It's raining when we ring the bell at the backstage entrance of the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London. Inside the soundcheck of Front 242 is droning. A large, black man in a bomber jacket opens after fifteen minutes. 'Who did you say you were? And with whom did you have an appointment?' Good question. If you make an appointment with Tom Barman (dEUS) or Helmut Lotti (a Belgian singer), you meet Tom Barman and Helmut Lotti. If you have a rendezvous with Front 242, you have a rendezvous with ehm, those guys with their welding-glasses. Look at it this way: if Eddie Vedder goes to the butcher, he puts on sunglasses to be not recognized. In the mid-Eighties, the guys of Front 242 just had to take off their welding-glasses to be incognito.
It's weird, we have interviewed Front 242 twice already, once four years ago in the backstage of Lollapalooza in West Virginia, and once in Aarschot, the headquarters of their Art & Strategy business emporium, and the only name that comes to mind today is that of Richard 23. What do we have to tell our friend the bodyguard? That Richard 23 used to have a mohawk like Robert De Niro in 'Taxi Driver'? He used to have that. Just in time someone without mohawk comes down the stairs. He introduces himself as Patrick Codenys. He is the keyboard player of Front. He shouldn't mind that we don't know his name, because Front, he said once, doesn't want to be a rock group with personalities, but more like a trademark, like Coca-Cola or Fuji. Codenys was a designer before he started with Front. Whoever hates them, again knows why. In Shepherd's Bush Empire, a hall with plush armchairs where Terry Wogan's talkshow was recorded every day, for a while, Front continues with the soundcheck. On the stage: Richard 23, who lost his mohawk and dyed his hair red and wearing a Daft Punk T-shirt; second cybervoice Jean-Luc De Meyer, who's got completely too old for his combat look; keyboard player Patrick Codenys, who we hear touching his machine once in a while; and the German hired jazz-drummer Tim ('Call me Tim'), who's for the first time with the band. The most noise, however, is made by the man behind the mixing-table, Daniel Bressanutti.
The soundcheck lasted for two hours. Daniel isn't satisfied. 'C'est trop agressif.' And to us: 'In an electronica-band, you have to be relentless if it has to do with the sound. A guitar band still has the opportunity to hide behind the instruments they play. If your electronica band sounds worse than the DJ that follows you, you better quit.' The bands that are playing before Front tonight, Empirion and Cubanate, are getting nervous. They will, thanks to Daniel's perfectionism, barely have the time to soundcheck. An electronica band also soundchecks with a lot of more breaks than a rock group. Daniel's laptop needs to be reset all the time. Richard Jonckheere shouts: 'Ca pêtait quand-même totally crashed, Daniel.' Jean-Luc De Meyer kills the time by singing, with a lot of pathos, Charles Aznavour. 'Désormais, moi qui voulait être ton ombre...' The support acts are getting more and more nervous. Another hour to go and the doors will go open. Backstage, Front (which, we haven't said yet, actually don't exist anymore; expect in the future only solo-projects of the different band members) is collecting memories of the first Front concert in a disco in Aarschot in 1982. It lasted two times 15 minutes. There was a break in-between of 15 minutes.
How did Front sound then?
Daniel Bressanutti : A disco-beat with a lot of punknoise on top. No, it wasn't a conscious combination: they were just our influences.
The Chemical Brothers say they got £1500 for their first remix of a Primal Scream song. They didn't earn a lot on it, because they wanted to use a Fairlight compressor like The Beatles used to have one, and it already cost £1200 to rent one. How much did you earn in the beginning ?
Bressanutti : Just to continue to exist, we had to go above our budget. We bought sequencers that then costed 300,000 Belgian Francs and that only Kraftwerk was able to pay for. There was nothing left to live on.
Patrick Codenys : I once won the lottery. I then bought an Emulator II instead of a car. But look, we never kicked on technology. Even if we now buy a machine, it won't be the most expensive. Don't forget that our records always costed a lot less than those of The Scabs. Our debut, 'Geography', was a four-track record. It was recorded in one week in a room a lot smaller than this one here (we are sitting in a small room). We sold 2000 copies of 'Geography' then, but now that has risen to 300,000. Not a single record of Front has cost more than half a million (francs). There is one exception: 'Up Evil', but our largest cost there was the paycheck of mixer Andy Wallace (who also mixed Nirvana). And the cost of 'Up Evil' was still incomparable with that of a record by Arno, which easily cost four million.
Bressanutti : Front 242 had little studio equipment, and we had to compensate that with ideas. Poor makes creative. On the covers of Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra there were lists with very expensive instruments. Compared to them we played with Fisher Price (laughs).
In an old interview you say :'Musicians hate us. Only jazz-musicians accept Front.'
Codenys : Front was more complicated than Depeche Mode and Blanc-mange. Front was programming and sound research. Most musicians didn't hear that. The jazz-musicians did. They were talking about a solo of noise (laughs). That was before new beat. As from then we were accepted, of course. New beat and techno are actually a simplification of what we did. That was, honestly said, welcome, because when I listen to our first records, I sometimes think: what difficult music (laughs).
If you listen for two seconds to Dire Straits or R.E.M. or Front 242 , you immediately hear that typical, original sound. Did you find that sound by accident ?
Bressanutti : Yes. We tried to not have it. We worked three years to grow out of it and it didn't work. It keeps sounding like Front. You notice it the best if you remix someone else's work. You always keep getting back, if you want it or not, to the same sound. The Chemical Brothers must have that too. If they touch anything, it too immediately becomes Chemical Brothers. Ask that question to them in about five years.
If you hear the techno-rival, do you always know how they made their music ?
Codenys : No, not at all. The Chemical Brothers is a big puzzle to me. The last band on which I really broke my head, was Air Liquide. Very bizarre. And low budget. But very cool.
Bressanutti : They have tricks, but at least they work. The ones we use, don't work anymore. That's why we don't release anything new. We try to be as good as Atari Teenage Riot, The Chemicals and Roni Size, but it doesn't work. To show you how little I know of the electronica of others: I thought that Roni Size made his record on his own. I'm glad that it's a real band.
You once said : Front 242 is a brand, like Fuji or Coca-Cola. A logo, a concept.
Bressanutti : Okay, maybe it was a stunt. And a good quote. But I always found it to be a big compliment if people came up to me and said they didn't watch rock bands anymore. The event has always been more important than the people behind it have. Front was and is at first a sound, an image and a concept. Front was the result of switching the channel in Belgium. Long before all the other countries did, we had 16 and more TV-channels. And in Belgium you have the advantage to not have a background. We don't have folklore like in France. Or better, we didn't have one, because now there's VTM (a Belgian TV channel). Front stood in the middle of the twilight zone of commercial clips, images and slogans. Front was a bunch of journalists : we read the headlines of the Eighties.
And you did that with a perfect feeling of timing. 'Welcome To Paradise', with its 'No sex until marriage'-sample of Tele-evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, was released for a few months and suddenly, Swaggart had to ask for public forgiveness for obscene behaviour with a prostitute. And Colonel Khaddafi who had just played the lead in 'Funkhaddafi', and Ronald Reagan bombed his house in Tripoli.
Codenys : If you want to mix topicality with music, you automatically follow the news and predict a bit what's going to happen.
Bressanutti : That the people who believed in Jimmy Swaggart forgave him, that is for me the most insane.
If you made a new record now, would it involve the Dutroux-committee (Dutroux was a Belgian man arrested for child molesting) or the war in Algeria ?
Bressanutti : No. One : we wouldn't be able to predict such a large conflict again. Two: everybody liked 'Funkhaddafi', but with 'Disco Dutroux', we would, in my opinion, collectively commit suicide. The VTM people would lynch us.
Codenys : It also wouldn't work anymore. We don't live anymore in the same slogan society as during the Cold War. The sampling of voices, it has been done once too many. Technology used to be stranger than now. Then, those voices were needed to confuse people less. Now they would sound artificial.
Bressanutti : Now, music doesn't have a message. The Chemicals don't have a message. But also Sinead O'Connor can't have a message anymore. People don't buy that anymore.
On the Internet, your fans constantly update their Front hit list. 'Headhunter' is at number one. Did you know when you had written it that it was better than the rest ?
Codenys : No. We didn't think of it as a single. The record company chose it. We wanted 'Welcome to Paradise' as single.
Which Front songs are missing in that Internet Top 3? Third: 'Quite Unusual'. Second: 'Masterhit'. First:'Headhunter'.
Richard 23 : I don't know. Do you think I know our songs well? I never listen to Front at home. Never. I just learned the songs that we do live. I don't even know the set list. Only our drummer, Tim, knows it. (To Tim) What's the second song tonight ?
Tim : 'Masterhit'.
Richard 23 : You see.
In the movie 'Reservoir Dogs' there is a radio on that's constantly playing hits from the Seventies. Which three songs must be on an Eighties radio? And only one of yours.
Codenys : 'Headhunter', because of the catchy and yet alternative personality. And anything from Joy Division. And late Kraftwerk.
What's the best and what's the worst Front concert that you ever played ?
Richard 23 : I remember a concert as supporting act for Depeche Mode. There were 10,000 people in the hall, and you got 35 minutes to show that you exist. That was a kick. The biggest disaster must be Louvain La Neuve in 1987. It was the first concert of the tour. There were 1,000 people in the hall. After a minute or two, the stage came down. Suddenly, we were playing two metres lower (laughs). The first concerts in America were also cool. The two guys from Wax Trax (the electronic body music record label) really believed in us. They had a small shop and many bands began thanks to those two. The disadvantage was they weren't business people. They were doing it out of love for the music. In the beginning that was cool: 'How much do you need for the cover, did you say? Just take it with you.' After that they went bankrupt. Chicago was hot then. You had a sound and an attitude, and so you got a scene. Bands like KMFDM and Thrill Kill Kult even moved to there.
And Front was left behind in - of all places - Aarschot.
Bressanutti : I couldn't live in America. That's a fascistic country. France, Spain or Italy, that would work. The people still live careless there. If you're going to live in London or Chicago, you got to work harder. The last two years of Front were already hectic enough. We earned a lot of money, but we had to work so hard, that we couldn't live from it anymore. That kind of stress just killed us.
'Funky Shit' from The Prodigy is Front all the way. When did you hear more Front influences ?
Richard 23 : The remix from Empirion of 'Firestarter' is a Front copy. And in Germany there is currently a revival taking place. They're all copying our sound.
David Bowie was mad at Nirvana, he once said, because they had the success and not the Pixies. Are you still mad at The Prodigy ?
Richard 23 : I thought Nirvana was better. They had better songs and a better sound.
Bressanutti : Not me. For me the Pixies were the successors of Talking Heads. I can agree with Bowie. But yet I think : the Pixies have only themselves to blame. Actually, we too. If we can't go along anymore, we just can't. The End. But I can't be mad or jealous at The Prodigy. I'm proud of them. We let them remix 'Religion' when they didn't mean anything yet.
Richard 23 : We always have fought completely for the electronic music and so we are glad that The Prodigy has continued the tradition.
Bressanutti : I think The Prodigy deserve it. They surpassed us. Jean-Michel Jarre is popular, that I can't understand. That even makes me aggressive.
Richard 23 : Sometimes I think to myself : 'Maybe we were a few years too early'. I listened for the first time to a CD of Can to look for a sample for my new solo project Tchack! I discovered that Tricky hasn't invented anything. And Tricky sells a lot more records than Can.
What did you learn with Front ?
Richard 23 : To stay calm. You can't create a lot of mischief on stage. You know that 'Spinal Tap' situation in which the band can't find the stage and gets lost in the hallways behind it. Been there, done that. We already heard the starting tape running and we stood there. It doesn't matter. If we were locked in the toilets, and we entered when the third song was playing, the people would have thought it was part of the show. If the stage is on fire, Patrick is playing his keyboard badly and we both start singing with awful voices, then people would think: 'What's happening now ?'
What goes wrong a lot with Front ?
Richard 23 : The computer loses its memory once in a while. Recently, in the Botanique, we lost everything. We pressed the bass-key and violins started playing. But it lasted only for a minute.
You used to have TC Matic and Front 242 and Luc Van Acker. Now you have dEUS and Evil Superstars. I fear that again other people will get rich from their ideas. Probably Americans . Or is it the same problem as with our beer: nobody can make it better, but the whole world drinks Heineken ?
Richard 23 : I don't know dEUS that well. But damn world if they are stupid enough to drink that rubbish from Heineken. Do I have to take in account the opinion of the world? The world has no taste. If I want to see a good movie, I've got to hurry, because in Brussels, they only show it for a week.
Jean-Luc De Meyer : I saw dEUS live. I think they suck.
Richard 23 : I don't like them myself. And Hoover, they must be some great guys. They change the singer every week. The bar-stories will be the same as they used to be. If dEUS came from America...tralala. If, if, if...if Michael Jackson was born in Brussels, maybe now, he would work in a sauna. If Madonna started singing in Switzerland, she would now be in prison.
When you toured on Lollapalooza, you met Rage Against The Machine. At Pukkelpop that year, you did a song with Tom Morello from Rage. He now plays with The Prodigy on the soundtrack of the movie 'Spawn'. Those are millions that you missed out on.
Bressanutti : We would need a good record company and a good manager, and those contacts we do not have. I think Morello is a cool guy and an intelligent one, but he hated the money collecting of Lollapalooza. Then why is he playing there? It's to promote the album, he said. But he's keeping the money, right ? To my knowledge, he didn't share it with the homeless people of Los Angeles. The same with Atari Teenage Riot. I think their sound is great, but their attitude is naïve.
Do you think Front 242 has accomplished anything ?
Bressanutti : You shouldn't ask me that . I think one person has never accomplished anything. I experienced a few cool things. I know that Al Jourgensen toured with Ministry as our supporting act. In the beginning they sounded like a poppy new wave band with two synthesizers. Jourgensen watched us every evening and at the end of the tour they sounded harsh and mean, haha. And I admit, sometimes you get a kick. For example, if you see a poster of your concert in the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco between posters of Jimi Hendrix and Grateful Dead. But that lasts for two seconds, and then it's over.
The first thing I saw on your website was the message 'Stop Fascism'. I thought people would know...
Bressanutti : Forget it. We still are having problems in France. We still can't play in Lille. But the weirdest happened in Salt Lake City. Mormons came to visit us backstage to buy T-shirts with 'No sex until marriage' on it. They weren't allowed to watch the concert, that was really prohibited. Those are things that make me think : what a strange world we live in ?
To not say anything about the Shepherd's Bush Empire. The hall is sold out. Together with 2,000 British Front fans, we experience the last two songs of Empirion (Prodigy meets Executive Slacks). We gave up on Cubanate after about ten minutes. The audience looks like they are auditioning for a parody on the disco-scene of 'Desperately seeking Susan'. We don't know where you like to hang out, but for us it's been a while when we saw men with bottles of hairspray in the toilet. Those were the days, my friends. In 1997, Front 242 sounds as too old bodies into too tight outfits in the hall. And no Underworld eyeshadow in a renewed 'Happiness' or a mini drum solo in 'Headhunter' can change that. 'No shuffle', 'In Rhythmus Bleiben' ('Ein zwei drei im Rhythmus Bleiben', it wouldn't even work with irony) and the countdown 'Headhunter' doesn't only sound like a patched old bitch, people dance on it with a pathetic look-at-me attitude, that makes you think of the critic who once wrote 'Front 242 is hardcore dance music for corrective punishment'. Maybe then, it was meant as a compliment. They were strange times, the Eighties. One moment illustrates how important Front 242 was (at least for Underworld and Paul Mennes (a Belgian writer)): it's the Swaggart sample in 'Welcome to Paradise'. 'Hey poor you don't have to be poor anymore. Jesus is here' is first banalized by the endless repetition, and then the words are being mixed so that it becomes :'Hey poor you don't have to be... Jesus'. A cut up of a cut up. Swaggart biting in his own tail. That was revolutionary. Then, in the Eighties. For a bunch of Mormons in the Midwest. The end for Front ! Another concept ! Another logo ! Now!
Gert van Nieuwenhove interviewed Front 242.
