Rockezine.com interview with Mennen on Feb 24, 2004

with Alex Jansen on Feb 24, 2004

It has been almost six years since Mennen released their third studio album Age Of Fools. In March their latest efford Freakazoid will be released on the young Snakebite label. Rockezine got the chance to talk to bass player Alex Jansen.
		Why did it take Mennen almost six years to come up with a new album? It took 6 years to make a new studio-album, but in the meantime we released a live-album recorded in the Biebob venue. After the live-album we did some tours in Europe. And right before we wanted to release album number 5, we decided it wasn’t good enough and it ended up in the trash bin. We decided to write new material, in a relaxing environment. We build our own rehearsal room with a studio inside. So we took time to build that, write album number 6 , record it and now it is 2004.
		Could you give us a little insight in the writing an recording proces? On all the other albums it was mainly Erik and Joss who came up with a song or an idea and the rest of the band made their part in that. This time it went totally different. As I joined the band during the recording of Age Of Fools, I didn’t really contribute to that album, I wanted to make sure that I could put my efforts into the new album. For this album we locked ourselves up in the rehearsal studio and jammed on riffs and melody lines. We recorded that stuff all the time. Afterwards took the recordings home and filtered out the interesting parts. We used them to jam. That’s how we made Freakazoid. The recordings took place in our own studio, knowing that we didn’t have a time limit, like you have when you record in a big studio. We recorded it digitally. Afterwards Peer Raven (Henry Rollins) transferred it to Protools. This is the story in a nutshell but I can assure you it took a lot of time.
		How did Edwin Musper (Van Halen, Scorpions and Metallica) get involved as a producer and what is his greatest contribution? Joss met him in the basement of Universal Music. They were both digging through archives and had a nice chat. A couple of days after that, we received the news that Peter de Wint (Glenn Hughes, Harem Scarem) couldn’t do our mix due to health problems. We couldn’t wait any longer. So we e-mailed Erwin and asked him if we could phone him. He reacted in like 2 minutes, so Joss picked up the phone and asked him if it was possible to do the mix of Freakazoid. He said that he would like that, if he had enough time, as he was working on the new Scorpions album. In the end the Scorpions had to play some shows and we did the finishing touch of the album together. The biggest contribution made by Erwin is the fact that he made the band sound like 2004, honest, sharp and typical Mennen.
		How did you come up with Freakazoid as the title of the album? In October I spent some days in France for interviews and in the evening I got bored. It is always nice to be in France but at that moment I was bored of talking all day and after returning to the hotel there was nothing on tv. The only thing that was cool to watch were cartoons and in one of them I heard Freakazoid so I send a mesagge to the rest of the band. They all reacted cool to it. The working title for the album was "Band Of Brothers". In the end we figured that Freakazoid fitted better with the cover we had, plus there was already a song called "Freakazoid" on the album.
		A couple of months ago Snakebite re-released your 1994 self titled debut album. What is the biggest difference between Mennen ’94 and Mennen ’04? Mennen grew from a band based on riffs into a band that writes songs. We have always done what we thought was good for us and we managed to survive quite some musical movements. In the end these 10 years made us a much stronger band.
		A lot of crap has been released the last couple of months. Freakazoid defenitely stands out. What makes Mennen sound so fresh; what is the Mennen-secret? Being honest musicians. We don’t follow trends but do what our musical hearts tell us. Together we create a sort of energy and manage to put that spirit on record. The problem nowadays is that a band has to score with one single and has no time to grow. We had that time and used it. As for any label, our label also wants us to sell which is normal but we are not directed in some kind of direction. So in the end we can create our own thing and that is why it stands out from the crap. Not everything is crap of course but a lot of music is not real anymore. A band is introduced as the new thing, scores with one single and is promoted so much that in the end everybody is fed up with the band and the band is killed by marketing. Even some big names (I won’t mention them) disappointed with their music. Mennen is patient and honest and that is what you will find on the album.
		What are your expectations of the new album? That’s always difficult to say. The expectations are good, the album will be released in more countries than ever before so it looks that people trust Mennen. I hope that we can continue what we started in Europe 2 years ago by playing in all those cool countries. We played in Spain, France, Portugal and Germany to name a few. Of course we also want to continue in Holland but that’s a bit more difficult.
		Can we see Mennen on the road this year? Yes, I don’t know if it will be like before when we played every hellhole with electricity but we will go out for sure. At this moment we are working on some possibilities to support a big name on tour. Most of the stuff will take place in Europe. In Holland we will play the Borstrock festival with Thin Lizzy, which is confirmed. Borstrock takes place in Vossemeer in the south of Holland. We play the Rock Inc Festival the 21st of March. That is all I can say for the moment. If you want to know more you can always look on our website of course. www.mennen.net
		What can we expect from Mennen in the near future? Do we have to wait another six years for the next album? At this moment we are preparing our show for the new tour but I can tell you that in April the first new sessions are planned to record demos. I have written some lyrics that can’t wait to be put into a song. I think that you can expect a new album by the end of 2005.
(Geert Oldenmenger)