NEWS
EVENTS
Roman from Breton on rejecting the music industry, gentrification, and life size UFOs
Indie | Tuesday 16th December 2014 |
Breton are a truly innovative indie/electronic band/art collective. Having started out in a squat in South London, then decamping to an abandoned communist radio station in Berlin, they've now managed to accumulate a huge following across the channel. With the succesful release of their second album War Room Stories earlier this year , they're getting ready to take on the world - and all without bowing to any major label pressures. We caught up with lead singer Roman Rappak to talk about keeping it real.
Hey Roman! I had a quick look at your Facebook, and I could tell from your cover picture that you've recently been doing a lot of touring.
Yeah, we literally only just finished touring last week.
Yeah, the last show was at Heaven right? It looks like you had loads of dates in France before that.
Yeah, we kind of always have good bookings in France, the French were the first people that really picked up on us.
Yeah, I noticed. Do you have any idea as to why that is?
Well, it kind of goes back to one festival that we played. We'd been playing to about a hundred people at shows in Britain, Germany and Holland. And then we got this really amazing slot at a festival in France. What we do with our visuals and electronics and cinema suddenly worked so much better when we were on a massive stage in front of 10,000 people…. Rather than our first squat parties where things would be gaffa taped to the wall with a broken projector... it's not really the full audiovisual experience that you'd hoped it would be! So ever since then France has always been quite far ahead in terms of the venues we get booked in.
I thought your French following might partly be due to your French name Breton!
Yeah, well there's a few things like that - there's an area in France called Brittany, and if you're from there you're a Breton. I've been asked that question in a French interview - *puts on French accent* "did you know that your band in France means this?" And I'm like, yep, I do actually, but thanks!
I actually read somewhere that you named yourself after André Breton - that's a pretty good choice seeing how you have your whole visual, artistic side of things as well. Why did you decide to name yourselves after him?
Well, I guess as he was a big part of the surrealist movement. The surrealists were obviously about making things a bit weird and surreal, but also saying that art had become quite a homogenised mass where everyone had agreed we all went to a gallery to look at pictures of bowls of fruit. I think that's also true of today's music industry. When modern music all started, it was exciting to see people who weren't classically trained get up on that stage, but after so many years bands just become the same thing over and over again. Obviously there's still variations but it’s still 5 blokes on a stage, drums, guitarists, singers… it’s more fun to see if you can push that format - not making a 2 hour, abstract noise-fest, but having moments of a pop song, then a dance track, then a moment of watching a film, the musicians aren't just the central point of it. That's much more exciting I think.
Yeah, I think it’s great that you try and push it. Did having the BretonLABS help with that? Being in a legal squat in Elephant & Castle... I can see how that would lead to you feeling more able to experiment. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Yeah, experimenting was our reward for living without heating and with very little security... the benefits of it are you really are left to your own devices. I had a friend at the time, about 3 years ago, and they were doing the normal thing where you try and sign to a major label. But actually, even though that’s what you dream of when you're young - signing to Warner Brothers then driving away in a Porsche – it’s incredibly stressful because so much investment and money has gone into it, that people really can't take any risks. You worry about making back your money. So we had this place to live, and it kind of felt like all those things that you used to need a label for - distribution, recording - you don't need it as much, because you can record it on a laptop and put your own music online. Bands were slightly held prisoner by labels, as well as their own egos and ambition; everyone wants to be massive, and I think that sometimes happens at the expense of them being interesting.
Definitely, I think the arts in general has always had an uneasy relationship with the whole finance and industry side of things, whether its music or other artistic forms.
Yeah, I think you're right. It's a complicated world because all artists wanna get their work out, and music has got this bizarre association with this idea of the rags to riches story. If you were a watercolour painter or someone who did ceramics – you just work away at it, and that's a legitimate way to do their art. Whereas with music people are like, this band put out a few records but why are they not millionaires? People misunderstand why you do it in the first place.
Yeah, well I can definitely see why you would just want to do it your own way. What happened to the BretonLABS?
We got evicted, and then there was things about it being unsafe... obviously we were playing music at like 4 in the morning, so maybe we should've been a bit more diligent about that... we went back not long ago, and it's just full of junkies and the whole place is trashed. They're gonna knock it down and build some horrific flats for some kind of soulless commuters.
Yeah that sounds about right. I thought it was interesting that you started out in a kind of squat in Elephant & castle, as the gentrification of London, particularly the Elephant & Castle area at the moment is a hot topic. What are your thoughts on that?
It's a strange sort of evolution that happens with this sort of rhythm; artists are the shock troops of gentrification, they're always the first ones in... a load of artists move into an area because it's cheap, then they kind of make it cool - so cool that they then can't afford to live there anymore! All the places that are a bit depressing and bleak get made vibrant and interesting, and then the property prices go up so you can move them out. It's the same everywhere - when you go to like Brooklyn, and everyone's like Brooklyn's lost its vibe, everyone's gone to Williamsburg, and then you go to Williamsburg, and everyone says Williamsburg’s not what it was, and then same with all the parts of East London as you said, and different bits of Barcelona and Madrid... I think weirdly, Berlin is still one of the last places that's clung on to its bohemian vibe. I was talking to someone about it and they suggested that all these cities have business centres, so you have this uneasy relationship between people who make a lot of money, and people who don't make much money who are artists, but one thing about Berlin is that it doesn't really have a business sector, all the business is in Bavaria like Hamburg, so a tram ride still costs the same, a coffee still costs the same, and the rent still costs the same, and the people are still interesting.
That's really cool, because obviously I saw that you then decamped to an old communist radio station east of Berlin, quite a dramatic change of scene!
Yeah, well in some ways it was, but in some ways it was a very similar kind of environment. We were looking all over Europe for another Warehouse space to make the second album. From the first record, we never imagined it would do as well as it did, so we saved all the money we'd made from that and we just decided to move to Berlin, rent a flat and hire out this mental old communist place - imagine the BBC television house in London: it's enormous, 12 stories high, and there's about 7 or 8 different buildings in it. There's an entire orchestra pit, there's rehearsal rooms, recording studios. It’s all from when the cold war was going on because obviously with all the broadcasting and propaganda, it was like a military installation. And yeah it was kind of a good place to hide and avoid London, which is so steeped in its own music culture,that everything starts to sound the same.
Yeah, London is definitely its own little bubble.
Yeah definitely, that can be really nourishing but also it can be absolutely stifling, because you're constantly playing with bands that sound the same, and everyone you meet is just talking about one song, record or band, and everyone else is trying to be that. To make a record takes about 6 months anyway, by the time you've put your record out, all these slightly disposable references are already out of date.
So the second album you released, you obviously worked on in this crazy Berlin warehouse. It's called War Room Stories, is that mean to allude to where it was recorded?
Well, partly, it has a few interpretations depending on who you speak to. For me it was inspired by Churchill's War Rooms in London Bridge. It's one of those places that they drag you to when you're at school, but it's kind of fascinating that you had this guy who was controlling the entire country, locked away in this little room without seeing what was going on. We kind of wanted to get lost in our music and lock ourselves away so it’s a reference to that too, and the stories aspect of it is the tracks themselves - each one of them is a reference to a different character or narrative.
I actually found it interesting that listening to Envy, the first track on the album, some of the lyrics seem to be referring a bit to this whole experience of being kicked out of your squat and going to Berlin - "you're only here as long as they rented it to you" - is that where it comes from?
Yeah, definitely. I find it really difficult to write about things that are detached, everything relates to what I'm doing or where I am.
Yeah, but I think there's definitely a lot of young people that can relate to that lyric.
Yeah, definitely. I think someone sent me an article the other day about how many people are leaving London just because of rent prices. Now Hackney is one of the most expensive places to live in terms of what people's wages are - how much of their wage goes on their rent.
Yep, that's not surprising. It's interesting that you mentioned that the rent in Berlin is pretty stable.
Yeah, it’s fairly stable. People who live there claim it's going up, but it’s still so cheap to go out; for the price of a round of 4 drinks in London you can jump in a cab, go for a meal, get drunk, see a film and get a cab home - the actual quality of life is so much better.
Yeah, that sounds fantastic! I read that the locals in the area where you were based, way out on the east side, included some colourful characters, such as a white Rastafarian with a life size model UFO. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Basically I think the thing about that kind of area is, imagine if there was a complete shift in political ideologies and places like BBC headquarters became abandoned buildings. The rooms were so big that there was this one guy who’d have barbecues actually in the building. The first time we met him we were borrowing a mic stand, and he told us he'd need it back in a few days, and we asked why, and he said he had a gospel choir coming. When we saw him a while later we asked him if his gospel choir had come, and he said no, they're all ill! They're actually an old folk's choir, so they get ill all the time. That's just how Berlin is, it's not really about being cool and everyone being in this counter-culture, it's just chaos really! Everyone just does whatever they want. It's a nice change from London.
Yeah, London can get quite pretentious. Did you ever see this UFO? When it says life size UFO, how big exactly is a life size UFO?
Yeah, it was actually life size - he used to sleep in it! The story behind it is it was used in a film and the people that owned it would rent it out to TV producers and people like that. There were sofas and stuff in there, it was massive. And he was pretty secretive about it because he was told he couldn't let anyone photograph it because they'd have to charge people for it.
Are you in Berlin now, or are you back in England for Christmas?
Yeah, came back last week, we had our last show at heaven, and I'm pretty much just here writing and working on new stuff, spending Christmas with my family.
Aww, does your family have any funny Christmas day traditions?
Yeah, my family's Polish so our Christmas Eve is pretty weird - you're meant to set a table place for Christ. So there's always like this strange place - I mean he's never turned up yet - but my mum never makes enough food so we're quite grateful actually!
When you were little did you have any Santa traditions?
Yeah, my dad once totally fooled my sister by hiding a tape machine with some bells jingling on it somewhere in the house, but my sister was terrified thinking there was a strange man in the house!
Haha, very sensible! So before we wrap up, can you quickly tell us what Breton's future plans are - where can we catch you next?
We've got one last show - we're just doing it for fun really, it's a snowboarding festival in the Alps. I'm gonna keep writing lots of stuff, and we've kind of just got a couple of short films in the making. I think we're going to put a book out, because Adam - our drummer - is a photographer, and he's putting all his photos and illustrations together.
So basically, you're staying true to your whole tradition of mixing it up artistically.
Yeah, as long as we find it interesting, we'll pursue it. That's how the band started!
Words by Miriam Johnson
