[Interview] Exclusive Inerview with XCIII

Today we have the pleasure of offering you an interview with a French artist who, fresh from his record release, manages to propose a modern Post/Rock genre with Electronic influences and more, XCIII.

> Hi how are you?

Hello and thank you very much for asking. I’m fine. Only a few days left before the release of the album so I am very excited. A lot of reviews are flying in and they are all very positive, so it all starts well.

> You are a poly-instrumentalist and singer, when did you start devoting yourself to music and studying all these instruments?

I never studied the instruments. But when I was in Highschool, I was in the glee club. So I first started as a singer in a cover-band. Later on, another band needed a bass player, so I bought a bass guitar and started to play. It was a few years before XCIII was created. When Jonathan, the guitar player of XCIII left the band, I also bought a guitar… And so on. Never played drums, but I am programming my own grooves with finger drums on Cubase. In fact, I also record and mix on my own. Same story here: at the time, I did not have the money to pay for a professional studio, so I learned to do it by myself. Of course it is far from perfect and there is still much more to learn, but I love beeing independent and to have my own rythm when composing and recording.

> The genre you propose is very rich in influences, from Post/Rock to Avant-garde to Electronics, where does your passion for music come from?

My first approach to music was of course the music my parents were listening to, like The Mamas and The Papas, America, The Turtles and France Gall – all the cool music from the 60s and 70s. When I was in the age of choosing my own music, I first listened to new metal acts liks Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit, but I moved on fast to bands like Tool, Nine Inch Nails and Porcupine Tree. When I was in Highschool, I first listened to Black Metal, with Assacrentis from Nice / France. I was mesmerized, so I went on to all the classic BM bands : Satyricon, Mayhem and so on. Without ever losing my love for prog and avantgarde music. Today I listen to a lot of stuff, lately to Apparat (an incredible electro act), Juno Reactor (trance), Lupe Fiasco and Little Simz (Hip-Hop), Tycho and Bonobo (Trip-Hop), but I also really liked the latest Lantlos and Deafheaven albums. Finally I like everything which isn’t made for the radio.

> Your album “Void” is very elaborate and full of refined sounds, how would you describe this album?

It is a mix of dirty industrial and sludge riffs and crystal clear trip-hop guitar licks. So in the end, it is not one or the other, it is something in between, but it is mostly shoegazy. Compared to the other albums, I think it is more pop, but not in a radio-music kind of way but more of a 60/70s reminder. The vocals Maélise added contribute to the calm and warm atmosphere, but they are evolving in a moment of doubt and fear. The contrast between both the music and the vocals are very important to move slowly to a cathartic explosion, which finally never really pops out, because we live in a non-cathartic aseptic world – a world full of emotions but those lost their profound meaning. The album is hypnotic, because we are hypnotizes by the daily and constant schocks of multiform and especially violent pictures and videos we see in the different media. The result is, as the album, psychedelic, in a good but also in a bad way, as developped in the “Artificial Paradise” by Baudelaire. When reality strikes the drunken world in which we live, the headache starts growing.

> The lyrics also play an important role in this record, what theme do they address?

The lyrics are as always really philosophical and sociological. What first comes to my mind is the nietschean concept of eternal return which states that we are trapped in a world which starts again and again. In fact, time and space are really important to that album, who was inspired by both the movie Irreversible by Gaspar Noé, and the serie Dark. Lately, I also read about the Fermi Paradox. One point of this concept is about the possibility, that once humans have reached the moment of high intelligence, they destroy themselves, or they get destroyed by the tools they developped, like in the movie Matrix, where humans are dominated by the machines and trapped in a world that constantly reboots. Considering this, the question is: if there is something like what we could call “fate”, how should we behave? Or: why do we always behave so badly?

> You do have the ability to combine more classic rock sounds with more modern and electronic ones, how does the creative and compositional process of your music take place?

Most of the time, I first find arpeggios which I like and which will be the main theme of a song. I record the guitars, than add a hint of drums and bass guitar. It always starts with 4 simple measures, and than the difficulty is to work around these four measures and to write a whole song. Sometimes the process is rational, sometimes really chaotic, for example when I record some voices, even if there are still only four measures. But one leads to another, I cut, I delete, I add and I restart. At the end, for the final touch, I ask some other musicians and vocalists to do their magic. Lately, I worked a lot with Maélise, who sang on the last two albums and the last EP. In the future, I wish to work with a pair, to have a second brain and different ideas and influences.

> Many of our fans and readers will ask themselves if with the problems of the pandemic there will be the possibility to listen to your live music, do you have any plans for it?

We are planning to tour in February, a few shows in Paris, Reims, Strasbourg and Nice. But with the new variant, it seems that the measures are once again hitting hard: in France, until the end of January, most of the live shows are not allowed. So, we’ll see. But the set is almost ready and Maélise will perhaps be a part of this mini-tour. If it’s not possible, I think that we will record a private live performance for a future bonus DVD or something like that. And we will continue looking for shows in France and around. One day or another you will be able to see XCIII on stage.

> In a music market that is constantly changing and different from that of when Rock took shape, how difficult is it to establish yourself with a more sought-after musical genre like yours?

I think it is not a problem that the market is changing. It’s not getting worse nor better, it is just different, and I think, if you dont want to repeat what was done before, you have to seize the time and the Zeitgeist. It’s important to understand why Rock and other genres were so great before, why it’s still cool now, but also, why other genres and artists are exploding. But I dont really think about what needs to be recorded, I just record what I like. I am not searching for a commercial hit, and I dont think art nor music as a product that must be sold. There are people who are paid to record radio songs, and I am not one of those, at least not mainstream radio. If someday a song emerges and becomes popular, so be it. If not, I will still continue to write music and to expand the XCIII universe with more psychedelic tryouts and try to play live so often as possible.

> What advice would you give to young artists who try to emerge by proposing a more refined musical genre such as prog or Post/Rock?

I would advice to start trying to get into Cubase or another DAW, just to record some parts and listen to them, to understand what these parts, these sounds are missing. Than I also would recommend to start buying some low cost guitar pedals, to try to understand how an effect works. At first, do not buy a 300 bucks pedal, it’s not worth it, it wont be the pedal you love, because at first you don’t really know what you love. And it’s not because a famous artist you like is playing one specific pedal, that you will also fall in love with this pedal (I am thinking for example of the Van Halen phaser). After that, it is a spiral: you sell and you buy new pedals, trying to find your sound, which can of course evolve with time. Finally I would give the advice to try out a lot of possibilities, of course amps and so on. Start easy and give it time.

> The last question, as always, I leave it free to be able to talk about any topic not covered in the previous questions, feel free to talk about what you want.

Perhaps it is the moment to talk about politics in music. There are a lot of new fascist and anti-fascist bands, of course especially in the Black Metal scene, but not only. The politicization of art should be treated carefully. Even if it’s hard to state that you are apolitical – which is most of the time considered as being an accomplice of far right movements – taking part in this binary war between good and evil participate to a coercive state. In fact, I consider that art should not take sides, but should be a tool to unveil the mechanism of today’s post-modern society and to translate the critical theory or the cultural studies in music, so the listener can make his own opinion. Furthermore, it is important not to be over-esthetic to not hide the message behind bubble-gum. Finally, not only is it important to be anti-comformist, but also esthetically appealing. Form follows function.

Thank you very much for the very interesting interview. I hope people will like the album and share their opinion about it. Hope to see you soon on stage.

I thank Guillaume Beringer and Maélise Vallez for his availability and the pleasant interview, wishing him the best for the continuation of his musical career.