With permission of both Viktor (KEYBÖARD WARRIOR) and Damien (SYNDROME 81) I am allowed to re-publish the interview Viktor did with Damien in the first issue of KEYBÖARD WARRIOR. Why bother trying to do it better when there’s already such a kick-ass read out there, right? Besides, who reads paper fanzines anyways... Haha, just kidding Viktor! Enjoy!

 

Tell us a bit about the background of SYNDROME 81, what´s the story? How did it all start? Didn´t you guys start out as a 2-piece, and nowdays you´re playing shows – how did that happen?

Hi, yes that's true, we were first an internet project. At the time we did the demo I was living in Nice for work reasons. Not that much is happening there, it's a seaside resort who lives on tourism. I was bored so I told my long-time friend and partner in music Jacky “Let's do something together, you record the music, send me the files, I'll work on the lyrics and when I am in Brest we'll record the voice.

 

Jacky and I were born in 81 and you have to be a bit sick to waste time and money just to record a few songs when you're past 30, so I came up with the name Syndrome 81.

 

Then in August 2013 I moved from South of France to Rouen, not far from Paris and it brings me closer to our hometown of Brest, so we said let's make of Syndrome 81 a real band. So now it's me, Fab, on vocals, Jacky on bass, Tim on drums, Dam and Mitch on guitars.

 

Your demo seems to have gotten quite an excellent response, not only in Europe but abroad as well…are you satisfied with it? If I remember right the demo will be released as a 7” – who´s putting it out and when is it coming out?

Speaking for myself I have to say I was quite surprised. It was new for me , switching from English to French for singing. It was totally different from the bands I used to be in. I was more into fast hardcore bands. Jacky was more confident with the demo, quite happy with the songs he wrote but yet we didn't really know what to expect. When we started the project we wanted to do a fast hardcore band but we have no drummer available, so Jacky decided to start from scratches and write mid-tempo songs more Oi!-oriented so he could do the drums. But in the end he never did the drums cuz Timmy was happy to help for the demo session, and he's now the official drummer of S81.

 

The demo tape sold out quite fast, and Alex, from Offside Records who had released some stuff from Jacky's band The Night Stalkers, offered us to do a repress on wax. And we agree, simple as that. The repress was sent to the pressing plant in late January but it has been postponed cuz the pressing-plant was more busy with the record store day, so hopefully it will be out early June 2014 as the test-press just arrived. But it sucks to wait so long.

 

France is unknown territory for me when it comes down to hardcore punk, a few bands spring to mind, the average punk here would know more of the French punk scene in the 80´s with Komintern Sect, Camera Silens, L.S.D, Reich Orgasm and such. What did we miss out on? What´s the general state of hardcore and punk in France? How come French bands seldom come around Scandinavia while on tour? Too expensive, too long drives? Polar bears?

It's hard to be exhaustive, I'd say we had a great screamo scene throughout the period 2000-2013 with bands like Amanda Woodward, Daïtro, 12XU which sings in French and toured the US. The level of French bands is now better than it used to be. But there are not as many bands that you can have in Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland or Germany I think. You should check out Youth Avoiders, they're now on Deranged and tour the US several times, they're great guys and the music kills, Gasmask Terrör is a d-beat killer band too, their last 7” is in my opinion the best thing they did, they did 2 songs in French for a change and it rips! The Hxc-punk scene in France is a very small world, almost everyone knows everyone. Idiot Talk, Short Days are cool bands from Lille too. I think Gasmask Terrör and Youth Avoiders have been/will be playing in Copenhagen. But yes I guess it's a long ride, France is already quite big so when touring it's not easy to go that far, especially for us, because we're from the Far West of France just to get East it takes us 10 hours! But this time we'll be coming to Scandinavia. I personally went to Helsinki a couple of times cuz a friend of mine live there, and I've been to Stockholm and Uppsala, no problem with Scandinavia I love it. Sauna, Ice hockey, it rules!

 

In “Brest La Grise”, Brest is described in quite grim and grey way…what´s that place like really?

It's...grim and grey! It's a military harbour town which was destroyed during WWII so at the end of the war the rebuilt the city as fast as they could without any style, just plain concrete buildings so that the architecture looks post-Soviet. It's one of the rainiest cities in France, we are at the Far-West end of France, so we're far from the rest of the country and I think the city developed its own culture, we don't wait for things to happen from elsewhere, we know we have to move our asses to make things happen at every level.

 

So that's why I think there are lots of things happening at a cultural level for example. And therefore in the punk scene, even though there have been different cycles depending on new kids getting involved. Globally everyone sticks together and makes things happen.

 

On the other hand the weather isn't that nice, we have the reputation of being the rainiest city of France and maybe the freakiest city. It explains why we have the highest rates in suicide and alcoholism. In the end it's a cool place if you don't miss the sun cuz people are fun and like to party...When you read the newspapers on Monday it's always fun to read what stupid things did people under the influence of alcohol. It's a must-do for every inhabitant of Brest, read the drunk stories of the weekend.

 

Your lyrics have a dark poetic feel, something we usually say about anything French here in Sweden. You could be singing about doing the dishes, yet to a Scandi ear it sounds melancholic and poetic. How come so many French bands sing in their native language? Here bands adapt and many sing in English, because we are really subjected to English all the time.

Shit, I should sing about doing the dishes. It's funny you said that because I love the Scandinavian hxc scene, and it appears to me that lots of band sings in Swedish or switch to Swedish (The Vicious, Invasionen, Knugen Faller, Tristess,...). But you're right, French is perceived as an intellectual language that speaks to the heart. For example in the US, you can sense that. I think because of the French philosophers and the Enlightenment (Rousseau, so on that influenced Jefferson and the Founding Fathers...) But it's funny cuz I don't feel that so many French bands sing in French. It was true for the 80s bands from the Chaos era but kids like us grew up on US and hardcore punk and we wanted to play that kind of music and we kind of rejected the French singing, often associated as bad singing. To be honest when we, French bands sing in English, the lyrics are not that clever too. But it sounds cool. Whereas in French it's most of the time shitty and to have correct singing you have to work more on your singing and lyrics. Only in the screamo scene and oi scene (and a few other exceptions) did bands continue to sing in French.

 

Your cover of one of hardcore punks most covered classics NEGATIVE APPROACH “Nothing”, but as “Que dalle” in French was a brilliant piece of work. Who came up with that idea to do it in French?

Jacky and I are mostly into hardcore, we like 80s hardcore bands from the US. And this cover appeared naturally. NA mixes the oi influence of acts like Blitz with the US hardcore. We are hardcore dudes who wanna play Oi, they were Oi dudes that wanted to play hardcore! So the ends meet! And we said let's push the concept of S81 to its limits, let's do this cover in French.

 

If I´m not mistaken, you all play in different bands besides SYNDROME 81, how do you manage to prioritize between them, and how inter-mixed is the Brest scene, is everyone playing in 3-4 different bands and pretty much share members all the time? Malmö is inbred like the Fritzl family, every 3rd band is a mix of two other bands so to say.

Hahaha, it's exactly the same here in Brest (or BMO for intimates). I haven't been living in Brest for 5 years now but it's still the same. It's a small village, everybody is in 3 or 4 bands and that's cool. Concerning the band the priority goes to the one that has booked its date first. There's no problem with that. Mitch plays in Litovsk (great post-punk, demo tape is out it's great), Dam plays in The Wedge (cool 80s hardcore), Jacky & Timmy are in The Night Stalkers (fast evil hxc) and Jacky has always past, present and future projects going on. Regarding myself I'm on the edge of retirement, I only do S81 because I'm far from Brest. I know that if I were in BMO I'll be doing shit load of bands too.

 

In “A coup de gégène” you mention General Jacques Massau and Lt. Gen Marcel Bigeard – two of France most famous and infamous military legends for their brutal repression of the Algerian independence with the use of death flights and the “crevettes Brigeard” in Algeria. If I´m not totally wrong, Massau and Bigeard both were considered national heroes, amongst the establishment and right wing – but amongst the ordinary French citizen they are not held in too high regard? How did that song come about? Is the De Gaulle amnesty for all crimes committed in Algeria still a political taboo in France?

Yes we have unfortunately our share of people nostalgic of France as the Great Colonial Empire. But what I wanted to point at was the fact that France often pictures itself as the great defender of the human rights. But in the end we are not as exemplary as we wanted to be. So it's that hypocrisy that I hate. Now I wasn't living in the 60s, so I don't want to judge the actors of the events with the benefits of hindsight that would be too easy. But indeed what is sad is that it takes too long to make amends for France and to admit its errors and harshness during that war (that for a long time we didn't even called a « war » as it was taboo, they were called « the events in Algeria »). 2 years ago it was the 50th birthday of the ending of the conflict and there were lots of magazines, talk shows, documentaries. I watched a few and you can sense that France is not still at peace with that. In 2005 there was even a French law on colonialism which was imposed on the high schools teachers to insist on the positive role of the French presence abroad and there was a part about the Algerian War more specifically. It's fun because I was never taught about the Algerian War nor the Paris Commune of 1871 at school. What a nation of hypocrites!

 

In regards to music, what do you want was the plan with Syndrome 81, how did you want it to sound – and what do you actually want to do with the band? What inspires you in music and lyrics? So, now ending words….what´s the future for Syndrome81 and any parting words?

Our main influences are Blitz, Criminal Damage and No Hope For The Kids for Syndrome 81. We're not strictly Oi cause as I said earlier we have our hardcore touch and will always have! Concerning the lyrics I would say it's a mix between angry, nostalgic and dark moods and I recently noticed, as I was working on the new songs, it's mostly about being alone and confused, lost. I read a lot of novels and some of the new songs have been inspired by those readings. History interests me as well, I've been reading a lot about the breakup of Yugoslavia recently. We now plan to record new songs before coming to Sweden to visit you! We'll be recording new songs this summer for a split 7'' with Litovsk and a 7'' on our own. Then in October we're going on a small Tour across France, Germany and Sweden.

 

Since this interview was conducted Syndrome 81 have toured around quite a bit and released one split E.P with Litovsk and an E.P of their own, "Désert Urbain" on Destructure records (Europe) and Foreign Legion records (US). They´re also on the sick French Oi!-comp "La force dans la Oi! vol.2" alongside Rixe, Traitre and Outreau that Un Vie Pour Rien put out quite recently.

 

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