It’s nice to have a first, and I think this is the first fruit-based band we’ve ever featured who come from Le Réunion…
Simple things first — where are you guys from?
We are from La Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean.
How did you meet?
Sarah and I are a couple in the daily life. Charly, the drummer, used to be our sound engineer. When our first drummer left, he took the job!
How long have you been playing as a band?
The band started in 2016, we locked ourselves in the rehearsal space and we played our first show in April 2017. We have the current lineup since February 2018
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
It was a joke… We found the name very funny (Pamplemousse means grapefruit), not serious at all and quite unexpected for a noise rock band. It made us laugh, so it was the right name.
What are your influences?
We do really like the integrity and speech of bands like Fugazi as well as the visionary works of movie directors like John Cassavetes & Jim Jarmush. All kind of art may have an impact on us. Our music influences come from the 90s and blues even if we listen to a wide range of music genres.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We spent a lot of time rehearsing to find our own sound and from the start we didn’t particularly want to sound like the bands we like. Bass guitar parts are rather harmonious and perfectly mixed with a rough/raw guitar sound. This combination is the baseline of our sound. We also tend not to overproduce our recordings. We like it raw with a noisy garage rock taste. For the second LP to be released in April, we chose the producer Peter Deimel (Shellac, Chokebore, Cows…) because we wanted to have an analog tape recording close to the sound of our live shows.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
Not at all, we can talk about anything.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
It’s hard to say but from what I heard, it’s very loud. Since April April 2017, I think we played about 40 shows both in the Indian Ocean and in Europe. For our first gig on mainland France, we opened for Unsane (NYC) in Paris.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Nothing really special at this point.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Fender Stratocaster guitar through Death by Audio fuzz. Fender Precision through a rat and Big Muff fuzz. The drum kit for the recording was a custom made by Vince Gutman.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment? What are your plans for 2019?
Our band new record High Strung will be out on April 19th on the French label A Tant Rêver du Roi and we’ll try to tour Europe to promote this new recording. It’s already available for pre-order on vinyl and CD.
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
We really like rock bands from South Africa like Black Lung, Mouse, Make-Overs… We do like their music very much, they sound really authentic and wild and on top of that they are lovely people. Touring Europe with one of these bands would be amazing.
Header image by Matthieu Bastin
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