Warbly Jets at Le Bout du Monde in Vevey, through my Olympus Trip.
A few weeks ago, Warbly Jets were playing in Switzerland for the first time. I was really looking forward to their show - I discovered the band a few years ago while getting lost on the internet and have been keeping an eye on their tour dates ever since.
The band agreed to do a little interview with me before their concert at Le Bout du Monde, and we had a lively chat about their lives in Los Angeles, their new EP Propaganda, getting robbed in Paris, touring in China, their upcoming record and more... join us.
Many thanks to Warbly Jets and the team at Le Bout du Monde for their kindness!
What’s a regular day like in your lives when you are not touring?
Samuel Shea: So I normally wake up, and I start moving all the trash bags that are in the dumpster around me out of the way! (laughs) Then I stand up, I crawl out of that, smoke a cigarette… and then from there I start walking, and then I end up in the studio and start working on music!
Julien O’Neill: Yeah, we just get up everyday and make music. We’re at that point right now where we’re lucky enough to – at least for now – be making music and working in the studio all the time.
Nice! So you guys don’t need to have a day job anymore?
Julien: Not really, we make money on the side in certain ways that we can. Sam engineers and produces bands.
Samuel: Yup, I actually live in a recording studio so I don’t actually live in a dumpster! But I do wake up, and normally within 30 minutes I’m in front of a console working on music.
Julien: We do our best not to have day jobs as much as possible.
Samuel: We do our best not to sleep in dumpsters but we do end up there sometimes you know. (laughs)
Saamuel Richard: I have a day job actually, I do photography. That’s my main love back at home. I work a lot in fashion and music photography as well. It’s fun, keeps me livin’, keeps me alive.
I read in other interviews that you guys started music without any leverages or advantages. I really like that, because I am from a working class background myself. Does it influence your music?
Samuel: Absolutely, 100%.
Julien: You carry it with you every step of the way. I mean, we have no advantages whatsoever. We were not born with any instant credibility because of who our parents were whatsoever. We don’t have anybody in the industry helping us out in terms of family or friends. Everything that we’ve done to get to this point, we’ve done by ourselves- and developed relationships with people along the way. But it’s very much an independent spirit.
Samuel: Homegrown.
Julien: Yeah. And it definitely influences our music, it’s in a lot of the lyrics, and just the atmosphere- it’s loud, it’s angry but it’s also trying to be emotive and representative to how we feel at our core.
I wanted to talk about my favorite song off your new EP as well, No Allegiance to the Game. I especially like the flutes in it, it reminded me of 90s Beck for some reason!
Samuel: Sure! That was actually something we were going for, along with a mix of other things. But that was definitely one of the influences that we were listening a lot to, and trying to pull things from.
Julien : Yeah. Beck’s and that Beastie Boy stuff!
Samuel: Whether it’s Guero, or even Midnight Vultures to a certain degree. Some of that crazier, early Beck stuff. Also The Avalanches, Beastie Boys… Those are the main influences for this new record that we’re working on. And the EP was actually supposed to be part of that record, but we ended up not finishing it on time. So we decided to separate those songs that were finished just release them as an EP. But the transition into more that sampled-based music that we did with the EP is jumping even further on this next record.
I’m looking forward to hearing it!
Samuel: Yes, unfortunately we just got robbed in Paris…
Saamuel: A week ago.
Samuel: Our main hard drive and our backup drive that were in Julien’s backpack were stolen, so we lost all the sessions of everything.
Julien: Not all of them, there’s definitely some backups and I have a lot of the samples in my MPC already, and in other stuff I use on stage. So there’s backup of certain things, but we have a lot to puzzle-piece a lot of things together, and also to start from scratch in other way. Someone broke into the apartment that I was staying in Paris. Luckily we have insurance, so that’s going to cover the costs of replacing it. But intellectual property, things that you have been working on for months… that doesn’t really equate to a dollar amount.
Samuel: Also, because of how we were working on this record a lot of it was things that we recorded ourselves and then sampled off our own recordings, and then manipulated inside of Ableton to make very strange sounds. While we can’t recreate them – they will never be exactly the same – we’ve been trying to have a positive attitude about the whole situation. I’m not too worried, if we’ve done it once we can do it again and make it right. But it definitely is a very frustrating leaving day of Paris.
Saamuel: Paris really fucked us up.
Samuel: Yeah, Paris is not good. A lot of people got a lot of stuff stolen in Paris actually (laughs)
Speaking of Propaganda, you guys have played in China! How was it? Did you feel uneasy, and how was the crowd?
Julien: In terms of impact, it was great in the bigger cities, and then there’s also smaller markets in different areas there. I was really worried about the lyrics on the new EP, like with Propaganda and Cool Kill Machine being about guns and gun control. There was actually no problem with that whatsoever from the government. We kind of slipped under the radar and performed the songs in full, and never got into any trouble. The responses were great in some of the bigger cities, and in some of the smaller cities it was like what you would expect anywhere else. But overall, it was a blast you know.
Samuel: It’s crazy, that’s our third time touring in China. Last Summer, we played Midi Festival to 10’000, or 12’000 people near Shanghai. The night before we played in a tiny little… I don’t even want to call it a bar, it’s more like a social hangout spot to 5 people! (laughs) Just the difference in that – playing a tiny little- almost teen hang club, and then to 12’000 people the next day… You never know what you’re going to get!
Now I have a weird question. Let’s say you discover a magic box, and there are three superpowers inside: super speed, super strength and mind reading. Which power would you guys choose? There can only be one person per superpower.
Saamuel: Julien already has mind-reading, so he can’t have that. (laughs) I’ll do super-speed!
Samuel: Mind-reading. That’s mine.
Julien: Damnit, that’s what I wanted! I’ll do super strength, because I’m actually pretty weak. (laughs)
What can we expect from Warbly Jets in the future?
Julien: More music, and definitely a slight change in direction in sound. We’re just going to try and put out as much as we possibly can, and ignore what everyone else is telling us behind the scenes.
Samuel: In the immediate future, we’re going to have a video for Cool Kill Machine. It’s coming out in about a month.
I had the pleasure of meeting the great guys from Warbly Jets last Monday in Vevey, and I took a few pictures. Here’s a mix of digital and film, through my old Canon & my Olympus Trip ! We also did a little interview, it’s coming ASAP!
