Interview with The Guru Guru, ArcTanGent
The Guru Guru by Joe Singh
A very welcomed sight at this year's ArcTanGent festival was the return of Belgian-art-rockers The Guru Guru. Happily dealing in deep express art rock since 2012, The Guru Guru seamlessly weaves together feverishly angular guitars, off-kilter poly-rhythms, and trademark unhinged vocals, all underscored by an unpredictable and exhilarating stage presence.
We had the privilege of sitting down with the band's members to delve into the intricacies of their latest musical endeavor, their latest album Make (Less) Babies, coming 27 October.
Featuring Tom Adriaenssens as the enigmatic frontman, Emiel Van Den Abbeele and Jan Viggria as the sonic architects on guitars, Siemon Theys on the rhythmic foundation behind the drums, and Brent Mijnendonckx holding down the low end on bass, the band takes us on a journey into their newest album.
For anyone finding The Guru Guru for the first time, how would you describe your sound and vibe?
Tom Adriaenssens (TA): We are a deep express art rock band. We like to write music inspired by anything, letting emotions speak from deeply within. We write what we feel, we write everything together and all bring very different influences.
The Guru Guru by Joe Singh
Can you share a bit of your process, all writing together?
(TA): It can go in many different ways. For example, the last album because of COVID we did it all online with a sort of roulette writing system. Every week we passed on an idea to record over. After five weeks we had a bunch of new songs.
That’s also how we wrote a lot of new songs on this new album. Most of the time we write guitars, put on drums and bass. And most of the time the lyrics come last.
That’s really interesting and a really fast process. Passing around online, leaving others to input their creativity, I have to assume you have really deep trust in your collaboration?
(TA): Oh yeah, I think we all respect each other's expertise and all have qualities to add to the band. We try a lot of things to keep creative. And this was something that worked for us. I think we will continue writing in experimental ways just to freshen things up.
You have a new album coming this fall and we’ve heard that, along the experimental approach, you did all the work creating this record? Not only the writing and playing but also the recording, mixing and producing. Can you tell us about that and what led you to take that approach?
The Guru Guru by Joe Singh
Jan Viggria (JV): Well, three of us in the band - Brent, Emiel and I - are all engineers. I have my own studio in Belgium as well. So we decided for this record to record everything ourselves. We believe that the first two records were meant to have a producer, an external producer, who could give us something more than we were adding to the music. But for this record, we felt like we had grown so much over the years, with playing live and doing all the work we do, that we could bring the expertise and be comfortable enough to do it by ourselves.
And in that way, we recorded the album in like seven days. We did a lot of pre-production before it. Our rehearsals were all recorded, so we could listen to the sound and to the different parts everyone was playing. And after recording, we were just so happy with the results that we think this is the next step for The Guru Guru as a band to really dive deep into our own sound and our own way of making music together.
We got to see you play the first single of the new album today, “Make (Less) Babies” and we know a bit about the creation of that song. I wonder if we can expect this record to be more of a concept album?
(TA): The two previous albums were emotionally driven. I wrote a lot of the lyrics from the guts. Just started writing without giving too much thought to what I wanted to write about generally. That was the way I used to work. But for this album, I thought, let's try and come up with a subject before starting to write. So I watched a lot of the news before writing and I think that’s why a lot of the new lyrics are going to be a bit more criticising to society.
You know, we're all destroying our planet and our environment, and we just continue doing that. And I think that's fascinating in one way. So that's the main subject of the whole album; we're fucking up the planet and we need to do something about it. That's not something new, of course. We all know it. But it's still fascinating how we keep destroying ourselves, keep destroying the planet. I thought that was an interesting thing to write an album about.
So recording this album live, and in a short amount of time, how do you think that influenced how it all came together?
The Guru Guru by Joe Singh
Emiel Van Den Abbeele (EVDA): Yeah, it was six or seven days from morning till night. Then grab a few beers, grab a few hours of sleep and start again, like one week and then it was done with finished.
I think this is the first album that we didn't do any overdubs or anything, like we just set up. We had two days of recording the songs, and only the vocals were overdubs, because of the sound quality to have the instruments were on there in two days, because we did it all live and we didn't add anything. No extra guitar lines or no extra, I don't know bass lines or anything or effects or it was just this pure, pure group. The new album
(JV): Doing it this way I also think keeps it fresh. You don’t overthink it. We can keep a fresh perspective about the songs, about the entire album and about the concept. If you work on it relentlessly, and as long as we did with the previous albums, you can get stuck in this circling mindset asking is it good, is it good enough, are we writing well, is it sounding great…? There’s a certain threshold that you cross over and that becomes sometimes problematic and you can lose the vision. With this album, we just didn’t have that and were all super happy.
(EVDA): We don't have to overthink things. This is it.
Is there anything you hope people get out of listening to your music or listening to the new album in particular?
Siemon Theys (ST): If music makes you feel things, it's good. I hope we can get people to feel things. And that's about enough I think. In each and every way, if you feel like, “that drum is really cool, I like it” or “that guitar sound man, it's rockin, let's buy every album they ever released” then that's awesome.
The Guru Guru by Joe Singh
We do have to ask Siemon, why do you have your drum step turned sideways? It’s not something you see super often but we’ve seen it a few times this weekend at ATG.
(ST): It’s so I can keep an eye on my bassist. Yeah, and we also, when we’re tour, the bassist and I (the drummer) always share a room because we need some connection. We go into our room, put our pyjamas on, go lay in our bed, each his own bed, watch some TV and maybe talk a little bit? And that’s something that’s necessary because bass and drums are the base of the band. So we need to have connection.
Brent Mijnendonckx (BM): Face off.
(ST): Face off, yeah.
(BM): We like to keep each other sharp.
(ST): Exactly. So somebody makes a mistake, a wrong note or wrong drum thing, we can just smile at each other. Like, “I hear that, I saw that”.
We did notice you dropped a stick earlier during the set.
(BM): Saw it!
(ST): You saw it as well?!
(BM): We didn't talk enough last evening so he knew it was coming!
The Guru Guru by Joe Singh
So the album is out this October, what’s coming up after that, hopefully some touring?
(ST): Yeah, our new album Make (Less) Babies) is coming out on 27 October, on all platforms. You can pre-order and buy on our website: theguruguru.com and we hope you enjoy!
(EVDA): We have a lot of shows coming up. Especially in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. At the start of 2024 we will come back to the UK. There's not a set date, but it will be February and the date will be out there soon.
*Update, there is a set date! 24 February at The Shacklewell Arms in London, tickets available now.
Last question for you, something a little lighthearted: if you were in a coma, what one song could without a doubt jolt you awake?
(JV): wow, that's a hard one. Yeah.
(ST): Maybe a song so bad it wakes you up?
This is where the conversation keeps going! So good or so bad.
(EVDA): “Weird Fishes” by Radiohead. Maybe?
(JV): Maybe put you even deeper. Like, I don't want to wake up anymore man.
(TA): Mama Cass Elliot, “Make Your Own Kind Of Music”.
(BM): At this moment, any Elton John song.
(ST): I'm gonna say Paul Simon. Paul Simon, everything. When I hear his voice, something tingles in me, so that could probably wake me up.
(JV): I'm gonna say “Live and Let Die” by Wings. Good song.
Great song. All excellent answers. Almost everyone we ask mentions that tingling feeling music can give you.
Big thanks to The Guru Guru for taking time to chat with us. Their new album, Make (Less) Babies is available for pre-order and slated for release on on 27 October. UK-fans can catch The Guru Guru this weekend at Burn It Down Festival and again in February at The Shacklewell Arms. Stay tuned for future tour news!
