Front 242

Front 242

Front 242 is a Belgian-based electronic/industrial band. They've amassed a world-wide underground fan base, and play to packed stadiums in Europe. Some of their memorable classics include "Tragedy For You," "Headhunter," and more — but their entire catalog is a listening experience unlike any other.

Video Interview

This interview with Front 242's Patrick Codenys (keyboardist) and Jean-Luc De Meyer (vocals/lyricist) took place before the show at Irving Plaza, New York, Nov 21st, 2005.

The video is 40 minutes long, so I've broken it up into 3 parts to make downloading easier. Much thanks to the arms of my strong friend, for she held the video camera a good 40 minutes straight.

MP4 Version available: If you're interested in this interview, feel free to download the MP4 versions here. These are for downloading only, about 80MB each, and are clearer and less grainy with hardly any loss to the original quality.

Interviewing Front 242

I am happy that the band Front 242 gave me this video interview, considering the fact that I am pretty much an unknown (but that is slowly changing). There are many bands that shun local media and pathetically beg to be interviewed by the bastards of VH1, Fuse, and MTV, for they crave the whore-like attention that those greedy conglomerates can give them. Front 242 are no whores.

I was a bit unsure as to what kind of guys Front 242 were, and figured that no matter what, I'd try to have fun, even if it's by myself. But I was pleasantly surprised by how amicable they were. While I was setting up before the interview, Jean-Luc asked to see my list of questions. It was just a paper where I'd scribbled questions along with some personal notes and things I needed to remember. It was embarrassing, and I reluctantly gave it to him. He carefully scrutinized my questions. Then, as he turned over the sheet and continued reading, he let out a raucous laugh. This strange, evil-like laugh continued as he read. I don't know what was funny, and just hoped that the personal notes I'd scribbled were illegible. After a few more chuckles, he gave it back to me without saying a word. So much for communication.

During the interview, I felt a bit scared of Jean-Luc. It was his awkward silence when I asked certain questions, then his ultra-deep voice, that intimidated me a bit. Patrick, on the other hand, was very easygoing to speak with and had lots to say.

Jean-Luc seemed like a stiff robot — I wasn't sure if he found me annoying, and at any given moment I wondered if he'd attack me, though that might have been quite exciting. But I pushed these weird thoughts to the back of my head and continued with the interview. As I spoke to Jean-Luc after the show, I realized he's actually a very intriguing and funny guy to talk to.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge

At one point during the interview, Patrick signaled to another person, doing the "that girl is cuckoo" gesture. I didn't realize Patrick was doing this gesture until I was editing the video and put it in slow motion. Personally, I've always felt quite normal. Perhaps I didn't have many friends when I was small, but I've always enjoyed talking to little animals and plants in the yard.

But ironically, Patrick looks quite cuckoo in this picture. Hahaha. Hover your mouse over the picture to see. If you look carefully, you'll see Jean-Luc trying not to laugh. Imagine — if they were to see my sketch comedy films, they'd both think I'm truly mad!

Front 242 Music Video

One of my overall favorite music videos is "Tragedy For You." It's centered around an interesting concept: a fat lady pushes a shopping cart in the middle of a desert and orders this small guy (Richard 23) to put a variety of vegetables into the cart — vegetables that oddly enough happened to be growing in the sand. I found this entire humorous sequence of events all very interesting to watch.

Anton Corbijn was the director of this video. He's well known for doing videos for Depeche Mode and U2, but for some reason they never stuck in my head as much as "Tragedy For You." There was something about this particular Front 242 video — perhaps the simplicity and humor of it — that makes it stand out as one of the best music videos I've ever seen. Not only was the song really nice, but the video created a mysterious aura and cool vibe for the band.

Nowadays, at the rare instance a song is good, sometimes the music video can be quite horrible, with just tons of blockbuster-kind special effects without any kind of creativity or originality. Forget about the current garbage music I see on MTV — a fitting video for that crap would just be a black screen with a mute button. But anyway, sometimes people get too carried away with the fancy effects of filmmaking, that they forget what the core of the video should be about: a song that relays well with creative, convincing images.

One example of a video that could have been better was the Primus video "Winona's Big Brown Beaver." This video featured mannequin-looking cowboys who walk in a comical, robot-like way. But into the whole video-making, there were too many elaborate and technical effects that took away from the characters featured in the video. For instance, there was this big issue as to how to create the effect of having the three cowboys move in a jerking, robot-like way, by lowering the frame rate to 24 frames per second. The tech guy went into detail about how he lowered the frame rate and synced the rest of the video frames for this effect. The effect is witty, but it had no relevance to the video, and didn't make the video any more interesting to watch. Why not have the three cowboys actually move that way, instead of relying on a computer gimmick? Primus made another video, "Mr. Krinkle," that started out fun, featuring circus acts, but then got carried away by turning into a big production deal — and the facial expressions and characters of the circus performers weren't very interesting.

It's easy to forget that sometimes it's not the polished technicalities of the music video that make it good — it's the energy and originality that make some videos stand out. One video that comes to mind is Black Flag's "TV Party." Even though it lacked technical effects, that video had lots of raw energy. That's good.

The Concert

I briefly met Richard and Daniel B. They were both nice. I didn't recognize Richard, and asked him if he was the sound check guy. Daniel B. was very busy scurrying around, though I must say I've never seen a plump man walk that fast.

Click on the thumbnails of the concert pictures to enlarge. I wish I'd taken better pictures, but those strobe lights blinded half of them, and these were the few that looked okay.

I was expecting the NY show to have a bigger turnout. I wonder why that wasn't so. I hardly saw Front 242 advertised anywhere, and only saw a few postcards in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Perhaps people didn't know they were touring?

The concert went well. Jean-Luc and Richard danced around the stage, while Patrick remained quite still. I think Irving Plaza's sound system isn't very good and just produces too much bass — this happened a few times when I saw Melvins and KMFDM at this same venue.

Later On

After the show, Patrick Codenys acted as a waiter and gave out sodas and bottled water to some of the fans. That was nice of him. I ended up chatting with Jean-Luc. When we got ready to take a picture with him, he promptly put his beer on the table and said, "I am not going to advertise beer. I don't want to." It was the tone of his voice and his determination not to be featured with that particular brand of beer that made me laugh. After all, why should Jean-Luc advertise an over-rated beer for free? Hehehe.

Despite the serious tone that Jean-Luc has, he is a funny guy to talk with. However, I had this nagging feeling he was pulling my leg with lots of stories he'd tell me. For instance, he told me how he knows a guy who lives without eating. He said he thinks it's possible. This theory is based on an Australian writer. He even said he was going to try it.

We talked about this for a while, and I began to wonder if he was trying to test my reaction — to see if I'd blindly agree with everything and nod my head like a robot. I then made a special effort to keep my head perfectly still, so I didn't nod or shake it by accident. But then my neck muscle started to hurt from holding it so still, and I began to wonder... should I not believe everything this guy is telling me? Is it a trick? Is he going to go home and get a good chuckle out of my reactions?

And then I wondered — why am I so excited when these sorts of strange topics come up? Nevertheless, I looked it up when I went home, only to find that a number of people died from this theory. It's called the Breatharian theory, where your nourishment comes from the universal life force. It might be possible to live without food if you're fed intravenously — but not to have no food at all! Can't be! It's quite an odd theory, but I wonder if he really believes in it, or was just trying to pull my leg on that one. So I guess this is what he does when he surfs the internet.

Perhaps what's interesting about the theory isn't the theory itself, but the fact that people have followed it and died. It reminds me of the Jim Jones cult back in the '70s. These cult leaders are the "soul managers" of their victims. Perhaps that's what Jean-Luc found interesting about all this. Hehee.

Aside from that, Jean-Luc expressed his concern for the torturous way chickens are killed, and claimed to be a vegetarian (or trying to be one). Strangely enough, that day on my way to Front 242, I saw a person pushing a shopping cart on the road with 3 dead turkeys for Thanksgiving. It blocked the pavement, so no one could walk, and they started speaking to someone else, yelling about having gotten their turkeys for Thanksgiving. New York can look so ugly at times. It was a horrible sight. How sad, that three lives had to be sacrificed for that. Poor birdies.

Those turkeys were at the back of my mind, and I found it to be quite an odd coincidence that Jean-Luc started talking to me about the cruel deaths of birds. Anyway, he felt there was a right way and a wrong way to kill an animal. I've always thought about that — if animals weren't killed so gruesomely and wastefully, this world might be a better place. Even predators in the wild never kill as much as humans have. He said that when it's killed the wrong way, he can taste the fear of the animal.

This guy talks in poetry — he has an unusual and entertaining way of describing events. He's good with his words. I like that. That's probably why he's such a good lyricist for Front 242. I'm now very curious about the poetry-prose-to-music project Jean-Luc talked about in the video interview. I'd like to hear it, or at least get more info on it. It's good that he isn't limiting himself to only Front 242, and is constantly expanding his artistic talents by exploring other creative outlets, even in different forms.

Jean-Luc had lots to say, and even though I wasn't always sure when he was pulling my leg, I was still very much intrigued by the entire conversation. I would have liked to talk with him more, but the night came to an end and he was hurriedly rushed to leave. He invited me to the Philadelphia show. But I told him I couldn't make it, despite the fact that he told me it was only 2 hours away. I don't have a car, but I didn't get a chance to explain that properly to him. Then we went our separate ways.