THE FLESHDEVILS
Q and A interview with Dean O'Deville and JoJo Flesh. Los Angeles, 1997.
1.What is the background to the bands name?
Dean: I came across a book titled' The Devils Of the Flesh' in some book store which reminded me of my childhood in South Africa. The witchcraft legend of the Tokoloshe, a devilish little fellow who went around in the middle of the night killing people while they slept. So all these superstitious folk would raise their beds to about 5 feet off the floor with bricks under the legs of the bed so that this tiny little demon couldn't get hold of them. It was an appealing image for the band's message which is: a darker side of human nature exists and it's gonna get us if we don't look out.
2. What is it about Fleshdevils that makes them different from other bands, and/or more noteworthy?
Dean: We try sonically to be different altough it's very hard not to bring in some influences since we are a rock band. I think that sound has to exist in a context what we are trying to do is change that context, in other words we'll use a blues type musical arrangement with some serious jazz chords and a hip hop beat played with Marshalls on ten!!! or try some hypnotic bass lines with maybe spoken poetry lines with a tribal drum pattern. Also both Jojo & myself are seasoned musicians from quite different musical disciplines while he has a very heavy Fusion Jazz approach mine is much more gut level and less of a mind trip this clash of styles is what creates the Fleshsound.
Jojo: We have several different backgrounds. I was born in Portugal and was raised in South Africa and have been in L.A. for the last few years . Dean was born in Egypt from Greek parents and was also raised in South Africa. He also currently lives in L.A. Spider was born in London, grew up in South Africa and Switzerland, and now commutes the world. That makes us very different culturally right there. We have a seen a very different world growing up to many other rock bands in the states and Europe, we have a 'Universal' influence (Latin, African, American, European etc.)
3. What are Fleshdevils songs about? (cite some examples).
Dean: I write all the lyrics in the band at this time and I try to bring some kind of a personal style to verses. I also try to create images that present the subject at hand visually in an original and emotional way. Metaphors is what it's all about really. 'Kiss The Fear' is a song I wrote while reading about the Bosnian civil war. Kind of brought me back to high school when all my friends went to the army and had to fight in Northern South West Africa (Namibia). We were really just kids and it was shear terror hearing about all this wild shit that went on fighting the guerillas and the Cubans. So when I wrote Kiss The Fear I tried to imagine myself as a young teenager having to fight for some cause that was thrown on me and making the ultimate sacrifice for no fucking reason......In war fear is your only motivator you are either paralyzed by it or you make it your friend you confront it and befriend it, that's what Kiss The Fear is about. " War slams its fist into my world, No soul unscarred on pain unseen...."
Black Sugar was an inspirational excursion into excess, greed and the anxiety that intense competition and unbridled technological change brings. We are all pushed, whether we like it or not, into this torrent of information, change, junk content and increased complexity. Our whole culture and philosophy exists in 15 second sound bites coz there is no time for anything more. Humans were not made for this level of stress or this accelerated rate of change it all brings this anxiety depression etc....that's the Black Sugar running through my veins. " Sugar rushes through my veins like the tracks of a neon train on fire...."
'Bloodline' outlines my feelings on the current climate of race relations in the US where everybody wants to be part of some group against another and thus weakens the overall society and draws deeper & deeper lines in the sand which become harder and harder to cross. It's a great country and has a noble and well meaning philosophy but its huge size and complexity could be its downfall. No great empire has lasted for more than 200 years. I think the seeds of Americas downfall have been sown. "We look around and count the cost, a nation hostage to its past..."
4. Two of the Fleshdevils (Dean & JoJo) are from South Africa. What is the rock scene like there, compared to here in the US?
Dean: I think "music scene" are more appropriate words to explain the stuff that's going down there. There is a large indigenous African musical style that's very popular with most of the South African black population and that's where the true South African sound is found. There's small pockets of rock bands that play mainly in the big centers such as Jo'Burg (Johannesburg), Durban & Cape Town. Shows get pretty intense down there cause there's no real rules or any type of security at shows etc so the stuff sometimes degenerates into these huge brawls or love-ins reminiscent of the late sixties with free flowing chemicals of all kinds. As for the music itself - a lot of it is very derivative. Some bands try to mix the African style with the rock sound but it's such a hard place to generate any kind of living playing original rock music that few bands ever get to develop their sound to a truly artistic level.
JoJo:The rock scene in South Afica is virtually non-existant. I'ts a very sparsely populated country and the percentage of people that listen to rock music reflects this. For example about 85% of the population is black. That same percentage listens to the african ethnic music and the rest listen to rap ,soul,and funk music. So the only people that listen rock music are some of the white kids.Thus no chance of living off playing original rock music.
5. Taking the South African "connection" one step further, what do you two think about the Sun City controversy of several years back, and are things any better (racism-wise) in S. Africa today?
Dean: Well to tell you the truth the Sun City thing was really an American media hype over a relatively minor human rights issue. During my life and experience in South Africa I witnessed events and situations that were vastly more unjust and cruel than the building of a Casino in the desert but I guess it had a symbolic ring in the minds of the American public. (And the pocket of Stevie Van Zandt) Events after the Sun City hype were vastly more significant in history, such as the freeing of Nelson Mandela, the abdication of power by the whites, and the signing of the new South African constitution.
6. The band has completed a video already. What song was chosen, and what is the accompanying video about?
Dean: We chose "Step Into The Whole" as our first video because the sound we have achieved on that recording is closer to where our creative heads are at right now. We tried to draw from the whole tribal thing in the imagery and mixed it in with the whole "Mexican Day of The Dead" something I have never really seen done before...it's what we like to do...mix cultural imagery and sounds in new and wierd ways. We went out into the California desert, found a huge dry lake bed, poured mud over ourselves screamed, danced and sang then drove down to TJ and filmed some of the local crazyness during the Day of The Dead celebrations. Everything was shot in super8 film by Carlo Serao & Sean Murphy a couple of great up and comming photographers and then edited on a digital video system with some added effects... All in all its a lo-tech master piece, with lyrics inspired by Alister Crowley over a sonically menacing sound track it definitely portrays a moment of vision.
7. The Fleshdevils CD is being released by an England-based record label, Bridge Recordings. What is the story behind this?
JoJo: I went to Portugal in September of '95 and on the way back I came via London to visit an old friend ex South African. He owns Bridge Recordings. I was there for two days.During one of the party evenings, I slapped a demo tape of the Flesh Devils into his tape recorder. He heard 3 songs and that was all he needed to see the Fleshvision. So we went over to London in April of '96 to record the current album which should be out in England & Europe in January '97. Myself and Andrew Brel produced the sound. Robin Black did all the engineering chores, he's great. He'd done all the early Jethro Tull albums so he had a great perspective on the type of sound we were after.
8. What are some of the musical influences cited by Fleshdevils?
JoJo: When I was a kid I was into bands like Return To Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Average White Band, it kind of shaped my musical philosophy in a way because misicianship and musical experimentation with chordal changes and melody made music interesting for me. It's important to me that things sound right musically but more in the jazz sense, I'm not impressed by some
garage band that only relies on its aggression and volume to draw-in its audience. Progressive music had and I believe still has a lot to bring to the modern rock sound.
Dean: I have always listened to exciting bands, bands with an original but dangerous sound. The record industry always loves labels 'coz that's the way it can sell records more efficiently, the problem is every group tends to jump on the band wagon trying to fit the latest label and you get this glut of the same stuff.
Growing up I was into the Purple, Zeppelin stuff, then in the late seventies I got into Stranglers, Stooges and the Pistols, during the eighties I went back to the Doors, Echo & the Bunnymen, U2 and in the last few years I've gotten into 'Nine Inch Nails, Afgan Wigs, The Eels, Dead Can Dance' - just tons of stuff. There is really a lot of good shit out there you just have to find it.
9.What is a Fleshdevils live show like?
Dean: Loud. Intense, emotional, we are definitely not a light-hearted band. We try and build our songs sonically and dynamically and always try to be sincere about the performance. We rehearse a lot so that the complexity of the music is second nature and we can put more into the performance. There's parts of the set that enter this complete chaotic state but then we pull out into a more structured section. A Fleshdevil show is definitely energetic, there's a lot of sweat, emotional blood, and musical guts spilled on that stage and its always a trans inducing riot..... we love it.
10. When the day comes, what would the band want their collective tombstone to read?
Here lies Dean, Jojo and Spider - Fleshdevils.
'We told you we were sick.'
The FleshDevils in America