Interview: Dead Sailors

My first interview is a fact! The band I decided to approach and present to you is Dead Sailors - very creative and passionate post-hardcore/post-rock band from Vannes, France. I got interested in their music when I heard their conceptual track "Apollo" which we will have the opportunity to talk about later in the interview. Dead Sailors are Geoffrey (guitar), Corentin P. (drums/vocals), Mathis (bass/vocals) and Corentin N. (guitar). Eager to find out more about them? Just scroll down!

I would like to thank personally Mathieu Ezan  for his awesome photos! You can follow his work on his website.

I: Your EP "Dead Sailors" is a very impressive and passionate mix between post-rock, and emotional hardcore. Did you intended to achieve that sound or it develop naturally?

Thank you for the kind words. We don’t really overthink our sound or song structures. We have a lot of influences from post-rock to screamo. We just try to come up with some passionate/emotional and powerful songs.

I: How does the recording process for Dead Sailors look like? How do you come up with your stuff?

Geoffrey often comes to rehearsal with some riffs or guitar lines, we jam around it, then Mathis put some lyrics on it. For our first EP the process was a little tough because we’ve set our final line up just 3 weeks before entering the recording studio and Mathis has had to rework all the vocals. So we’ve spend almost one week to record our 4 tracks.

I: What kind of music are you currently listening to, something out of the post-rock scene?

We listen to a lot of “post-everything” music, from band such as Pianos become the teeth, Native, Explosions in the sky, Caspian, La Dispute, Old Gray, Castevet and so much more that we couldn't list.

I: Any musician or a band out there you would love to collaborate with and why?

We’re in touch with Near Light, a very young and talented postrock band from south of UK. We plan to play some shows together in UK next summer. We’ve played with another English band from Sheffield in support of a Native’s show in Nottingham early December. This two piece band is called Bayoné and they’re great musicians. They play some kind of catchy/sing along/emo punk songs. We’ve had great times playing with them, and we plan to share some stage in France or UK in 2013. Maybe a split EP will come up this year with one of these bands.

I: What's the story behind "Apollo"?

Apollo was written really quickly to be honest. I come up with the chords progression and we’ve finished the song structure in 2 hours. It was one of the first song that we’ve written as a band. I’ve had some ambient demos that I’ve recorded in solo a few years ago, and one of these had the Apollo communications sampled. So when we come up with this song building it was obvious to me that we can match the communications samples with it.

I: Since you're very young band, I have you to ask you - where was your first show and do you keep any special memories from it?

Our first show as a band was at our local “headquarter”: a pub called “Le Bruit Qui Court” in our city, Vannes. We’ve played two times in this venue and it’s always a pleasure to play with all our friends.

We don’t have special memories from this first show even if we’ve had a lot of great feedbacks. I think our show in Nottingham with Bayoné in support of Native was a great experience to us since Native is one of our main influences. The venue was really special too because it’s kind of a DIY place in a warehouse. The public was also really into this show. So I guess it’s the show that we keep the most special memories so far.

I: Any final word to our readers?

First of all, thank you very much, Stereofox for supporting us and spreading the word. You guys do a great job at supporting bands.

If you enjoy music of all kind and always wanted to do your own, just do it! It’s something that allows you to travel, to meet a lot of great people and so much more. We would love to hang out/talk to everyone who will come to one of our future show, so don’t hesitate!

I: Thanks again for your time, guys! Cheers!

Follow Dead Sailors? You can download their music for free from their Bandcamp! Enjoy, these guys know what they are doing!