Interview | The Bridgeheads

The bridgeheads, artistes du mois de juillet, ont des choses à dire. Certes ils les disent plus en musique et en vidéo. Mais Tomas dAsK le chanteur, guitariste, leader a accepté de répondre à quelques questions sur la musique, internet et l’avenir.

The Bridgeheads ?

Tomas dAsK, Jozef Lemmee, Michal Wisp

Foreigners ?

The name of the record is a metaphor for a lot of things. Growing up, Relationships, Alienation etc.  

What are your plans for 2010/2011 ?

On 11. 11. releasing Foreigners as a handmade original for auction containing 12th song no one else will be able to hear apart from the actual owner, handwritten lyrics, original oil painting & drawings I made for the album cover and a signature from all three of us. In January, we’ll be releasing a cd and vinyl version of the record, and in the near future generally releasing singles, videos, and a lot of touring.

No guitar Bass. You don’t like it ?

I do. It is a nice instrument, but I like every single instrument out there, yet I don’t feel I have to include all of them on the record. When we lost our bass player we began to play without him and quickly found this specific sound. The bass guitar has been replaced with my specific octave guitar playing without A-string. We have two guitars and drums in the band, which is our core sound. I wanted to maintain it on the record, and at the same time make the sound richer with additional instruments and create something a bit different.

What does DiY means to you ?

A necessity to achieve an artistic vision. Money can speed up the process and help to build a team for assistance but it is import for me to present an artistic intention not an objective product.

11 videos clips?

When I write a song I immediately see it visually. Video is another dimension to the song, a fragment of its visual universe. Because I hold every song from the record in the same regard I didn’t want to select only the usual two-three singles that would get the visualization, but, instead, decided to give each song from the album an equal treatment. The whole record, although a collection of songs, works as a whole thing. The making of videos was a monumental amount of work for me as I did direction, screenplay, camera, editing, post-production, animations & drawings. I had an advantage of a cameraman on parts of five videos and on one whole video, but apart from that I was also a cameraman while at the same time I was arranging the lights and standing in front of the camera so it was very exhausting, at the same time I had to have all the pieces for all those videos in my head, and make it as quick and effective as possible.

Foreigners is available for Free. What do you think of Piracy thus ?

I consider ‘piracy’ to be a word for act of robbery and / or criminal violence at sea. I don’t think it is an accurate term for filesharing which is a specific and very complicated thing.

Internet is solution, a problem or both ?

Internet is a fact. One has to take it into an account when doing something. It’s a product of evolution and it cannot be taken back, and an artist, as pretty much everyone, needs to adopt it in order to survive. It’s quicker to send mail through the Internet than a post office but of course you have the choice to ignore it and continue sending things only by post. The Internet is a medium like tv. Now, is a tv a problem or a solution? None. The Internet is a medium and the rest is on people / individuals, as they are responsible for what’s on it. One cannot blame Internet for anything really.

An artist or a band you would love to work with ?

I guess there are too many. To mention a few: Bjork, Flying Lotus, Shogu Tokumaru, Mew, Thom Yorke, Marian Varga, Billy Corgan, Panda Bear, Atlas Sound, Cinematic Orchestra / Roots Manuva, Brian Eno, Myslovitz, David Byrne, Arcade Fire, Kraftwerk, Air, Clinic, Foals, Tricky, Lou Reed, Sigur Ros, Motorama, Modeselector.

The most beautiful music story that you would like to share with us ?

When I was a kid I went to see a reunion of a band called ‘Prudy’. I recommend them to everyone, or specifically their record ‘Zvonky zvonte’ which is absolutely brilliant. They were playing together with a musician called Marian Varga again, who had been the main creative force and principal songwriter behind the record I like so much and who left the band afterwards. The guy is a musical genius and a little bit of eccentric character. I remember being lucky enough to get an autograph because another person coming after me asked to sign a record sleeve, to what Marian replied ‘I didn’t play on this album’ and quit the room straight away, leaving everyone else without his signature. It was one of the best gigs I have ever been to.

Last word (with a webcam if you feel like it) ?

If you think you already understand the record (Foreigners), give it a few more listens (and you’ll see you were wrong).

On se quitte en musique avec Pi.