound of 1978 with aggression. Joy Division mixed with Reagan youth? Naaaaaaaaaaa. It's just minimalistic maximum garage punk. With the French touch, snot and contempt.

Interview : Olivier Crapoulet from Capybara social club fanzine

Can you all introduce youselves and your precedent bands?
G: My name is Gigi Joli. I'm young. I play in a stand-by band call Les Jolis. We were local superstars in High School. I also play in a Garage band called Sun Sick. Olivier hates it.
O : Ho yes. I am Olivier Gasoil, I sing. Played in Gasolheads, Hatepinks and Irritones.
R : Rudy, bass and I do the recordings. I played in The Aggravation and Irritones.
M : Miguel Zorlha, I play the drums. Aggravation and Irritones too.

How did you start playing music?
O : at 14, some older guy at school gave me a tape with Bérurier Noir and Never mind the bollocks. I listened to it, the hair on my arms skin herrissed. I really threw all my Kim Wilde, Bryan Adams and A-Ha tapes in the collective junk vacuum. From the moment I heard fuck this fuck that fuck you all you fucking brats and the French « alternative » punk bands as Les Rats, Les Cadavres et les Sheriff, that was the turning point. I stopped playing football (note from interviewer : Oliver was playing With Zidane, in somes stadiums in Marseille). I decided I wanted to be Johnny Rotten, being cool with creepers and thight cravats. So I formed my first band, Bleifrei. We were terrible, but I’m proud of it, everybody around was into sport or going to discos, smoking haschish, or what shit. We wrote some weak but cool songs like Occidental Moron or Hamburger brain... We spent all our week-ends trying to play Anarchy or Blitzkrieg bop, Sonic Reducer or This is not a love song... I took us 2 years to go out of my father's garage to finally play a disastrous concert at some death metal show a friend from the college was organising. I threw up before playing, stage fright... The drummer lost his sticks 4-5 times during the show, nobody actually cared. We played God save the queen, singing Yes future intsead of No future at the end, thinking it made sense. We were 15-16 years old, Nasser, the bass player formed the Hatepinks with me, 10 years later...
R : Miguel and me are from the mountains, in the Alps, we had some band, trying to play French rock like Les Dogs, Little Bob Story, Bijou, Strychnine and all this kind of stuff. We were 13-14 years old. It was called Les Casse-bonbons. 'The candy breakers'. Embarrassing...
G : I saw the Hatepinks in 2004, and decided to form a band. Les Jolis, some nervous pub-rock new wave punk band. We made two LPs on Scanner records.

Why is German language still so scary to French people?
O : Thats’ not true. We have a few songs in German. I love to write in German, the diction is more martial. It suits good to the music we do. I was living in Germany as a very young kid, and I'm really in love with all those first wave German punk bands, like KFC, PVC, Pack, Big balls, Artless, Abwärts, Bärchen und die Milchbubis, or even this NDW (New German Wave), Andreas Dorau und die Marinas, Ideal, Grauzone, Mittagpause...

You guys just recorded an LP?
O : It's a maxi LP, only six tracks. We have decided to release only Maxi LPs. As far as I know it's the perfect format, I never really had so much interest in singles, and full lenght are, except for some punk masterpieces, too long, and boring. So here we go. The plan is to edit 6 maxi LPs, each with 6 songs, every 6 months. The covers will always be the same : duct tape and gaffer on one of those ugly Beatles covers... This one, Rubber-Glue Zéro un, is black matt gaffer on the white album, the next one, Klebb Stoff zéro deux, will be neon pink duct tape on Sergent Pepper... This shit is maybe not making big sense. But hey, John Lennon, hate and gaffer tape, why not, hu ? But who cares about what we do anyway? I'm a sucker for these mini-concepts.

How did the sound of the band develop from irritones?
O : The Irritones exploded just after the second LP. A problem with two members and a girl. So stupid. Not a big deal. It was time to put an end anyway. La Flingue is exactly the same, with a different guitar style. Who cares?

Compared to most bands these days, it takes you guys not a long time to put new material out...
O : I don't think the same. We had a lot of problems to start this band, due to some health problems Miguel went thru, and I think it should go faster that it actually does.

Can you explain the lyrics of Homo pogo?
O : It's a first degree ode to the kids dancing at shows. Living acne and hormonal rage. Dance the pogo like a rat! Just a young human, dancing to the face of a world thats’ so rough. It has absolutly nothing to do with homosexual punks dancing the pogo. For the love of a dog shit on the face of god ! Who would be sick enough to write a song about a gay dance ? Some stupid crust punks in some leftish squats in Germany asked me to explain the lyrics, fearing it could be homophobic. Cunts.

We are selling drugs is about the mediatisation of Marseille about criminality. How do you feel fear in your city?
G: All you watch on TV is true. We are a perfect mix between Kabul and Pyongyang. Never come and see us.
O : Corporate medias are trying to drill everybodys head with panic and ignorance. Fear is control. The big pig at the city hall is the problem. More kalashnikov please. This city must die. I feel no real difference as when I was a kid, lurking in the poor side of the town. Some places can be sketchy, for sure, but the medias and the politicians play their role, demonizing some part of the population. Mass fear is a usefull for those pigs... they created this legend about Marseille being the city of crime and drugs gangs... It’s always the same, they keep people ignorant and divided, and now we are to the point where the two sides of this town look at each other with distrust.

You, Olivier, was living in those shit cans you mentionned in this song, did the situation change since this period?
O : I don’t live anymore in those big concrete buildings (Habitations à Loyers Modérés : HLM) in the north side of town, the very poor side, opposed to the south of Marseille. Marseille is very strange about that, there is a strong economical frontier, north is for poors, immigrants, arabs, blacks, gypsies, africans and the south side is for the bourgeoisie and the upper middle-class. They have the beaches, the public parks... creating some king of ghetto. North side (les quartiers nord) should just be luppen humans, living in huge old building from the 70’s surrounded by shopping malls and industrial zones.

You don't have facebook or social network pages, can you explain that?
O : The music we try to do, those punk records and concerts, it’s the best thing we will ever do, the most personal thing, it’s not a job, it’s not family, it’s something you decided to create by yourself. Why should we damage and corrupt the evantual beauty of it with a giant turd like facebook? Maybe we lose some connection with people using these tools, but we don’t fucking care. I hate it. It’s vain. You always have the choice. But we have a website and bandcamp, as long as there are no advertising and it’s not owned by a big corporate fuck, why not ?

How is the recent punk scene in Marseille?
G: I guess it's not so bad. Cool clubs, like la Machine à Coudre, La Salle Gueule or Le Molotov, Cool bands, like Calvitie, Departure Kids, Tommy and The Cougars, Keith Richards Overdose...
O : Yes it’s not that bad, specially for venues. Actual bands miss some anger I would say. And the sense of the do-it-yourself is not really something they care about. A lot of my good friends are always like, hey I’m a rocker, I can rock, I got my leather jacket, I snort la cocaine. That’s it. No! That’s not it. You need discipline, book your own shows, book shows for other bands, help bands with design, or record them, we have a song about that, Ton cuir noir de merde. Thats’ why I appreciate the job you do with Crapoulet, puting out records, from locals, from south american bands, helping book tours...

Olivier, you're part of the early scene with people from Bleifrei, Gasolheads and Lollipop records. Did you feel you have created a scene together?
O : No, it was just 3-4 years with some cool bands and some solidarity. More people started to come at the shows, young people dancing. But it didn’t last that long... I think the scene here is almost dead. Young bands do that shitty In the red/hipster/powerpop thing, ugly record covers, bad recordings, beards, pedals, pedals, pedals, delay, echoes, reverb, fuzz. Lyrics without aggression. Shit I want my punk straight, direct, with a sense of style and with a refrain please! I know, shoot me.

Have you ever peed on a pregnancy test?
O : No, never. Have you ever peed on your adorable hamsters? You still love them like your own kids? Mary holy merde of Jésus, I think you tried to be funny. Never do that again. I play punkrock because I’m angry, I have a negative message. Hate, bile and some gobs, so don’t dilute the strengh of my contemps with your second degree. Please stop it.

Miguel is recovering from a serious illness, how is he?
O : He’s ok now, we had to wait 6 months. He had to recover from a really serious gonorrhoea. His articulation almost blocked. And his penis was really strange. And the pain was awful.
M : I don’t want this to be mentionned. It’s personal. My genitals almost melted.

What do you think of this new scene of youth with caps and mustaches, Ski sweaters and shitty effects pedals plugged into their shitty guitars.
O : Haha. I can see you remember this discussion we had last night...
G: I wish i could play in one of those bands. The fact i'm beardless makes me wanna kill myself everyday.

Last words for readers?
O : No, just wanted to thanks the cool labels that let us go with this concept of only doing Maxi LPs.
Thank you Olivier Crapoulet, and thanks to Peter, at P-Trash records.
And we got a 3 week European tour coming, cool ! Take drugs and kill yourself.

Hey punks in the US ! You can receive the first LA FLINGUE LP 'Rubber-glue zéro-un' (Crapoulet records) via Chris Bad Touch Records - PO Box 7668 - Ventura, CA 93006-7668 – USA - badtouchrecords@gmail.com
Just send him $15 postpaid - and you should also buy him a CATHOLIC SPIT I'm Your God Now 7'' for $4 ! (Rad death punk From cali)

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