Fujiya&Miyagi

De cette ville on inventa le concept de station balnéaire et par la suite tout un imaginaire de vacances et d’échappatoire aux néfastes pensées de la vie quotidienne inscrit encore de nos jours dans les romans et les textes de chansons. Ainsi, à une saison où les manteaux tombent et les jambes se dénudent, le Bar Cult propose de s’intéresser au rayonnement musical de Brighton, desfois qu’il en serait dénué de pollen.

Brighton serie 1 : Fujiya&Miyagi, interview

En 2008, sortait Lightbulbs, introduit in media res par le single Knickerbocker qui donne le ton du nouvel album : groovy.
La production est propre laissant toute la place à la touche caractéristique des Fujiya&Miyagi, c’est à dire la voix tantôt douce, soufflée, chuchotante presque, tantôt posant le rythme à l’aide des compères basse et batterie donnant un son un peu brut tandis que les sonorités électroniques se font plutôt discrètes à l’exception de Goosebumps.
La sobriété des morceaux n’enlève rien à leur efficacité de sorte que l’essence des influences funk, hip-hop ou la pop française des années 60 est toujours perceptible.
Côté paroles, des scènes tirées du quotidien sont racontées avec malice ou mélancolie. Une distance transformant l’achat d’un lave-vaisselle ou le changement d’une ampoule en micro-évènements poétiques.
Si certains morceaux se prêteraient plutôt à l’écoute confortable dans son salon, d’autres invitent aux déhanchements, tous, au claquement de doigt.

credits to Anaïs S. (le Bar Cult)

David, Steve, Matt, Lee

Le Bar Cult: You quote Serge Gainsbourg as one of your main influences, how did you come in touch with his work ?

Steve (claviers): David, our singer, he’s not here at the moment, is a huge Serge Gainsbourg fan and has been for a few years. So, from my point of view, he introduced me to Serge Gainsbourg. Matt, were you acquainted to him ?
Matthew (basse): Yeah, the Melody Nelson stuff and good old stuff. Last time we were in Paris, we visited his house and we stood outside the little gates  looking through.  I think this time we’re gonna go and visit his grave !
There’s so much stuff he’s done you can explore from back to where its really early stuff were. Just standing around the piano, smoking a cigarette, being very jazzy… That’s really, really beautiful music.
Steve : With the lyrics, none of us speak french so we had to get translation. I understand there is some interesting search on words.
Matt :  Yeah, we cannot get the word play. It ’d be the main incentive first to learn french so we can actually understand what he’s saying.

LBC.: Could you tell us a story of what happened during the recording of Lightbulbs ?

Matt : One difference was that we went working dayjobs, office jobs, whatever… When did we start recording ?
Steve : About Christmas time. This time last year actually. We finished it about march. We did it in say, four months.
Matt : Some of the songs, we had them in the live set so we played them and we knew them really well. And some of the other songs, we hardly knew so we were learning them as we were recording. That’s quite a mix really.
But a similar approach that we did in the sequencing and the programming.
Steve : It was quite stressful I guess.
Matt : Yeah. But I think Transparent Things, when I joined the band, I joined half-way through Transparent Things I suppose.
Steve : Yeah.
Matt : But you had a lot of time to think about the album.
Steve : Yeah.
Matt : The mixes, and stuff like that.
Steve : Yeah.
Matt : This time with Lightbulbs, it was a more focused kind of view. -There’s this time to do it, we must do it in this, couple of months, really. Maybe do we work well under pressure ? *laughter*
Steve : Not sure.
Matt : But we have to admit since we had a lot more less time and there was a lot of pressure…
Steve : It was more enjoyable.
Matt : Yeah ! It is possible to say.

LBC.: Why ‘Lightbulbs’ ?

Matt : There’s a couple of reasons coming from David, the singer. One of them which I like is that each song is a little idea and in cartoons when someone has an idea a little lightbulb flashes. I like that there’s a visual image too.
Steve : David was quick, at the quite early stage, he wanted the album to be called Lightbulbs and that this song was gonna be on it.
Matt : I think he also reflexed his lyrics, the references to..
Steve : The mundane.
Matt : Yeah, being home, the domestic set up when changing a lightbulb is an event !

LBC.: How do you proceed to play Lightbulbs songs live ? How does it differ from the studio version ?

Steve : We’ve got a drummer now. He appears on two of the songs in Lightbulbs, or three… He plays pretty much of the set, that makes the difference, we have a live drummer. I guess we tweaked him a little bit. We used to play with a drum machine so it’s quite similar to the album but it sounds different now with the drummer. We can’t cheat anymore. *laughter*

LBC.: After all this time what are you starting to learn about being a band…

Steve : I’ve been doing this for ten years now. Since about 99. No if it’s about ten years, it’s 98. Me and David we used to do it part-time, it wasn’t a job. It was a hobby then it became serious so a few members, Matt, joined.

LBC.: What is the main thing you’ve learned from working in the musical field ?

Steve : Well, there is a lot of assholes. *laughter* It’s more making money than music.
Matt : I guess, the differences… I mean I’ve been in a few different bands before I joined Fujiya&Miyagi but I never get to go on tour, there was always like one gig. We went in London quite a lot to play in a gig but we were still at our jobs so we did that first real tour in America.
You think : « that’s gonna be fantastic », reality is you’re paying for yourselves, being squashed into a van. That’s quite an experience.

Entretien réalisé par Maéva T. le 19 novembre 2008 au Grand Mix, Tourcoing. Photo : AnaGBMF.

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