Front 242

What's your tour plans like? Are you concentrating on Germany or are you going to the US as well?
- "It's going to be around Europe, North and South America. We will try to limit it to only the more important towns, because we don't feel like playing twenty concerts in one country anymore. We are able to do that in Germany, but no one in the band is interested in to doing that nowadays."

Since you've played for so long, you are well-known and have a good reputation. Do you think you feel more pressure comparing to smaller, not as well known bands?
- "Absolutely not. First of all we do our music for ourselves. We come because people want us to come. We are no longer a hype band, we felt the pressure much more 10 to 15 years ago. At that time the pressure was much more intense for us. I think we don't have anything to prove anymore. But on the other side, we like to take every concert as a challenge. Take tonight as an example (Front 242 played about four hours after this interview), the crowd seems young, if not very young, so most of them probably not aware of who we are and what we've done. So we have to convince them and we think that's interesting."

What's the plans for Front 242 in the future, still going strong and have allot to do, or are you going to slow things down a little bit?
- "The only things that are planned for Front 242 is the next tour. There is absolutely no plans for a new album, because if it's going to happen it will be in about 1½ to 2 years from now. Right now there is allot of activity around our side projects. I'm writing for a new album with Cobalt 60 with some new songs only in French. So the future is filled with music anyway."

So you are working more with the side projects now than with Front 242?
- "When you work with one thing, you are totally concentrated on that one. So just because Front 242 sell more records we don't mainly concentrate on Front 242. But when we're working with 242 we totally concentrate on 242 and when we're working with our side projects we totally concentrate on our side projects. The thing about Front 242 is that it's like a big machine. Everyone knows the road and everyone knows how to work in there. But now it's allot going on with our side projects so it probably take much more time and energy than Front 242.

During the years Front 242 have changed the sound. Sometimes in small steps and sometimes in bigger ones. Do you feel it was a natural development for Front 242 to sound like this in the end? That it was meant to be?
- "In the way of how you grow with your music, is because of several things. One way is the way you naturally tend to go without pressure, and the other way is what people would like you to go. So right now we are navigate between what we like to go and what people don't expect us to go. The new album for an example is much less heavy beats and drums and it's quite lighter than before and I think it reflects that our vision of music have become much more opened and lighter than before. We don't have to impress people anymore. There is 3 million bands out there doing that every section and we would really like get out of there and do something else."

So it will not be a renaissance back to the old age, rather a whole new sound?
- "I think that's how our career been like all the time. From every each album we tried to change, and we always changed all our equipment. We are not a band known for repetition, only in the way of beats, but we always changed the beats. We don't use tricks that worked before and do the same thing all over again.

You probably have done a million of interviews and often have to answer the same questions over and over again. So I would like to give you the opportunity to answer one of your own questions that you always wanted to be asked, but never were.
- "I think that would be "what's driving you to do your music", and my answer on that one would be "I have no idea". I really don't have any idea because we were not very talented in the beginning when we started to make music. We had no special talent to do that and we didn't study music. A few years ago I went to one of the greatest song teachers in Belgium. He saw that I was quite old so he asked me what I've done in the past and I told him that I've been making records for about twenty years. And he asked me to sing something for him, whatever I wanted to sing. And he listened to my voice and he said that he probably couldn't teach me anything more, and that's one of the best compliments I have ever been given. I think the whole spirit within the band is that we think of everything we do like we do it for the first time."

I'm turning 21 this autumn, and when you released your album in '81 I was not even born. Still that's one of my favourite albums with Front 242. How does it feel for you that your records that were released for 20 years ago could be a favourite record for someone that was not born at that time?
- "I think that shows that music is universal. It's not a question of age, rather a question about feelings and being connected so something that we could share. If it is something we can share, its fine. And if we can't share it it's fine also. I think music is form of art because it can connect people that don't have the same age, background and attitude."

Any last words from Front 242 to our readers?
- "I would say that the most important thing in life and probably our biggest freedom is for people to be themselves. And if a person has the opportunity to express themselves, they shall not hesitate to do that for one second. And it's not a question of doing that in a creative or artistic form of art. So I think that would be my last words. If you can express yourself, DO IT!"

This interview was made 2003 and initially published on Neurozine.com