Different bands use social media in very different ways.
For some bands, it’s all very functional. “Our next show is x,” “Thanks for coming to see us at y,” our new single is z.” All good information, very efficient. A bit dull, though.
Other bands, meanwhile, give the reader the full warts-and-all story of what it is like to be in an up-and-coming rock band. The excitement, the chaos, the drunkenness, and sometimes, the catastrophe. These accounts of life on the road give us a great reminder that, even in these generally more sanitary times, sometimes life on the road isn’t so far removed (other than the violence, usually) from what Henry Rollins recounted in Get In The Van, his infamous journal of Black Flag’s later years on the road. It can get pretty nuts out there.
London/Paris three piece A Void fall very much in the latter category. The band’s Facebook page is a roaring diary of the band’s world, mixing vibrant pictures of the band’s incendiary live shows with accounts of the mundane challenges that they sometimes face offstage, such as a recent van breakdown that forced them to set up a GoFundMe page to get their vehicle fixed and back home. Probably the most striking recent post by the band, though, was a short video from their recent show at The Victoria in London, where vocalist Camille Alexander attempted to sing while hanging from the venue’s ceiling, only to find that the fitting she was hanging from wasn’t quite as sturdy as it looked. Ouch.
Somehow, Alexander emerged unscathed from this incident, and the band played another show just two days later. Clearly, this is a band that loves to perform, even playing a house party a few weeks later in Nottingham, and the hard work is paying off. For A Void are emerging into one of the most exciting live acts around. Alexander is a livewire frontwoman, sometimes wandering into the crowd, sometimes bashing instruments with bassist Aaron Hartmann, sometimes climbing on Marie Niemiec’s drumset, but always they look like they are having fun out there. It’s thrilling stuff, even if you sometimes find yourself wondering if the band are going to make it out of there without damaging themselves in the process.
The jovial live show is, though, somewhat at odds with the band’s musical content, which is sometimes rather dark. The band list their influences as including Celine Dion and Lady Gaga alongside Hole and Babes in Toyland, but the best way to describe them is as dark grunge (think ‘Polly’, not ‘Sliver’) with a side of riot grrrl and a European twist. Their debut album Awkward and Devastated, for example, contains songs titled ‘Bodies Are Dumb’ and ‘She Threw Her Baby From The 7th Floor’, while the video for ‘Glum City’ featured two real estate agents departing the band’s house in a black plastic bag. Yikes. It is a terrific record, though, and Alexander’s Björk-type vocals bring a unique element that sets the band apart from their peers.
I met with the band in Bristol, prior to their recent show at The Mothers’ Ruin. With the venue being packed and noisy, this interview took place in the glamorous confines of a doorway next door, in the rain. The band didn’t bat an eyelid. Just a standard night in their world.
Camille and Marie, you were playing as a two-piece in Paris before moving to London. Did you consider staying as a two-piece, or was it always your plan to find a bass player?
[CA] Yes, we need a bass in our sound.
[MN] We were a two-piece for a while. We had a good bass player, but he wasn’t quite into the London adventure, so that left the two of us. We learned how to be efficient as a two-piece for a while, but the project was always to get a third person.
[CA] A lot of our songs need a bass. We had to drop some tracks because we just couldn’t play them without a bass.
So what brought you to London? Was it just for the music?
[CA] Yes, it was for the music scene. What happened is, with the old line-up, when we were still living in Paris, we played two shows in London because we had friends there and they booked the shows for us. Then we met Neil, who does a magazine called 98 Wounds and who follows a lot of bands around and helps them, especially us! We also met Steve Iles, whose nickname is ‘The Godfather of Punkettes’, and he enables a lot of bands, a lot with females, to tour and to get seen. He offers a lot of help – he drives bands around for nothing.
[MN] He wants to help small bands to emerge. He should write a book, he has been touring with some amazing bands. It is all for the passion.
[CA] He knows it is hard for bands and he wants to help out. If it wasn’t for people like him, I don’t think it would be like it is now for us. In the underground scene, Steve Iles is a name that needs to be said, because he is someone that helps lots of bands to emerge.
Is there much of a rock scene in Paris?
[CA] Well that is really why we moved. There are a lot of good bands in Paris, I would say, but you reach a stage in Paris where you can only play venues that are a certain size. You don’t have intermediary venues that are a bridge between being a very small band playing in a pub and playing big shows.
[MN] It’s quite polished as well in general – the underground, dirty, grunge scene doesn’t really have a space there. It doesn’t really have the underground pubs where you are going to have posters everywhere and people just smashing stuff. It just doesn’t really have this vibe in Paris.
[CA] It’s just a bunch of hipsters!
[MN] It’s a more polished sound – indie or electronic music. You can find it, but if you are an underground grunge band with a dirty sound, then Paris is not the place to be.
Now you are in the UK, you do tour a hell of a lot of places. Strange places too, like Rotherham…..
[CA] Strange places!!! Actually the venue we played in Rotherham is a really good venue and I really hope it doesn’t die. The guy who runs it really cares about the music and they have this great sound system. The guy on the sound is really nice too. I really had a good time playing there.
]MN] Definitely. There is a real genuine interest in emerging bands. One other thing about Paris is that the music industry in general is very male-dominated. You can feel it a lot in Paris.
[CA] Yeah, they are not used to having a girl band on stage.
[MN] You get treated very different when you are girls. There is way less of that here in England, even in smaller towns – here, you get treated the same. The sound guy did not care that we are girls, he just really wanted us to enjoy our time there, have a good sound, and just helps you make the best out of it. This is really different, the mentality here compared to France, and Paris in particular. In France, you really get patronised by sound guys and men in general – it’s always “ah, don’t worry, I’ll just do it for you.” It’s really frustrating because we work a lot as a band and we know what we are doing. We just don’t want to hear this kind of shit.
Camille, you had quite a fall from the ceiling of The Victoria in London a few months back…..
[CA] It was really instinctive. I was already planning on climbing on the speaker, and I was like, I don’t even know what is going to happen after that. What is really, really stupid is that before the show, it was the day that we released our music video. And I asked the sound guy, can we project our music video before the show? And he shows me the pole of the projector screen and says that it is in front of the stage and it would end up hiding everything. So I knew what it was, and I just thought “fuck it,” and whatever happens, happens. So I just grabbed that thing and went up there and fell, and…..
[MN] and we had more views on that video than on any other music video!
And you guys have both been electrocuted too…….
[CA] Yes, both of us, all the time.
[AH] Don’t take your beer onstage, guys. Lesson number two……..
[CA] Even without the beer, it’s the mics that electrocute you. Weird things.
Are there plans for a second album?
[CA] Yes, it is already in the preparation. The plan is to release two singles next year, in 2020, and I think our album will be in 2021. But yes, we will have some things to show people. We already recorded two tracks.
[MN] and we are working on other songs as well. It’s all being done at the moment.
With that, A Void depart to prepare for their set. With this show being the night after the general election, the band are clearly in a political mood, and perform a set that is very much at the fast-and-punky end of their spectrum. This is exemplified by their performance of ‘Let’s Go To The Future’, an old track that they haven’t performed for some time, but with its “make a revolution” refrain, clearly one that they saw as appropriate for this night.
By the time they roll through live staples ‘Complainte’ and ‘She Threw Her Baby From The 7th Floor’, A Void have got the crowd fired right up. Singer Camille Alexander shows her immense talent, and her great chemistry with Hartmann, and doesn’t appear to break herself or any of the Mothers’ Ruin’s fixtures or fittings in the process. Win-win all round.
Are You Serious, Englishman? 
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