It's hardly surprising that the official date of birth of industrial metal band Shaârghot is cloaked in shadows... But the mad brain behind the project, singer and performer of the creature Étienne Bianchi, has chosen 2015 as the year of the real debut, with an actual band, ambitions and all the rest. It will be ten years, ten years in which the beast has grown up a hell of a lot. Shaârghot, who gave a few interviews during the last Hellfest, is determined to mark the occasion and tells us all about it in an interview that's a bit different from the usual ones: we take the opportunity to take stock of these ten years with Étienne, but we also take advantage of having Paul Prevel on hand, who joined the band in 2022, to provide another point of view and a few anecdotes. With one eye on the past, one on the present and a third big green eye on the future, we hope you enjoy your reading!
Let's start by putting things in context: we're currently at Hellfest. What do you want to see this year?
Paul: I'm only staying for two days, but Prodigy!
Étienne: There's SIERRA, of course. I'm really curious to see what kind of reception the metalheads will give her in broad daylight... She's playing at 5pm, which is early, but it's still a very pleasant surprise to see her here!
Shaârghot is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary and has shown great ambition right from the start. Did you imagine back then that you'd be where you are today?
Étienne: Quite frankly no, I didn't even think we'd last five years! When I started this project, I said to myself that if one day we could fill tiny venues, that would be cool. We play in much bigger capacities now, which is something I didn't see coming. I can't tell you where we'll be celebrating our tenth anniversary, but I can tell you that it'll be in February 2025, almost ten years to the day after our first date at Glazart. We're planning a big thing, it's going to be filmed, there'll be some surprises and we've scheduled two hours for the show. There'll be songs we've never played before, old favourites we've stopped playing but which we'll be reworking a bit... We've also got about twenty dates lined up for the autumn and early 2025.
Do you have any plans beyond this date?
Étienne: At the moment, I have several collaborations planned with different artists, but it's not linked to our anniversary. I'm not announcing anything yet because we're still experimenting. There will be remixes and collaborations, but I can't tell you with whom yet. Maybe in a month or so I'll be able to, but I'm taking it step by step.
Since you can't tell us any more, can you tell us who you'd like to collaborate with, for example?
Étienne: There's Rabbit Junk, for example, and the guy's already told us he'd be interested... They'd be up for it.
Where do you think Shaârghot has made the most progress in the last ten years?
Paul: Organisation and rigour.
Étienne: That's what I was going to say, tidying the truck! When we started out, we really had zero organisation. On our first date, when we went on stage, some of us were hardly painted at all, which just goes to show how everything was done on the fly. We progressed very quickly and now there are almost ten of us on tour, everyone has a very precise job and things go very quickly when it comes to loading and unloading the truck. We've got an almost military organisation now and it's far from unpleasant because Shaârghot is above all a bunch of pretty undisciplined weirdos, so if you leave a single thing lying around, it can very quickly get out of hand. We've put a lot of things in place to make sure things don't get out of hand.
You're talking about something very concrete. And from an artistic point of view?
Étienne: Of course, I have more perspective. When I listen back to things I did at the beginning, I find them good, but maybe a bit naive. Some things could have been better produced, better thought out, better organised. I tell myself that with a few years' experience, I could have done better! For example, on the first two albums there are far too many things that are there because I was afraid of emptiness. As I wasn't quite sure of the result, I tended to add things to make a block, a mass, I filled it with noise by forcing everything through a small pipe. Now, I have a bit more confidence in the people I work with, whether it's the musicians or the sound engineers, and we can afford to do something that's a bit airier, more effective even. Now I know it's going to work.
Have you ever thought about re-recording old songs?
Étienne: Yes, but I'm a bit lazy! If we do it, it'll only be as part of the live shows, and for our tenth anniversary we're planning to film and release the concert, so there'll be the old songs reworked for the live version. I'm thinking in particular of tracks like Shaârghot, which is a bit of an archetype of a song that could have been good but in the end doesn't do much, or Uman iz Jaws which I find a bit shaky and which I want to rework to add a bit of chunkiness, a bit of production. We're going to try and bring it up to the level of what we're doing now.
And you, Paul, having officially joined the band more recently, what's your take on it?
Paul: I was around for most of Shaârghot's early career. A long time ago I'd tried to help them out in the backline, but I mostly followed their development by coming along to concerts. For me, the real thermal shock came when I joined the band: when I found out what it was like internally, I thought ‘oh shit, all right, this is really serious stuff’! There's obviously a sense of fun, but you also feel that there's a lot at stake, that you have to be serious, and it's a very good school, it's very educational. I'd like to pick up on what Étienne was saying about the music, and it's true that when we were writing the third album we said to ourselves that maybe we shouldn't overlay the sounds that we like, but rather find the efficiency in the right sound that makes it reach the ear. Less is more!
And over the last ten years, have there been any mistakes or things that you've said to yourself ‘we'll never do that again’?
Étienne: Yes: throwing the drum can into the audience! There were countless people injured, guys who got hit in the back of the head with it, people who came out with their skulls cracked open... We had one example of a guy who took the can, went to the emergency room to get stitches and then joined us for the after-party! Shaârghot concerts are always violent and they always will be, but we're going to avoid throwing things into the audience because they can be more violent than us!
Paul: And what about me? Can I still be thrown into the audience?
Étienne: Yes, throwing people is fine.
Paul, what kind of leader is Étienne?
Paul: Stalinist. No, I'm only joking. Shit, he's listening, I can't speak freely! More seriously, you see, one day Étienne came to my house and said ‘go ahead, do what you want, we'll start from whatever you want’. He's a great listener, he starts from your ideas just as you can start from his. It's mostly his own ideas, on the whole, but one day he's going to want to put you to the test a bit and say ‘go on, do what you want, I'm listening’! I wouldn't say which track on the last album it was, but he turned up and just told me to have fun. I started off with a silly riff and after a few ping-pongs between him and me the track came out. I'm really happy with it. Whether it's music, work or personal matters, he's a very good leader. I have a lot of freedom.
Étienne: As I was saying earlier, I have a lot more confidence in the team around me than I did at a certain time when I wanted to control everything on the project. I also like to just give a direction without any more information and then we'll see.
Paul: He knows what he wants, but he's always interested in the approaches of the other musicians in the band. He's very open to all that and we can express ourselves as we wish, we know that in any case it will be shot in a nightmarish way to stick to Shaârghot.
Étienne: For example, for the drums, I used to ask exactly what I wanted to hear whereas now I just make fairly simple beats to give Olivier a direction and let him grind and make his proposals.
Are you influenced by the musicians in your band?
Étienne: Yes, of course. Their ideas and live gimmicks can give me ideas. For example, Olivier's hi-hat playing is very inspiring. He's got a way of making machines groove that I'm not familiar with - I was very binary boom-boom. I think about that when I create certain parts, I tell myself that there will be room for his personal expression. I know how he plays, so I guide him and wait for his suggestions.
Shaârghot is also a project that demands an enormous amount from you and must be a source of anxiety, being your main activity. If you went back ten years, knowing how things were going to turn out, would you do it again?
Étienne: (long pause) I'd do it again, but better! I'd avoid a lot of the pitfalls we fell into. Like, for example, when we'd only been in existence for a year, not signing a contract with the guy who wanted us to play in Spain and we ended up with a bill of 800 euros because we got cancelled at the last minute! They realised that if we came and they paid us, they'd be in the red because they hadn't sold enough tickets. They told us, for example, that in the end it was up to us to supply the drums, even though we were supposed to come by plane... which was ‘not their problem’... They pulled a few stunts like that to get us to cancel so it wouldn't cost them anything, whereas if we'd signed a contract, they'd have had to compensate us. You see, that's the kind of thing where we've been scammed, but there haven't been that many. I might have thought of the communication a bit differently here and there, too. But overall I have no regrets.
Do you have any ideas for scenic elements you'd like to add?
Paul: Video!
Étienne: I'd love to create metal structures with lots of branches and LED squares, each with its own programming to show things like cyberpunk ads that would be related to the universe and the songs, videos that could be found in the Hive City, TV news, micro-trotters, a bit like the stuff you hear in the intro to Let Me Out with this sort of zapping, an excess of information. And add cables everywhere to reinforce the cyberpunk aspect! As well as the trompe l'oeil, I'd like to have some real metal structures in front to give more depth, I'd like to add some fan walls in front that you could climb on...
Paul: It's not sexy, it's not rock'n'roll, sorry, but above all we're limited by a lack of resources. There are some new small machines or structures that I'd like to put forward for Shaârghot, some new things for my own stand because even if it does the job, I don't think it's very pretty. As well as the visuals, I've also got some new gear that I'd really like to give the band the benefit of in terms of sound. Maybe that'll happen next year... I've got some very specific ideas, and so does everyone in the band - there's no shortage of them! We even tried our hand at granular synthesis once, making synth sounds from old-fashioned audio cassettes that loop for three seconds... We had this continuous tape, running ad infinitum, and we added the grain of Étienne's voice in the synth, which we put back into another synth and tuned the sound to get a very particular sound. That's how I made the Break Your Body synth on stage, by the way. It's Étienne's voice synthesised.
In our last interview together (here in french), you talked about how one of your provisional titles was ‘Sexy Flying Pizza’ because Paul had danced naked with a pizza... So the next question is for him: what can you tell us about Étienne, things he wouldn't tell us?
Paul: It's hard to say, there are so many things... I think he has a certain talent for breaking marble with people's hindquarters. He's already used someone to break marble with his arse and it was the same evening as this pizza thing. We've also got a certain amount of expertise in dismantling burnt-out motorbikes in Pigalle to get hold of gizmos for Shaârghot. And then there was the time, the same evening as the pizza and the marble, when our host allowed us to search the storeroom where we were staying, a sort of cellar that belonged to someone who had died. There I found a bunch of old school cameras that I love, slides, etc... And Étienne, of course, collects rusty knives! And at one point he found a box of ammunition. Well, they were old and didn't work any more...
Étienne: ... We never knew that for sure...
Paul: ... We were a bit stupid, we knocked them over and everything. Anyway, all of a sudden I hear him behind me shouting ‘look what I've found!’ and as I turn round I see him with a shotgun in one hand and a hunting rifle in the other! He'd found some guns and he had this crazy look on his face, with his eyes going off in opposite directions.
Étienne: I think you're forgetting the best part of the anecdote...
Paul: Oh yes, when you smashed down the door with a gun in each hand while two people were having coitus!
Étienne: There were two people copulating on the other side and suddenly some overexcited drunken idiot kicks in the door with a gun in each hand, shouting ‘hey guys, look what I've found’!
Paul: I think you easily spent 30 seconds repeating to them ‘look, I've found guns and ammunition!’ and you didn't even realise they were naked, I was telling you ‘just get out, leave them alone with your guns’!
There's a totally stupid question we sometimes read in interviews, and we can't resist asking you the same one: are you the same on stage as you are in real life?
Étienne: I don't think it would make much sense for me to go out and get my baguette, all painted black and with a baseball bat in my hand, shouting ‘A baguette, please!’ and beating up the baker. More seriously, it's not the same thing at all: from the moment you take on a role, it's no longer you, so what you do doesn't have the same importance. You're embodying something else. I don't come on stage to play Etienne, he's in the wardrobe for the time being. My doubts, my uncertainties and all that stay offstage. The character I play is overconfident, a little too overconfident, and megalomaniac to the last degree. I'm playing a character with whom I have some things in common but not that much, we have a lot of differences, I don't necessarily agree with him but it's fun to play him.
So you've never doubted yourself on stage?
Étienne: Well, no, because I'm not really there! It's not me, it's him!
Can Shaârghot's universe exist without his creature, one way or another?
Étienne: The extended universe is possible, feasible and even being written! Our compendium and rulebook are coming along, I've had a few meetings about it and we're making progress... Otherwise, yes, we can completely envisage side-projects in this universe, even without me. On the other hand, the Shaârghot group without Shaârghot, that's not possible! Could I survive with holograms or something? I've no idea, but it could be fun, we'll see!
We've asked you this question before, but things have moved on, so we'll ask again: when you create a universe like yours, I imagine you inevitably think about its ending. Do you always have an ending in mind, is it always the same?
Étienne: I always have the same ending in mind, we always go from the same point A to the same point Z. I've added a few arcs here and there when I thought I was going too fast in one direction or another. I've added or shortened a few things.
So Shaârghot is ten years old. Are you already looking ten years ahead?
Étienne: Yes, I've got plans for ten years, I've even got a whole bunch of them. Now that I know the band is viable and could last for a while, I'm obviously starting to have plans for ten or even twenty years ahead!
Can Shaârghot go on indefinitely? What would make you decide that it's time to stage the end of the project?
Étienne: I think that, given the state of mind I'm in at the moment, I'd go ahead with the ending I've planned if I learnt that I had an incurable disease and that I was going to die. It might be time to close this chapter... Or being too old, of course, that goes with it, if I can no longer sing or perform on stage...
Paul: I'm the one who's asking the question here: you're not planning to go into some kind of heritage delusion to make the band immortal? Like with a descendant or something?
Étienne: In fact, all that may have already been planned! Who's to say that I haven't planned some continuity in terms of the story, without there necessarily being any more concerts? I might reveal more in six or seven years' time, but the background is much older. I've talked about the history over the last 30 or 50 years or so, but we could go back 300 years or even further! There's a lot I haven't talked about yet.
Obviously, we wouldn't wish it on you, but could this end be precipitated by a loss of public interest in Shaârghot? If you found yourself playing in front of 5 people, would you move on to something else?
Étienne: That's a question worth asking. I think I'd always find some way or other of getting back on my feet and carrying on, but it's true that it could be a trigger. Maybe I wouldn't be in phase any more and it would be time to do something else... Well, ideally it won't come to that!
And if it ever happened to you, what would you do? What would you be prepared to do?
Étienne: Maybe change media? There's a whole collective of artists around the Shaârghot universe and nothing would stop us from creating side-projects, that sort of thing that could extend the universe with me in it without it necessarily being Shaârghot. But for that, I don't necessarily have to wait for us to fall apart, I'm already starting to think about it because I need some fresh air. Maybe in a year or two I'll be able to launch things that aren't Shaârghot but remain in the universe, we'll see!
Are we still trying to end on an optimistic note instead of talking about the possible end of the band, your death and that sort of thing?
Étienne: Yes, come on! We've got a new video clip that should be out before the end of the year, Let Me Out. It was filmed last September, but I didn't have any time at all to work on it because I got caught up in all the promotional work around the album and then I had to take a big breather, both physically and mentally. Now that I've refocused on myself a bit, the motivation, ideas and desire to work are coming back. We've had a few brainstorms with Teddy, my director, and I think it's going to be really cool - we've even started thinking about a new video clip! We're wondering whether we shouldn't try filming everything in POV, in subjective view... We're thinking about it, it would be fun!
