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Journal Le Metro August 10, 2007
Your Favorite Enemies
ON A GREAT SCALE
Interview
A simple glance at the road covered by Your Favorite Enemies in the last two years is enough to think that the Montreal sextet is entirely made of marketing geniuses.
"There are record labels who want to pay us to show them what we did to get here! exclaims Alex Foster, the singer of the band.
The short story of Your Favorite Enemies might have started more than 8 years ago, but it's in 2005 – and after two name changes (The Riddlers and In This Life) – that the band took off for real.
After signing with Luthala Management, one of the most important management company in the country, Alex and his gang began working on their first album with producer Steve Thompson (Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna).
However, it is their activities outside of every corporative molds that caught the eye of the record industry giants.
Same time last year, the six musicians were discovering the MySpace phenomena. As we speak, the band has thousands of fans from all over the world: from Washington to Tokyo, going through Berlin and Toronto.
"We started it all a little naively, confesses Alex. The only thing that we told ourselves was that we'd answer every person who'd take the time to write us. All we wanted was to build bridges between our fans, because in our time, people tend to do their things isolated from each other."
Therefore, it is in a community spirit that the rockers threw themselves in this Internet adventure. Doing everything that had to be done to answer their fervent admirers in their native tongue, they saw their fan base grow day after day.
It's to thank their fans for their support that the members of Your Favorite Enemies decided to produce, record and distribute themselves an EP titled And If I Was to Die in the Morning Would I Still be Sleeping With You. Since its launch in June, the album has sold more than 10,000 copies.
Montreal towards the world
With shows scheduled in England, France and Germany in the course of the next few months, Your Favorite Enemies has just added its name to the ever-growing list of Montreal bands becoming popular abroad.
In the eyes of Alex Foster, the cultural wealth and diversity of Montreal, Quebec's metropolis, would explain why the Patrick Watson, Malajube and Arcade Fire of this world distinguish themselves as much outside the country.
"The Montreal scene is so eclectic, explains Alex. In England, people are fascinated by what is happening here. They ask themselves how we succeed in living in harmony with all these different cultural differences that rub elbows with each other."
"But the Montreal scene has always flourished, Alex carries on. The bands that have been playing here have always been in advance on the popular music genres. And since the bands that express themselves in English never really had a support as strong as the one given to those who express themselves in French, from subventions and the medias, the musicians might have focused more on the music for what it is instead of trying to fit into a more commercial mold made for the French market. Because we know that here, for years, the consecration for a Quebec artist, was to establish himself in France."
Beyond the music
The members of Your Favorite Enemies have always been involved in humanitarian causes. Ex social worker, the singer of the band, Alex Foster, has, for that matter, given several conferences in schools everywhere in Quebec to promote open-mindedness. Today, he pursues his work with Amnesty International. "We tell ourselves that once our music will have faded, we'll have left our trace in other ways", indicates Alex.