Recently, we had the chance to ask some questions to Alex, singer of the French Metal band Scarlean! A lot was revealed during this interview, and if you're interested, we invite you to check out the video below or the written version added to this article.
Earama - How did you (the band) live the COVID situation ?
Scarlean - For us it was quite beneficial in the sense that we were preparing our new album which will be released next year; in September. We're going into the studio in June. So it really allowed us to work on all the compositions and to enter into an arrangement process. So... It allowed us to focus on that rather than on our live set. So now we're back to playing live, slowly, for a few months. We just came out of a festival that took place around Bordeaux, the 666 Festival. We have some dates coming up, there are quite a few dates next year. So, it allows us to resume the dates serenely, to be able to work, we will say, our set and we already did all that before for our album. So for us it was... great! Great saving of time!
Earama - Yes, it allowed you to take care of the technical side and to have fun on stage afterwards.
Scarlean - Yes, that's it. And above it all, it will also allow us to save time on the rehearsal of the songs that will be present on this album for 2022. So, the album will be released in September, and we'll start promoting it in May. So after, all the festivals and everything that will take place... The summer festivals and all that around June we will be able to play new songs so for the promotion, it has been very beneficial.
Earama - Useful time finally! And well used!
Scarlean - Totally, totally. We were able to make and shoot two videos that will be released early this year. We're going to release two singles before our album, so it allowed us to get ahead of that and not do things at the last moment. We had a lot of bullets in our magazines!
Earama - Well, that's perfect! Speaking of the new songs that are coming and all that... You said in your Earama page that you use the 'Ghost', that you write through his eyes. Can you tell us a little more about that?
Scarlean - Yes, what I'm trying to say is that when I write, the idea is to try to get out of my own vision a little bit, so I use this character - that's why we created him - to describe scenes through someone else. So it avoids having a too personal judgment and it allows a little... Let's say you get into acting, you know. It's like playing a character. So, on stage too, we play a lot. We talk a lot about the various personalities and all that, about people... It even goes a little into subjects that talk about schizophrenia and all that. So these are things that we also play a bit on stage. So having a character like that; a bit spectral, which allowed us to write through his eyes. It really corresponds to our lyrics. So there is this character there. We made two albums where this character was quite central but now what we are trying to do is to extend our universe a little bit. Now, we are creating something around that.
Earama - And how did you come to write in the third person, through someone else's eyes?
Scarlean - I am fascinated by everything that is related to the mind. When I was talking about schizophrenia earlier, about different personalities and all that, it's a subject that I've been passionate about for a long time. We did a video called 'Forsaken By Love' where we have this character, for example, who will imitate... So we have a lot of actors, about fifteen actors, we even had animals, cats... In fact between each scene we have the 'Ghost' who imitates the attitude of the actor who was there just before. So the idea, it's a little bit from that concept where we said << here, it will allow us to judge situations or reproduce situations - in any case, in the writing - but without having to tell everything on our POV.. >> So really, it started from that point, from that clip.
Earama - In spite of everything, there is a kind of part of you that is uncontrollable, finally. Without filter...
Scarlean - Yes, sometimes it allows you to express yourself on subjects where you don't necessarily want people to understand that it's your own opinion. So it blurs the lines in fact. So you'll never know what I really think, haha!
Earama - It's a bit of a mystery, but in reality it's a kind of shield.
Scarlean - Yeah, that's it. Then, likewise, there are quite a few texts where... There is notably one on a married-couple violence where we put ourselves in the place of the victim, then we put ourselves in the place of the executioner. And we always try to stay in this acting thing. So there are moments when we speak in the first person with words that are not at all ours. It's not at all things that we think about. And sometimes we really try to play characters. At least that's what I try to do; to play a character that actually fits the text.
Earama - Yes, in order to completely appropriate the text, to live it completely and to render it completely.
Scarlean - That's it. It's a kind of cinematographic writing.
Earama - Is there an artist who has inspired you for this acting stage in your songs?
Scarlean - Not especially. I'm a big fan of literature... Let's say... Fantastic, horrific and fantastic cinema... Then I'm a fan of Lynch. I'm a fan of a lot of artists who have very crazy universes. I love Gregg Araki with like 'The Doom Generation' or 'Nowhere', well, films that are a bit typical and that have always had this raw thing and at the same time quite poetic; I like this mix in a text where you can have quite sweet words and then in the middle have 'fuck'! I like this thing, a little bit of softness and suddenly it becomes violent and that's it... In the writing anyway, that's what I like. So I'm always inspired by this kind of director and all that because they always have this side. Earlier I was talking about Lynch, on films like 'Lost Highway' for example where we have something very soft at the beginning; love and all that which becomes suddenly a drama. Here it is. I like that kind of thing.
Earama - In general, musicians always have a "character" part in what they do, it's never 100% them, in their everyday life, I mean. So, the parallel with the production is excellent because it's true that there is this part of acting anyway, so we might as well use it as much as possible and push it to the point where it is useful for the writing and the whole production of the album.
Scarlean - Yes, that's right. And then, it overflows, inevitably, on all that is visual, on the covers... On the photos that we will be able to make. For example the last promo pictures we did, we did this wall with a lot of hands like that on the wall. Well, it was again something related to the different characters we talk about in our texts. So there is always a little thing in the image or something to remind that.
Earama - It's a real pleasure to catch up with art everywhere. There are really several forms of art that are mixed together.
Scarlean - Well, in the group, we are all a bit passionate and we are all into illustration, photography so there you go. We all come from these universes, in terms of jobs, it's things that are quite natural for us in fact.
Earama - Do you mix this artistic side with the musical side? Although music is art, but I talk more about designs, for example. Do you design your merchandising?
Scarlean - We do everything from A to Z. Whether it's music videos, album covers, merchandising, t-shirts... We have our guitarist, Michel, who has a production company called CanaProd. He's also a photographer, so he makes clips for a lot of bands. We have Joe, our other guitarist who does a little bit of motion design and who also helps him in this 'CanaProd' project. We have our bass player who does 3D drawing. Our drummer who has a recording studio. So likewise, we were able to make all our albums there and the singles we're going to make we'll make them there too. I'm an art director and graphic designer. So likewise, I direct a little, I give a little axis of the universe but everyone puts their hand to the work in fact.
Earama - It's good, because you were making the parallel with the cinema earlier, but now we have the impression that it's really like on a movie set; everyone has his place. You have everything you need to share your universe and keep it your own at the same time. To be able to expose in each note of your music, the message that you want to transmit. It's absolutely great.
Scarlean - That's great. And then, there is that; each one in our respective jobs we have, therefore, a network which is rather broad. For example, when we want to work... Uh...; I work for a lot of clothing brands. So we do a lot of shootings where we make Michel work, who is the guitarist, because I think he is super talented. So we work with models, with models... As soon as we need something, we know right away where to go to find people ! So, this network is very interesting and we don't hesitate to take into it!
Earama - You have to! It would be a shame otherwise! It's a real team, a real team, very close. And how did you manage to meet each other? How did you create this network?
Scarlean - Well, I created Joe with... Err... *laughs* I created Joe.... I created Scarlean with Joe. That was in 2013. We had been playing together for a while because we had a band before. We were in our early 20s... That was a... A few fucking years ago. It was called Aquilon. We were doing a kind of Death/Black/Melodic music, it was a bit more extreme. There were still female vocals, we had a writing in French. We were already trying to get out of the clichés of Metal at that time. We had made some albums too. We had recorded an album with Gojira. We had toured with them. We had signed with Adipocere. Anyway... It was the great era of Metal! There was the first magazine of Metallian. So, it was really that time. It was... A good twenty years ago, haha! So there you go, we've always played together a bit. Michel was in another band called Your Shapeless Beauty which was a pretty melodic black band from that time. They were also part of the Adipocere stable. Fabien, who is the drummer of Scarlean, was the drummer of Aquilon, which we picked up over the years. And Olivier, who plays bass, made our first videos with Scarlean. So there you have it, these are people with whom we have always had exchanges. And then, one thing leading to another, they got closer to the project because...; Well, affinities, because often the line-up moves. Then it's a project that we set up with Joe, both of us. We recorded the album together... And then, we looked for musicians. So the musicians we found didn't necessarily work in the project from the beginning. So we had a big change of line-up. We had 4 drummers, 3 guitarists... And now we've been together for 2 years and it works really well. Now, we really found a stable band with everyone having a really important place and that's it.
Earama - That's what I wanted to get to earlier; when we look at you, we see a team that is really united and going in the same direction.
Is there anything you want to tell us about? Something coming out soon or something?
Scarlean - Coming soon... Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier; our album release will be in September 2022. We're going into the studio in June. We have a first video that will be released with a single in May. In July we will have the second one. And in between we'll probably have some stuff we're working on... Uh... That's it. It's all surprises, we don't really know yet, haha!
We have a lot of stuff in the works. Covid has also postponed a lot of dates to next year. There are a lot of festivals, too, in which we were supposed to play. Then finally, it was postponed. So, as we were supposed to play the year after the one that was coming up, it shifted to 2023... So we rebook a lot of things. We are on 2 dates with the group 'Les 3 Fromages'. We have that, we have quite a few festivals that have signed up... Maybe a little bit of a European tour. Maybe a tour with two important French bands at the end of the year. Here, it's the same : it's in preparation. So we have... A lot of things in preparation!