Last year French noise rock band Sofy Major went to New York City to record their new album Idolize. Then Hurricane Sandy hit NYC on October 29th destroying the recording studio and the band's gear. With help from the local independent music community they managed to finish the recording of Idolize, which turned out to be a brilliant record (read our review here). Metal Editor Sander van den Driesche asked bass player and singer Mathieu some questions about the band and their Hurricane Sandy experiences.
(((o))): First of all, who are Sofy Major, where are you from and who does what in the band?
Mathieu: We’re a power trio from France. I’m Mathieu playing bass and singing. Seb is playing guitars and Mathieu is doing the drums and singing as well. The band has been through many different line-ups but we’ve been playing together for 3 years now and the band has been existing for 5 years I think.
(((o))): You describe your music as noise/metal/hardcore, those are quite a couple of different genres, although with some overlap. Can you tell me a bit more about the sort of music you make?
Mathieu: Well I guess we all agree those scenes are pretty connected to each others. I mean we’re just metalheads and punkrockers playing some kind of noise rock. We don’t restrain ourselves when it comes to writing music, as soon as we like the riffs we’re playing… It’s something actually pretty important for us to play and write stuff we’d like to listen to if we were in the audience.
(((o))): What does the name Sofy Major mean and how did you get to this name?
Mathieu: This name is coming from the grave, some legends from our shitty post-industrial town say that the founding member of this band regularly went to see a hooker named this way.
(((o))): I’ve listened to your upcoming album Idolize a couple of times now, and I think it’s great. I especially love the natural sounding drums and the heaviness of the bass and guitar. What sort of gear did you use for the album recording?
Mathieu: To be honest, as you probably know the recording was done under really particular circumstances. The reason we worked with Andrew Schneider, just like our two previous records, is that he’s always focusing on the organic aspect of the recording process and the music as well. For me, the first aim when it comes to record new material is having a really gutsy sound with a natural feeling, we pretty much all agree that it enhances the music, this is the way Andrew’s working. I’m not a big fan of all those modern hardcore bands with super over-compressed sound, with everything super loud, I just can’t hear and understand anything, any riffs, it usually just sound like a snare / kick / cymbal solo.
We want to use the most elementary fundamental recording chain, which does not mean you’re going to have a bad sounding record. Having a session in the US gave us the opportunity to play on high quality amps and instruments, and the studios we were spending our time in gave us the opportunity to have the purest sound recording string: amp into mic into preamp into acquisition device, I guess that’s all a band needs to make a record.
(((o))): You guys were in New York City to record Idolize when Hurricane Sandy hit, destroying the studio and your gear. What did you do to still get the album finished? Can you tell us about this experience?
Mathieu: Well this was really pretty messy at the beginning. News channels in France didn’t even mention that the hurricane was coming when we took the plane. It’s supposed to be a really rare phenomenon in NYC… Anyway, after the studio was destroyed in its entirety, all the people in the Brooklyn indie music community saved our asses and lent us gear and Andrew literally saved the session. I’m mainly thinking about Dave Curran from Pigs / Unsane, Emperor Cabs guys, Joshua Lozano from Cobalt / Fashion Week who gave us their own gear to finish the sessions (guitars, amps, drums, etc…) and all the studios where we finally recorded this album and who were kind enough to understand what really shitty situation we were in.
(((o))): It shows a lot of willpower to finish the record after the Hurricane Sandy experience. Did you decide to incorporate any of these experiences in the recording when you guys continued? Did you write any songs about it?
Mathieu: We wrote a couple of songs dealing with the October 29th events. I definitely had to write something about those… I was just thinking : “Damn, we’re cursed”. I had to mention the disaster and the solidarity of the NY music scene, helping a band they knew nothing about and trying to help some dirty French boys.
(((o))): How did you finance the recording of the album after these dramatic events?
Mathieu: We got some financial help from many people in Europe and I spent most part of Solar Flare Records money into it. This, plus my very own savings of course. That was definitely a natural AND a financial disaster.
(((o))): Ok, let me ask you something else now, what are your musical influences?
Mathieu: The list could be quite long to name every single kind of music which inspires us, I mean it’s going from hip-hop to black metal, from classic rock to hardcore punk. I guess I’m interested in everything which I’m interested in haha. These days I’m listening to a lot of jazz, Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Bud Powell. For Sofy Major, labels such as Amphetamine Reptile and Alternative Tentacles influenced us a lot, same for the French Noise / Punk Rock scene from the 90’s (Portobello Bones, Hint, Condense, Driveblind, Tantrum).
(((o))): You have toured extensively over the last couple of years. What is your funniest tour story?
Mathieu: Lately, there was a really crazy show in Greensboro. The house was held by some punk rock kids and we played in their living room, a typical basement show. The kids went totally insane and were stage diving all over the house, breaking the house’s windows with their legs. That was so extreme we could feel the floor waving while we were playing and people jumping. We ended sleeping on the floor after the show while some drunk kids were listening to black metal and talking about how life sucked. 100% fun.
(((o))): What is your favourite place you played a gig?
Mathieu: Every country we’re touring has its particular thing, I mean we like them all. I personally like Switzerland because the audience DOES care when a mid-sized or small band play there. They really get interested in the music and the show can go insane at any time. They also welcome bands pretty well, like Germany I guess. Belgium is great, people are really nice there and you always get drunk as f*** during the aftershow.
We like Eastern Europe too, it’s another way of doing gigs and stuff, but all those countries in the Balkans we played in have something really special, they have talented not-yet-known bands and I hope major labels can focus on them one day so people show them a little bit more attention. Also they have really good schnapps there, +10 points.
(((o))): What are Sofy Major’s plans for this year?
Mathieu: Touring as fuck and promoting Idolize. Well we’re going to release this album on May 31st and tour with our noise rockers friends from Pord, then a bunch of gigs during summer and we’ll finish the Idolize promo tours supporting our really good friends from PIGS during their first European tour next October / November. We’ll also be releasing a documentary about what happened in NYC when Hurricane Sandy hit the town, how we improved our French hobo skills.
(((o))): There is a vastly growing music scene in France, lots of great metal and noise bands. Are there any new bands that we need to check out?
Mathieu: YES! You should totally get into Pord, Stuntman, Carne, Membrane, Year Of No Light, Alabaster, Ultracoït, Blut Aus Nord, Morse, Neige Morte, Marvin. The French scene is pretty much like every other one, you have the tops and bottoms of the wave, and I’m pretty sure we’re currently on the top of it. Be curious !
(((o))): Thanks a lot for this interview, do you have anything to add?
Mathieu: Beer. Hangover. Thanks a lot!
