Интервью с Leng Tch'e, Sven de Caluwe (drums, also vocals in Aborted)
Интеврвью брал Hammer

12-е Января 2007

So, first question will be about your latest work – split with Warscars. Why did you decide to make the split strictly with these French grinders?

Initially we weren’t even into doing a split since we don’t like split releases, but we really wanted to do something with Nicolas (bones brigade), he’s a good friend for ages & we always talked about having a release with him so this seemed to be the perfect chance. We wanted to make a bridge between the process & marasmus and so this pretty much was coherent on all fronts & timing. The material is also a bridge from TPOE to the new stuff on Marasmus. Both bands have over 15 mins playing time so it already makes it a full release, I really didn’t see the point in adding more bands to it.

The next one's more to Boris. There've been rumors that you have left Suppository to concentrate on activity with Leng Tch'e, is it true

I’ll answer this one on behalf of Boris & yes it is kind of true, things in his life are quite busy and Leng Tch’e is taking more & more investment from everyone so he made the choice to leave Suppository & fully focus on Leng Tch’e to make his life still comfortable & to not have conflicting schedules I believe.

What are your reflections about being «Relapse Records band»?

We’re glad to be on a label that has the means to promote the band & make sure the album is actually available for most people, we put a lot of effort in this band & even though it’s an underground type of music & very extreme, we still don’t like our work to go to waste gathering dust in some bedroom if you know what I mean. Relapse is also still an underground label, it’s by on means Sony or Warner music or whatever, it’s an Indie label which believes in the bands that are on the roster & support their bands as much as they can, driven people with a passion for music, so how could we not be happy? All the nay sayers to Relapse don’t really know the people of the label or how things work, as to much things in life, if you don’t know what you’re saying? Just shut the fuck up.

Can you tell more about the incident with Eddy De Dapper?

Rather not frankly since there were about 5 lawsuits concerning that. Basicly we had fallouts with mr De Dapper & we wrote a song about him, he started about 5 lawsuits against us that he didn’t win, we only had to remove the song from the album, that’s it, case closed.

It is well-known that Aborted is the participant of «Metalheads Against Racism» movement, what position hold Leng Tch'e's (' ' lol) members about antifascism and antiracism activity, veganism and other more hardcore-influenced movement?

Both Aborted & Leng Tch’e stand against racism & any form of political extremism, be it extreme right or left, extremity in politics and/or religion isn’t good for anyone. We hate fascism and all the forms. There are also 2 vegetarians & one Vegan in the band but we don’t preach about that type of stuff, it’s all a personal choice of what a person wants to eat & we are not dictators. Its all about having respect for one another, want to be vegan, fine, enjoy, want to eat meat, fine as well, to each his own, you know? Those who preach the loudest eventually fall the hardest, I can’t even count how many dropouts we’ve seen going from one extreme to another over the past decade, haha.

Here's one more tricky: while watching your new video «Derisive Conscience» I'd caught myself on a thought that grind core bands like to criticize corporate organizations and so called «robotized office workers».Is this critics well-founded or it is just a priori conviction in your case?

The whole concept of the album is pretty much based on the fact that (not that we hate corporations, but the people that work for them & hate it themselves) most people do a job for the rest of their lives & most of the time or a lot of them are very unhappy with their job, they sit all day with a long face & can’t stop complaining about it all the time. Stop complaining & do something about it. That is the whole point also behind the video, we took it a lot more extreme cause most people don’t get the point if you don’t put it in some verve you know. In the video the guy kills his boss for pissing him off, what we’re saying is: don’t like your job? Quit, find something else, educate yourself, do what you want to, but stop fucking bitching to everyone around you and stop annoying them or giving them a lousy service because you are unhappy with the choices you made in life.

Let's speak about your lyrics as a whole. It's very aggressive and sarcastic to many subcultures (some of them fucking deserved it), but is this a way to change them or to make them realize what they are? Better to say: what's your lyrics message?

Some of them are just plain silly & just for the fun of it you know, but most lyrics have something to say, on the new record everything has a clear message. We point out the things that annoy us in daily life in the hope that it does affect people somehow you know. We’re not preaching, again, but it is also a channel to release our own frustrations through music to keep us sane, which is also exactly what a leng tch’e live show is all about: release of anger & going insane to keep you from losing it in daily life. Yes, we are loco, we like waffles and we smell like Jessica Alba in Sin City.

Only a lazy ass metal/grind or whatever fan don't know that death metal's becoming more and more popular nowadays. But the price of popularity is the interaction with hardcorepunk and metalcore. So hardcore kids play death metal e.g. Animosity, Underneath the Gun. 8) Give a comment to the situation, please.

I think everyone can play whatever they want, it’s up to people to like it. I personally like bands like Animosity, All shall perish, despised Icon and all that. It doesn’t matter you know, you have good & bad music, regardless how you label it. There are good & bad bands in every style, it’s up to everyone to pick out for themselves what they like. Eventually it’s all subjective and related to personal taste. We also mix up a lot of styles through our basic roots of grindcore, that’s why we always called it ‘razorgrind’ there are no limits as to what we can incorporate into the music of leng tch’e, which is what makes this band as much fun as it is, its all about playing what you enjoy.

Battling disputes for belonging of GxCx more to metal or hardcore is still sounding. Share your point of view as musicians and fans.

Personally we don’t give a rat’s ass about this discussion, as said, good music & bad music. Want to link grind to metal, fine, want to link it to hardcore, fine, want to link it to country music, fine as well, we don’t give a shit. People should wake up & stop thinking in prejudices & categorizing everything & just listen with their ears & heart. Like it or not, your decision but it’s pointless to fight over what ‘style’ a band has, just appreciate them or not, regardless of what ‘style’ it is, you know.

This question don't touches LC at all, but it's really a shocking event, I mean the situation with Steve from Thee Plague of Gentlemen ( I know that Steven was your session bass) and the molestation of children. Do you think this case will put a stigma on extreme music guided by this incident?!

Ok, to make it perfectly clear. Steven the bassplayer is not Steve the singer, who committed said crimes. Everyone in TPOG were class A guys & on one in the band or their surroundings (including us) would have thought such a thing possible. Alas it did happen & now everyone has to deal with it. TPOG is no more but the ex-members besides Steve started a new band called Serpentcult (who are awesome by the way, check em out). They are in no matter related to the incident & it shouldn’t put a stigma on extreme music in any way. It’s not because one rapist is a metalhead in a metalband that people need to see all metalheads and bands like rapists or pro rape or whatever. That’s plain retarded, I think it’s just better to focus on the better things that are going on than on even like now, spending attention to things like this.