Interview 2024

How Was 2024 For Belgian Disco Punk Turbo THE RATS

Posted on by JL

27 December 2024

Belgian hit-and-run punks THE RATS came our way faster than a comet
out of control this past year. On record with their far-out 4-track debut EP
Disco To Disco. On stage with their unbridled gusto and sassy swagger.

Pumped-up frontman Emile is the maddening man in shorts in the middle,
backed by a bulldozing rats artillery. They produce fireworks, throw left/right
punches, and headbutt you on repeat.

If you never heard of them, it’s about time you do so.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Emile Hyde will guide you with this
end-of-the-year chat.

Hello Emile,
welcome.

When and how did the band came alive?

“The earliest Rats demos date from the summer of 2019, after deciding to go on a hiatus with London Bullet, our old band with which we mainly operated in the underground punk scene. We had done London Bullet for nearly 10 years and decided it was time for tabula rasa.

However, after those first rehearsals, the whole covid thing happened and we only started rehearsing again late 2021. We then started playing our first gigs throughout 2022 and immediately got some attention, mainly from Democrazy, the largest concert organisation in Ghent, Belgium. Thanks to them, we could support the UK art-punk band The Lounge Society in the Charlatan club.

That was only our fourth ever gig and it was already ‘bigger’ (or more ‘mainstream’)
than anything we had done with London Bullet. From there on, it all went pretty fast.
When recording those first demos in 2019, I don’t think we’d ever expected to end up
at Belgian venues such as De Vooruit, Het Depot and Trix, and festivals like Left of The Dial, Crammerock, and Boomtown. It’s been quite the journey!”

Why the name THE RATS?

“We’ve always been big fans of the UK hardcore band Gallows. They occasionally played surprise shows in small venues under the name The Rats. When London Bullet ended, we kinda wanted to keep it a secret that we were working on something new, so for that reason we jokingly used The Rats as our temporary band name.

When we were selected for Humo’s Rock Rally 2022 and our performance was well received, we figured it would be foolish to not ‘capitalise’ on that, so we stuck with
the name.

We do realise there are hundreds of bands that are called The Rats. But we don’t
really care about that! Let’s just say we want to be the best band called The Rats
ever.”

Last September you released your debut EP ‘DISCO TO DISCO’.
What’s the story behind the title, Emile?

“Well, it’s ‘disco’ in the sense of a ‘club’ – most of the songs are about going out in the city and all kinds of experiences I’ve encountered or lessons I’ve learned about myself and others while doing that. About friendship groups changing while you grow up, about relationships not working out, about getting spiked (fucking cunts!).

And then there’s obviously the reference to the disco genre. The title was decided very early on in the process, even before most of the songs had been written. The initial idea for the band was to be a bit more ‘electronic’ due to the addition of a synthesizer, so we thought the title would indicate that new direction.”

What did you want to express with the EP’s artwork?

“I love when you come across a record in a shop (or see a thumbnail from a review online) and can instantly tell that the music is going to be right up your street. I’ve always thought of it as a gut feeling, so I had never really given much thought to the exact elements that make a good cover. In an attempt to pinpoint that,

I made a list of record covers I really like to see if there’s any connection.
I learned a thing or two about making that list, and talked it through with
my bandmates.

We then presented the ideas, as well as the songs, to our good friend Charlotte Hennion, who is a graphic designer, and she made the cover. We were immediately convinced, we’re really happy with how it turned out! Now hopefully people will come across the record cover and experience that same gut instinct that the music inside is something they’ll love.”

Which is your favorite track?

“My personal favorite on the
EP is ‘Last Chance Saloon’.


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The mixing, done by our guitarist Sander, is on point for this one. I’m very pleased
with my vocal delivery, as well as with my lyrics. The repetitive hook makes the whole
track both catchy and addictive. The other guitar parts are super interesting.

And I love how after the first chorus, the bass and drum introduce the second
part. Bloody hell, I’m starting to believe it’s the best song ever written!

Footage by Wouter/KinkyStarCeSoir

My favorite track to play live is ‘Old Flames’. At our gigs, people have started to sing along to the main guitar riff as if it were a football song. Very surreal. My dream is to have actual football fans in stadiums picking up the chant. Preferably the fans of AA Gent, my favorite team.”

Recently I called you Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Nice off-stage, insane on-stage.
What happens when you turn into a manic persona on the podium, Emile?

“Haha, I can see why you’d say that. It just comes naturally. From the very first guitar chord onwards, I’m very much into the performance. It’s a massive outlet for me. As mentioned before, we come from a punk background, a genre where many singers deliver intense performances.

I guess that very much influenced me. If I could change one thing, though,
it would be to sweat a lot less on stage! But you can’t have it all, can you?”

Social media? A blessing or a pain in the ass?

“A blessing, largely thanks to two very talented photographers who are also friends.
Ward Van Hooreweghe (@dailylifethroughfilm) and Gert-Jan Van Damme (@gee__jee). Their black and white pictures of our gigs are really important for our whole visual aesthetic on Instagram. We can’t thank them enough for everything they’ve done for us and other bands in our scene.

Beyond that, it’s also a great way to connect with other bands and see what they’re up to. You can learn a lot by observing other accounts – like finding places to play or seeing how they handle their album promotion campaigns.”

Which big name band would you really want to tour with and why?

“If we’re talking real big names then let’s go for IDLES. I think their fanbase would appreciate us, especially if they’d know I wrote my dissertation on their main online
fan group the AF Gang, haha.

IDLES have brought the post-punk revival to the mainstream but have seemingly stayed honest and grounded. Their on-stage energy is really inspiring and I feel like we could learn a lot from them. And maybe Joe Talbot could let me in on how to uphold that ferocious intensity for two and a half hours (and sweat a lot less).”


Next time JL/TUTV is on stage with Joe/Idles, I’ll tell him about The Rats

Suppose DISCO TO DISCO was the soundtrack of a movie.
Which one would it be?

“I’m not too good with movies! Maybe ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’?
Chaotic, surreal, full of highs and lows. It could work, no? Also, the film
is more or less name-checked in ‘Old Flames’ with a line about
experiencing ‘fear and self-loathing everywhere I go’.”


1998

Best track and album you heard this year?

“There’s too many. My favorite track was probably
‘Like Lovers Do’ by Iceage frontman Elias Rønnenfelt.

My favorite album is Hysterical Strength by DEADLETTER.”

“I also really, really enjoyed English Teacher, The Chisel,
High Vis, Bad Breeding, RONKER, and Fat White Family.”

Do you have a favorite Xmas carol, Emile?

“It has to be ‘Fairytale of New York’ by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl.
The melancholy, the vivid scene-setting, the desire to make things right
in this period of forgiveness, the unfolding argument, the grand finale,…
Simply amazing.

Did you see the rendition of that song at Shane MacGowan’s funeral?
People stood up and started dancing to it. At a funeral! That says enough,
I think.”

R.I.P. Shane MacGowan (1957-2023)

Which track do you play when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve?

“Also The Pogues! The perfect drunkard’s anthem Dirty Old Town. Hugging your friends while singing along to both the words and the melody of that song, a new year can’t start much better than that.

What’s in store for THE RATS in 2025?

“We’ve got a few super cool gigs lined up. The standout one is WE ARE OPEN,
the showcase festival in Antwerp, organised by Trix in February. It’s a massive
honour to be on that line-up.

I’m also really looking forward to a triple bill with Maria Iskariot and WIJF in our old hometown, Deinze. Then there’s Dirty Dender Fest on January 25, with our best pals RONKER, Doolhof in Kortrijk with our friends from Barno Koevoet, and a few things that haven’t been announced yet. Exciting stuff!

Thanks a bunch for this interview, Emile.
May the road rise with The Rats in 2025.

STREAM/BUY EP


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Instagram – Linktree

Live photos by Turn Up The Volume – Charlatan, Ghent, 2 October 2024

Discover French Avant-Garde Pop Artist SARASARA And Her New Imaginative Album ‘ELIXIR’

Posted on by JL

28 March 2024

SARASARA is a compelling French singer-songwriter/producer and programmer
who started her musical career in the United Kingdom. She released her debut
album Amor Fati in 2017, and her sophomore one Ongone in 2019.

The songstress just launched full-length number three. It’s called ELIXIR.
A wayward, imaginative, emotive and arresting avant-garde pop record.

“The album’s potent mix of cultural ideas fuses with dark industrial synths
and gothic atmospherics to shape her intoxicating, cinematic sophisti-pop.

Enthralling, groove-laden compositions recall the likes of David Bowie and Jehnny Beth,
but Sarasara found more influence in political writers Bell Hooks, the distinguished professor of race and class, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a French socialist, and the first person to declare himself an anarchist, and the French novelist Édith Thomas and bisexual pioneer of women’s history, among others.”

Meet the artist Sarasara herself, speaking about her new longplayer and more with TUTV. But as usual, we start an interview with a slice of music. Enjoy Warrior, one of the album’s top tracks.

Hello Sarah,

When did you start making music and
what or who triggered you to do so, Sarah?

“I guess I always had a creative mind. Not just music. I was going to the cinema twice
a week when I was little. I have always been reading a lot. I was very curious about everything. I went to the Music Conservatoire in my small town though, learned how
read it, never really liked it. I was not really fitting in. It was boring.

I have always been into experimenting and teaching myself things. I had a girl band when
I was little, with one of my best friends, Cyrielle, we were translating English songs and writing ours, sing them at school. I never spoke of this to anyone, she reminded me of it not so long ago and we laughed. I guess it was my very first experience with songwriting.”

Any specific reason why you picked SARASARA as your musical moniker?

“It’s just a nickname my friends had for me when I was younger, I don’t really remember who started it. I thought it would work as an artist name. I didn’t feel like using my real name, not that it’s a secret. I guess it was subconscious, a way to separate private life and work life.”

Which track would you play to people who never heard of you?

“Flatline from the second album, Orgone, and Poison from Elixir. I think those two are
the favourite songs I wrote. They feel like fully matured and finished. Probably because
I had enough time to work on them properly.

They feel balanced in terms of text, music, and space because of this, like a harmonious feeling to them. I am proud of the lyrics too. I wrote Orgone in English, the French translation came second, there is a recorded version of the album in English. I think
both deserved to be given a chance and should have been singles, but this was not
my decision.”

You just released your new album, named ELIXIR. What does the title stand for?

“There is a long definition at the back of the record’s artwork. Whether it be the Elixir of youth, the Philosopher’s stone or the Graal, I think it’s about finding answers, keys, and remedies to the poison. I guess that’s what I was doing at that time, trying to navigate my way through toxic people and behaviours that were affecting me.

Poison comes in many forms, it can be obvious or subtle, it can come from others but also from yourself sometimes. I guess this album is a part of me going through that process, and I thought that word was a beautiful way to sum it up.”

What do you want to express with the album’s
impressive artwork and who designed it?

“Thank you. I don’t want to intellectualise it too much as I think it is raw, spontaneous and it speaks for itself. I would just say that it is about an accumulation of anger and the growing urge to speak up about the feminine condition in the world as regards to events that were happening at that time, from America with women’s abortion rights revocation to radical Islam enslaving, torturing, raping women, extreme violent oppression coming from everywhere.

There is also my experience of the music industry as a woman over the years, you are the woman so you have a thing for the guy, you’re not making your music, you should perform like FKA Twigs (read normalise hyper sexualisation of women, no thanks), if you want your career to take off, you should go out with a footballer, I can introduce you to a couple.

Those are literal words pronounced to me. I write all the music I make, I have a PhD in Philosophy, what else should I do ? Do you know what I mean? Show me some respect. Microviolence as the norm is the worse, I was just done with it. I have a zero-tolerance policy now.”

Where you listening to other artists, for inspiration,
while writing/composing the record, Sarah?

“Actually, people like Johnny Cash, a lot of Delta Blues, Cajun music, I got interested in guitars and raw naked sounds. Blues lyrics and the use of text and words. Also people like Odetta, Billie Holiday, Gil Scott Heron. I was feeling like we have lost the human touch and the human component in the music that is made today somehow.”

“With everything that is happening with Ai, streaming, the tendency to aim at something uniform, driven by the profit component. There’s an artlessness about the music that is produced today, heading towards annihilation, there’s no point, no value to it. I guess I those music genres helped me remember why I loved to write in the first place.”

Are the songs in some way connected, or do they all stand on their own?

“From the Poison to the Elixir. They were written in the order that is on the record
apart from The Horrible Things, which came as an addition to the original group of
songs. A couple of other songs didn’t make the record also.

I guess you could say they are connected to each other, at least in time and intent,
but they are also separate and you could see them as each one representing its own universe and having its own script, like different scenes in a movie for instance.”

THE HORRIBLE THINGS is one of the album’s singles. What’s the song about?

“I guess it’s a song about seeing dysfunctional and unhealthy patterns in yourself
or in others and managing it by setting up boundaries and prepping for the worse.
If something does not feel right, it is most certainly because there is something wrong,
so stop ignoring the red flags.”

THE CALL is another highlight (actually my favourite), probably the most upbeat track of this new full-length. A different vibe from the other songs. Any specific reason for that, Sarah?

“This is one of my favourite too. It was upbeat from the start and it took a very cool punky vibe turn in the end. There is absolutely no specific reason for it. I believe that when you write a song it becomes its own thing, you have to trust the inspiration and your own work to lead you where it needs to be. As we were unpacking this one in the studio, that’s where it wanted to go, so we just followed and it took us there.”

Suppose the album would be the soundtrack
for a movie, which one would it be?

“I am not sure, maybe something between a Maya Deren Documentary and
a 70’s Pulp Horror. I have been thinking about making a film for it actually, we’ll
see how things go for the record this year.”

If you had the opportunity to work with another artist
on future music, who would you pick and why?

“I have been thinking about going back to French music and doing more things over there.
I love people like Benjamin Biolay, Pascal Obispo or Zazie, Magyd Cherfy, MC Solaar who just released a new album, they are all incredible writers. Maybe one day…”

What’s the next step for Sarasara?

“I feel emotionally exhausted and creatively dry after this record and I am not entirely sure what’s next, for it or for myself in general. It’s been all on me and I have not received much support for it.

Some gigs later this year and maybe a film, but nothing is crystallised. I just want to let it
have a life of its own and we’ll see what the universe makes of it. In the meantime, I’m going to live a little, I just want to enjoy spring and summer at home.

I just got back to France, recovering from 7 years travelling, taking it slow.”

Thank you, Sarah, for this interview.
May the road rise with Sarasara.

STREAM ELIXIR


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BUY ELIXIR


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Sarasara: Linktree