Interview with ‘Suricates’
http://www.myspace.com/suricates
Nattsol: For a start, tell me, please, how you have grown up as the music fan/performer? Who were your “teachers” in it and how you have faced them?
Laëtitia: Hi Nattsol! Thanks a lot for your interest, it’s a big honor!!
So, Suricates is formed with 4 persons from different ages and univers. But music collects us : particulary the 80’s post punk or new wave, cold wave like bands such as the cure, killing joke, joy division, bauhaus, siouxsie, pil, dead kennedys… and from the 90’s : fugazi, sonic youth, portishead, etc… We listen to music from the 60’s to today (from Pink Floyd to Prodigy)… We prefer dancing on 80’s cold wave and batcave music… We make some parties very often. But I think we have no “teachers”: “hey teachers! Leave our kids alone!”. We make music with our feelings, heart and soul… We don’t perform and prefer to find sounds and atmospheres we love.
Nattsol: When you seriously took a musical instrument for a first time, what was the music you wanted to play?
Laëtitia: It’s difficult to answer for me because I play guitar for 6 years. In fact, I never played a guitar before playing with Suricates!! It was the same thing for Faiza (the ancient bass player). For other members of the band, it’s different, they began to make some music when they were 20 years old about. Regio and Fred made a band called Post Scriptum and Den played in Soup Toxic, with Chris (Guitare Noire, Walked in line…). In the starts of Suricates, we wanted to do basic punk rock such as Ramones, Buzzcocks…
Nattsol: How the “Suricates” was formed? Why such a strange name?
Laëtitia: It was on 31st December, 2003… We spoked about music and the one of us said: why not to form a band? It was very simple. And as we were friends, it was easier also I think. Even if at the beginning, we spent time in try to be together played. Then in 2005, we have begun to make concerts! And we took taste there! The name suricates was proposed by Regio, the drummer. As we found all the nice animal, we kept this name. Suricates lives in community, they are very social in the way they live. The reports of National Geographic on this subject are very fascinating.
Nattsol: Well, you began to give shows. What public have you faced there? Has it changed? Can you say that Suricates have their own fans?
Laëtitia: For the first concert, it was especially our friends in the room. Then, we played with the other groups and necessarily when we do not play near at home, we are in front of an objective public. And the effect was always positive. It is necessary to say that generally we play in front of a public who listens to of the punk rock or the punk post… It is easier for us in these cases there. At first, people were a little surprised seeing 2 girls and 2 boys on stage. Today, I am the only girl… We shall see in time if that changes things. We have some fans among our friends, finally it is people who come to attend all our concerts or almost! And then other persons testify of their support via myspace for example. That widens a little our horizons because it remains difficult to find concerts except our region… But we well intend to remedy that and to play in the South of France in 2009!
Nattsol: What is your attitude to appearance? Does the image play role in your music (on shows, for example). Do you use some other visual elements?
Laëtitia: So, as regards the importance of our image, we learnt to pay it attention according to concerts. At first, it had no importance for us. It is true that the fact of seeing 2 girls and 2 boys on stage already made its small effect… We did not really need to add it :) We made a photography session last February and I have to say that we do not very feel at ease in front of the objective, without our instruments, we feel a little bit bare. We do not necessarily want to seem joyful or to smile on photos. We prefer to adopt an attitude a little more in retreat and to make speak about us by our music and not for our physical appearance or our clothing dress. Even if when we look at the groups which are successful today, we realize that that has of the importance.
Nattsol: What were the first development points of the band in its start? The first achivements?
Laëtitia: We always want that at the beginning: make some music simply without taking itself the head. But to make a group it is not easy. We are 4 with 4 different personalities… It is sometimes complicated to be all at the same time on the same wavelength. We recorded 4 tracks in our premises of repetition, which we engraved on a CD-ROM, in October, 2005. Then in September, 2008 we took out a mini album with 9 tracks recorded still in our premises of repetition. We advance slowly but certainly!
Nattsol: Ok, so tell me about this album. What is it for you and other band members? What does it reflect? What stuff it contains?
Laëtitia: We absolutely wanted to put our fragments on an album to pass in the other thing, to be able to say himself «Here we are, that it is made «. We needed to advance what by concerts. To record it live was something of evident for us. There are several reasons in it: our lack of control of our instruments and the sound generally, and then especially a big urge to keep the initial energy. I think that even if it is far from being completed, our album is warm and completely done wonders for the self-confidence. It looks like us a little. It is a photography of the fact that was Suricates in 2008 : with its defects and its qualities.
Nattsol: There’s the Soup Toxic cover on the album. What are your relations with this band except one ex-member?
Laëtitia: Then, as regards the relation between Suricates and Soup Toxic, there are many things to be said! By where to begin?? Soup Toxic existed well before Suricates. Chris, the guitarist singer, is my boyfriend for soon 15 years. Fox, the second guitarist was the husband of Faïza. In fact we are a small family. We had the idea to make cover of Soup Toxic «why not?» on the occasion of a concert together. It was a surprise for them. As the public very well reacted, we kept it in our list set and then we recorded it for the album. Today Faiza does not play any more in Suricates, and Den, the ancient bass player of Soup Toxic, joined us. The buckle is buckled! Maybe not still! Faïza and I sang for the Chris’s new project, Guitare Noire, on the resumption of Kraftwerk «les mannequins». And other things still will come. I am also involved in Walked in Line with Chris. I even chronicled some disks, made some interviews for the fanzine and participated in the organization of concerts, in the distribution of disks etc.
Nattsol: What other bands (the ones of your friends and the world legends as well) can be considered as your friends or musical relatives?
Laëtitia: We know quite a lot of groups of our region. And necessarily have seen them in concerts when we were younger for example was able to influence us. I do not know too much what to answer this question, then I put you a part of the groups which have of the importance for us, for various reasons : The Cure, Siouxsie & the Banshees, B 52′s, Bauhaus, Pixies, Dead Kennedys, the Clash, Noir Désir, the Strokes, Killing Joke, Joy Division, New Order, Radio Birdman, Gang of Four, Christian Death, the Smiths, Interpol, Queens of the Stone Age, Girls Against Boys, Sonic Youth, Jesus Lizard, Fugazi, Minor Threat, Bérurier Noir, Monochrome, the Smiths, David Bowie, Portishead, Blondie, Cocteau twins…and more…
Nattsol: Well, are there some plans about the next release? Or about other band’s steps?
Laëtitia: We have some new fragments among which some some that we would like to register. However, Den joined the group in December, 2008; he thus had to learn our set list. At the same time, we created the other fragments which still ask to be to polish up. Then, we work seriously. We also have all a work and sometimes we miss time… We would like to work more regularly.
Nattsol: What are the things except music that make Suricates the real band?
Laëtitia: Suricates, as I said it higher, it is at first pals who want to spend time together. Before creating the group, we were already friends. We did not change our customs and spend still quite a lot of evenings together, to drink beers and to dance ! Often, we go to see concerts all together also. It is sometimes a true adventure! The evenings are often enlivened.
Nattsol: Can you say that you keep your punky attitude in the backstage life? If yes, how it is reflected?
Laëtitia: We are the same persons in the daily life. Our attitude does not really change, even if sometimes we have to make concessions, with regard to the work often. But the state of mind remains the same. It is the lifestyle, that personally is very well convenient for me ! In time, we assert ourselves as we are really. We are done wonders for the self-confidence with regard to one «politically or socially» correct. We can say to those who judge we: and yes, I am like that, it is my way of being, it is what I want to make and to live.
Nattsol: If you could choose time to live in, which period would you choose and why?
Laëtitia: Without hesitating, the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s. For the music obviously! All the groups which we appreciate most are of this period. See them live, there in the time, when they were young and beautiful… What a happiness! And then, maybe that people more dared to be themselves, in the direction where they were maybe less as sheeps which obey media, which undergo the effects of fashion… I think that they had more drop, more critical spirit. And live without mobile phone, what a freedom! Leave on roads without GPS, what risks! That it was rock ‘n’ roll!
Nattsol: Well, is there a question I’ve missed, but you’d love to answer?
Laëtitia: You forgot to ask me this question: » do you Think of making some music in 10 years still? » Then I would have answered you: » yes, it is in me, even if I realized it enough late. That is a part of me and I think that it is the same thing for the other members of the group. »
Nattsol: Thank you for the interview, Laëtitia. And your final words for those who read us. :)
Laëtitia: Thanks to you especially to have relied on us for this interview. Long life to your fanzine and if you pass by Bets, come to drink a beer with us!
Questions: Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
‘Grave Jibes Fanzine’
