CROSSOVER

Il y a trois ans, Against Me! sortait des limbes indépendantes en signant avec Sire Records et donnait un nouveau sens à son existence avec un quatrième album plus léché. Against Me!, envers et contre tous, bafouait l’un des premiers commandements punk (À une major tu ne t’associeras…), y peaufinait des riffs hyper digestes et en plus titrait la chose d’un nom culotté: New Wave.

Des vagues, il y en a eu. Le groupe a rallié des hordes de nouveaux fans, alors que le ressac a emporté avec lui certains puristes de la première heure. Mais au-delà des chiâlages et crachats d’usage, la formation floridienne, loin de renier ses plus récents choix artistiques et professionnels, renchérit avec White Crosses, paru au début de l’été.

Une autre réalisation signée Butch Vig (le batteur de Garbage à l’origine du Siamese Dreams des Smashing Pumpkins et du Nervermind de Nirvana) avec cette fois-ci Alan Moulder au mixage (sortez un nom, il a bossé avec… de Depeche Mode à Them Crooked Vultures en passant par My Bloody Valentine, les Smashing Pumpkins, Blonde Redhead, les Yeah Yeah Yeahs, NIN et Interpol). La grosse classe.

Bref, si certains débarquent, d’autres embarquent à fond. Même si le batteur de la formation depuis 2001, Warren Oakes, gêné par la nouvelle direction du groupe et peut-être par son succès, a quitté (ou s’est fait renvoyer suite à des dissensions, c’est pas clair) le band pour s’adonner à sa nouvelle vocation de propriétaire de resto tex-mex, Tom Gabel et ses comparses continuent de plus belle.

On a parlé à Tom du nouvel album, de pop piano, de champ d’avortons… et de mon nom. On a laissé ça en anglais pour garder un peu d’intégrité (ha!), et aussi parce que Tom est un gars brillant et super articulé.

Hi Tom!

Hi Evelyne. Listen, before we start I gotta say, my daughter’s name is Evelyn and my grandmother’s name is Evelyn. It’s my favourite name…

Oh wow, thanks! I kinda lucked out, my dad wanted to name me Barbara. And in French, it’s really over-the-top and glamourous. My personality might have suffered from it in the long run…

We might not be having that interview if you were a Barbara!

Ha, maybe! We’re talking about names, why White Crosses?

I was living in St.Augustine when I wrote the song on the album, and around the corner from my house, there was a church. On the church lawn there was 4,000 white crosses about a foot high off the ground and it was called the Cemetery of the Innocents. There was this big billboard with children’s faces on it and it was there to represent every abortion that happens in America every day. Just such an eyesore to have to see all the time. I just fantasized about getting off my bike or my car and stomping every single cross with my foot, you know… What an amazing feeling that would have been! Sometimes it feels really good to just smash something. To me, writing this record and playing these songs every night has the same cathartic feeling. It’s a complete release for me.

Lyrically-speaking, what were your preoccupations while making White Crosses?

It was really important for me going into this record to abandon the storyline. Drop the plot. I feel like it’s a natural thing to do, you know, when you’re in a band and you go into writing a new record, to take into consideration the last record you made. Because you finally have perspective on it. A lot of the times, when you do interviews for a record that you’ve just finished, it’s hard because you don’t know the answers to a lot of the stuff, the record is still very new to you, you don’t really know what it means to you. So when you go and make another record, you’re thinking about the last record, because you have a new sense of distance relating to it… but I didn’t want that with this record. Just start fresh, mentally-speaking. Obviously, musically, we’re expanding on things we’ve done in the past, stylistic things that are very unique to us and will always be there. But lyrically, I wanted to do something fresh.

There seemed to be an urgency and even a brashness to New Wave’s pop inclinations that has shifted here into more poised melodies with White Crosses.

I don’t know about brash, but there was definitely an urgency and a desire to connect with people. For me, making New Wave was a lot about realizing the possibilities of everything and wanting to see where that can take you.

There’s more piano on here, no? I can’t recall if you had some on your early albums!

There’s a couple bad piano parts on previous albums actually… (laughs) When I was writing this record I moved to this small town called St.Augustine, Florida, and it’s like 75 miles away from Gainesville, right on the coast. When writing was just starting, I was taking piano lessons by this elderly woman called Helen, on the Anastasia Island. I would go once a week, and when I went into it I told her, you know I kinda play music professionally, but I don’t know piano, so I want you to take me as any other one of your students who are 8, 9, 10 and do recitals. I got into writing on the piano more and more. It was fun.

And working again with Butch Vig, was it a natural thing?

We had that initial ‘‘getting to know each other’’ time out of the way, we had already established a relationship. We completely lucked out with Butch, finding a producer that we connect with so well and trust implicitly. I really can’t say enough about how amazing it is to have had the experience to work with him, and I really hope to continue to make records with Butch.

I read somewhere that you said: ‘‘I like Butch Vig. The records he works on don’t sound like life has been drained out of them.’’

Looking at the bands that he worked with, they were all bands that came from a similar, albeit different time-wise, scenes as us. Bands that were bands before signing to major labels, toured around in vans, played clubs for years and went on to make records with him which were steps forward while still staying true to the bands. I feel like he lends his talent and his vision to the band, and letting them retain what makes them a band.

In one of White Crosses’ songs, you say ‘‘I used to be a teenage anarchist’’. Have your convictions and priorities changed in the last, say, five years?

Well I think that’s only natural. Everyone gets a new perspective every year of their life. I’ve experienced many changes since New Wave even. For White Crosses, it’s been good reflecting about the past. In the past few years, lots of stuff happened: I lost a friend, had a daughter… Made me think about where I come from as a person and where the band came from.

I’ve actually interviewed your band before, but I spoke to Warren [ex drummer], and he said something very interesting, because at that time you were going through the New Wave change. And he said about all the praise and criticism that were coming out: ‘‘At times I feel like we are the best band on earth, and at others I feel like we’re the worst.’’ Obviously now he’s left, but do you feel like you were on the same wavelength about the band at that point?