I was looking for more content for our blog. And Pleasure To Kill immediately told us we could do an interview. Of course I accepted that offer and here we go:
Who am I “talking” with?
- Hello ! I'm Dums (but my friends call me Dums !), and I'm the bassist-singer of Pleasure To Kill. The other members are Didier : drums and J-Mi : guitar.
How did you get together? Like, who started the band and how did it evolve?
- At first, J-Mi and I had known each other for a while, we had played together in some bands.
In 2008, we met Berny, former guitarist and co-founder of PTK. Our common passion for thrash made us decide to create this band with the help of Bastos (a childhood friend) at the drums (but this guy was mainly guitarist !), and with Yannick at vocals. After a few gigs we stopped to play with this first singer for musical reasons, and after 2 years we also stopped to play with Bastos because of his own musical project.
Then, in 2011, we received help from Nico on drums, who played with us during our "Carnage Tour", for the release of our 2010's EP.
Didier (our present drummer) came in the game at the end of this tour. As he already knew and liked PTK, his integration in the band was really easy : musically, humanly...
Who are the people behind “Pleasure To Kill”?
- Pleasure To Kill is mainly managed by its three members. "Do It Yourself" is our philosophy. We are not endorsed nor dependent of a label. It's not completely a choice and of course we would like to have some help (funds, mostly), but we haven't received a pleasant offer yet, so... However, we are not alone, thanks to Laurent (and all his staff) from P.Y.H.C, an association which promote as a maestro the metal community in our area. We can be thankful too to La Sorcière Tourbillon (Whirlpool Witch !), for her very helpful job in communication, she's amazing! She's not only a great music/event reporter, she offers all "her following bands" a huge media visibility! There are both fully involved in their passion, it's not so common! They like our music (hopefully they are not the only ones!) and they are great supporters.
What are your influences?
- Thrash, thrash and a little bit of thrash ! Well, seriously, PTK is an example of what every member can bring to the music. I mean, we all share the same musical styles: thrash, death, hard-core, heavy metal... But each of us has his own little world and references. J-Mi is an heavy metal and old bands fan, Didier is a big fan of black/doom, and I'm deeply influenced by death-thrash, punk/crossover. And of course, we do not listen only extreme music! Unfortunately I can't reveal J-Mi and Didier's deep and ashamed secrets..., but for example, I enjoy listening to soul music.
Is your band named after Kreator’s second album?
- You're right ! This album was so fantastic in these old ages! Full of angry and brutality, also dirty, so the name and the spirit of this album matched exactly with the music we were starting to play: simple riffs, energy, in your face.
Why did you decide to sing in French and will you keep doing this?
- First of all, we wanted to contrast with other french bands. Around 90% or more of french bands use to sing in english although they are not international bands, and, honestly, some of them don't have a "good" english, even for french people, which are the worst about foreign language! (as you may see my english is more "Frenglish"!)
English often sounds better and it's an easier way to seem "professional"... But we don't talk about unicorns, monsters, or mad movies' butcheries, and we don't even finish each sentence with "fuck you"! So english is not necessary! I don't blame at all the bands with such lyrics (I like to listen to stuff like that), but it's not our "world".
Our songs talk about social messages or acts like ecology, policy, against racism... so we prefer people understand the meaning! We are a band with our themes, I don't use growls, so we prefer to be understood more easily in our native language. And in France, we had and still have famous french-lyrics bands: Trust, Vulcain, ADX, Tagada Jones, Lofofora... for some of the most famous ones, Dagara, Kopper8 and our friends from Savage Annihilation for the new generation (big hug for them!). There are also many bands in France and worldwide singing in spanish, italian, finnish, and most of them sounds good, so why not in french instead of english!
What is the French metal scene looking like today?
- The french metal scene is very active, at least for the bands, because people doesn't come often in great participation to concerts, but it's another discussion. Many people are too lazy to move outside to see local bands, even when these bands are very good. Most of the time, people prefer to pay 40 or 50€ to see renowned bands instead of going to see 4 "local" bands for 5€. I don't know if it's the same abroad... Anyway, France has many good bands like Deep In Hate (death), Pulmonary Fibrosis (grind), Lyzanxia (metal), Arcania (thrash), Locomuerte (HxC chicanos), Black Bomb Ä (metal HxC)... I'd like to discover, see and listen to more thrash bands but the main stream is more metal-core, death-core, thrash-core (yes I know, in France, we have the most complete list of different styles!!!), unfortunately we have almost any band like Havok, Hirax, Onslaught, Violator. OLDSCHOOL RULES!!!
Do you earn enough money by just making music or do you have “real” jobs? Which ones?
- We don't earn any money with our music, we are really far to be professional, and we must be happy when we're paid for a gig (it pays mostly the road costs). We are a "little" french band with a few fans. But for us, no matter what the conditions are, we want to set the stage on fire and make bouncing the audience, and it works... Most of the time!
So, we need to work to live: Didier is a forklift operator, J-Mi is a printer, and I'm a service technician.
What was your best live experience?
- Definitely, when we opened for Black Bomb Ä and Tagada Jones (oct. 2012). It was terrific, incredible, almost unreal, we were playing just before these very famous bands, which we were used to see in fanzine since adolescence!!! The entire day was a bit strange, we did not fully realize our luck, even during the different soundchecks. But 5 minutes before to go on stage... Legs shaking, hands wetting... The audience was crowded, and even if we had already played in front of such audience, the stage was very large! And the most impressive: the guys of these bands were beside the stage to see us!! The sound engineer sent our live introduction and that was on. We played quite perfectly, except for Berny (former guitarist) because he broke a string during the first song, but it was the fastest change of string in the world (less than 1'), hahaha! After the show, we spent a very funny party with the bands! It marked our minds. And the funniest thing was that we were asked to play for this gig 2 weeks before, because the former band split a couple of weeks before the show! They knew Pleasure To Kill so they offered us to play, and obviously we said YEAAAAAH.
What are you guys listening to lately?
- J-Mi is listening to Nervosa, Butcher Babies, and Vulcain
- Didier is more in Dying Fetus, Black Bomb Ä, Aborted
- I'm listening to Havok, Reactory, Locomuerte
Have you any hobbies besides the music?
As the PTK's master geek, I'm a big video games fan! J-Mi is interested by ships used by pirates and history of seas. Didier is passionate about old cars (french cars) like 2CV Citroën.
It's not so easy to spend some time in our hobbies, between music, jobs and family, but it balances our own lives.
What are your plans for the future? Gigs, albums?
- We're always searching for a gig! I'm a bit disappointed because winter is coming (!) and we still have no date for this period. And it's a pity because we are ready to record a full length album next summer. In any case, we will record it because it's been scheduled for a while, and it's not easy to plan in our personal lives! We have the songs, the motivation, the location, and normally we have the funds! One of us is not completely fully available yet, but, we're close. We expect a release for september/october. Stay tuned!
Anything you would like to say to your fans or maybe your future fans ;-)?
- Keep going to see gigs to keep the metal scene alive. Mostly the underground scene because you can easily find good bands (I'm not talking especially about us, it's in a more general sight). I think it's the same in all countries, nowadays, there is so much bands (and so few places) that we, all of us, have to move outside to find as much as we can some good bands!
Thank you for the interview, good luck and keep it heavy \m/
Many thanks! Stay Thraaaaaaaaash and see you in the pit!
If you wanna check out Pleasure To Kill after this awesome interview, here ya go:
www.pleasuretokill.fr
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https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pleasure-To-Kill/484974678247112?ref=stream
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https://twitter.com/PleasureToKill2
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https://plus.google.com/b/117255424356089829356/117255424356089829356/posts
