Name: PoiL
Members: Antoine Arnera (keyboards), Boris Cassone (guitar), Ben Lecomte (electro acoustic bass), Guilhem Meier (drums & percussion)

Nationality: French
Current release:  PoiL team up with Junko Ueda (on voice and Satsuma Biwa) for the self-titled debut album of PoiL Ueda via Dur et Doux.

If you enjoyed this interview with PoiL and would like to find out more about the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, and Facebook. For information and news about Juno Ueda, check out her official homepage.



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

The impulse can come in rehearsal when we’re jamming and find a nice sound, or pattern ... But most of the time, we use a score to write music. We know each other so well that we can easily imagine how it will sound.

For Poil Ueda, it’s particular because we wrote music on an old Japanese middle-aged piece, and we kept the melody and the biwa part, and imagined how we could add something of us to make a new thing.

And of course, we are always influenced by dreams, fever, movies, paintings, faces of people, landscapes …

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

It depends on the composers. For me, most of the time, I spend a long time meditating on what I want to make, find the colour, the mood, the language. At some point, it turns into a mind invasion – that's when  I have to start writing! It’s quite a fast process.

And when we’re working on performing the music, the piece always take on a new meaning – always a bit different from what I initially thought.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

Yes, depending on the purpose, we can search particular scales, patterns of a particular place, looking for specifics sounds with pedals or on the computer. All of this can influence the writing.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

In the past, I smoked a lot during the composition phase. But now I quit! Coffee, yes!

Sleeping is important, cause it’s often when I fall asleep, or when I can’t sleep during the night that ideas can come. Being alone, being in a calm ambiance, practicing kung fu, too.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

Generally, I start to write kinds of diagrams, drawings, notes to organize my thoughts. It’s not particularly difficult because I've usually spent a long time meditating on the music before committing anything to paper.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

It depends. For Poil Ueda, we worked on a narrative about wars in Japan in the middle ages. So there were many pictures to capture, and the text was already there. So the music followed the sound of the text.

When I write music with lyrics, I often imagine the sound of some words. They can then make me find the lyrics.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

For me, if the lyrics reveal their meaning too clearly, I cannot listen to the music behind them. I need to get lyrics with a more open meaning, something closer to poetry.
 
Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

I do try to keep the main and original idea I came up with before writing. But new ideas will inevitably come and create new directions (more or less).

Afterwards, the concrete way of playing the music, with the constraints of the instrument, can also change the direction.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

I like when things appear on their own accord!

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

That’s what I said just before!

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

Of course, I have to be connected with a deep energy, to find the purest intention, to be aware to everything around me. It’s similar to a meditation.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

I think works of art have always been unfinished, infinite. We have to accept that it’s eventually done because although it can always be developped, it will never be perfect.

For me, I feel it when I’m done with a piece.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

I can change my pieces when something doesn’t work while we’re creating it, in rehearsal. After that, I like to forget it, and be surprised when I listen to it again after a lot of time has passed.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

I like it, and think it’s very important to know the technique of mixing because it can make you aware of musical problems, or quality!

But it’s important to not be too perfectionist. It is the same with composing; it’s never perfect, never really finished!

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Often, when we play music again and again, it takes another face, we can discover new aspects, I like this sensation. It’s another relationship with the music than the composing period.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Woow! I don’t know if it’s so much different.

Making music for me is a way to search inside me, and translate what's there to the outside of me, trying to keep the purest intention.

Maybe you can do this with a chat, with a coffee … I like doing this with music!