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Interview with Yvonne
Short interview with "Yvonne" 02-Dec-94 - by Erik Soderstrom after a gig at
"Herrgar'n", Linkoping, Sweden. (v1.0)
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Yvonne are:
Henric de la Cour (vocals, guitar) David Lindh (guitar, effects)
Tobias Holmberg (guitar, synthesizer) Anders Nilsson (drums)
Claes Boklund (bass) Rikard Lindh (synthesizer)
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(if the answer is "A." it was answered by someone. If the answer came from
someone special, the initials are written.)
Q. YOU WERE TO PLAY HERE LAST WEEK. WHAT HAPPENED?
A. Ah, we couldn't make it. One of us was caught up doing the final
military service week and weren't allowed to leave.
Q. WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE GIG TONIGHT?
A. It was great. A lot of people, though the stage was a bit small. And
we couldn't do our soundcheck, but it sounded good anyway. They used
up the smoke before we got on stage. We couldn't see a thing when we
got up there! And we wanted smoke for our last song, along with the
strobe, but there weren't any left! After the last song, we went off
stage, but left a guitar on. It went Wzzzzzzzzzz, and the audience
loved it! I didn't know it was the guitar, so when I decided it was
time to turn everything off, I got really puzzled when the sound was
still there after I had turned the synthesizers off, because I thought
it was one of them (ha ha). When I finally turned off the guitar,
everyone got disappointed.
Q. WHAT SONGS DID YOU PLAY?
HC. 'Inner Cold', 'Drifter', 'Unbounded', 'Frozen', (nameless),
'Systematic', 'Veins' and '...In Grief'.
Q. NO EXTRA ACT. HOWCOME?
HC. No. It just feels dumb to do that. To go back and play some more
songs when the audience already are on top would be a let-down. Both
for us and for them.
Q. ARE YOU TOURING RIGHT NOW?
A. Sort of. We'll play in Uppsala at Kalmar Nation tomorrow and in
Eskilstuna on saturday. Then next week we play in Lund at Blekingska
Nationen (Friday 9/12) and in Vaxjo on the 10th. After that we're
going to Stockholm to see Orbital on the 12th and Cranes on the 13th.
Q. WHEN DID YVONNE START AND WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
A. We're from Eskilstuna and we have played like this for about 1 1/2 year
now. With the same line-up. When we started we were only three though,
Henric, Claes and Anders, but it took only about a week before we were
six. You know the group "Kent" are also from Eskilstuna, but they moved
to Stockholm. They got signed to RCA recently, though that is not
official yet. They called themselves "Jones & Giftet" before. Did you
know that?
[Here, two 'journalists' from a local paper barged in and asked _three_
questions for their weekend edition. After they left, some comments
about them and their journalistic work were made that I leave out.]
Q. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH YVONNE, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
HC. Nothing. It doesn't mean a thing. And it's no story behind it either.
It's not important. It's just a name.
Q. HOW ABOUT RELEASES?
A. Well, we've been on the "Kittenish" compilation (with 'Drifter') and
that's it. We're working on an EP right now though. We don't know when
it will be out. We have two demo cassettes though. One that we made
a long time ago and one more recent, and no, you can't have the first
one (ha ha). The other one have 'Inner Cold', 'Drifter', 'Unbounded'
and '...In Grief' on it.
Q. HOW ABOUT INFLUENCES?
A. Orbital, Prodigy, Orb, Black Dog, Brian Eno, System 7, Blueberries,
_Underworld_, Bauhaus, Birthday Party, Nick Cave, Tindersticks,
Spiritualized, Spacemen 3. And 80's bands like Simple Minds, Visage,
Ultravox, and 70's Kraftwerk)
Q. ONE WOULDN'T THINK THOSE ARE YOUR INFLUENCES LISTENING TO 'DRIFTER'
FOR EXAMPLE.
A. True. But 'Drifter' was written about 1 1/2 year ago, and that's when
we sounded like that. Our sound today is a lot more mixed. Guitars
and synthesizers in a bundle.
Q. WHAT WOULD YOU CALL YOUR MUSIC?
A. Naked. Frustrating and Cold. It's hard to describe really.
Q. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE BRITISH/AMERICAN/WHATEVER INDIE SCENE?
A. Not. We don't like it at all. When we made 'Drifter', Claes were
out in Europe, and that's when we sounded like that. Now we don't
feel right when people put us together with the indie scene.
Linda Norrman [media indie-kid] helped us from the start though.
She started it all, so we have a lot to thank her for, really.
Q. HOW ABOUT SWEDISH INDIE GROUPS?
A. Puffin? Bear Quartet? Naked? No thanks. Though 5/6 of us like
Crush. Broder Daniel is good. Bob Hund and Gentle Tuesday are
also great. They had a video on PM a long time ago and they
have a demo out that is great.
Q. WHO WRITES THE LYRICS?
HC. I do. I write them after I hear the music - they're kind of a
reflection of the music, though I don't need the music to write
lyrics. They're not for someone, or should be taken as something
special. They're just lyrics. Rikard has helped with a couple of
them as well by the way. Otherwise, I write them alone. Well, it's
me who's going to sing them, so? When we write the music we're all
together.
Q. HOW MUCH DO YOU GET FOR A GIG LIKE THIS?
A. In money, from 3.000 SKr to 7.000 SKr. If we had released an album
or something like that, it would be a lot higher.
Q. YOU HAVE SOME VINTAGE SYNTHESIZERS THERE...
A. They're gold! A Roland Juno 106 (that we bought today even! We've used
it for a while though, but we bought it today) and a Korg Poly-6. That
is a wonderful machine! Better than the rest!
Q. ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO TELL ME?
A. We loved playing at the Hultsfredsfestivalen this year. Though we had
to use tape to get the mixer table to stay put, because there were
over 1.000 people there. Too many! We got that gig just by sending
down a demo tape and wait for them to tell us that they wanted us.
The Emmaboda festivalen this year was also great, though the sound
traveled through our equip' again and again and there was too much
smoke! But that was a really great gig.
[Yes, Henric de la Cour is related to Micaela de la Cour in Army Of Lovers,
and Rikard Lindh is David's older brother. They're all 19 except for
David who's 16 (!).]
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