l'altra : l'autre chicago

Ceux qui ont suivi les emissions radio sur Campus Grenoble début 2001 se souviennent peut-etre de ce groupe de Chicago et de son label, Aesthetics, désespéré dans sa recherche de distributeur pour la France. Beaucoup de soutien de la part des fans, un article élogieux dans le magazine Magic! en 2000, mais pas de proposition concrète de la part d'un distributeur français. Cette mauvaise passe est désormais terminée, et c'est Chronowax qui prend en charge le label : sortie du back-catalogue et nouvelles sorties prévues dans les semaines qui viennent (Windsor of the Derby, compilation des artistes Aesthetics).

PurJus était depuis quelques mois déjà en contact avec Ken, bassiste dans l'altra et patron du label Aesthetics, et on s'est dit qu'une interview pour cette édition de novembre tomberait à point, synchrone avec le début de la collaboration Chronowax/Aesthetics. L'interview qui suit fut réalisée par email en octobre 2001 et reste dans sa version originale non retouchée comme à notre habitude sur PurJus. Si vous préférez une version en français, il faut le demander à (et on fera un petit effort), ou encore mieux faire la traduction pour nous...

Eben : batterie
Ken : basse
Joe (guitare) et Lindsay (claviers) n'ont pas pu répondre à nos questions.

L'altra is relatively young, and I understood that its members did not know each other before Ken posted his ad. However, the music is very coherent and demonstrates strong feelings between its members, friendship or love. Is this that that feeds your music ?
Eben: for me it's more strong feelings about music itself. I think the ends justify the means in a lot of cases with bands. I think that if the music is good then everyone can make a connection on that level, and personal feelings or friendship aren't necessarily the most important things.
Ken: Well, Joe and Lindsay have known each other for like 10 years. They moved to Chicago together even. We all kind of have different personal tastes in music, which is probably why our songs can be so weird of diverse at times too. Which I guess is good, keeps it interesting.

And if one of you were to quit the band, for any reason, would it mean the end of l'altra ?
Did it change when Marc Hellner left to concentrate on Pulseprogramming ?
Eben: i'm not sure the band would survive something like that. there's such an undescribable, off-kilter dynamic between the four of us that it would be pretty hard for someone else to come in and replace them. plus I can't see anyone else dealing with all of our bullshit. when marc left it was a bit of a drag yes, but we'd been playing for a long time before he decided to join so it wasn't the end of the world.
Ken: Same as what Eben said. If one of the 4 of us left the group, I'm pretty sure that would be it. We can all be so crazy at times, I don't see how anyone else could put up with it.

l'altra is :
a) the OTHER band from Chicago ?
b) the OTHER music ?
c) about relationships with OTHERS ?
Eben: d) a name which we decided would be incredibly difficult to spell, pronounce, read, explain, etc. perfect!
Ken: e) A very sexy Italian word that no one can pronounce correctly.

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