Today you can find an interview I did with
Charles and Caro of Parisian Band Dead Sea.
Their music can be discribed as phychedelic rock
with some good electronical influences.
Also you can find some songs and links to their Homepage.
Here you can also find a picture exclusive for my blog.
Have fun with reading and don’t hustle to share or like this interview!
Soundtrack-Of-My-Life: I’ve read an interview that Dead Sea was founded in Indonesia. What was the reason for staying in Indonesia and how important is travelling for you?
Charles: We like to travel a lot because it is the best way to open up your mind, and Indonesia is perfect for this, it’s another world. We’ve been there a handful of times with Alex as our parents live there half of the year. We go there to surf as well ! The waves are beautiful.
SOML: Charles, Alex who came first out with the idea to start a band?
Charles: We didn’t really plan on starting a project together. Alex and I had just left another band as we felt like we were done with it. A few weeks later, on a trip in Indonesia with Julien and Alex, we happened to walk pass a bar where locals played all kinds of music. We thought it would be great to swoop in, we asked to go on stage and ended up playing a 15 minutes impro that later became Dead Sea’s first tune.
SOML: Caro has joined the band after a newsletter promotion of you guys at the Paris International Festival For Psychedelic Music where you were searching a singer for your band. What are you associating with that Festival apart from the fact that The Horror is playing this year.
Charles: We support a 100% the idea of a psychedelic rock festival in Paris. We all listen to a lot a psychedelic rock but we can’t really afford plane tickets to Austin so if the festival comes to us it’s even better!
Caro: It enriches Paris’ music scene so it’s a project that can be saluted.
SOML: In many interviews with you I’ve read the same questions about the origin of your band name, the origin of your whole band story and where do you see the band in a couple of years. What question would you like to ask to promote your band?
Charles: “What’s the point of all of this?” And the answer is: to become one of the best bands in the world, in terms of originality and authenticity.
SOML: Back to you Charles and Alex. There are several siblings in the music industry like the Gallaghers or Angus & Julia Stone who had or still making music together. How do you deal with fraternal debates within the band and how react Caro and Julien to that?
Charles: We grew up together and started understanding music at the same time so we ‘re obviously very connected. But I don’t think Caro and Julien ever feel excluded, the four of us are a family, not only friends playing together.
Caro: They do have some passionate discords at times, but what I see is two people that hate to disappoint each other and can’t go forward without a total agreement, which luckily always comes. Julien has been Charles’ best friend for years and I instantly felt like I was part of the family as soon as I met them. Knowing how much those three guys meant for each other forced me into this affectionate bubble.
SOML: Caro how long did you stay at the English school of music and how it came to study there?
Caro: I had been playing music for many years, taking piano & singing lessons, playing in my music school rock band, when at some point I felt like I needed to go away from where I grew up and I wanted to take my music practise to the next level. I naturally thought of England, as I’ve always liked english music, books and movies as a child. I found this school, BIMM, and quickly ended up surrounded by musicians. The four years I spent in Brighton shaped my life, my way of thinking and deeply encouraged my curiosity and will towards music.
SOML: You’re currently at a point where your band is shortly before raising fame. Let us talk about how your family mates react after listening to the first songs of Dead Sea.
Charles: I wouldn’t say that we are shortly before raising fame. We’re very happy with what we’ve managed to create so far, but we have a long way to go still.
Caro: Our friends and families have all been positively surprised by Dead Sea, but what I like as well is to have good reactions from people I wasn’t expecting to be touched by our music. Outside from the close family & friends circle, I’ve heard people that usually listen to completely different styles of music congratulate us. That is great.
SOML: ‚Rain‘ and ‚Keep It High‘ reminds me a lil bit to the band Beach House. How do you feel about comparisons with other bands? Honor or do you like to distance yourself from that?
Charles: It’s always nice to be compared to bands you love, especially when it comes from people who listen to good music. And it’s important to get feedbacks in general, as we lack of objectivity regarding our own creations.
Caro: I absolutely love Beach House so I have no problem with that comparison. Another one that often comes: London Grammar. But it’s the same, they are very talented people, that girl has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard so I’m happy. Then again, people say “you remind me of” which is good, if they were to say “you sound exactly like” we would most probably be upset.
SOML: Adding to this ‚Tempest‘ opulence is like Anthony Gonzalez is creating a track for the soundtrack of Oblivion. How do you create songs like that?
Charles: The creation process is always the same: we start with a sound we like, it can come from a synthesizer, a beat or a guitar riff. Then we build the song around. For Tempest, it was the metallic layer that comes at the beginning of the song. Then it’s all about inspiration. Tempest was created in 10 minutes, or though it’s our most complex song.
SOML: Currently you will just discovered by many and faced with blog posts and interviews. How much you following the buzz around you and was there even some amusing stuff you’ve read about Dead Sea?
Charles: I meticulously keep everything that comes out about us, I figure it might be useful one day. And yes there was some funny stuff, notably one article where the guy literally went nuts:
http://www.syffal.com/dead-sea-keep-it-high. I spoke to him and he’s the same in real life.
SOML: Your Homepage and parts of the music clip to ‚Keep It High‘ includes geometric shapes and reflections. Why choosing that?
Charles: Dead Sea’s visuals often fit into a psychedelic aesthetic as it’s what defines us the most. For me Dead Sea is a futuristic psychedelic rock band. The geometric shapes on our website are declinations of fractals.
SOML: What did inspire you to create a video clip like ‚Keep It High‘?
Charles: We just wanted to do something heavy visually, but we had limited resources so we ended up doing a list of weird ideas and special effects, and we shot as much as we could. Then Sebastien made a selection and kept what worked best.
SOML: In how far you let experiences, personal feelings or current events in your music incorporate?
Charles: We are not interested in what happens around us regarding politics, sports, news etc. Our only interest lays in music, surf and people we love. So current events no, but personal feelings yes.
Caro: I agree, I’d say that current events are too down to earth to be part of Dead Sea’s music. We all apprehend our music as a way to escape reality and to dig to the core of emotions, instead of staying at the surface. Timeless emotions.
SOML: The French director Sebastien Desmedt whose work is filled with cineastic slow motion clips, was creating the clip to ‚Keep It High‘. How did the collaboration go?
Charles: It was great, we loved the experience. Sebastien is a slightly autistic self made man and he’s a genius in what he does. He has become a friend and we’ve actually been talking about a new project together recently.
SOML: Is Dead Sea now a full-time job or are all of you still going to work?
Charles: We would be thrilled but we’re still spending more that what we earn so it’s not possible to be full time musicians yet. Every morning we go to work listening to what we did the night before and it’s what help us going on.
SOML: We have spoken briefly in advance about performances outside France. What is your current schedule and which cities outside France are with you at the top of the list?
Charles: We are thinking of planning a mini tour for the release of our first album, early 2016. There are a lot of places where we’d like to play: Lille, London, Berlin, Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Barcelona… Ideally we would like to follow a band we like as a support act in Europe.
SOML: What are the plans about your very first record? Are you planning to release an album regardless of getting a major deal? Or are you following a special idea with releasing your record?
Charles: We’ll see. If we get signed cool but if not we’ll be okay. We’ve always done everything by ourselves so we can carry on doing it.
Caro: And if we’re alone there’s no pressure coming from a third person. I mean when you look at the music business nowadays it’s kind of frightening. At least on our own we don’t owe anything to anyone, we just owe it to ourselves to be true and do something we can be proud of.
SOML: There are a lot of really great and successful tracks coming from France currently. Imagine you should discribe the „new French sound“ with recommending bands and artist which would you take?
Charles: We are not big fans of french music in general but there’s a few projects we like: Isaac Dellusion, Venera4, Agua Roja.
Caro: Apart from that, we do like ‘old school’ french bands like Air, Phoenix, Daft Punk, M83 and all that lot. It’s great chance to grow up with smart music like that, they have a big impact on the music that is made currently.
SOML: Guess your also going out and celebrating your time in clubs what song do you prefer to dance like no other is there and what song calms you down?
Charles: We don’t go out much. We’d rather stay home to work on the music or see friends in small groups. Our nights out consist exclusively in going to gigs.
SOML: One last question. What about you love to the British band The Horrors?
Charles: Good question! It’s true that the Horrors come up a lot in our interviews. I think it’s mainly because they are one of the 10 best bands in the world at the moment, and because it’s one of the bands we feel the closest to, because they play rock music with a lot of machines too. We would have the time of our lives if we could tour with them.
I’ll hope you enjoyed to discover a new band. Here are some more tracks to listen to
SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE 