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PLEYMO GO ROCK
Third Album From The French Metal Crew.
Paris
19/11/2003 -
Pleymo are currently back in the music news with Rock, a third album which marks a definite break from their fist "nu-metal" offerings. Moving away from screeching guitar feedback and aggressive hip hop phrasing, the French metal crew have surprised everyone by experimenting with a softer rock'n'pop sound. Apparently that means less head-banging and more emotion! RFI Musique investigates
RFI Musique: Following the commercial success of your last album Medecine Cake, which was basically a mix of rap, heavy metal and hardcore trash, aren't you sticking your necks out and taking a bit of a risk with Rock?Benoît(bass-player): Well, in some ways the seeds had already been sown on Medecine Cake, as far as the vocals and other stuff were concerned. So this is like a natural evolution, something we've been working towards for a while. We'd been toying with the idea of putting more melody and emotion into our songs. We also wanted to get back to a more organic sound, you know, working as real musicians with real instruments and not hiding behind any kind of artifice.
Was this new approach supported by the whole group?
Fred (drummer): We'd been playing metal for quite a while and we just sort of reached the point where we felt the need to move on. We worked differently on this album than we did on the earlier ones, only getting down to the songwriting after redefining our musical direction.
These days everyone seems to have found their own niche in the group and be allowed their own personal means of expression…
Benoît: This time round everyone was a lot freer to do their own stuff. We realised we could be a lot more efficient working that way. I think we reached a stage where we'd had enough of all firing our mouths off at the same time. And as a consequence the songs are now a lot more fluid, pared-down and intelligent. We might use fewer words these days, but we say what we have to say better! Our approach is less driven by energy these days and more based on musicality.
Does the album Rock lay the foundations for Pleymo's new identity?
Fred: The first album was all about proving we could play our instruments. The second one showed everyone we could do metal. This album gives all the members of the group the space for personal expression, channelling their creative impulses in a non-systematic way.
Benoît: We worked from a basic principle of more openness. At the end of the day that meant the album revolved less around the technical side of things and involved putting more of ourselves into the music. The vocals followed the same process really. The vocals involve clever linguistic wordplay, juggling syntax, vocabulary and slang...
So was it more difficult for Marc (the singer) to adapt to the new Pleymo style than the rest of you?
Fred: No, I don't think so. It was a bit like going back to the early days. When we first met Marc he used to sit round strumming his guitar folk-style while he was singing. We'd actually wanted to hear him singing properly for a while. Besides, it would have been impossible to imagine the kind of music we're doing today with him 'toasting' over the top of it. Not being able to hide behind alliterative wordplay and stylistic effects probably made it a bit tougher for him to 'come out' as a singer.
Before the Rock-style Pleymo your DJ and musical programmer Franck played a central role in the group. Now that you're experimenting with a more classic rock sound is there still a place for him in the group?
Benoît: The main objective is that from now on everyone in the group takes a back seat so that our music becomes more important than the individuals involved. But I have to admit there was a point where we did turn round and ask ourselves whether machines still had a role to play in our sound. It was like if we were going to work along more classic rock lines did we still need samples, loops and scratches? Anyway, we sat down and discussed things and Franck came up with some stuff which fitted in with the new musical direction we'd adopted.
True to Pleymo form, the new offering is a concept album. But isn't this just another form of artifice?
Benoît: Rock, the 'narrator' of the album, is this young blind boy who constructs this whole imaginary world in his head. The main themes on the album are loneliness and schizophrenia. Marc's been pretty much in charge of the overall concept really because it ties in with the lyrics. He came up with the basic idea for the album, but he's asked for our opinions along the way.
Fred: It was important for us to have a sort of narrative thread linking music, images and the general aesthetic. When we make an album we're not just trying to get our music across. We try and create an entire universe so that when fans listen to it at home it conjures up images as well as sounds.
Talking of images, I noticed in the CD credits that Marc thanked Ghibli (the Japanese animation studios which produced Miyazaki's films Princesse Mononoké and Le Voyage de Chihiro). Do you have any plans to work with them in the future?
Benoît: Well, we were approached by a number of animation people while we were in Japan. They contacted us while we were on tour there because they were really into the drawings Marc did for the cover of Medecine Cake and the accompanying CD booklet. They wanted to work with him on a project, in fact. The animation company was interested in using our music as well. Things are pretty vague at the moment, though. But we're up for it, we'd love to do the music for a film!
Interview: Pascal Bagot
Rock / Sony Epic
Pleymo's French tour runs from January to March 2004.
07/01/2003 -
