Punish Yourself good rock’n’roll with a touch of cyberpunk in it! VX 69 gave some of his time to our mascot Crusty during the Reperkusound Festival that took place on April 28th in Chassieu.

Interview conducted by Crusty on April 28th, 2007, at the Reperkusound festival

RM : What can you tell me about the writing process for your latest album, Gore Baby Gore? What band did you listen to during the recording?

VX 69 : I cannot tell you much about the writing process, because some songs had been written ages ago but never recorded. Others were composed on the road. We’re not exactly systematic when it comes to composing. We can have a spur-of-the-moment idea for a riff or spend six months composing one song. We’re not the kind of band to sit during three weeks in a studio to rehearse and compose everything just like that. It’s a constant process. Electronics allows us to go back on what we’re doing whenever we feel like it. As for what we were listening to during the recording, it was all very rock’n’roll: a great return to the Stones and lots of garage rock.


It was indeed softer than the first albums.

Yes; there are no extra violent songs, but that’s not what we wanted to do at the time. We were listening to garage rock, or to indus bands with rock tendencies, and we clearly weren’t in the mood to listen to Alec Empire all day long.


The album comes with a DVD. Did it make things harder or did it go smoothly? What’s the goal of this DVD?

We’d wanted to release this DVD for a while. It was recorded a year before the album. At first we were only planning to release the DVD on its own, but we fell so far behind that we weren’t very happy with the result. We therefore recorded a series of videos by ourselves and with what little resources we had. We couldn’t just sell it like that, it would almost have been a crime. So we released it along with the album, a nice little thing for only 15 euros. We also wanted to have a trace of what we were doing at the time. Concerning the concert part of the DVD, the line-up is the same, except for the dancer. The interest was also to put together the archives that featured all the past members, like a return on our 10 years of existence.


Seeing Punish Yourself live is quite an experience. I remember an incredible gig with LTNO in 2004 at the Ninkasi kao, in Lyon. How do you prepare yourself before each show?

I don’t know that we can really talk about « preparation ». Covering your own body in paint during an hour is enough to wake you up! We’re often quite worn-out because we usually do one show after the other. Our latest gig was in Brest, and the next day we had to play in Lyon. We were so tired that we had to sleep in the bus on our way here, and it was no great fun! So I can tell you applying paint on your face is a good, useful way to wake up! We’re quite the boozers as well. And apart from that, we don’t do any sport or tai-chi or whatever. (laughs)


Is your very unusual live visual influenced by movies and such?

No; we’ve always been influenced by very visual bands. I’m an old fan of Alice Cooper and many other such bands, like Alien Sex Fiend or Skinny Puppy, and their highly developed visual. We’ve always wanted to do something like that, but we hadn’t found a concept we really liked until we tried the lights and paint. We had salvaged a few neon lights thanks to our bassist, who used to work on the side for a company that was being redone, and who had pinched everything he could. We had a try with them during a small concert and we thought: « that’s what we were looking for ». We stayed true to them ever since.


Does the mise-en-scene have any precise goal aside from that of giving pleasure to your audience?

We’re not a band with well-defined goals or concepts. Our goal is perhaps simply to please the audience. At least give them more pleasure than we have ourselves, because paint is not something nice to wear: it cracks, it pricks, it’s heavy, it’s basically a pain. The goal is also to generate a moment where all the lights create a break from reality. Perhaps it was more obvious before, when we were playing in small venues with a boxed off aspect about them, venues where we could be in close contact with the audience. It’s different with a venue like this one (note: Eurexpo), because there’s no contact with the audience. But yesterday in Brest, we played on in a small venue and we spent almost the entire show crowd-surfing; those are moments when there is a real osmosis, and the mise-en-scene is a part of this; we want our audience to forget their problems and daily routine by giving them a good show.


You’ve worked with many bands like Eths or more particularly Tantrum, with whom you tour a lot. How did you happen to meet the former black-metalheads?

The Tamtrum guys are good friends, we’ve known them since before they even created their band. We’ve known them forever, and Sylvain even played drums for us during a whole summer. Our drummer had hurt himself, so we needed a substitute drummer, and we found only one guy who was crazy enough to learn our entire repertoire in a week. Now he’s like a life member. I think we can do things together on a regular basis.


Can you tell me more about the instrumental album you’re going to release? Why do an album without lyrics?

It is indeed a completely instrumental album. It was supposed to be released in June 2007, but we have postponed the release to September 2007 due to promotion problems, although the album is in the can. It will be a digipack release, with the reissue of Sexplosive Locomotive and bonus material. On the instrumental album, I must admit that we indulged ourselves. It’s been a year since we released Gore Baby Gore, and we wanted to do something with what we had composed but that did not lend itself to become songs. We made a selection of 12 pieces, which wasn’t easy because we just had so many of them. It’s probably going to annoy the people who accuse us of being a commercial band, so we’ll release a bloody boring instrumental album just for them! No, it’s really all good fun, but I think it will surprise a lot of persons.


Maybe your fans will find a logical continuation in this.

Some of them will, but I can already hear the reaction of those who thought that Gore baby Gore was too calm! Just wait for the next album; we’ve already started working on it, and it won’t be dull at all!


Was your combination of styles (indus, angry guitar riffs and even techno beats) ever a problem to the fans of each style?

Not at all! We never felt like we were mixing styles; using a guitar riff on top of a techno beat doesn’t sound shocking to me. The first records that were intended to become techno music were composed of guitars, and the first bands to use electronics were rock bands. We don’t feel like we’re mixing styles, not like Faith no More, for example, who found pleasure in making songs in every possible style. We always compose following the logic of what we are. We don’t mix stuff just for the sake of it, we don’t cross and hybridize things and then wait for a result; it’s just that we listen to very different styles of music and that we try to make the music we like. For example, on the instrumental album, there will be a jazzy piece; people will certainly be surprised, but we happen to listen to jazz a lot. As for the audience, it was never a problem; our band attracts people from every horizon; we can do a gig with black-metalheads as well as punks, techno fans, goths… it’s quite paradoxical. Luckily most people are rather open-minded.


You are often considered as representatives of the cyberpunk culture. How would you say the term fits the band?

Cyberpunk is a word I’ve often used, because it’s a convenient way to define what we do without wasting a couple of hours to explain that we mix different stuff. I’m rather keen on the cyberpunk culture, but as for the word in itself, the great enthusiasts will tell you that cyberpunk is something that cannot be defined. William Gibson, who practically invented the genre, defines it as a literature « on edge », something that can’t be defined in itself. I don’t think we can write particularly revolutionary music in this respect, or anything that brings new concepts; it’s just that we play in a very punk way with machines, hence the cyber aspect. We can insert cyber themes in some songs, even if the final result is more concrete. We are bigger fans of Z science-fiction than cyberpunk in itself, although we don’t renounce this universe. But we’re closer to the Fantastic 4 than we are to Matrix. I don’t really like all this mysticism around the machine, I’m not into that kind of stuff at all.


How do you see the future for Punish Yourself?

We never think about the future of the band. We don’t do much aside from Punish Yourself, it’s our life. We all more or less have side-projects, but they’re not really important. For us, Punish Yourself is what we do for a living, and we don’t ever want to stop. We don’t think about the future evolution of the band, we just try to play abroad because we play a lot here in France. We will do a tour in Eastern Europe in the fall, and our next song album, to be released in the spring of 2008, will be heavy and violent, even if we don’t quite agree on what to put in it. A couple of us listen to death metal, and a couple of us just hate it, so the double pedal is a big no-no, but there will be some huge, heavy riffs, very quick but without being technical.


Quite efficient!

Exactly! We’ll play loud and fast!


Do you have any plan of collaboration with other bands?

We don’t have anything planned, except with people from the French electro-indus scene, who will probably guest star on the next album. And then we were in contact with Hanin Elias from Atari Teenage Riot, but there’s been no sign of her for a while, so we don’t really know what to do. She wanted us to do a few songs for her album. On the instrumental album, Sylvain from Tantrum will guest star on drums.


To conclude the interview, what kind of make-up remover do you use?

Hot water and soap.


Punish Yourself website : punishyourself.free.fr