SuperCrashingStar, interview by Rob Heal!

I received this interview that we gave last year and didn't think would ever make it to as it took it about a year to cross the internet.

Here it is finally!

Reading it was kind of odd and made me feel a bit childish but I can live (leave) with this so here we go... Enjoy!

Rob Heal- Hi Guys! Would you mind introducing yourself?

N- Sure! I am N and I sing and play the keyboards with SuperCrashingStar.

S- Hi Rob, I am S and I play the guitar and sing with SuperCrashingStar. N also plays the bass at times and in my spare time, I record drums and bass lines too.

RH- Where are you based off and what took you there?

N- SuperCrashingStar was born in NYC. S lived in the UK and in France before moving here and I spent most of my youth in France. SuperCrashingStar started in 2014 and is technically an American band. Technically only as our background spans from Japan to France and Norway to Spain.

S- I don’t think that where we come from and where we are based out of is any relevant anymore as peoples tend to live very similar lives in all the places where we lived in and as our background is

big cities it pretty much makes us citizens of any city we would end up living in. This said, there would not have been any SuperCrashingStar had we lived in Frankfurt… (laugh)

RH- Frankfurt???

S- Frankfurt is a running joke from my previous life. We had a terrible experience in Frankfurt and every time something bad would happen to us afterwards we would always punctuate it with a comment such as: Only in Frankfurt. I still like Germany though…

RH- How did you guys meet? Not Frankfurt, I guess?

S- This is none of your business but we’ve known one another for a very long time. (laugh)

N- A probably longer time than we would ever dare to admit!

RH- What brought you together?

N- I was curious to try things with various instruments and couldn’t find any music that I would fully identify with and as music is very important to me I started to imagine ways to create things that I would

relate to.

S- A mix of curiosity and misunderstanding brought us to think about making songs based on what we thought we understood of the world. As opposed to N, I am not known for my huge belief in humanity. I

don’t really believe in fairness and I have some real doubts when people try to talk me into equality of chances or this kind of BS but just like N I believe in Music and it’s power to convey ideas and deliver messages. I think that this is what brought us together: the need to experiment and change things using tools that are oblivious to the models that drive our society.

N- Experimenting is a big part of the game. It is because we try and fail that we accidentally succeed at times. I like the way things collide and bounce away from one another just like humans react when being exposed to elements or sounds that they are not accustomed to… Anger drives love, love drives pain, pain drives forgiveness and forgiveness drives humanity. It is a never-ending cycle.

RH- A cycle or a loop?

S- Loops are identical cycles that repeat and feed themselves from themselves. Cycles have a beginning and an end and repeat themselves. Each cycle can be different from the other but they always start and end at the same point and have an identical duration. We tend to be more in a cycle logic as a band than in a loop logic. Our environment, on the other hand qualifies very well as a loop.

N- OK, we’re in this never ending cycle but we’re not spinning in circles (ha!) We’re not stuck in a loop either. We see a real tendency of the society to compare itself to a loop but if you scratch the surface you

quickly see through it and what you find is an aspiration of the people to live their lives as they wish. This all-materialistic-money-driven model doesn’t find traction in the young population that grows and is exposed to it. The sensitive layer of this new generation identifies the model’s flaws and weaknesses and we are not that far from this instant when someone will expose them and refuse to abide by the model’s rules. The next revolution will be non-violent and educated.

S- From a pure musical perspective, I prefer cycles to loops. I am not really involved in politics.

N- Sure… In the end, we’re here to talk about music so forget my digression. Both cycles and loop are interesting. They have properties that make them all exciting and non-interchangeable. Sooo, cycles or

loops??? both! (laugh)

S- Now, you’re talking!

RH- Your first album is rather short with two micro songs sung by kids. What kind of logic took you there?

S- Songs are songs. You generally stop working on them when youthink that they are ready. If it is in their nature to be short, short they are. if it is in their interest to be sung by kids, let’s find some kids!

N- You don’t like kids? (smile)

RH- I do! My question was triggered by the fact that your album is rather dark. The themes are more adult minded than they are kids friendly and still these two odd songs…

N- We thought that the contrast was interesting. In the same fashion, some songs are clearly electronic while others are on the verge of punk. We enjoyed the idea of having kids delivering messages aimed at their parents…

S- … And it is always interesting to see how children perceive songs and make them theirs. When we were hitting roadblocks our natural tendency was to go and check with some kids what their perceptions of our problems were. It proved very enlightening.

N- This said, the album is 11 songs and 2 are small interludes with kids. it would be erroneous to let people think that we made a record for kids. Our album is a rock album on which some kids happen to

be singing! (smile)

S- … And as they are my kids, I think they are wonderful additions to the Album! (laugh)

RH- When we first met you said that you found interesting elements in most musics. Is it still the case?

S- Yes it is. There are loads of very boring songs indeed but this is regardless of their style. There are musics that I like better than others but still when a gimmick is nice or a hook works or a melody cuts it

and gives you a chill, regardless of the style it’s played in, I find it exciting and interesting and I try to understand how it’s achieved.

N- I am getting there… I am still fighting with the idea that most things are too dumb and ugly to be listened to but being pushed to go over my initial reluctance and listen to bits and pieces of random styles

and in various orders has proven very fruitful. I first understood that minor changes to an orchestration can take this orchestration from a Waltz to a Goth piece but I also realized that if a melody cuts it as a

Waltz chances are that it cuts it as any other style of music too. Having to go over the exercise of learning and understanding and changing parameters around weak compositions in order to improve them and make them acceptable is an exercise that every single musician and aspiring musician should go through on a weekly basis. It reminds you that most of the time, you are not a genius! (laugh)

RH- So music doesn’t come easy to you?

N- Shit music comes very easy to me…

S- … to me too…

N- … The thing is: We don’t like the idea of producing shit music! (laugh)

S- If you think that shit music is acceptable you need to do something else. Your music can be shit for others but for your own sanity you need to feel like what you produce is actually, quality!

RH- Your choice of subjects for your lyrics isn’t typical of what you hear on Rock and Indie scenes. How do you write your lyrics and what took you too these topics?

N- You open the Newspaper, you read an article on the internet, you hear a story told by one of your friends, you have an anecdote thrown at you, you hear a song on the radio and you think never again… Anything could be a trigger.

S- I also tend to take a pen and a paper and try to use my hand and form letters that may eventually aggregate into words that will, once added to one another, form phrases that may turn into songs… OK -

I have a foul sense of humor… (smile)

N- Understating??? (laugh)

RH- Humor is part of your recipe?

N- It all depends on the day, the time, the mood, the place we’re in and so on but, yes, humor is important to us. It makes the unacceptable easier to swallow and reminds you that stupidity does

not always rule.

S- Spot on my dear! I will start working actively at a cover of the Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles anthem to grace our next album! Quality is my priority… (smile)