In the 2000’s and 2010’s I was a promoter in France. I’ve promoted bands like Behemoth, Sepultura, Soulfly, Napalm Death or even Little Big for example. Nowadays I still continue to organize gigs, mostly Grindcore, because it’s my family. In my place in Nantes, Le Lovecraft, we have Metal gigs twice a month. And I’m mostly making French bands to play, I think that’s how I help French bands the most today. Horns Up for sure contributes a lot of free promotion for bands but we only promote what we like, not what we should and not the most famous French bands, much to the chagrin of labels, But we don’t give a shit. We’re 100% auto financed, 100% free, 100% pure in what we write.
GRINDCORE IS FAMILY
There are great bands in France, mostly in the Grindcore and Black Metal subgenres. There’s been an incredible Heavy Metal revival in the past few years as well. I think today the most famous Metal / Hardcore band abroad is Rise of the Northstar, but check out Hipskor, I’m sure you will like it .
We’re not so good in Metalcore or Deathcore, so I’m not astonished you never heard about us in Taiwan or Japan where I know you’re involved. Ten56. and LANDMVRKS are two Metalcore oriented French bands that are growing at the moment, but I doubt they’ve already been listened to in Far-East Asia. But I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of Gojira, Alcest and maybe Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Scarve, Inhumate or Benighted.
You seem to be a pretty big weeb / East Asia appreciator. You told me you’ve lived on and off for seven years in Taiwan where you have a business. You also do (or plan to do) business in Japan. And you run a retro gaming website for JRPGs… Before getting back to music, can you just tell us how this passion started for you? Video games? Tentacle porn (that’s usually behind it all, innit? haha)?
I’m the biggest fucking weeb I know and ever meet. I’m too immersed in Asian pop culture, and every day I feel sorry for my fabulous girlfriend for having to endure this. All started when I was around three.
INSPIRED BY HONGKONG CINEMA
My father passed away letting my mother to rise me and my six months sister all alone. The only thing my father left me was a VHS of a Bruce Lee movie he recorded on TV: “Fist of Fury”. It was like an electroshock, and I still remember it vividly (for real!). I’ve started practicing martial arts by myself in front of tv ah ah ah. And at five I started Judo for two years if I remember well, to switch later on kung-fu during six years, five years of Tae Kwon Do, one year of Taido, I was even an instructor some years ago ! Now I don’t do many things anymore because I prefer to drink beer, and that’s a pity.
The only thing my father left me was a VHS of a Bruce Lee movie he recorded on TV: “Fist of Fury”.
If you read well, there’s only Asian martial arts there. After Bruce Lee, my mother gave me VHS of “Babycart”. I don’t think she watched it before lending it to me, it’s a bit violent for a five years old child, but I loved it. I wanted to become a samurai. I was not too much into Hollywood movies but directly into Hong-Kong, Taiwan cinema, because of rhythm, violence and storytelling. I can assure you I watched around one thousand wu xia pian movies [note: Chinese matial art movies], and I’m not exaggerating, I try to watch absolutely all of them since childhood. I just recently slowed down because mainland Chinese cinema sucks and Hong Kong is dead. “Except Creation of the Gods”, I loved it!
I had the fortune to be born in France. We were the second country in the world, before the US, to have animé and manga. My passion started with “Dragon Ball” and I never stopped loving it. The recent passing away of Akira Toriyama is a real pain for me. He was my father longer than my real father in my life. I was really sad about it.
RISED BY GAMING CONSOLES
And now video games, I think I had the first handheld console in my hand when I was two. It was a Game & Watch my mother gave me to make me stop crying. It worked. There were moving pictures and sound, it was enough for a baby. It’s precious to me, and I still have it! From Game & Watch, I went on to Nintendo, Famicom and Amstrad CPC464 (with games on tapes!). I continued with Megadrive (Genesis in the US) and NEO GEO and so on. Now I have more than 100 consoles, thousands of games and two arcade systems (Taito Egret 3 and New Astro City). My love for J-RPG started later, around 15 years old, because I couldn’t read English before and games were not translated into French. My website is about retro gaming, you can check it on rpgamers.fr.
Tentacle porn arrived when I was around 12, with “Urotsukidoji” and “Shin Angel” haha. What an idea to sell this kind of animé in the child section!
In what era did you get into East Asian pop culture? Have you experienced the era of bootleg anime, when tapes or DVDs weren’t in distribution in the West? What about eastern about music (Metal or otherwise)? What was your entry point there?
I completely lived through the bootleg era and because I’m someone really curious, I was always digging in to find new stuff. It was hard to find the classic masterpieces and underground manga at this time. Fortunately there were retailers selling import stuff and there were some magazines too that I read when I was young. I mostly had Hong Kong VHS, VCD and DVD that I bought in Chinatown in Paris. I didn’t even know it was bootleg at this time, buying that thinking it was official. But I don’t regret it, it opened my mind so much. I’ll always be closer to pirates that share things around the world than editors that do everything for profit.
FROM ANIME MUSIC TO JAPANESE METAL
My entry point in Eastern music still is animé opening and videogames music. But I dissociate that totally from Metal music. In Metal I was for sure a Visual-Kay guy, because of X Japan, Dir en Grey, Malice Mizer and so on. I’m just coming back from that to Metalcore, mostly Japanese, like Hanabie, BabyMetal, LadyBaby or Passcode but mostly because I found it fun, Techno mixed elements and it’s positive. It’s party music. Crossfaith are the king in this category. I love Chthonic from Taiwan for example, mostly because I’m fond of erhu [note: traditional Chinese instrument], even though I don’t really care about their politics.