In 2007 was released Zozobra's Harmonic Tremors, a project by the late Caleb Scofield (Cave In) with an artwork similar to Tremor Ama’s EP. Recently, a new earthquake
occurred this time in a musical style closer to stoner. But this young quintet from Creil (in the North of Paris) doesn’t want to be reduced to these vibrations, and you can feel
it when you listen to their first album Beneath. I spoke with the volcanologists Raphaël Guichard (vocals) and Remi la Marne (guitar) to try and find out more.
Did you have any other musical projects before your already great EP in 2017?
Remi: Yes! It was 'rock'n'roll' before our actual band.
Raphaël: We started in 2013 with Remitche and Keuhv, in a much more bluesy / desert rock genre, under the name of Titty Twisters. Before that, we all played in different local bands, together or individually. It went from psyche garage (Losers in the Sun) to ska punk (Snorky's Killers, Les Culs Secs), even indie rock (Meaningless Intentions), shoegaze (Mexican Standoff), progressive rock (The Mark Palmer's Project) or heavy and thrash metal (Hellkin). Most of these bands have resulted in local and Parisian shows, and an album for some of them. Above all, it allowed us to shape our learning to compose together.
Apart from stoner being obvious, do you have other influences?
Remi: I have myself various projects: I play some classical music (piano/timpani), I have avant-garde mashup or traditional music projects; also I really like extreme metal and electro stuff like Squarepusher. It would take a long time to list them all, so I’d say everything but jazz!
Raphaël: Me neither, that doesn’t speak to me much. As a teenager, I went through a long period of heavy, thrash and death metal from the 80's (Metallica, Pantera, Kreator, Venom, Death…), then I fell into punk, hardcore and oi! when I was around 17 (Agnostic Front, The Casualties, Leftover Crack, Dropkick Murphys, Sham 69…). I also listen to soul and R&B like Lee Fields & The Expressions, Charles Bradley (RIP), The Meters... and a lot of reggae/rocksteady from the 60's-70's like Desmond Dekker, Laurel Aitken, Symarip, Toots and The Maytals… I also listen to a lot of rap, and I have even managed to familiarize myself with autotune for a few years. Questions of approach and intention, like for jazz I guess...
Remi: We try to explore all the facets of fuzz music that we like, to have narrative rather than pre-established structures. We do a lot of iterations and changes when we work on our tracks.
Raphaël: We don't have a big discography at the moment, but we try to avoid going into circles. I believe that it's with this approach that we’ll be able to really flourish, explore and consolidate the musical identity of Tremor Ama.
Did you have specific musical references or desires for Beneath?
Remi: For writing, not at all. When it came to mixing, I had the first Kvelertak album in mind.
Raphaël: The objective was to try and combine emotions and energy, to bring power to psychic or ethereal riffs, by playing on the dynamics. We like to travel and let ourselves be surprised by the proposals that each of us brings.
On the contrary, how did you not want to sound?
Remi: Like any other stoner group?
DIY is cool, but a minimum of experience is necessary for that. What's yours for getting such a good result?
Remi: Ten years of computer music as an amateur, and working with Maxime [Lesage] very often. To say the truth, it’s Max (our drummer) who carries us for everything that is technical: a big congratulations to him. And we have been advised/helped by relatives (hello to Koinkoin, Laurent and Olsak!).
Raphaël: It's true that we have acquired certain technical skills over time, and we are lucky to be well surrounded.
Did you find yourself confronted to any particular constraints or difficulties with this mode of creation?
Remi: It takes a long time to compose/produce indeed, and you really have to be motivated in order to do that!
The name of your band is related to volcanic eruptions; there are also references to caves in the title and the cover of the album or your video. What does that mean to you?
Remi: Telluric energy… We like nature and the mysticism that can result from it.
You can feel that nothing is left to chance through your artworks and videos. How long does it take you beforehand?
Remi: It starts with one of us proposing an idea when we drink some beer, until fifteen of us end up in a cave with cameras.
Raphaël: Everything takes time to fall into place. From the idea of an artwork or a video, their development, various feedbacks and the final rendering, months often go by. I’m a little perfectionist and I like to get to the bottom of things, when it’s possible of course; so you have to be patient...
Was the album artwork done by the same artists as for the EP? Did you have any specific ideas, or were they free to do what they wanted?
Raphaël: Exactly, it’s again the work of two people: the tattoo artist Monkey (from the Parisian parlor Artoria) and the graphic designer Marie Rouprich. We wrote them what we wanted to find in it (the skylight, the silhouette and the cave). Then, they imagined and implemented everything else (some details are well hidden). They used the cartoon technique, with sketches that they scanned in different layers for the visual. This is what made possible to reinforce the relief of the artwork, and to be digitally malleable after that for the management of the shadows as for the treatment of the colors.
It may refer to the themes of the album, with its shadows and light (and a way out?).
Raphaël: Yes, it's a representation of the concept behind Beneath. You can say that the cave symbolizes our interior space, which is mysterious, infinite (hence the metaphor of the stars), filled with areas of shadows and feelings that we are gnawed by. The skylight can also symbolizes an exit door, the solution to all ills. When you’re lost, when everything crumbles and your anxieties haunt you (and I think it has never been more relevant than now), you often look for a catalyst to escape from your own demons. Everyone has their own way of handling all this, but I think that it has to start with personal work. Understanding and accepting yourself as you are, despite your own darkness, is something of the utmost importance to me.
Your first video is great too, with the band, the story of two friends, the aerial shots... How did you manage to do that?
Raphaël: Well, I'm a cinematographer and I mainly produce videos. I had not yet used that until now, and I must admit that I wanted to... We were lucky to have a wonderful team to help us, led by our director Jules Gondry. We worked together on the writing, then the project took months to build, days to shoot and weeks to edit.
And what happened for you doing a video in a brewery?
Remi: We went and saw a friend who is a brewer, we drank some beer, and we started to have a few ideas after a while.
Do you feel like you’re part of a local scene? Are you close to other bands or specific structures that have supported you?
Remi: We worked a lot with La Grange Ă Musique in Creil, or with associations like Fuzzoraptors and Below The Sun who organize excellent shows in the area of Paris!
Raphaël: It allowed us to meet very good French bands from the heavy underground scene like Decasia, Red Sun Atacama, Wormsand, Howard, Starmonger and many others. Even if this scene has the advantage of crossing borders easily, I think there’s still good potential in France.
You have created your own structure. Are you not attached to a label for artistic control, or don't you just feel the need for that, and could that change for more visibility?
Remi: DIY is cool, but a distribution label would be a good thing.
Raphaël: Yes, we have produced everything via Salade Tomate Orion so far, and some distribution would be beneficial for the album to be discovered further.
Did you do lots of concerts before? I imagine you can’t wait that for a clearer horizon?
Remi: We didn't tour that much; of course, we can’t wait like you said.
Raphaël: It's clear that we’d like to be able and share all this with as many people as possible.
Last question: since you enjoy caves and forests, would you see yourself performing a "generator parties" show?
Remi: I already have a generator for the day we will try to make one.
Raphaël: And what could be more exciting than playing in our element?
