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Meet the Bands - Number Two - Sonnets and NovellasInterview with the band's Florian Lefevre L-R: Loic Guerin - age 23 (Lead Guitar), Maxime Favre - age 25 (Bass), Florian Lefevre - age 23 (Vocals), Alexis Roussel - age 24 (Drums), Mathieu Briere - age 23 (Guitar)InformationBand Name - Sonnets and Novellas From - Marseille, France Genre - Post hardcore/technical rock, progressive Years Active - 2009 - Present Members - Florian Lefevre, Mathieu Briere, Maxime Favre, Alexis Roussel, Loic Guerin
Welcome back to Triple Threat's Meet the Bands! We're here with Florian from Sonnets and Novellas. Hey, Florian, so tell us, how did you guys form your awesome band?Bon entrevue! Hello! I just wanted to say first it is fascinating to be here in the USA for the first time. I am in awe of this country and the way it is so different to France. But yeah, mon excusé - your question; we formed like....hmmm....four years ago or so if I remember correctly from a sort of bizarre series of events. En Marseille there were a lot of contests for bands, but not a lot of great entries, so it was common for over time the bands to sort of scope each other out, you know, and the best members choose the best members? We were a band at first called Inside the Iceberg, and it was I, Loic and Mathieu, we are childhood friends. Sadly our drummer and our bassist are not good but one day we come across a band with a sick rhythm section. We....how you say....poached them? Not the most savoury way to conduct business, but we appreciate that dogs eat dogs, non?So tell us a bit about the band in general?We are a band that has learned a lot and progressed over time. You know, we started as late teenagers taking technicality and rudeness very seriously. We wanted to be this abrasive and persuasive band that people like because they're cool. Not a band that are cool because people like them. Over time though we have mellowed. It became, I am glad to say, more about the music and creating what we wanted to as a whole band, which has mae us a lot more confident and more worthy, in our own eyes at least.You have quite a strange collective name, where did that come from?A mutual love of the written word. I actually have a degree earned in the UK for studying English at a university in Scotland. It was all about literature, poetry and different kinds of prose. These were the two favourite kinds of writing that I discovered during my time there. Also they are cool words, and given that I take a lot of influence from writers, this made sense to me.How would you describe your sound to anyone who has never heard you?In a word, challenging. We have our own definition en Francais - we call it rocheballot. It means nerd-rock. We like to mess around with time sigs and pentatonic scales and stuff to create something that makes people sit up and say "wait...did they just do this?" We have energy and a high tempo a lot of the times, but this is a sound we have moulded over the years. It took time, but it is definitely a signature for us now and we are always told that there is nothing in the world like us. It's all twiddly riffs and high-pitched vocals.And lyrically, where do you tend to go for that little bit of inspiration?Haha....well, you know how earlier I say we are nerd-rock? Well I think this is a big part of it. I like to sing about sci-fi and space sometimes, and I also like to write songs that touch on literature from the past, be it French, English, classic American, Persian, anything. I actually had a period where I was high for a few days maybe....one year ago or so, and I spent like three of these writing a Dickensian album. Maybe one day I will release it. Yeah....my lyrics are weird.What would you say is the one thing that endears you to fans the most?I would say diversity or difference. There are two schools of thought in my own head. On one side of the coin...is this the phrase, non? Oui, well on this side, the rock community is the most welcoming and...open...in the world, you know? We take a lot of chances and do things musically that are strange but people are more open to that in alternative scenes. They like to see people doing something that comes across as taking a chance. The other face of this coin is....how do I say this? Everyone loves a cirque...a freak show, right? If we do something out of the ordinary musically then people want to see it, even if it is a car crash. Thankfully, it seems to most often be the former.To date, how successful has your band been?It depends on how you mean. If you are talking about sales, then zero, none, null, keine. We have one EP out there, but it was free. Live, though, we have managed to get a decent following. We are a different entity on stage. I come alive...people say I remind them of this guy from Weezer on speed. This is the greatest compliment of my life. Our music just works in the live arena. We have big choruses and great parts for people to sing and bounce to. We turn our shows into one big nerd party, and this makes me happy. If I go the rest of my career able to have bigger and bigger parties, I can slide off this coil a happy man.So what made you want to enter the Chaos Basement Jam contest?A lack of opportunity. I may sound a little....stand offish and "too cool for attending the school" at times, but we are musicians at the end of the day, and the truth of the matter is that we all want the chance to get out there and put our music on a pedestal, non? We are not too hipster to admit that labels are the only real way to do this if we are being realistic. We once had a negotiation with Métal Bleu in Paris, but this fell through. We felt this was a way to get what we needed, as well as allowing the fans to almost show us if we have a place in the world of music and such a massive industry.Did you ever imagine you would win?I must be honest, it was never even our goal to win this contest, I am serious with this assessment. Chaos Records is a massive company, and we did not think such a label would ever be interested in something so risky and experimental. We hoped to impress the fans, let them vote and show us we had at least a place in music, and then possibly we can pitch that to minor labels and go from there. As it went on though, things just snowballed and snowballed and before we know it, it's out of control. We got to the final and played the show of our lives for it. When I got the call, I was only just home from a night out and my English is.....rusty when I am tired, so it took a while to realise we have won. I was very happy though. We all are.Looking forward, what are your big strengths and weaknesses headed into a pro career?I would like to think our unique style and our unrelenting desire, along with our innovation will be our strengths that keep us going throughout our career. People may respect us for wanting to do our own thing and for being different. If you are different, you will always get a cult following. That's all we really hope for, and it would be awesome if that was the case. Weakness....well....personally I sometimes can come off as quite.....abrasive, non? It is not my intention, though. Apart from this, I would say there is a chance we will be seen as pretentious. We are not, it is just a passion for our music, but you can never tell how people will take to what you do, so this is my worry at the moment.Looking forward, what is your biggest goal in life and in music as a band?I would love to give you that big cool answer of "we want to be headlining festivals and stuff", but we are very much a feet on the ground bunch of guys, and we don't wish to get carried away. I think we would like to earn enough to be comfortable as professional musicians and to make people happy with what we do. If I am out and about one day, whether in Marseille, London, New York or wherever, if I see one kid in a Sonnets and Novellas t-shirt, then I am going to consider our band to be a success.Well thanks for that, Florian. Now we want to know a bit more about you yourself?Wow haha. Well that sounds like some fun, okay!Favourite band?That is an easy one. Coheed and Cambria. Progressive music, comic books. What is not to love, am I correct? Who would play you in a movie of your life?It depends what side of me your are looking at. Maybe this guy who plays Tom Zuckerberg? Jesse Eisenberg is his name. He's a bit nerdy and awkward in every day life, but let someone try to cross him professionally and he will show you his other side....his determination. He would suit Florian as a character really well.Your favourite place in the world?It is hard to look beyond home. Home is home after all. But I have travelled as well, and I loved Barcelona. I can go there and escape the tourists, but still find like an arty side to such a vast city. It has so much buried away beneath the Gaudi and shopping areas that are most popular.Any tattoos?Not yet. I really want to be inked up, but I worry too much. Not about designs or getting old and saggy, but simply because I fear that the artist I choose will be shit, non? I don't want to be walking around with shitty ink on me forever. Maybe some day I will drop this paranoia though and I can get myself some cool work done. I hope so.Ever met anyone famous?Not met, no, but just yesterday I was speaking on Twitter to one of the girls from Destinee and Adele. They are very famous back home, and she was very cool. It made me feel quite a bit less nervous about embarking on this career path to know that others from France have managed to make a big success of themselves, you know?Favourite food?I eat nothing but l'escargot and frogs, non? Hahaha, no I joke I joke. I will be the stereotype though and say that I love cheese. Brie to be exact.Where do you see yourself in five years?Like I say earlier, I don't like to plan too far ahead. I would love the chance to do a headline tour though, to have one or two albums out, and to be able to look back to this point and say to myself, "yes, you have done well, Florian. What else can we hope for but to be proud of ourselves?"And finally, if you could have one superpower, what would it be?I think everyone would choose invisibility. Even if they would not admit it....Sonnets and Novellas were the European winners of the Chaos Basement Jam Contest. Edited by user 29 May 2013 00:24:27(UTC)
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