Interviews

A Quick Chat With Raketkanon

• 26th Feb 2015

We caught up with Belgian alt-rockers Raketkanon to talk about their Steve Albini-produced new album that’s coming out in April. They hit London to play a show in Camden on March 9th and new single ‘Florent’ is coming out on 7” through Blood Red Shoes’ label, so get ahead of the curve…

When we first started playing music…
We felt we had to play together… We shared ideas about good music.

If we had to choose a new name for the band it would be ** because…
We would stop the band if we had to rename it… We have the best band name in the world!

We knew we were on to something when…
People came to our gigs and pretty soon something magical started happening when we played. They were really feeling the music. That gave us a great boost.

The best thing about Steve Albini is…
His heroin habit.

Our biggest non-musical influences are…
That’s a difficult question. Musicals are our main influence…

We’re most proud of…
We try not to be too proud.

Our ideal support slot would be…
Raketkanon, so we could see ourselves play. Or basically, any band, no matter what style. Bands that give an audience the feeling that it’s real!

Something we haven’t achieved yet which we’d like to is…
Write our own musical.

Our favourite place to hang out is…
We have some nice bars in our home town. Our town is not that big, so everyone knows each other. One of our drummer’s favourite places is near the Brussels airport runways, to spot planes.

The world’s most likely candidate for Evil Undercover Lizard Overlord is…
Andrew Lloyd Webber.

We can’t stop listening to…
The Beatles.

Chicago is a good place to…
Record an album without coming out of the studio and thus leave having learned nothing whatsoever about Chicago. We did take a long walk on the last day along lake Michigan and went drinking in the gay district.

We’re not ashamed to admit that…
we cannot finish this sentence in any meaningful way.

If we could wave a magic wand and make anything in the world happen it would be…
Empathy and reason in pills.

Someone you might not have heard of that you should check out is…
Great Belgian bands : The Germans, Madensuyu, Stadt, …And our good friends and photographers Anton Coene & Tom Roelofs, who’ve been touring with loads of bands around the globe, making insanely nice pictures!

Catch us next…

09/03 : The Stillery – London
28/04 : Stag & Hounds – Bristol
29/04 : The Shacklewell Arms – London
30/04 : Audio – Glasgow
02/05 : Brudenell Social Club – Leeds
03/05 : The Hope – Brighton