Le Miroir d'Encre, 1998

Let start with an identification of the actual Front line-up and so on...

Patrick Codenys: It has always been the same members since the beginning, and the same on stage too. Some people have made some solo projects, but in fact the band is united and still works. They've been the orignal members since 1981.

Where does the name Front 242 come from? Is there any relation with the UN resolution from 1967?

PC: No, there's absolutely no relation, that's a coincidence. There's also a Fiat car named 242. We met that figure by accident, but at the beginning there was only the relation between a very strong word "Front" pronouncable in various languages, and that figure.

If you had to quickly sum up Front 242's history, what would it be?

PC: An historical record? To sum it up, we could do it as we do with genealogical or archaeological layers, by saying that the band is very close to various technologies: analogue, digital and so on... and that each time there's a new technology there's been a new album, and new impulses. The band started from an industrial music with a mix of research and composition. It resulted in electronic rock. It caught on with the audience, and that's fine too. I could do a very detailed history, but it would take too much time as there are so many things to say about various years and tendencies...

What are your favourite machines?

PC: I think there is no bad machine, we've always opted for tools that have many possibilities, that's a very important criteria, and that wasn't too expensive. I think that as far as pure synthesis is concerned, we've always worked with modulars, whether it was Roland or even old Korg ones; we had a period when we worked with a DX7 to get a clear digital technology, the TG77 for example. Concerning sampling, we work with Akai, with an E-mu, and Wavestations. I've just got a VL and I find it so great! I know the Z1 will be out soon... So we try to look at everything. I don't see any synthesiser that could sound more 'Front' than another. We never throw away any synth. There is the Oberheim, and the Nord Lead is good as well...

Which ones are you using at the moment?

PC: We're working with two Nord Leads, a keyboard module and a modular module. We'll soon get a Z1 that will replace the Prophecy Korg; so we have a VL, Akai 3200, a Groovebox and also some Wavestations from time to time. Sometimes we switch on an old Oberheim, just to get a pure analogue sound, that's what we're touring with right now.

What do you think of the evolution of electronic and industrial music since the begining of Front 242, and what's its future?

PC: I think that the main criteria and agent that has changed is musical flexibility. When we started in the early 80's, we really suffered to give life to that music as everything was tight whether it was the machines, the sequencers or the way to compose. With time's help everything got more humanized, there are far more possibilities. That's why so many musicians came to electronic music, although at the beginning it was not a music for musicians as there were so many frustrations. At the same time, in the eighties there was a very pure aesthetics that was recovered and that has now been integrated by so many people. There's really an explosion of electronic music and that's great.

What about the evolution and the future of Front 242?

PC: For the moment, we're touring to have fun. We thought about recording an album this year, but I really don't know if it will be done. I think that everyone in the band can work alone or in a group... side-projects will more probably come before we record another album together.

What music and bands are you listening to at the moment?

PC: As far as electronic music is concerned, the last stuff that surprised me were the last Roni Size and Aphex Twin; Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Underworld, Photek, Atari Teenage Riot, that's really special... In other genres, I much appreciate Dead Can Dance. In electro, I enjoy a band called Air Liquid, and Fluke as well... In pure industrial, I used to listen to bands like Lassigue Bendhaus, but at the moment I listen to those tracks more on compilations, at parties or in clubs where that kind of music is played. There isn't really a leader in that genre, but I think it's going to happen, as techno is more and more underground, harder and harder, so I believe some bands are going to come to light.

What's your concept, your steps, your state of mind at present when you create?

PC: It's always the same. We try to create sounds never heard, we try to surprise... I think any artist, unpretentiously, has to carry out research, lots of research. To me, research criteria is sounds, whether agressive or tortured. This is what I enjoy: moving, living, organic sounds. This is what I try to reach, 'sounds you cannot touch', because when you hear piano or violin, you can identify what it is. The world I'm interested in is the world of very odd sounds that can have an harmony, but that give the feeling there's a dimension your ear can't perceive. But that's really hard to place, that's more for ambient music. Nevertheless I search for agressive sounds in the same way.

What are your prefered writing and composing themes?

PC: The theme in comparison with other artistic grounds? Yes, it is the discovery of an inner world, everything that concerns dreams and nightmares, that inner world you don't know. The relationship with death is very strong too, but not in a negative way; we always tend to say that death is dark and so on... no, it can be an extraordinary incentive for a creative spirit, as Rock, revolt or stuff like that... This is this extreme 'full in the face' spirit. Concerning the songs, I know the singer is talking a lot of communication between people, of isolation, apparently dark themes, that I've always found very exciting. There's a positive aspect in this challenge. This is a kind of inner quest.

Whatever time or style, even when you're mixed by famous techno names, your sound and your style remain recognizable. What's the reason for that specificity?

PC: Some talk of the geographical situation of Belgium, but what has always stimulated me to create music isn't only Anglo-Saxon bands that everyone was listening to at the time, but also for exemple Empiro Calmant, the mix between German and Latin. My mother is a French-speaker and my father is a Dutch-speaker; that's why musically we don't have the groove that English people have. A certain rigour brings us to German. And we still have some Latin elements in our way to compose music, the songs. Front 242 is Latino-German mix with Anglo-Saxon influence. Concerning the sound texture, our touch comes from the sequences of noises, which has always been important. when we're doing a basis sequence we have to bungle it, we're not satisfied with a classical basis.

Don't you think that most of actual techno garbles, or even destroys electronic music?

PC: Yes and no. Yes for the audience who remained purist. The purist aspect is a particular aesthetic, so yes. But before this decade of purism, in the seventies, there were bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle who had another aesthetic that was destroyed by this purist aesthetism created by Kraftwerk. I'm excited by the fact that what I call industrial has kept certain continuity since the seventies and it finds expression in various aesthetism. Five years ago techno had become very 'pop', it was a caricature. We're slowly going back now to a music of research of shrilling sounds, of new aesthetism... but I'm not schocked, I find it reactionary to say that actual electronic music is destroying the preceding one. Different styles are interlaced, and it is thanks to the previous ones that we can create new electronic music. When I started it was a reaction against the Rock world, the guitars... I wanted to create a universal electronic music, I fought that case, and I believe that its presence today however it is, is a success. When I hear stuff like Underworld or Chemical Brothers, they tackle music in a very special way. There's a huge programming work, a will to create a music always in movement from electronic or acoustic compulsions. This is a total electronic management in opposition to classical Rock stereotypes, a revolution started ten years ago. From a strictly aesthetic point of view, there was more precision in the choice of sounds in order to create a new aesthetism. Today it is more muddle mix. The modern way to face music is two people bands. The only veterans who try to get by are Bowie, U2; they manage to blow that kind of philosophy into their music.

What do you consider owing Kraftwerk or Cabaret Voltaire or anyone else?

PC: Essentially the compulsion to hear people making different music. I've never been a musician, but I can use machines. The day I heard Kraftwerk, I said to myself: I also want to make this kind of music and I don't have to go through all the aspects of being a musician that revolted me at the time. Those bands gave me the conviction that it was possible to develop really different music.

What's going on with the various side-projects of Front 242's members?

PC: Each one is searching for himself in the band. Jean-Luc made Cobalt 60 which is in the same vein, Richard has a project called Tchack!. Jean-Luc isn't scared to say his music has a formula because he is a singer and he's less interested in the search. Each member is working, personally I'm working with a female vocalist, I'm also working together with Daniel on Grisha that should be a kind of extension of Front 242. We were not unemployed those last four years, between mixes, production and research. We have made wonderful sounds databases. We started to talk about making a CD...

What about the expression EBM (Electronic Body Music)?

PC: This is an expression we 'invented' to fight against the etiquette we were pasted with at the time. People didn't know how to define what we were doing. Electronic Music, well it's obvious; and Body because it was important for us to associate with the physical aspect. Indeed few bands before had been so physical on stage. Dance, muscles, energy, but the head too, as there is a thought aspect in this music. The expression fit us, so we used it. We are now disassociating ourselves from it, because we realise it isn't really important now.

Last words?

PC: Front was an extraordinary experience, and will always remain so. This is more than a band, this is a musical formula. The most rewarding thing for me is that I've fought for many years to develop a musical genre, we weren't alone, and seeing this genre reaching a global level is really exciting!

Jocelyn Chappaz

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