|
|
|
PJ:
|
September
1997
Guy maybe
you could start by giving us a little bit about your background here
in Brussels.
|
|
GS:
|
I
started as a musician in the late-sixties playing mostly rock
stuff, our first influences were people like Hendrix, the Who.
I very quickly discovered bands like Soft Machine, and the free
jazz scene like Coltrane, Tony Williams, and Miles Davis. I then
started working with better musicians.In the beginning it was
very amateurish, but we all started to play much better. We formed
bands very similar to bands like Soft Machine. When then discovered
a very important band called ³Magma² from France and we made a
decision to go for a more roots formed music and that's when we
formed Univers Zero. That was the start of the big adventure.
The
knowledge of contemporary music was the link to European roots.
In fact classical music should have been there but we quickly
discovered that classical music had been influenced very much
by religion. There were a lot of things that we couldn't do because
they were forbidden, so we looked a little further back into the
archives and we found out that the popular music was in fact the
forbidden music. We made a big mix of all of these things, but
we were still a rock band.
|
|
|
PJ:
|
How
many records did you put out with Univers Zero? |
|
GS:
|
We
made five CD's and one maxi-single that was only released in Japan,
and we were on a number of compilations. |
|
|
PJ:
|
Did
you tour extensively? |
|
GS:
|
No,
we never went to America or Japan, we had plans, but the band stopped
playing then. We played throughout Europe and were pioneers for
groups from Belgium. |
|
|
PJ:
|
Would you
say that Univers Zero has inspired a whole new generation of musicians?
|
|
GS:
|
No,
not exactly . . . of course the musicians whom had been playing
with the band later on did other projects, that had similarities.
I think most of the musicians here have that naturally. We even
discovered other musicians doing similar things to us, but had no
idea who we were. I believe that we inspired a whole lot more musicians
from abroad than from here. |
|
|
PJ:
|
There is
definitely a strong underground movement of people who listen to your
music. Could you elaborate on why there is such a strong support for
artists here in Belgium.
|
|
GS:
|
Yes
I think that that is something very specific to Belgium, not only
music but painters and dancers. This is such a small country and
it's pretty hard to produce a large scale product. Artists work
on things here for a very long time. Then they go abroad and it's
so . . . big.
|
|
|
PJ:
|
Has the
media here been supportive?
|
|
GS:
|
Well
the media here were against us for a very long time. If you were
a Belgian artist it would be the last thing on their list, but
things are changing now. Still they can't do much for us because
what they do is still here in Belgium which is very small.
|
|
|
PJ:
|
How
many years ago did you make the shift from artist to running your own
business with Carbon 7?
|
|
GS:
|
I
first started working on producing other peoples material. The
final product of Univers Zero brought us a lot of fame outside
Belgium but that was all, it was impossible to survive. I started
playing again with different musicians again, completely different
styles. Each time I found myself in the band, I found myself in
the position of doing all the organizing, then my partner, Allen,
who also played in Univers Zero asked me why don't I start an
agency to organize all of these concerts. I was doing it anyway,
why don't I do it professionally.
I
started this agency and very, very quickly I had a lot of bands
to work with. Then we thought about recording stuff and then that
went very fast as well. Then many people asked us to be on the
label, I mean here in Belgium. So we started the label with very
good product, very specific, because of the links that I have
with musicians here. The profile we were looking at was very high,
a lot of originality, also people who can defend this on stage,
not only products made, or in the studio.
|
|
|
PJ:
|
How long
has Carbon 7 existed as a record label?
|
|
GS:
|
Carbon
7 started five years ago . It's a very different business than just
playing. On one side the artist, and the other the business. That's
something new. After five years we started to have a good balance,
a good idea of what that world was including the fact that we are
a small country . . . we thought we could also look at other countries,
other artists to make known in this county. And so we started the
distribution, which is a link with the management and the production
. We go from the rehearsals to the studio, everything. |
|
|
PJ:
|
How many
people work at Carbon 7?
|
|
|
Currently
there are three persons, we used to have more but it was hard
with the money to do it. We didn't get any support from the state
so we're very independent, in a way it's a good thing. If we had
some support, things would be very different. It's still better
to work with a smaller crew that knows what they're doing, it's
more efficient.
|
|
|
PJ:
|
Is there
a small business loan program here in Brussels?
|
|
GS:
|
Yes
there are but you have to make a lot of concessions, a little difficult
to handle. |
|
|
PJ:
|
Are
you currently using the internet at all for the business?
|
|
GS:
|
Yes
we are involved in the internet, in fact we were the first record
label to be on the internet. We think that it is very interesting
to reach isolated buyers, because if we go through the regular system
they will never know that we exist. It's a great way to reach people
who would like to find peculiar, unusual music, if someone in the
States for example wants to buy one of our CD¹s, they'll ask their
local shop and nobody will know who we are . On the net they know
what kind of music they want and they jump in and get in touch with
us, and that¹s very important because we are a kind of minority.
|
|
|