During the weird transition period following the cancellation of the Ragnard Rock Festival, I had the opportunity to meet and learn more about the band of a friend of mine: No More Mud.
No More Mud is quite a curious band name, where does it comes from?
We started playing music together after a misadventure that bonded us as friends. We were at this festival, Sonisphere Zurich 2010, and the weather was extremely bad, it ended up in a total catastrophe… The next year we headed to Sonisphere Amneville 2011 with a flag “no more mud” printed on. We chose to keep this name for the band, even though it doesn’t really mean anything.
What are your influences? Are they different within the band?
I think that we all share common influences within the band but we all listen to different stuff, ranging from thrash, glam, melodeath, black to death. When we play, we try to sound different, and the singing in French definitely helps. We can find inspiration pretty much anywhere I guess! Our music changed a lot over time and we are developing our own sound.
I’d like to talk about your homemade video for “Parjure” and more specifically about the masks and costumes. Is this aesthetic something you plan to keep in your signature?
Yes, this is something pretty important for us, we want to keep our efforts on creating props for our music videos and our artworks. We are also trying to develop a stage identity but I don’t think we are ever going to play live with masks or costumes. It’s not part of the plan yet! Aesthetic has always been a big part of metal fandom and identity. W1e enjoy this aspect as it allows us to create concepts. For us, creating props and artwork is as enjoyable as playing music.
I salute your choice of writing French lyrics by the way. What are your main themes?
Singing in French was a real choice, we did not take the easy way I guess. We like to write songs people can relate to, sometimes with vague meaning and broad themes, sometimes with more precise topics and crude lyrics. We can say that our themes are linked to the bad side of mankind… War, consciousness of death, history, inquisition… We do not want to stick to specific themes and as I said earlier, I think we can find inspiration pretty much anywhere as long as it is relevant.
What are your projects in the near future?
We are not music professionals and the band suffered from several line-up changes over time. We recently found our balance and started a series of concerts this year. We might go back to composition for a while to expand our set and make songs closer to our new state of mind.
In the near future, we are planning on working on a new music video, featuring our new guitarist and lead singer for a new song. This is quite a big project and we have a pretty high-quality standard so it will take some time…
