DRY CAN


When exactly did you start the band and how come there has been such a long break between "Something like that" (2007) and "Meanwhile"? Was the band on hiatus or were you steadily rehearsing and just not releasing?

Anne: the name of Dry Can came up at the end of the 90's. Antoine and I were at that time an acoustic duet, playing mainly covers, and we needed a name in order to look for some gigs with our freshly recorded demo. But the real Dry Can was born in 2001 when we decided to give up with the covers, write our songs and plug the guitars...implying we had to find a drummer and a bass player.

Antoine: After the release of "Something like that…" we've been touring as much as we could till the end of 2009 and then, we decided to let life take over its rights a bit : 2 babies were born, a house was bought and was literally re-built...with a rehearsing and recording studio in the basement. In the meantime, "Meanwhile" was peacefully finding its way out: the third baby!

Could you sum up your influences ... are the MEAT PUPPETS also a band you enjoy listening to, because it sounds as if. Does the PEARL JAM vocals comparison ever bother you or is it rather a tribute to them?

Anne: Meat puppets is a name that came up several times in the different reviews we had, but the truth is that we don't know the music they play at all...shame on us!

Antoine: Yes, we've got no choice but listen to the Meat Puppets now ! About Pearl Jam, I guess this part of the question is dedicated to me…I discovered Pearl Jam on MTV in 1992 when they released their first album "TEN". "Belle baffe !" (we say in French). This is one of the bands I learned to play guitar and sing with. It is a fact, that they had a big influence on my perception of rock music. So no bother at all. Moreover this is not the worst influence I have. And since you ask, here are one of the bands and singers I like (no order and I keep the bad ones for me ;) ) : Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Stone temple pilots, Blind melon, Guns n' roses, Black Crowes, Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Ben Harper, Oceansize, Faith no more, and more… Anne could you please talk to us about the "heavier sound" part of Dry Can ?

How about the heavier sounds that you also have on the records?

Anne: the heavier side of Dry Can comes from some of my influences, that's right. I've been listening quite a lot to bands such as Deftones, Korn...I love that wild approach of the music!

There aren't any lyrics included. Which topics do you have (personal/social/political) and which song sums up the ideas of the band best?

Anne: well, we use our personal experiences to write. That means, topics are mainly about what we or people around us have been through in the past years. Not easy to pick just one song to sum up Dry Can's lyrics: let's just say we're into "human issues" in general.

"Blue Horizons" also has some stoner and psychedelic influences … where do you draw the line when writing a song - are there any limits that you have mutually agreed on or does time tell whether a song suits the band or not?

Anne: Well, there's no limit really. That's why there are many influences on "Meanwhile", from the Doors to Korn, and we enjoy having that diversity: that makes the job so much more interesting. As long as we consider a song is good, it is fine with us; no matter what are its "perfumes"!

You recently played a gig with ABRAHMA and since all the reviews are really amazing do promoters get in touch with you already or do you still have to ask people for shows … which would be kind of a downer. Is it hard to find shows in Paris?

Anne: We still ask for shows. You're right; it's not easy in Paris and in France in general to find some good ones. The place is crowded: many bands and the French people are no so much into the Rock kind of music. I think, one of the consequences is that promoters ain't too much enthusiastic with the idea of programing an independent Rock band, the lack of interest for this music in the country representing a real financial risk-taking they often cannot afford. Abrahma are friends of us, and for the last gig we played with them lately as for most of the opportunities we've got to get on stages, it still comes from the relationships we may have with some other bands or people involved into the "industry" and that we've met before…guess that's what is called the " Network". The trouble is ours is not that big!

The video for "Path" is really unique and seems quite professional - did you hire somebody for the storyline and the shoot? Was it really expensive?

Anne : "Path" is a self-produced video. I wrote the story, bought a reflex and a pile of books to learn how the damned thing was working, and after about 6 months, we started to shoot, Antoine and I behind the camera, some friends in front, making the actors. Then I editated and calibrated the whole stuff the best I could, and we decided that the result was ok, at least good enough to put it online and use it as a promoting tool on the web. So the invest was both in the shooting equipment, for the financial aspect, and in time spent to learn the job! The good thing in the choice of "self-made" thing is that we can now shoot as much as videos we want !

Where did you record the album and do you have any advice as far as recording goes .. I mean, you've been around quite a while … you probably know how to handle things ;)

Antoine: We recorded the album at home, in our studio, in the basement, and had it mixed and mastered in the Montmartre recording studio. We picked up the "self-recording" option cos' we wanted to have time on our hands for that part of "giving birth to an album" process: we have families and jobs, and only few hours per week dedicated to Dry Can. Recording ourselves allowed us to get much further onto the artistic side: we spent a year on takes, but that slowness gave us the huge advantage of having the time and the distance to mature the music. For example, a vocal line, might seem to you to be fantastic the day you've recorded it, but after having listened at it several times during the following week, you realise, that by changing a single note, the whole thing sounds much better. We owned weeks of reflection! But that's how we feel it's the best way to proceed for Dry Can but that may not be an appropriate method for another bands.

Anne: …and it also implies to have a studio with a correct acoustic treatment (very expensive), all the equipment to have a good sound (very very expensive), and somebody in the band able to make the sound engineer (Antoine was our guy, not expensive!). Again, the great advantage of picking that solution is that we can record an album whenever we want.

Thomas Eberhardt