Predominant Lunatics - Interview

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 16 / 5 / 2005

intro

Swiss four-piece The Predominant Lunatics have drawn comparisions with The Go Betweens, The Cure, Interpol and Nick Cave. Anthony Strutt talks to them about their self-released mini debut album, 'Hoping for Dusk'

Swiss four-piece The Predominant Lunatics and have drawn comparisions with their melancholic pop songs with The Go Betweens, The Cure, Interpol and Nick Cave. The group, which consists of Marco Finsterwald (voice, guitar) ; Thierry Pache (Guitar) ; Matthias Galli (Bass) and Erich Imobersteg and comes from Berne, self-released their mini debut album, the seven song 'Hoping for Dusk', at the beginning of last year. They have toured Britain several times. Pennyblackmusic met them at the London Brixton Windmill in April, the night after they had played Curedrink, an annual London-based Cure convention. We spoke to Marco, Thierry and Erich. PB : How did you all meet originally and how did you become a band ? TP : I met Marco more or less by chance and it turned out that we were both doing music on the outside, doing home demos and stuff like that, but we had never taken it to the step of doing a band and so we said "We will give it a try." We started recording together in my house and then again by chance we found the others. Someone knew someone and finally they all joined. Nothing too interesting really ! PB : How did you decide on the name ? MF :(Laughs). PB : It's a bit different. MF : Yeah, its a long name, and it took us a while to find that long name. At first we thought the Lunatics would be great, but then we found out another band called the Lunatics already existed, so there was an opportunity for us to decide to use Predominant and to mix it together. In a way it shows the mood of the band. PB : Because it is quite a dark name, isn't it ? MF : Yeah, Lunatics like Luna. Sleepless. PB : The band have been going for about three years now, hasn't it ? TP : It's more or less three years, but with this line up it has been going for two years. PB : How do you work ? TP : We don't do jams so one of us comes up with an idea and then we try it out. We work something out at home then show it to the others. PB : Over here everything is part of a scene. Is there a music scene in Switzerland or a big indie scene ? EI : There is no scene. There's a few bands that sing in Swiss or German. That's what I call a scene in Switzerland. PB : Are there lots of venues to play in ? EI : Yeah, but not as many as here. PB : My impression of Switzerland is that it is snowy and has lots of big mountains, How would you desacibe it though ? TP : We don't have big towns. The biggest is Zurich, which is about a million people. It depends on where you go though. He lives (He points at Marco Finsterwald) about 40 mins from Berne, so 40 minutes drive and you're in the mountains. PB : What is the common language then? MF : For the majority it is German but he (Pointing at Thierry) is French. PB : How many tours have you done of the UK then? TP : We have been here five times now, twice for Cure Drinks, and we have played Westcliffe, Plymouth, and Swindon. PB : How well did you go down outside of London ? TP : It depended really because in Plymouth we were booked with three punk bands and that wasn't the crowd for us, but in Swindon we expected nothing, and we got a massive response. It was incredible. It was older people there too. We were the youngest people there. PB : What about your influences ? I can hear different elements of The Cure in you but vocally you sound like Wayne Gooderham from Baptiste, and The Go-Betweens' Robert Forster. TP : That's strange because yesterday at Cure Drink 2005 a guy came up and said that I sound like The Go-Betweens. I know the name but not the sound. MF : It's like with the reviews of 'Hoping for Dusk.' We got compared to bands we have never heard of. We knew some names but not what they sounded like. PB : The album reminded me of bits of The Cure and Nick Cave, but definitely Robert Forster. Who are the band's influences apart from the Cure ? TP : I don't know. MF : I like a lot of Swiss and German bands. EI. I like Nirvana. MF : He likes U2. TP : We like the darker side of pop. We don't go in the studio and say we want to sound like this and that, but, what you listen to, comes out. PB : Has 'Hoping for Dusk' sold more or less than what you expected? TP : More or less what we expected. PB : Future plans ? TP : We recorded a few new songs for demos, so our next album will be out hopefully soon. PB : Thank you.

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