We took the opportunity of the Crossroads Festival Live Sessions to meet, virtually, and talk with Lyon’s garage rock band, Johnnie Carwash. This is our bonus article this week. Interview.
Unis Son: How things were for you during this pandemic and lockdown period?
Manon: It went alright, it was long for everyone. We couldn’t work together, we were all on our own so it was a bit complex.
Maxime: It was quite a long break in the band, especially with all shows got cancelled, a bit like forced holidays but with conditions…
Bastien: Not really holidays in the end.
Manon: But it permitted us to have a break a bit because we had a schedule where everything was going quite fast. We took time to breathe, to think and to compose new tracks. We didn’t have the time to do that anymore. Each on their side gave us the opportunity to think about music.
Bastien: Then, in the summer when the lockdown stopped, we could make some demos and rehearse together, but without preparing shows really.
Maxime: And at the end of summer we did some live recordings, like the one for Crossroads, some recordings and a bit of composition…
Bastien: So we went back to some activities, but without doing what we most wanted to do at this time, which is a tour.
US: Talking about digital concert and the Crossroads Festival, how it was for you?
Maxime: It was well taken in charge, it was very well organised!
Manon: Very professional!
Bastien: Actually, we moved like if we’d do our show in Roman-Sur-Isère, and we arrived, the venue was empty. But we did our show, sort of. And there was a whole video team who were hired by the Crossroads who was there. We just had to do our set we shortened for the occasion.
Manon: The hardest thing for us was to do a thirteen minutes set.
Maxime: And to do it like there was some energy when nobody was in front of us. We played in the same conditions that we do when we work together. We weren’t in the room in front of the completely empty pit to look at… the emptiness.
Bastien: We didn’t acted like it was packed with people either! (laughs)
US: Does it make you want to redo this kind of experiences, to do some digital concert or digital festivals again?
Bastien: If it’s organised like the Crossroads, yes it’s fun.
Manon: Yeah, totally!
Maxime: Yeah, in fact, we just did a live session, but instead of being in our local it was on a stage.
Bastien: Because we already did live session in our local.
Maxime: Yeah, it’s always cool to do a video, but well, we still prefer shows. There, because of the circumstances, it’s true it’s cool to just have to move the gears, build, unbuilt, do the soundcheck… We forgot a bit all this.
Bastien: It was missing a bit of sweat at the end of the day.
US: What will be the next projects when they will be do-able?
Maxime: The project is to do all the postponed dates. And go back to where we were in the dynamics.
Bastien: And to release an EP, a vinyl edition of our EP, the 16th of September.
Maxime: Very soon actually!
Manon: It’s something we wanted to do before. And then there was the lockdown, we didn’t know if we’d do it and in the end, we do, so it’s cool.
Bastien: We’re doing Crossroads and we’re doing the iNOUïS in Bourges the 17th September.
Maxime: It will be so good, a real show in front of sitting and masked people is better than nothing!
US: I imagine that you listened to music while in lockdown, do you have any recommendations?
Manon: There are so many, to choose only one will be difficult…
Bastien: I got one, a musical recommendation for lockdown, especially for lockdown: Brian Eno’s albums. I was putting them on speakers, not too loud and I was letting this run in the background. It helped to forget the street which can be really noisy sometimes.
Manon: I believe it’s during the lockdown that I discovered Fontaines D.C.’s first album.
Maxime: I took the opportunity of the lockdown to empty my ears and I almost didn’t listen to music.
US: I have just one more question, the most difficult: what is your earliest musical memory?
Manon: My first musical memory is really simple. The first gig I went to was Lorie, like all the little girls of my age (laughs).
Maxime: For me, I think it’s putting some old tapes in my father’s car, especially Jump by Van Halen and an old rock’n’roll mixtape. The name was Splish Splash.
Bastien: And for me, it was in my mother’s living room, and she put, I believe, the Franz Ferdinand’s first album, the one with Take Me Out. I remember, it’s wasn’t that loud but loud enough for what my mother usually listens to. I remember that the living room was enormous and that I was jumping everywhere.
Again, we’re thanking the band for the time they gave us and for answering our questions. If you want to see their live session you can on the replay video just under this article.
