1.Hi there ! The boring introduction: What's your part in the band? Tell us a bit more about GL.
Chris : Hi! I'm Chris and I do vocals in Get Lost, the other members of the band are : Julien on drums, Nicolas on guitar, and Hervé on bass. We started the band two years ago after Last quiet time split up since Nico and Ju wanted to do another oldschool hardcore band and I was available. We've had some line up troubles until we finally settled into the current formation about a year ago. Basically we wanted to play the style of hardcore we liked most, oldschool, and try to get other people into it as much as we can, and have fun doing so. When we started out we were also the only straight edge band going in France and we felt it was important to have someone keep up this idea in our area and the rest of France.
2.It is not unusual to see bands – and good bands too-from all over the world playing in Germany. However, French bands are always very rare to tour here. To be fair, I have to admit that I have practically never seen any French bands around except for a band called Undone and that was yeaaaars ago. But right now I cannot say that I know that much good bands from France (compared to bands from f.ex. Belgium, the Neteherlands, UK, …) – Is there such a small scene in France right now or what would you say?
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C: The scene in France is pretty small, but it is always growing I feel! One of the reasons for this is that when punk and hardcore was getting big in Europe, France had an "alternative-rock" movement which basically eclipsed everything else. There has always been punk-rock, hardcore even some emo coming out of France, but the solid foundations that were built in the 80s early 90s in the rest of Europe never took hold here.
This is not to say there are no good bands in France, but the whole infrastructure necessary to a "bigger" scene just isn't there… not many venues, no "rock" culture. Also France is pretty big and road-tolls are expensive so it is harder to build the "critical-mass" necessary than for example in the Benelux area where you have lots of shows only a few hundred kilometres away.
I guess there are 3 bigger scenes in France : Metal (basically Kickback and all the bands that then went on to worship them) Melodic-Punks and DIY Punks. Depending on personal affinities hardcore bands try to make some space for themselves among these 3 scenes that don't overlap much.
But there have always been dedicated people who have tried to keep things going organising shows, most of the time losing money, and in the last couple years it has really started to pay off. There are more and more people that put their sweat and tears into hardcore/punk all over France : Paris, Caen, Rennes, Tours, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon, Reims, Lille all have shows regularly, zines come out, info tables, distros. So I have high hopes for the future. I could go on and on on this subject but I guess I'll stop here hahaha.
As far as hardcore bands go there are plenty of good ones : First Failure, Backsight, Nine Eleven, Burst One's Side, Strike Back, Red Cold Season, FTX, Strong as Ten, Thrashington DC, Youssouf Today… We just need to get out of our borders more and try to destroy this idea that there is no hardcore in France!
3.How long does GL exist?
C: We formed in June 2004 but didn't have a real line up before September 2004. (the tapes from those first times are lost for posterity thankfully hahaha)
4.I heard that there was a difficult time in your existence as a band and that you nearly split up. But luckily you got your poblems fixed. What was so difficult at that time to keep GL up? Just some personal things? Lack of time? – Or was it something more fundamental? And most importantly what was it that made you stick together and go on with the band?
C: We have gone through many difficulties as a band, and I'm very happy we managed to stay together. Our first drummer announced he quit the band the day of a show with some murky excuse. We couldn't find any straight edge drummers and even the non-sxe dudes we asked ended up dropping the ball on us. So the future looked bleak until Julien decided to switch to drums and we enrolled Hervé as bassist. What's funny is that this was actually the line up as it had originally been thought up, but never happened for various reasons. So Julien had to learn drums from scratch and that led to a lot of frustrations as we were all anxious to get on with the band, lots of songs were written and we had had to cancel like 5-10 shows because of the line up bullshit. I've also had to leave Paris and move to Lyon, about 4hours out, which makes for a big difference in practices. These frustrations culminated during our mini-tour with The Legacy and First Failure. Some of us are very perfectionist people (even though sometimes we pretend we aren't) and things went pretty badly so we were all ready to quit. We got our shit together though and I think that now things are rolling nicely so hopefully we've passed through the worst of the storm!
What made us stay together? A combination of friendship, love of our music and the feeling that we couldn't end on such a sour note I guess! If we hadn't stayed together we probably would have just started another band. Those guys don't ever want to stop and now that I've tasted it, I can't either.
5.Do you all live in Paris? – Or do you live in one of thouse 'arrondissements' like Sarcelles (??) where you are leaders of a motocyclette-ghettorap-gang?
C: None of us live in Paris itself, nor in the "harder" areas. Hervé is the guru of a sect from the Val de Marne but no, sorry to disappoint you no motocyclette-ghettorap-gangs in our closets hahahha!
6.Are you sometimes ashamed to mention that you are from Paris because of of the link with one of the most unsympathetic footballclubs –PSG- in the world? Or don't you take any interest in sports at all?
C: I've always been very against the PSG, but that's more a gut reaction than anything else since I don't really follow football. I usually support Bordeaux though. BUT Nicolas and Julien are two of the biggest PSG fans I know so we always argue when they try to wear their fanclub merch ahahah. They go see the games regularly and are definitely not ashamed of the PSG. I'm not ashamed of being from Paris either, I think it's a pretty cool city. And for Hervé? Well I think he just hates everybody equally.
7.Time for some hard fact questions: Do GL have released any demo. 7" or LP or stuff like that?
C: Well we released a demo pretty quickly but it's getting old now : January 2005. I am actually not duplicating it for sale anymore, I think we sold around 300. If you want one you can definitely hit me up and I'll make them, I'm just tired of doing them and would like to wait for our next release. We've been planning our next release for a long time, we've got plenty of material I think, we've just kept running into walls that stopped us from going on with our ideas. Right now everything is looking pretty set for us to record our songs (about 10) in September/October, and hopefully take some of those and do an EP by the end of the year.
8.What I like most in GL is the high energy of the music, the truthfulness of the lyrics and most importantly its positive message. There's nothing stylized about the lyrics, but they catch you thanks to their straightforwardness and honesty. For everyone who didn't get the chance to listen to your music up to now, would you mind telling us what you try to deal with in your music and lyrics and what message you try to convey?
C: Our music is pretty aggressive and abrasive so you will definitely find this in our lyrics as I always write them to the song, and not beforehand. I always try to keep it positive as I don't see the point in just being angry at everything, and hating everyone, anger is powerful but it is even more so if you can direct it in a constructive manner know what I mean? I just try to write from the heart and since I'm not that good at being flowery and creative I just put what I think down on the sheet of paper and try to express in a clear manner what it is I am feeling. All my lyrics are intensely personal for me, if they weren't I just wouldn't be able to give it all my energy but this also makes me very slow at writing them hhahahaha! It can range from a personal experience, a memory, to more political subjects. I try to keep it "intelligent" even if cuts back on the sing-along-ability a little.
I think it is important that hardcore is used as a space where you can express ideas and reach people, and not just entertainment and music. You can sing about crew and stabbings in the back and how hard you are, but isn't that a waste? I mean don't you have anything else you'd like to put out there? I'm all for having a good time and just enjoying the music but really can't you make the effort of atleast having one song with some meat on the bone? There is so much that is fucking wrong in this world so in my book if you can't find more to be angry at than a friend that stabbed you in the back, you're not looking hard enough…
If I tried to sum up the message I'd like to convey through Get Lost it would be something like this : "Use your head, be aware, learn from your mistakes, think, TAKE ACTION! And always have fun."
9.A friend from france told me that sXe in France is seen as sth. 'nerdy' or 'freaky'. Aparently a drugfree life is not very popular amongst French kids?
C: Straight edge in France is almost non-existant. There are maybe what, 100 people that claim straight edge? France has a very strong culture of good food and good wines so it's really ingrained in us from birth that you atleast drink wine (kids are given wine diluted in water, in some areas they put hard liquor in babys milk to help them sleep, well they used to atleast hahah!) It is also still very cool to smoke cigarettes especially at a younger age, and as we all know if you start young, you're hooked for a while… Really there isn't much culture of alternative lifestyles in France, although for veganism/vegetarianism I think they are gaining ground quickly all over, not just in "the scene". But yeah straight edge is just seen as weak and usually met with the standard "dude what do you do for fun then!". Even in the scene straight edge is pretty much still something people think is ridiculous, I mean this is the country where when YOT toured they were met with Mohawks and pelted with beer cans while over all the rest of Europe people were in hoodies and X'ed fists. There is also still a strong backlash against a wave of bands from the mid 90s that were vegan/straight edge and very vocal about it (they didn't sound like Earth crisis though… thankfully)
10.Since you're from Paris, you can probably tell us sth. About a weird bunch of strange people who call themselves PHC?
C: PHC is basically a group of people that thought it would be cool to emulate crews from the states and have 3 letters on shirts, caps and bandanas, and mosh hard, and just generally being dicks. It is also supposed to be an association of bands that support each other. Now the thing is that from this core group, lots of people jump onto the bandwagon and it just became pretty monstrous and well, silly. I'd rather laugh about them than speak more on the subject because quite frankly I think it is a waste of time. I'm just sad to see some otherwise good kids waste their time with it.
11.In Gemrany it is a bit the same. People like seeing 'tough and cool' behaviour on stage. They are often into weird bands who misunderstand aggressivity, anger with stupidity and testosterone bullshit. Many, especially young kids, are very affectionate to the idea of HC being a 'tough' scene where it is ok and even encouraged to behave like total idiots. Many have no real dedication: they don't question their meat consumme, they drink and smoke, even do drugs. They like it to do things called violent dancing, trying deliberately to prove their physical strength and hurt others. All this happens quite unreflected which is the worst thing of all! The acceptance of toughguy and stupid violence at shows is very sad and often quite frustrating for like positive bands, kids,…
C: In France metal is pretty big, and many bands have that "tough guy" sound, so violent dancing is getting to be more and more of a problem. People seem to like to be abused since I just see those bands getting bigger and bigger. I guess it all goes back to Kickback which is a mythical band really. Their stage show is all about aggression, and usually there's plenty of blood spilt. Sadly many bands try to emulate them. Many kids try to look tough, I'm not sure if if they were in the middle of a bad quarter of town they would be so tough though…
I think it's a shame when people get into hardcore just for testosterone, I can understand when you're 16 it's intoxicating but it just makes me angry to see people who should know better just shut off their brains and ruin everyone's good time.
As a band we haven't had any problems with violent dancing yet, probably because the PHC dudes hate me, and I hope that we will never have any such problems.
I think that the people that are into hardcore but don't question themselves at some point are the ones that will be gone in a couple years. If you don't grow in hardcore, as a person, however small the change may be, I think you quickly find something else to latch on to. I think what really separates hardcore and punk from other styles of music is this capacity to impact hugely on the lives of people, and make a change, hopefully positive.
12.Where are you playing gigs in France,Paris? Here in Germany there are many places that are called 'youth centres'. They are mostly run by anarchists or some autonomuous punks and activists. Whereas I noticed, that for example in the UK gigs are mosty played at bigger venues, in pubs or some guys' cellar. What's the situation in France?
C: In France we play where we can, it really depends on the city! Most of the time shows happen in Bars, occasionally in a well equipped bar with a concert backroom ahhaha. The squats close too fast in Paris. There are some cool DIY venues in various cities, but a special shout out goes to the Heretic club in Bordeaux, and the Tanneries squat in Dijon both awesome places. When the show is big enough, and it's not happening in Paris the promoters usually try to get access to youth centres (example : Free edge fest in Tours, awesome fest with lots of French bands and foreign headliners, has been done 3-4 times now). And in Paris, well we make do with river boats converted into clubs hahaha as they are usually the only "real" clubs willing to accept a show at a decent price.
13.What are the bands you play with? Any non-french bands on tour or are there any good bands from france that you think we should know?
C: We play very often with First Failure, they are some of our best friends and we share two members anyway hahah! We've also shared the stage quite a bit with Strike Back and Burst One's Side. Shows don't happen much though over here when there is no foreign headliner, so when tours finally stop by in France we've jumped at the chance of playing with bands we love like Champion, Go it alone, Allegiance, Down to nothing, Career Suicide, The Legacy, No turning Back, A step apart, Bones Brigade…
There are many bands in France worth listening to, I'll name some and leave you to look them up on the internet! If you don't have the internet, contact me somehow and I'll gladly send you infos. So let's go, in no particular order:
First Failure : melodic oldschool hardcore
Strike Back : NYHC
Backsight : modern hardcore
Seekers of the truth : warzone/shelter influenced oldschool
9/11 : modern hardcore
Strong as ten : thrashy infest-meets youthcrew AWESOME!
Burst One's Side : Strike anywhere meets rocking punk
M*Sixteen : Melodic Punk/Hardcore
Jetsex : Punk/Hardcore
Disxyouth Army : thrash attack
Amanda Woodward : they're on level plane…
My own way of life : hardcore
FTX : Scandinavian hxc meets modern hardcore
Absone : vegan metal
Red cold Season : Oldschool
Belle époque : Screamo
The Cold Within : Shai hulud meets Hope Conspiracy
Ken Park : Punk/hardcore
And so many more that I've forgotten… If you want a good introduction to what France has to offer, get your hands on the French Connection Vol3 cd, its really cheap (shouldn't be more than 3€) and has 27 bands on it, as well as descriptive info for all of them. Check out free-edge.com for more info I think!
14. When will you tour Germany? ;)
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C: Dude! We'll gladly come to Germany!! Anytime, just hit us up. Right now we're having difficulties going far when it's not on weekends but we'd definitely be down to play Germany. If anyone reading this wants us to play in their town, simply contact us : xhighhopesx@hotmail.com and we'll work something out!!
15. Thank you so much. I hope it was fun answering the question. Any last words? Comments?
C: Thanks to you for doing this interview! It's is always much appreciated that people actually make the effort to do zines and even contact smaller bands like us! I hope I didn't ramble on for too long! Thanks also to whoever reads this interview and checks out the band. Don't hesitate to contact me if you want some info on France, be it to set up shows or anything else, I love to hear from people… Hardcore is what you make it! Be active! Thanks again Joel! See you all soon.