Interview with Sexblood by DJ Jason
DJ Jason: Sexblood recently toured Florida. How did this experience compare with your previous tour of Texas? Are there any stand out memories that you would like to share?
Sexblood: Last year, our tour in Texas was really a leap into the unknown. We didn’t really know what to expect. The band was starting to be regularly played in American DJs’ playlists when Necroflesh Events contacted me in early January 23 (our first album was released in April 22). The Necroflesh girls had loved our Sleeping Angel video and DJ Christina Zombi asked me to come and play in Texas.
It was a first for Necroflesh to have an European band play and we had to sort out the logistical problems. We had to figure out in advance to gather the necessary backline because it was unthinkable to bring our instruments and amps (we are 5 musicians including a drummer).
Everything was sorted out with the help of Necroflesh and the local bands who provided us with all the necessary gear.
A little anecdote: before going to TX, I had bought a second-hand guitar in the USA that I had delivered to Necroflesh in San Antonio. At the end of the tour, I sold it to Zac Campbell, the guitarist of The Wanning Moon, without suspecting for a moment that he would lend it to me the following year in Florida!
Everything was well organized. And it was a great tour. Everything went smoothly. Not a single « shadow on the board » as we say in french. Every night, the audience was enthusiastic and really happy to see us. In fact, it was almost too perfect!
This year, we had a network that we didn’t have last year, so that made things easier. But we experienced some very stressful moments.
First, our drummer missed his flight to the USA: if his next flights had been delayed, we would certainly have had to cancel the first show in Jacksonville. Finally, he arrived 24 hours before the JAX show BUT his suitcase containing important gear for his drums and for our lead guitarist was lost at the Edinburgh airport in Scotland! Bad luck!! In fact, I didn’t sleep the first two nights in the USA. Miraculously, this suitcase arrived at the Orlando airport on the morning of our first gig!
The backline was therefore well organized… apparently because the night of the first gig, we didn’t have a bass due to a misunderstanding. So Christina ran to a guitar shop in Jacksonville to buy one. Well, it looked more like a toy but it did the job!
Our first show in Jacksonville was a great night: we were received like kings by Johanna Moresco and the audience was there.
The next day, in Miami Beach, the atmosphere was not the same. The owner of the club made a weird face when he saw us arrive: he thought the show was canceled! Christina must have sorted out this misunderstanding (we still don’t know what happened). Finally, we played in front of a small audience, which wasn’t a problem because the club was tiny. And we didn’t regret it because we met some lovely people who came back to see us the next day in Lake Worth (I’m thinking in particular of Jay Sector, Richard and Anicha).
The next three dates went well, the audience was still just as enthusiastic. Between the road and the very short nights, we were all exhausted but always happy to play. We met DJs who have supported us since the beginning, like DJ Malek in Orlando and you, DJ Jason Ledyard in Lake Worth. Great memories.
DJ Jason: You have a video describing how you obtain the Sexblood guitar sound. How did you arrive by this combination of pedals? Was it always this way for you as a guitarist?
Sexblood: If you listen carefully to the intro of Soultrap on our first album, you will hear a guitar riff just before the drum starts. In fact, I digitally mixed the original riff with a copy an octave lower and another one an octave higher. I found it very convincing. A quick search on the net allowed me to find an effect pedal capable of creating this in live conditions. I found a used one and believe me if you want but as soon as I plugged it in, the riff of Silent Hill came out instantly. A real revelation! In less than an hour, the guitar of this song was written, with the effects that I talk about in the video.
I kept this chain of effects for almost all the songs of SEXBLOOD.
I have always been very attentive to guitar effects pedals. I am convinced that an effect can boost inspiration in the same way that new equipment can increase the performance of an athlete.
DJ Jason: Sexblood have two fairly recent albums. What were the members of the band doing before Sexblood? Are there other French goth bands in your past? If so, what were they?
Sexblood: All the band members play or have played in other projects that range from punk-rock to sludge. I have played successively in new-wave, shoegaze, indie rock and electro-noise bands. When I was a teenager, I played in a band that did covers of The Cure, Bauhaus… (like everyone else, right?) then in the 90s I dropped new-wave for shoegazing stuff like My Bloody Valentine or The Jesus and Mary Chain.
But we all have in common the love of the color black, macabre jewelry, tight pants and crimped hair.
DJ Jason: I’ve read that you have played more in the US than in Europe. Would you like to explain how that came to be?
Sexblood: Yes, it’s crazy but when we came back from Florida the observation was clear: we had played more in the USA than in Europe. The reason is simple: Necroflesh Events spotted us when we had only done two gigs in France. We can say that we really started to do live music in the USA.
After Texas, promoters started to book us in France and Germany. But without a regular booker in Europe, we were offered only one-shots, not tour. That’s too bad.
But that might change in 2025, who knows ?
DJ Jason: What is the goth scene like in France? Do the band participate in your local scene in Mulhouse or elsewhere?
Sexblood: In Mulhouse, there is no goth or even dark musics scene. We are really a UFO here. Music in Mulhouse is mostly rap, a bit of rock and metal. In France, it’s a bit the same. Very few goth groups (we still have Corpus Delicti to name just one).
There are guys and small associations who organize gigs in Paris and all over France, but it remains very confidential. I am thinking in particular of Rosa Crux in Rouen and Le Boucanier in Paris, which regularly organise concerts with headliners and emerging bands.
So, it’s a bit normal that we turn abroad to make records or play (we are on a Swiss label). « No one is a prophet in their own country » as we say.
DJ Jason: Are there any goth bands that you have performed with that you recommend?
Sexblood: All the bands we shared the stage with left us with good memories. Whether in Europe with the Spanish Malefixio or the Italian Spiritual Bat, or in the USA with In a Darkened Room or Livernois. They all make deeply personal and intimate music, and they give it their all. I would dream of doing a festival with all these bands that crossed our path.
DJ Jason: Has the band played Wave Gotik Treffen, Mera Luna or any of the other large scale festivals in Germany? If so, how were you received?
Sexblood: No festival so far. We hope to be contacted. Especially because we are all living on the German border. It would be easier than going to the USA!
But there is no point in asking them, they just say: “make records, do some shows and we will contact you”.
DJ Jason: What influences SexBlood’s music and lyrics?
Sexblood: Regarding music, post-punk and new-wave (not to mention gothic-rock which for me is just a subgenre of new-wave) are part of my DNA as a musician. I have always listened to this music. The artists from the 4AD label also influenced me a lot, from Dead Can Dance, Cocteau twins or This Mortal Coil to Lush or Pixies. But I also have years of listening to Kate Bush. I love this singer.
My influences for the lyrics are mainly my travels and my readings, whether fiction or historical documents. Cinema and pop culture are also part of my pool of inspiration.
For example, in BLACK RAIN, I evoke the radioactive black rain that rained down on Hiroshima after the explosion of the atomic bomb. I visited the Hiroshima A-bomb museum a few years ago. A heart-wrenching museum that left a deep impression on me.
SLEEPING ANGEL is a tribute to Rosalia Lombardo, a mummified little girl resting in the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, Sicily. I visited this macabre place in the fall of 2021. I came out totally devastated.
TEACH ME TO CRY, which gives the name to the first album, was inspired by the film Zorba the Greek (Michael Cacoyannis, 1964). In this film, there is a fairly well-known scene where Zorba (Anthony Quinn) dances the sirtaki. Basil, the British writer, another protagonist of the film, then asks him: “teach me to dance!”. It so happens that, in 2018, I went to the beach in Creta where this scene was filmed. While working on the SEXBLOOD album, I remembered this beach, its crushing heat and the sun burning my eyes. The phrase “Teach me to dance” suddenly seemed ridiculous to me. I transformed it into “Teach me to cry”…
Closer to the current story that is shaking Europe and the whole world, HOLODOMOR talks about the great famine of 1933 orchestrated by STALIN that killed millions of Ukrainians.
SILENT HILL refers to the film of the same name. I was very struck by the aesthetics of the film and its Lovecraftian atmosphere. I love Lovecraft’s short stories. I think I’ve read all of his work.
For the second album, I collaborated with a relative in Australia who gives me Australian expressions and writes lyrics (The Meat Wagon is australian slang for the hearse). I use his lyrics as is or I rework them according to my desires.
DJ Jason: What are your future plans? Will you be returning to America to tour the north east next year?
Sexblood: We will play in Nice (France) in October and somewhere in UK next year (but I can’t say anything at the moment, we’re waiting for the official promotion).
We are studying all the proposals. We already have initial contacts here and there, in north and south America. In fact, it all depends on what the promoters offer us.
And our prices increase year after year!
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