HYPNO5E

PHOTO COURTESY OF HYPNO5E
WEBSITE: www.myspace.com/hypno5e
COUNTRY: France STYLE: Metal / Experimental / Ambient

I HAVE NEVER HEARD MUSIC LIKE YOURS EVER AND IT REALLY MADE ME LOOK AT HEAVY MUSIC FROM A WHOLE OTHER PERSPECTIVE. WAS THAT WHAT THE BAND WAS ORIGINALLY AIMING FOR; TO CREATE MUSIC THAT WAS UNIQUE IN EVERY WAY?

GREDIN: To play music that has already been done is useless. When you enter the process of creation you’re supposed to translate your individuality into music, your emotions are yours only, so your music can only be different from any other. We wanted to create a total artistic show that’s why we ally visual arts with music, our movie is a big part of our music, if it is not on stage with us an instrument is missing.

WITH SONGS STRUCTURES THAT TAKE MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS IN ONE SONG ALONE HOW DO YOU GUYS EVEN START TO PUT YOUR SONGS TOGETHER DURING THE WRITING PROCESS?

We find different riffs and try to see which ones fit with each other. Some riffs are better for opening, some others are better for outing, and between the two we try to find the right recipe for a tasteful cuisine.

WITH MUSIC THAT DRIFTS BETWEEN PEACEFUL, AMBIENT SOUNDS AND ALL OUT DOWN TUNED GUITAR DESTRUCTION, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY WAS THE BIGGEST INFLUENCE THAT HAS LEADED YOU ON THIS MUSICAL PATH TO WHERE YOU ARE MAKING THE STYLE OF MUSIC YOU ARE MAKING NOW?

I can hardly speak for Manu (the main composer) since he is not with me, but I think he would say Chopin, Liszt, or any romantic composer of classical music.

TALKING ABOUT DOWN TUNED GUITARS; YOU GUYS MUST BE USING SEVEN STRING GUITARS TO TUNE YOUR GUITARS THAT LOW; AND IF POSSIBLE CAN YOU TELL US WHAT TYPE OF GEAR YOU USE TO CREATE YOUR UNIQUE SOUND?

We use Ibanez 7-stringed guitars, and B.C. Rich bass guitars. Live we play on numeric preamps, and in the album we mixed numeric and tube amplifications.

THE BAND PLAYED ITS FIRST SHOWS IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA A FEW MONTHS BACK. WAS THERE ANYTHING SURPRISINGLY DIFFERENT THAT YOU NOTICED BETWEEN THE MUSIC SCENE IN EUROPE AND THE PLACES YOU VISITED ON THE TOUR?

Hell yeah! Musicians are rarely considered in US entries, on the organisation side friendly people were rare to find. We never ask to be considered as rock stars, never, but we tour to meet people and share something with as many people as possible. Human relationships are pretty important to me, when you consider music as a pure business you make it uninteresting.

In Europe you get food, hosting, drinks, sound checks almost everywhere you play at, this way you talk to people, get closer to them… In the USA it happened that the people from the venues didn’t say one word to us, not giving a shit. What’s the point of having a live venue if you don’t like the bands coming to your bar?

I myself own a musical venue and consider it really interesting to get to know the bands I invite. Fortunately there were really good places we played in, with really good people, and I sincerely hope to go back and see them on our next tour in the US. I noticed that many bands came to play and then went away as soon as the concert was over, in Europe we tend to come long before the show to have a chance to drink together and get to know each others and then we leave the place as long a time as possible after the show so we can talk and/or party altogether.

WATCHING THE TOUR REPORT VIDEOS WAS A LOT OF FUN, AND THEY ARE DONE REALLY WELL. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR VAN THAT KEPT BREAKING IN THE FIRST VIDEO AND HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE THE VAN YOU HAD IN EUROPE WITH THE ONE YOU HAD IN THE STATES?

The van we use in France is mine, it is an old van from 1995, and as any old van it plays tricks as to break while we’re going to play far north. I already lost one van once while we were travelling from Germany to Switzerland: we had done 4000 Kilometers (2485 miles approx.) in one month and it was quite exhausted! To tour in the USA we used a RV with 2 beds and a convertible couch, it was quite comfortable and it saved us hostel costs. It was a Ford and it held the tour quite well, driving an automatic car was strange at first (it was like driving a bumper-car) because you don’t have full control of what you’re doing but then it was fine.

DOES THE TIREDNESS THAT COMES WITH TOURING EVER CATCH UP TO YOU WHILE ON THE ROAD OR DO YOU FIND THAT NO MATTER HOW TIRED YOU ARE DURING THE DAY THAT YOU SOME HOW STILL GET THE ENERGY TO DO A SHOW?

We usually enjoy staying at the entry to chat with the audience so we tend to go to bed quite late. But when it comes to the live show the adrenaline makes it possible and tiredness is rarely felt during the performances. Still, I have to admit that I was jumping higher during the first American shows than during the last ones, in the end my whole body was adrenaline and dopamine, no muscle nor brain anymore.

THE BAND HAS A REALLY COOL VIDEO FOR THE SONG “DAYBREAK AT SLAUGHTER HOUSE”; TELL US MORE ABOUT THE VIDEO AND HOW THE BAND LIKES TO INCORPORATE VISUALS INTO ITS LIVE SHOW?

The “Daybreak at slaughter-house” video is made of Manu’s archives and we shot some more images to insert a more linear side into it. The video playing during the whole show is a filtered compilation of our own archives. It is not there to give the audience an interpretation of our music but to drawn them into an other world, ours.

WOULD YOU EVER CONSIDER DOING A LIVE DVD AND ARE YOU PLANNING ANY MORE VIDEOS IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

We are currently in Bolivia shooting landscapes and people to make the second film.We almost finished the making of a compilation of live and behind-the-scene footage from our first tour in the USA. We’ll be filming the second tour as well, I guess there will be enough tape then to make a DVD.

I SEE THE BAND HAS BEEN BUSY WITH A SIDE PROJECT CALLED “A BACKWARD GLANCE ON A TRAVEL ROAD” AND THE ALBUM OF THE PROJECT CAN BE DOWNLOADED FOR FREE AT http://www.dl-abackwardglance.com/. BY DOING THE SIDE PROJECT ARE YOU GUYS INSPIRED AGAIN TO WORK ON NEW MATERIAL FOR HYPNO5E?

It’s done. We almost finished the recording of the second Hypno5e’s album. Inside of it we put the violence we couldn’t put inside ABGOATR, so let me tell you that it will be pretty violent!

WAS IT FUN TO DO SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT WITH “A BACKWARD GLANCE ON A TRAVEL ROAD” AND EXPLORE THE AMBIENT SIDE OF YOUR MUSIC AS FAR AS POSSIBLE?

Fun is not the right word, in A Backward Glance On A Travel Road we expressed all the 5 years we had just spent on the Hypno5e project, giving up family projects, giving up school, giving up jobs, isolating from the moving city to spend all our time on it… I think all the dark side of our music expressed there. We were kind of depressed having to fight bare hands against the music industry wall, trying to have legitimacy; A Backward Glance On A Travel Road is a result of the low times.

WHAT DOES THE BAND HAVE PLANNED FOR THE REST OF 2010?

We come back to the USA on the “Metal as Art Tour” with Revocation and The Binary Code from January the 6th to February the 6th, and we go on touring by ourselves until the 6th of March to visit the states we couldn’t hit in one month. Then we’ll tour France from end of March to mid-April, then tour Europe until May, and eventually tour in Australia and Japan in June. This is what we plan to do and we’ll do our best to achieve, because that’s what we do.

ANY COMMENTS OR PEOPLE YOU WOULD LIKE TO THANK?

First thank YOU for this interview, for your interest and your support. Having the opportunity to do it I’d like to thank all the people who kindly hosted us in their homes or venues during our last tour, it was really awesome, if you hadn’t been there we wouldn’t be coming back, so see you there once more!