Rockezine.com interview with Festina Lente on Nov 05, 2004

with Martijn on Nov 05, 2004

Festina Lenté is a hard working band from the southern of the Netherlands. Between all these hard work Martijn (the drummer) made some time free to answer my questions.
		Please introduce yourself and the band, who are you and what kind of music do you play? Hi, we are Festina Lenté, a Dutch metal band from the south of Holland (Voerendaal, Limburg). My name is Martijn, I’m the drummer of the band. Besides me, Festina Lenté are: Remy (bass, vocals), Rick (guitar) and Rutger (guitar). We’ve founded the band about 3 years ago. A year ago we’ve released our first EP Welcome To The Lunapark. We’ve also already made 2 videos. The last one, called “Trance”, has been broadcasted on MTV and The Box frequently the last couple of months. At the moment we’re very busy finishing our newest release: People Like Us. We describe our style of music preferably as luna-metal. For us, luna means doing your own thing, in stead of getting stuck in clichés and self-made bounds; believing in your dreams and putting in as much effort as possible to fulfil those dreams! Musically speaking, our luna-sound is a complex mix of ingredients, elements & styles. We always seem to perform on the edge of heavy and melodic, underground and commercial, serious and complete madness. Let’s say that the first rule of Festina Lenté is having fun: that explains a lot!
		Who or what are your main sources of inspiration? Ahhh…difficult question. Festina Lenté doesn’t really work like that. Let me first say that every member has a very distinct and different opinion of what good music is all about. Rick is our progressive metal head, Remy is more into drum ’n’ bass, Rutger is only digging alternative rock and I myself, don’t laugh, jazz music... man… jazz music. So you’ll understand that it’s difficult to talk about ‘main sources of inspiration’. Like I said, if we like it, we’ll play it. In the past, the press came up with bands like System Of A Down, Machine Head and Mr. Bungle, but to call those bands a real source of inspiration? Nah… not really.
		On your website, nice site by the way, I saw that you are recording a new album, when can we expect this album and who is going to release it? Thanks for the compliment! But let me put something straight: it’s not gonna be an album, but just a promo/maxi-single. That’s mainly because of financial reasons. We’ve just finished the recordings after 2 months of hard work. People Like Us will contain 3 brand new songs: “People Like us”, “Torched” and “Star”, plus a very heavy enhanced bonus part! See for yourself, but I think we will blow you away with that! I’m not gonna tell you too many details, but it will be very original for sure! People Like Us has been recorded and produced by well-known producer Gail Liebling (Dreadlock Pussy, Gail Of God). He also produced our previous recording Lunapark. Gail is a great guy. He really did a great job, I can tell you that! And I also believe that we’ve learned a lot as a band about ‘being in the studio’, although it was just 3 songs! At the moment People Like Us is being mastered. We’re also very busy with the artwork and the enhanced part. And of course, we want to make a new video, but there’s nothing concrete on that part up till now. We hope we can release the album before Christmas this year as a nice Christmas gift, haha! No, seriously, the aim of this recording will be to get more and better gigs and, if possible, to attract attention from a record company. So indeed, we will release it ourselves, the same way we’ve been releasing our stuff before: the D.I.Y-way. Let’s just see what is going to happen.
		A few weeks ago I saw your video passing by on the Box (a Dutch television broadcaster), did you make this clip by yourself? No, basically the whole clip has been made by The Freestylerz (www.freestylerz.com); two young, very talented multimedia wizards. They’ve made all the pictures and animations, because “Trance” is a fully animated video. But we did plug the video ourselves! Remy and Rutger just went to the MTV and The Box offices with the video, and hey, it worked! That shows that a bit of brutality doesn’t harm anyone! Of course, we were very proud when MTV broadcasted our video for the first time! That was really a major issue on my ‘Things-to-do-before-I’m-old’-list
		Who made up the name Festina Lenté en what does it mean? Remy came with the idea long ago. It’s an old Latin proverb, which means: ‘Hurry Slowly’. The accent doesn’t really have a meaning, that’s more for the aesthetics. Actually this proverb matches the band’s philosophy quite well. I think my previous answers show why.
		What is the weirdest thing that ever happened during a gig? We once had a gig in Berlin. So, we drove for about 9 hours, played a gig in the middle of nowhere in that huge city for about 20 people or so, and then just drove back again for 9 hours. Really crazy, but man, what a great weekend it was!
		What is your all time favourite album? At this point I can only speak for myself. I really like bands like Faith No More, Soundgarden, Motorpsycho and Morphine. To pick one album is impossible. As you can see, it’s not really metal, but I just seem to really dig that kind of music.
		What are the future plans of Festina Lenté? Of course first, the release of People Like Us and then, mainly just going on with the things we’re already doing at the moment. So that means, more gigs, a new video, new songs, hopefully a tour or something. And, of course, exploring our luna-world…
		Anything I forgot? This is your last chance to say it. Thanks for the interview, we really appreciate it. People, who liked this interview, please have a look at our website, www.flonline.nl. You’ll find everything from tourdates to merchandise, from Luna-art to special downloads. We hope to see you soon! Bye!
(Jeroen Habets)