They are the first ever beatbox blues band. English duet Heymoonshaker talked with us the day before their amazing performance at MaMA Event, in Paris.
Your album “Noir” is available since October 2nd. What’s your state of mind, now that it’s out?
Dave Crowe (beatbox): Very happy! We had enough time to do everything, but it was a short amount of time. So the tour that we’re doing now was booked before we released the album, which is not the normal succession. But from all of the reviews that we had, from, like, magazines, they were giving us four or five stars, so it’s pretty sweet. The crowds at shows is also going crazy so… Our state of mind is that we keep listening to it and I still wouldn’t change anything. Which is strange…
Andy Balcon (vocals, guitar): There’s one thing that I’d change, which is a note on “Lazy Eye”, one more note that I found later. But this always happens I think, when you finish something, sometimes you learn to play it in a different way and you’re like “oh!”, because that changes the feeling of that song completely. But no, we’re really pleased with the finished product. Especially since we’ve finally got the opportunity to get some new material out, the last time we sent something out was “Shakerism” (ed. EP, 2013).
Let’s come back on your Heymoonshaker’s history, for the few readers who might not know you. Can you tell us how this started?
A: We both left our hometowns and met in New Zealand. We were both backpacking, and playing music. The day we met, I invited Crowe for a barbecue. He came over and he saw I had a guitar, he says “oh, we can have a jam”, and I thought we were gonna play like a Tina Turner song and that he was gonna sing, but instead he started beatboxing!
D: Because he doesn’t know how to play a Tina Turner song, that’s why.
A: And then instantly I was just like “woah, this is brilliant!”, so we carried on and played together for like three months, then we travelled seperately and we met again after that in Sweden, but it was only like in 2012…?
D: Yeah, the end of 2012. We came to France for the first time and did a collection of tours. Our first festival was a student festival in France.
A: They invited us, so we came over thinking we were rockstars (laughs), coming from the streets to headlining a student festival. It was beautiful. And then we continued playing in France because we played all over the world, like Sweden, New Zealand, Australia… But France was certainly where people understood what we were trying to create. And that kind of made the foundation of what we’re playing today. And we’ve been lucky enough to meet people in France who’ve taken this to places like Japan, Canada, America, Mexico… All over the world basically.
How was the writing and recording process? Did you had any particular techniques? Anything different from what you did before?
A: We don’t really get much time to be in one place. So most of the time, where we are writing is like train stations, or in hotel lobbies. And usually we just get an idea of a riff, or…
D: Yeah, something that’s usually one of us plays, and we’re like “yes, that’s cool as fuck!”. And then if that keeps coming around… When we got closer to the album we specifically took riffs and song ideas that we liked and we developped them. But when there’s no deadline we just jam, and jam, and jam. And ideas just keep on coming through. And when they do, you just know it’s a good tune. But because we didn’t release anything since “Shakerism”, there’s been like a 18-month period where we’ve spent time with writers in their home, for two weeks, just to understand a different way of writing. We worked with different producers, that have different aristic abilities. We don’t shut them out, we allow them in, so we can learn how they develop songs. And we’ve done that with three different producers before the one we used for “Noir”.
A: Which is nice, because having worked with so many different people, we were then allowed to walk into the studio and to record “Noir” with a very clear vision of what it was that we wanted.
D: When we got into the studio we started writing the songs we wanted to record, and after like four songs we could really feel that it was going to come together. That there would be one sound in the album, not just a lot of ideas, which “Shakerism” might sound like to a lot of people.
A: It was also nice that we did the cover artwork before we actually recorded the album. So we kinda had a…
D: A vibe.
A: A vision of what the finished product would be.
Tell us more about this artwork.
A: We just got our tops off and started rubbing up against each other and it just seemed to work. Isn’t that how most things work ? (laughs)
D: Yeah, take your clothes off and have a go! (laughs) We really like doing the photoshoots, especially with world class professionnals, it’s a real pleasure. Because when they’re taking a collection of shots, it’s like everything that they’re gonna capture is gonna be a good shot. So then it’s really up to us, trying to find some angles, some impacts with our emotions and our movements. And because we’re so close it’s like… You know, we’re not sensitive about if you have to hold each other to get into a position. And the shot that’s used on this particular album…
A: It’s kinda theatrical isn’t it?
D: We’re completely holding each other. We’ve taken 20 or so before we found the right position to peel away and try to get some real emotion out. And then we saw that photo, and for the first time in our label boss’s career, he said “this is the first time where everybody agrees with the artwork from the first go”. Everybody just looked a the photo and said “that’s it”.
You’re probably being asked this question a lot, but why “Noir”?
A: This is actually the first time we’ve been asked this question.
D: We discussed very early in our career, about the idea of art through time. Your entire work. If you can imagine the art in the first album and the last album, you can make an entire piece from this. So our idea was that for every official release, we name the album by a colour. Si it’s easily representable, it doesn’t take you mind away too much. A colour just gives lots of emotions to a lot of different people.
That’s for the official releases. If we do LP or EP like “Shakerism”, we can run wild with new ideas of art, but for the official releases, maybe we can keep the same kind of imagery, and just change the colour. That’s not so realistc, when you have to work with other partners. We’ve been saying that the album will be called “Black” or “Noir” for the last 18 months. And it really describes us and the music industry. Trying to create something new and just being put in the dark like “yeah great idea, but I don’t wanna help”. We’ve finally found great partners, but we’ve really felt alienated for a while.
“Noir” instead of “Black”, as a thank you to France for being the foundation and still everything that we need to do what we do. The French people and fans, they really really stayed with us so it’s like a thank you.
A: It’s quite simple yet very thought-provoking I think.
Further than this general spirit, is there any message or feeling people should get while listening to this album?
A: Music is meant to be interpreted in however you interpret it. I think maybe taking acknowelgement of what our story is. Because that’s like a chapter of our lives that we kinda summed up on a record. But when I listen to music, I want to interpret it through my own eyes.
What’s next?
D: Tour the shit out of this album. We’re going to Germany, Holland, all Europe, and then Canada for Christmas. After that we’ll come back to Europe to do some larger tours. Maybe some festivals this summer. And we’ve already started writing again, which is great. We’ve had some amazing ideas in the last few weeks. So what’s coming next is lots more of the same, but better.
One last question: our website is called “RockUrLife”, so what rocks your life?
C: (thinks) You gotta be careful what you say. (laughs) I stay sexually active. I visit lots of different countries. I’ve actually started to rock my life less in the last years.
A: So we can rock our lives longer.
C: Yeah! So really, if you asked me like two years ago I would’ve said some fucking crazy shit. (laughs) But right now this how I rock my life: I get home after a gig, I roll myself a joint and have a nice hot bath. And I just lay in there like “I fucking rocked it”. (To Andy) What rocks your life man?
A: I like rocking other people’s lives. So we can all rock.
C: And I’d say that being on tour most of the time, like 200 days of the year, that’s rock n’roll enough.
A: I’ve got the perfect answer to this question! Ask me again.
Alright. Andy, what rocks your life?
A: “Noir”!
Website: heymoonshaker.com
