Interview: Alexis Trépanier from Mute

– Leia essa entrevista também em português.

Hey guys, how are you doing? Do you guys hear any Brazilian Hardcore? You know some bands?

Hey man, doing great thanks! I’m ashamed to say I don’t know many Brazillian bands. Refer and Dead Fish come to mind. And also some bands we met and played with on some of our shows like Bullet Bane, One Minute Less, Hunger United and 69 Enfermos.

How do you see the HC scene in Canada now compared to the 90s?

Unfortunately I have to say it’s far from being as good as it was during the late 90s… Let’s be real, the later half of the 90s was the golden age of new school punk rock. Shows were packed all the time. Local bands, touring bands, weekdays weekends, it didn’t matter. Now it’s a lot tougher. There’s a lot less people in the scene, less bands, less shows. There’s not a lot of younger people too, and therefore, almost no new bands. Any music scene needs young blood to keep it moving forward and it’s just not happening at the moment.

In Brazil we have seen underground places closing because the lack of renovation of public, which makes us very sad. In Canada this is also happening?

I’m sorry to hear that. Here in Canada, venues sometimes close down because they go bankrupt. It’s really expensive to run a music venue and a lot of times, owner have to rely on alcohol sales to keep the place going. Other times, venues get in some trouble with the neighbors. There can be a lot of complains about noise and stuff like that so the place ends up shutting down because of that.

You have played in São Paulo in a place for just 100 people, and also played in a much bigger festival with other bands. Now you are coming as headliner in a place for 350 people. I feel that the public of Mute has increased in Brazil, have you also felt that you are dearer to us?

Brazil is a country from which we always have received a lot of positive feedbacks, so we knew there was definitely something brewing down there. Even in the Myspace days we were in touch with people from Brazil. Every visit to Brazil has been very special for us and we have always felt enormously supported by Brazilian people.

The new album was very good and was very well evaluated by the critics. You released only a music clip of this album, there may be new clips?

We actually shot a new music video last December. It will be released in the near future. Stay tuned!

The song “Bates Motel” became a classic of the band. Is about the movie Psycho? What is the relationship between you and the song with the movie?

The lyrics for that song were written before the title was chosen. I remember being struck some of the words “Bleeding…” and “Fall down the drain…” and I immediately thought of the famous shower scene in Psycho. We decided it was a good title even if the lyrics have no tangible relation to the movie. I always thought that song titles in general should be catchy and memorable, even if it means that the relation between a title and the lyrics would be a little… obscure.

From “Blue Prints” to “Remember Death” it’s been 14 years, what changes do you notice by listening to the first and last album? Did these changes come purposefully or naturally?

To be honest, it’s been a really really long time since I listened to the Blueprints EP so my memories of it are a little bit fuzzy. I think Blueprints and our first full length Sleepers represent the “early” period of the band and everything after and including The Raven is a much better reflection of what the band is really about. I think what sets our later works apart from the earlier ones the most is the quality of the songwriting and the attention to details. With each release, we kept spending more and more time crafting the songs in order for them to come out as we intended them to as much as possible. Every time, we looked at what we did before and asked “how can we make it better?”. So, of course we made a lot of changes on purpose, especially comparing to the early period of the band. Today we consider this stuff to be a little “primitive”. Then, also, when so many years go by, there’s also a natural progression. People aren’t the same today than they were 14+ years ago. Some influences have changed. Lives change.

Canada is a country of the first world and Brazil is a third world country that has experienced political and economic instability since the last elections. We see Canada as a paradise, but what difficulties and problems do you find there? And what do you see and think about Brazil?

I have to say I don’t really keep up with the political situation in Brazil so I can’t really comment on anything going on over there. I don’t think I will offend anyone by saying that the standards of living in Canada are fairly higher than those in Brazil. It’s one of the safest country you can live in. As far as problems goes, well, the weather is truly terrible. Winter is bitterly cold. We just had several days of -30 temperature in a row. You really have to question the sanity of whoever thought it was a good idea to settle here. With that being said, I know that what I just described is nothing much compared to the hardships experienced by the people living less developed countries. About our views of Brazil, you have to remember that when we go there, we go as “tourists”, and we also never stay long in the same place. So we don’t see much of the day to day life. We’re well taken care of, we’re always surrounded by local people who make sure we don’t go where we’re not supposed to go. I never felt once threatened anywhere in Brazil, or in Latin America for that matter. But I know that it’s not always like that.

Thanks guys! Have a great concert! See you there!