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Interview by Shaun Dale
October 26 was a typically dreary fall night in Seattle, but Stereolab had packed the Showbox theatre for one of their three Northwest appearances. I like Stereolab just fine, but I might have skipped the show except for the opening act, a French pop outfit named after a poisonous Japanese blowfish. As it turns out, Fugu also seems to be French for all-American pop music.
Chicago's Minty Fresh records has finally given US audiences a chance to hear an album that's been making the international rounds for quite a while now. Fugu 1, the debut album by Fugu, is a collection of pop gems that have been carefully crafted and polished by composer Mehdi Zannad for over six years, and slowly released on singles, split singles, comps and an EP while he put them into perfect form for a full length album.
There was some trepidation involved in catching the live show. I couldn't imagine that an opening act pitching a debut album would be allowed to bring along more than a fraction of the twenty five players that appeared on the CD, and it was hard to imagine which of them could be left out and still preserve the integrity of the songs and their exquisite arrangements.
When Zannad took the stage as the leader of a quintet, whatever doubts I may have had were quickly dispelled. The songs had been altered to fit the lineup, but not at the expense of anything that mattered. It was during the live set that I began to appreciate how truly talented Zannad is. The studio and stage incarnations of Fugu are different, but each is superb.
Before sitting down with Zannad and Fugu bassist Jerome Didelot, I chatted with their tour manager who revealed that this tour was Mehdi Zannad's first live performance experience and that I had just seen his 12th appearance before an audience. I was even more amazed.
Cosmik's DJ and Louise Johnson joined me backstage with Mehdi Zannad during the break after the Fugu set. As we talked, Jerome joined us, and soon Stereolab took the stage to a tumultuous crowd reaction. Unfortunately, some bits of our conversation were overwhelmed by the sound from the stage and the crowd, even when the backstage doors were shut. This was compounded by the fact that Mehdi is a very quiet fellow, who speaks modestly and in quiet tones. Mehdi may be the lead vocalist, but Jerome is the verbal member of their partnership. Happily, a fair bit of my interview tape was decipherable. With that background, here's our Cosmik Conversation with Fugu.
Cosmik: I was very impressed by the way you adapted the songs for the five piece band. You had what, twenty five players on the album?
Mehdi: Yes, something like that.
Cosmik: And you've just started performing the music onstage. Was that because of the challenges of turning the recorded music into performing music?Mehdi: Maybe at first, but as an opening act, we don't need so many songs, so I started working them out. I had already done it with some of the older songs.
Cosmik: The press always talks about your influences, usually Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson, but there are other things that come out with the live show.
Mehdi: Yeah, I think early Paul McCartney, on the album I was thinking a lot about the first Paul McCartney solo album. More about the recording, because he was experimenting with sound as he was making the album, and it was very good.
Cosmik: But the arrangements onstage reminded me of other songs. I heard some Moody Blues, some Chad & Jeremy harmonies....who are the influences that don't get mentioned in the press? Who do you listen to?
Mehdi: Well, I listen to new records, but probably the bubblegum movement, like the 1910 Fruitgum Company, and maybe things like Emmitt Rhodes and the Raspberries. Maybe Neil Young, his first solo album. It's changing with time. I've been influenced by my guitarist's (British guitarist John Cunningham) work. I wanted him to play with me because I was fond of his stuff and in the last year I've been influenced by what he does. His approach to the instrument is slightly different than mine and I think it will lead to something different for the next album.(Jerome Didelot, who had been eavesdropping a bit, joined us at the table)
Mehdi: This is Jerome....
Cosmik: It's a pleasure to meet you, and it was a pleasure to hear you play.
Jerome: (in a comically affected voice) Yeah, I'm really influenced by Gilbert O'Sullivan... (Laughter)
Cosmik: So who onstage was actually on the album?
Mehdi: Jerome is actually the only person who worked on the album up till now, and John influenced the mixing, because I got to know him before mixing the album so he mixed it with me.
Cosmik: You've been working on some of these songs for a long time. Some of them are the old "f" songs, right? (on early Fugu releases the songs were designated by the letter f and a digit, rather than by titles)
Mehdi: Yes.
Cosmik: So they've been coming out for six years on singles and EPs and the album was recorded when, in '99?
Mehdi: Yes, it was recorded in 1999, and we had a lot of problems with the recording process, the budget and finding someone else to mix the album, because I didn't know John at that time. He was the right person to mix it.
Jerome: Everything is slow and painful with Mehdi....(laugher)
Cosmik: And it came out in Japan first?
Mehdi: Yes, it came out in Japan one year before it came out in France, which was strange, but it was finished in 2000. It was really spread out in time, but the good thing about it is it doesn't sound like it was recorded in 1999, probably.
Cosmik: Well, it's timeless, really, because you're working with a previous era and pulling it into another time. It could have been recorded in '69, or '99, or 2002.
Jerome: The only bad thing about it is that you keep working on it all the time, and it's different from what you're working on now.
[Photo: Medhi and John Cunningham]
Mehdi: Sure. Mehdi was mentioning that you're working on a new album now, and that things are interesting to you now that weren't then, but onstage you have to play the album if you're going to sell the album.
Jerome: Well, at the beginning it was a solo project for Mehdi, with his demo tape, and it's really a new thing for him to play live. In fact, his first gig just dates back to May of this year.
Mehdi: It's like my 12th gig.
Jerome: So it's not that frustrating because we are discovering the stage, with Fugu, I mean, so it's not so frustrating to play two or three or year old songs because the live aspect of Fugu is brand new, actually.
Cosmik: Jerome, you were part of the album with 25 players, and now you're a part of bringing it to the stage with five people. What's that been like?
Jerome: It was an important role on the album, because I gave advice on the recording, and some of the players, like the horn players, were just around for a few days.
Cosmik: And the two of you have a real partnership since the beginning of the album. You're the only one who's really carried over to the road.
Jerome: Well, Mehdi and I are neighbors and we can talk about music all the time, when we meet on the street or wherever. So it's important that we talk about songs, not only playing them but talking about them, because we get a distance from what we are doing and can see ways to make it better. I have a feeling that my role has been like this, Mehdi was really into it because this was his and I was involved in it from the beginning, making some demos and I could say that's great, that's great, that's great, it was often great, and then say, well, you know....
Cosmik: Well, composers, even if they get sole credit, rarely work truly alone. You need a foil.
Mehdi: Yes, working as just one person can be very claustrophobic. I don't like it.Cosmik: So after getting so much international exposure, in Spain, France, Britain, Japan, how did you finally get together with Minty Fresh and get the US release?
Mehdi: Well, I knew them from St. Ettiene, who I worked with, and I sent them the record.
Cosmik: You had done a split single with St. Ettiene, right?
Mehdi: Yes.
Cosmik: And now you've embarked on a US tour. Has the album been exposed enough to draw Fugu fans, or are you counting on the Stereolab audience?
Mehdi: Well, the tour is really good exposure, and some people come to see us, but it's really not the same thing as Stereolab who are very popular.
Cosmik: Well, they've been on the road a lot longer. By the way, your official website isn't up yet, but there's a very good fan site. Do you know about that?
Mehdi: Yes, it's a girl. She came to see us in San Francisco.
Cosmik: So you got to meet her?
Mehdi: Yes, it was very nice.
Jerome: You were asking Mehdi how he got in touch with the label, and he just sent them a tape, and that's how I met him, too. He gave me a tape, and the songs were very rough and everything, but you could still tell they were great.
Cosmik: Well, I think that's why the music on the album, with all the players and arrangement, can still work with five guys on a stage. Because at the heart of it you have great songs, great melodies.
Jerome: These days everyone talks about the arrangements, but that's just sound, you need songs. With Fugu, the songs are great and the arrangements are great, so that's twice as much better.
Cosmik: I was very impressed tonight, because coming in, I thought you'd need a lot of samples, a lot of loops, a lot of people onstage to do this. When you came onstage, I thought there was no way to do the music with five pieces. But I was wrong. And a good example is, before I came to the show tonight, I was listening to an album of Beatle songs done by a jazz band, and the style was different, the arrangements and instruments were different, but the songs were so good they worked anyway. Your songs are like that. (As I rambled on, Mehdi continually nodded in agreement) By the way, Mehdi, it doesn't do any good to nod at the tape recorder!Mehdi: (Laughs) That's true.
Cosmik: So are you working on material for the new album on the road?
Mehdi: Well, when we're done with the US tour, we'll work on the new album. Actually, we have about half of it done, we've recorded some of the songs. It will sound very different, probably.
Cosmik: Are you going to record it using the smaller group? The stage format band?
Mehdi: Yeah, it's like that.
Cosmik: You were talking earlier about the sound, that you didn't get a good soundcheck before the show. I have to admit that I thought the bass was mixed very high tonight, but actually that was really good.
Mehdi: He plays the bass strong.
Cosmik: Well, it seems like the songs were arranged for the bass to be upfront.
Mehdi: Yeah, because Jerome recorded the bass things, and he knows what to play for three years.
Cosmik: (To Jerome) And you play a lot at the top of the fretboard....
Jerome: Yeah, because a lot of the bass players, like in the Beatles songs, the bass is not strictly playing the notes of the chords, a bass can play a melody and Mehdi's aware of this. When we recorded the demos for this album we tried a lot of things with the bass and that's why the bass lines are so much part of the arrangements.(Cosmik Editor DJ Johnson, an able bassist in his own right, had an equipment question.)
Cosmik: Is that why you picked that particular model of Epiphone bass? Because it handled the highs so well?
Jerome: Actually, I put another microphone on this bass. I like the sound of this bass, because it's the sixties sound, but the basic sound of this bass, there's no attack, and I needed more attack. So I put another microphone, a Fender Jazz microphone, so it's a mix, this vintage sound and the more precise sound of the Fender Jazz. In the late 60s, a lot of bands played this same bass.
At this point, the decipherable portion of my tape came to an end. We chatted a bit about their tour experience after 7 dates ("We like Seattle, but we *love* San Francisco!"), the quality and availability of local crab, and Jerome's role onstage (he emphatically denies acting as Fugu's onstage musical director, but I'm not sure DJ believes him). After our goodbyes, Deej, Louise and I headed out front to catch the end of the Stereolab set and our new French friends headed out to sample what was left of Seattle nightlife.By the time you read this, Fugu's initial US tour will have wrapped, but their initial US recording should be widely available. It's an album not to be missed, and the next time they're on the road, they're an act you shouldn't miss again.