Interview with «Luiza Fria»
http://www.myspace.com/luizafria
Nattsol: Hello! Let’s start traditionally with the question about your appearance in the post-punk music as a listener and then as a musician.
F.Rodríguez: First of all, thanks a lot for interviewing us! The post-punk thing is directly connected to my lifestyle, I myself played in many other post-punk bands and invest good part of my time in listening to bands like Vex, Ethiopia, Siekiera, Cabaret Voltaire, The Cure and Sisters of Mercy.
Luc: We kind of fell at home within this environment. As listeners we really enjoy the genre and are involved in it for a long time; even before Luiza Fria each of us has had own personal experiences with other projects and bands in this medium. As musicians, we make use of many elements from the raw post-punk… The counterpoint between instruments for example… As if each instrument had a unique personality and content to express. That’s important for us.
Nattsol: So, some previous projects. Could you tell a bit more, please? What were (still are) they, is that possible to find some records…. And in common, a few words about the “lives” of these projects.
Moiirah: In my case there was a band named Unbrall, a kind of industrial act I’ve been playing to by 1999/2000. That was actually my teenage years ‘experimental project’. That made me grow considerably as musician since it worked as an impulse for me to get in contact with diverse musical genres.
F. Rodríguez: I formed my first band when I was 13, it was called “Medo do Fim”, brutal noisecore, something between Crippled Bastards and Armagedom. The first experiences are always productive, they work as a draft for coming projects. With the pleasure of playing you end up having problems with jerks and unmotivated players, but everything ends well when you get some things, like playing in another cities. There’s a saying here which says “Having a rock band is asking for the worst to happen and liking it”… More or less how it works.
Kell Kill: Well, I played to a post-punk band (early 2000) named Morffina. That was my music school, I haven’t had good vocal control yet, and felt really shy on stage, in front of all those people. We recorded a demo tape in 2001 containing 5 tracks; even though both lyrics and sonority had nothing to do with my actual band, this band had songs I consider great. What makes me to recall this band and this time enthusiastically was exactly this very first contact with public, after that I never even considered abandoning the stage.
Luc: I’ve been playing for other projects. Punk, post-punk/coldwave, deathrock… Some of them lasted more, other could badly become concrete, were relegated to the realm of ideas… I played alive with three of them. That was definitely an excellent apprenticeship in musical and performatic/corporal terms. The band Rosa dos Ventos is the only one (of those projects) that ended up releasing a demo (before I join the group); and on internet, there is an alive video on Youtube (search “Rosa dos Ventos FNAC”). Well, sometimes it happens that you play for a three-men crowd, bite the floor so wasted you are, you know! The most frightening case I’ve experienced so far was playing alive at FNAC, in the official release of the Portuguese translation of the book Harry Potter (lol); that’s ok, we survived!
Nattsol: So tell me more, please, about the gathering of the band members. It’s written in your bio that the musical result was unexpected. So what did you expect then?
Kell Kill: That is not only unexpected, but I still cannot help explaining how that happened. Even Freud cannot handle this one. In my opinion, our music is something oddly achieved, product of a unique relation between band members as persons and as musicians…
Luc: We always wanted to form a project that really worked (that was not really happening in our past projects for varied reason). Personally, I had already given up from this whole deathrock thing, I simply didn’t know about a one in my city who could be interested in it. One day I got acquaintance with Kel and Moiirah in a party, and as a matter of fact they expressed their wish to play in a deathrock band. I made them know about my bad taste in music and we ended up creating the band. And that worked out pretty well, and we are ‘alive’ up till know! Today we count on Rodriguez to play drums, we were quite lucky of meeting him right after a miserable moment when some members left the band. From this point another pals played with us in the band… A guy who had lived amidst the old mess from dark movement here in our city Brasília… a Dadaist hamster-man… A number 13 boy… And a devilish jazz musician. All of them were quite helpful, we fell really indebted for this. At the beginning, the only thing we made up our minds to do were “playing something deathrock”. What we had as referential were merely our past experiences, intuition and temerity, the band’s developed came out of nothing, the whole thing simply *puff* happened… Which is fine, we’re still excited about it, especially in being the first guys in our region playing this kind of music and making our trad-rock’n’roll public perplexed (lol).
Moiirah: Well, as mentioned, the result was really unexpected, especially the fact the whole band shares a common interest. In particular, I was expecting to play something dirtier and heavier – with influence of Californian Deathrock, Horror Punk, 77’ Punk… Plus the old B-movies thematic. But at each rehearsal we tried to get in some unique sonority, and ended up mixing a lot of different sonorities… For example Alvarenga & Ranchinho, Secos e Molhados, and the French sparrow-woman Edith Piaf. In this point the resulting sonority that we identify as Luiza Fria’s become something unexpectable even for us.
Nattsol: Talking about your references, can you say that you’re more oriented on the 80’s stuff or on the contemporary one? In your opinion, what are pluses and minuses of each of them?
Kell Kill: Both go together, most of the bands today base their sonority on the 80’s. It is the absolute referential today. What would be from the contemporary music without it?
F.Rodríguez: For sure, 90% of what I listen to comes from the 80’s, I guess in that time bands had a whole special feeling that we from later times, even having a lot of technological advantages available, cannot achieve. The bands didn’t permit bad songs in their records, it was a unique opportunity for expressing something, for me that’s the main difference between the 80’s and the contemporary stuff.
Moiirah: I see equilibrium here. The 80’s is a mainfold of cultural references, everytime we find out about bands, movies, artists… Something really new and fresh in it.
Luc: We cannot deny our admiration for the 80’s. Although we use to research new stuff coming up so as never to be stuck in time, you know. But even so… 80’s were just great. One of these days I heard from a guy working on a counter in a diner that musical taste comes from the liver. Being so, I’d say there are 80’s and contemporary cells in our livers.
Nattsol: What role does Brazilian folk tradition play in your music? What is your national in it, and what is foreign? (And how do you manage to combine these aspects?)
F.Rodríguez: Brazil owns a rich cultural scene in every aspect, and I, as student and lover of Brazilian music, am indirectly influenced by it. Maybe even unconsciously by the cultural scene. That influences the Luiza Fria sonority, no doubt… It is hard to differentiate what is a local aspect, what is a foreign aspect… We have influence even from other galaxies. (lol)
Luc: There is a duo from folk artists in Brazil who work as great influence for us, named Alvarenga & Ranchinho. They were guys from extreme country-side that recorded a plenty of cunning satirical and a sinister songs with sense of humor… in the 30’s. One day Moiirah showed us their songs and simultaneously we become cart-carrying adepts.
Moiirah: Dunno, the Brazilian folklore has huge impact on our ideas, especially concerning stage attire and lyrics. We use to combine the mythic beings of our culture and stuff from abroad, but not really systematically. The song “Turbantes”, for example, mixes Arabic sonorities and leitmotivs. We are working specifically in harmonizing those tendencies for future works.
Nattsol: To continue the previous question, where is Luiza in your music? Can she be found in it by a listener? And outside of it?
Moiirah: She’s simply everywhere, and due to this we dedicate our work for her! Luiza is like a joker that spies us, pokes fun on everyone, swear, work on night-shifts, scare the hell out the kids, complains about past life. Now you can find here in our songs, also.
Kell Kill: It depends a lot upon your imagination. Everyone keeps asking the very same question: Who the f*** is Luiza? She can be a pet, an alien… Pick and choose.
Luc: Probably between the lines. She ends up to be something floating unconsciously that we might reach out (as a Buddhist Satori). Outside of the music… it might be the same thing, who knows! One day we will try to summon Jung’s spirit and ask a couple of hints about it.
Nattsol: Let’s move to more concrete aspects. You released your first demo in 2008. Tell me about it. (What’s the stuff there? What is your personal in this music? Has it brought you some success?)
Luc: It consists in five songs: “Luiza”, “Cinzeiro” (Ashtray), “Tela” (Screen), “De Encontro com o Medo” (Facing the Fear) e “Turbantes” (Turbants). The songs bring very personal character insofar as they were composed out of mental conflicts, some intimate impressions of whatsoever… Like happened with “Cinzeiro”: in a cold misty morning I had some incoherent thoughts that simply showed up and transmutated themselves to a music field: that was the kind of description you give to justify why you skip classes everyday. Pretty abstract, hard to spell it out.
Kell Kill: Good question (lol)… The repercussion within the public and even local mainstream media was fantastic, we couldn’t figure out how the release was awaited till we saw the results. Concerning “success”… The song “Cinzeiro” is the one of that I consider closer to it. Because it is a cute waltz-like song about the goddamnit “end of the world” syndrome and ironizing the fact it can be whether real or not, deep down that doesn’t matter… The world will find its end anyway, so the lyrical voice in the voice (I as vocalist, in the case) invites everyone to have some coffee and watch the world crumbling down. And there’s this song “Luiza”, explaining everything (and nothing) about the name we gave to the band.
Nattsol: So you touched the lyrical aspect. What are your text about? Who’s the writer? And what poets, writers or someone else (maniacs, politics, aliens… Luiza? =0) influenced on the lyrics?
Kell Kill: Many of the compositions were made by Luc and me, Moiirah worked on the instrumental part of “De Encontro com o Medo”, and the song entitled “Turbantes” was composed by the ex member Gustavo Hamster. In my case, I prefer to watch the news to have some inspiration on real stuff, so I can transfer this kind of stuff to the lyrics. I composed “Luiza” while I was taking a shower, I had a child’s song in my head and started singing and deforming the rhythm. First part of the song is based on a Edvard Grieg’s song.
Luc: I would sum it up this way: estrangement, absurd, insanity, death and possibilities! Concerning the influences, at the moment… David Lynch, strange movies and horror stuff, Georg Trakl, former avant-gardes, fantastic realism, Zygmunt Bauman, something of psychoanalysis…
Nattsol: As far as I‘m concerned, you’re working on the next demo. So this question is partly similar to the previous one, but also could you tell, what’s the use in the second demo, and are there some plans to move on a higher level?
Moiirah: Yeah!!! I guess Luiza will be more pleasant with the guests. Or not!
F.Rodríguez: I became a band member on September 2008. In this upcoming work I put more punk characteristics. The good relationship between band and new members also helped a lot for us to achieve a good result in the new songs.
Luc: In this upcoming demo-tape, there are two songs recently composed and two songs we composed a long time ago, but forgot to record. We are looking forward to achieve the summit of poltergeist music!
Nattsol: So when it is going to be out? What other differences, musical and conceptual ones, can be expected in the stuff in comparison with the first release? (Will it be the self-released CD too?)
Moiirah: We’re still working on the new album.
Kell Kill: Soon, pretty soon it is going to be out… We are in the mixing phase! Concerning the sonority, the essence remains the same, the songs sound even more demented, I’m sure they are much better than the previous ones. This release is also independent.
Nattsol: This question is about your live shows and Brazilian post-punk scene in common. So what is Luiza Fria on stage? Is the band a part of the scene (movement?)? Do you have a fan base, or some friends among the musicians?
Luc: We keep in touch with a bunch of bands and cool people from the whole country who share the same taste we have for music. Especially in our city Brasília we use to play to quite diverse crowds.
Kell Kill: Our concerts rely a lot upon performance, the crowds fell at home watching them for some reason, we just enjoy talking to those people and interacting. We have a lot of support from friends and fans who end up being the Brazilian post-punk scene.
Moiirah: On stage there’s great chemistry with the crowds and a sort of curiosity due to our emphasis on performatic eccentricity, we kind of differentiates us from the rest of local bands. We count on the help of a lot of people.
Nattsol: Moiirah, you mentioned some eccentricity. What kind of?
Moiirah: I mean, there is this cabaret ‘touch’ all mixed up with circus imagery (and behavior) spread among the band members.
Nattsol: Could you tell me about the band personalities apart from the musical activity?
Kell Kill: I’m DJ and event promoter, I’m playful and kind of hysterical (not in a negative sense, I hope)!
Luc: I “live in another word”, read books, study cinematography…
F.Rodríguez: I study, work with serigraphy. I’m finishing a new zine, also, named “Ampulheta Imóvel” (Immovable Hourglass).
Nattsol: If a one (a magician, Luiza or whoever) told you that any your artistic wish can be realized, what would you ask?
Kell Kill: (Lol) I’d ask for her autography, my childhood’s dream is meeting her personally!!!
Moiirah: I’d love to have our album cover drawn by Tim Burton or Victor Hugo Borges (a Brazilian artist), that would be great.
Luc: For me, besides the subjective questions, certainly that would be playing with bands we listen to, meeting interesting people, discover things…
F.Rodríguez: Each time composing better songs and living out of music!
Nattsol: Thanks for the interview. Wish you all the best in your artistic way or so. And your final words.
Luc: I loved this zine and the fact we’re participating of it… We wish all success to Grave Jibes, thanks a lot for the invitation and attention!
F.Rodríguez: Thanks Nattsol, success with the zine, good noise for you and when we step on Russian sole we hope to meet you personally. Cheers!
Questions: Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
‘Grave Jibes Fanzine’
