Jesus On Extasy is a synth/ glam rock band from Essen, Germany. The mastermind behind it, Chai Deveraux has been kind to answer some questions for playdeadnation, here they are!
pdn: Greetings, Chai! Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions :) First of all, please tell me how you guys came up with the band name? Some particular story or inspiration behind it?
Chai: Oh there are thousands of stories. The truth is: Today there are wars, murders all over the world, done in the name of god, jesus or some other religious fugures which stand for truth and the good. When the resonsible claim that the wars would be declared in those names, it looks like f.e. Jesus is on a bad drug-trip.
I mean, we got a lot of menaces from christian institutions, but if you look closer you see that we are the “good”, but christians that threaten us, aren´t very cool christians haha
pdn: Greetings, Chai! Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions :) First of all, please tell me how you guys came up with the band name? Some particular story or inspiration behind it?
Chai: Oh there are thousands of stories. The truth is: Today there are wars, murders all over the world, done in the name of god, jesus or some other religious fugures which stand for truth and the good. When the resonsible claim that the wars would be declared in those names, it looks like f.e. Jesus is on a bad drug-trip.
I mean, we got a lot of menaces from christian institutions, but if you look closer you see that we are the “good”, but christians that threaten us, aren´t very cool christians haha
pdn: There were quite a few line-up changes in the band along time, please tell me a bit about that.
Chai: Ok first of all, Dorian and me parted. It was not possible to work together anymore. Sometimes it´s better to go separat ways before someone dies :-)Serious, it was a good decision. The band situation nearly killed us. There was everything but music around us. Only anger and bad vibes. In the end i saw the band on a nother level. That was not possible with the old lineup. BJ left due to private stuff and Ophelia due to her job with Apoptygma Berzerk. Both BJ nd Ophelia are still close friends of mine. And this is more important than any business!
pdn: You've worked/ played with many other cool bands, which was your favourite collaboration so far?
Chai: Oh that´s hard to say... I loved the work with KMFDM and The Birthday Massacre. I love their music. KMFDM is such a great band. Old-School-Industrial Rock. And when they said, that Sascha wantes wo work with us is was kind of an honor. Our first shows with TBM are kind of a ground of our career. I still remember how Chibi wanted to foist bananas on me while telling me they would help against my nervous mood.
pdn: You and Dorian Deveraux, your cousin, formed the band. How did you two get the idea of forming a band and adopting this style for it?
Chai: We both wanted to make music and infect the world. There was no “styling” no plan. We just did our thing. I still remember our first rehearsals and our first songwriting at my old studio in a basement, wet and hot. Haha This was long time ago. Times have changed, so we have. But the core of JOE is still the same.
pdn: How did his departure from the band affect JoE?
Chai: It looks harder than it is. I always wrote a big part of the music for JOE. I think Dorians departure gave me some kinf of freedom. Finally. the last year was horrible for all of us. Now there was only one way left: straight ahead! Of course we loose some old fans, but now we see who was interested in the music or just in a figure of the band.
Chai: Ok first of all, Dorian and me parted. It was not possible to work together anymore. Sometimes it´s better to go separat ways before someone dies :-)Serious, it was a good decision. The band situation nearly killed us. There was everything but music around us. Only anger and bad vibes. In the end i saw the band on a nother level. That was not possible with the old lineup. BJ left due to private stuff and Ophelia due to her job with Apoptygma Berzerk. Both BJ nd Ophelia are still close friends of mine. And this is more important than any business!
pdn: You've worked/ played with many other cool bands, which was your favourite collaboration so far?
Chai: Oh that´s hard to say... I loved the work with KMFDM and The Birthday Massacre. I love their music. KMFDM is such a great band. Old-School-Industrial Rock. And when they said, that Sascha wantes wo work with us is was kind of an honor. Our first shows with TBM are kind of a ground of our career. I still remember how Chibi wanted to foist bananas on me while telling me they would help against my nervous mood.
pdn: You and Dorian Deveraux, your cousin, formed the band. How did you two get the idea of forming a band and adopting this style for it?
Chai: We both wanted to make music and infect the world. There was no “styling” no plan. We just did our thing. I still remember our first rehearsals and our first songwriting at my old studio in a basement, wet and hot. Haha This was long time ago. Times have changed, so we have. But the core of JOE is still the same.
pdn: How did his departure from the band affect JoE?
Chai: It looks harder than it is. I always wrote a big part of the music for JOE. I think Dorians departure gave me some kinf of freedom. Finally. the last year was horrible for all of us. Now there was only one way left: straight ahead! Of course we loose some old fans, but now we see who was interested in the music or just in a figure of the band.
pdn: Which are your favourite bands, and what bands have been maybe an influence on the initiation of your musical carreer?
Chai: There are thounsands of elements that influenced me, but some bands are very important: KMFDM, Nine Inch Nails, The Gathering, Tiamat, Front Line Assembly. I don´t know if you can hear the influences, but they are inside of our music.
pdn: Some of the JoE songs are very melancholic, sometimes even sad, like Puppet for example. Who writes the lyrics?
Chai: Dorian wrote the lyrics first, now Manja and me are the ones who write the lyrics. The new lyrics are much more melancholic. I love it.
pdn: The band has members from several different countries from around the globe; have you ever considered playing in a language other than English?
Chai: English is the language, most of the people all over the world understand. We want to transport our message as far as possible, this is not possible when you limit your lyrics to a couple of people
pdn: I know you've just recently released an album called 'The Clock', which I am planning to review soon by the way. Any plans for the near future at the moment? Chai: We wanna rock more than ever. We wanna have shows all over the world! Of course i allready work on the next album. But i love to be on stage with my lovely band.
pdn: Thank you again for this interview! Anything you would like to add to your constantly increasing number of fans?
Chai: Don´t let people fuck your mind !
No comments:
Post a Comment