Name: The Great Artiste
Formed: June 2011
Hometown: Nancy, Eastern France
Genre: Shoegaze styled Alternative Rock
Line-up: Aurélie Caillard (Bass) | Quentin Masanet (Drums) | Benoît Driencourt (Guitar/Keyboard/Backing Vocals) | Etienne Beaud (Guitar/ Vocals)
Similar to: The Cure | Joy Division | The Cult
What They Say: “Psychedelic guitar riffs and textured melodies, with a reverence for Lou Reed’
What We Say: “90’s inspired grooves, delivered with the swagger of ready-made anthems’.
◀ Q & A ▶
▶ For anyone who hasn’t heard you before, how would you describe your sound?
Nuclear bombs, with heavy love and sound of freedom. It’s a mix of majestic reverb riffs, fuzz bass and explosive drums.
▶ Who would you say is your main inspirations as a band?
Jesus. And also The Warlocks and The Smashing Pumpkins for the heavy sound, and the powerful riffs. Spiritualized for the melodies, and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin for the way they de-construct their songs. For the drums, there is more from Ride and Spacemen 3, funk beats and various psych sounds from the 60’s. But there are also more spiritual things that inspire us. It’s all the music we listen to, that is deeply anchored in us; it’s the things we love, and the things that challenge us, and maybe our fears. All of it drives us to write songs.
▶ You’re from Nancy, Eastern France – what is the music like over there? Is there many shoegazing bands?
No, there are many pop bands. But there is sort of a psychedelic revival starting to rise. Some bands are really cool, like The Feeling of Love and HOboken Division, but we don’t hear so much Shoegaze around here. I guess that’s why we feel the need to play it ourselves.
▶ To date you’ve released 2 EP’s – ‘Before The End Of The World’ and ”At The Bridge of Dawn’ – How do they compare to each other?
The first is rawer, without drums, and the second is more sophisticated and more matured. But both were recorded in the emergency (the songs were written really quickly), and with all of our love.
▶ You’re track ‘Blonde Greta’ has received a lot of praise so far, drawing comparisons to The Cure and Joy Division – but do you have a favourite track to play live?
We enjoy this one a lot, but we all have different favourite track to play live. Aurélie likes The Nagasaki Equation, Quentin prefers From a Dead Star because it lets a wide place to improvisation and trance… But no song provides us as much pleasure than Petite Teen, the true sonic experience.
▶ What has been your favourite gig you’ve performed so far?
Well, the first was really friendly, but there isn’t one that is better than an other. We always give our best.
▶ Any plans for a British or Irish tour?
We would love to play up here, as soon as we can! We’d really like to share gigs with others Psyche/Shoegaze bands in Europe, meet people and have fun, especially in UK/Ireland because they’re the two lands of Shoegaze.
▶ If you were going on a world tour and could have any three bands (past or present) supporting you, who would they be and why?
Oh man, only three? We managed to agree on The Velvet Underground, because they are the basis. After that it get’s a bit tricky, but Spacemen 3 would be awesome, because of the sound explosion. Galaxie 500, The Jesus & Mary Chain, and The Brian Jonestown Massacre are in competition for the third place!
▶ What’s next for ‘The Great Artiste’? Any plans to release an album soon?
What’s next? Music, love, gigs and new EP’s! We’re currently writing a lot of new songs. Hopefully we’ll record them in a near future.
▶ What does ‘success’ mean to you?
It means free drugs! More seriously, we wrote those songs because we believed in them, and that they talked to us, not to please an audience. We wrote it to please us, and that’s all. So the fact that other people like it, and compare us to such great bands as Joy Division and The Cure, it’s very rewarding in itself. We’re very moved by the many positive returns, and we’d love to share a moment with everyone who support us. If we can play this music all around the world, release people of their routine, to be listened to by them, when they are having fun with their friends, when they’re alone, when they making love, when they’re rioting… For now, Blonde Greta was played and remixed in a dance club of Chicago, and broadcasted on many radio stations across the world. We might say this is success. [separator]
◀ LISTEN ▶
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