Having stepped up as main support to Swedish legends Soilwork on their European tour after previous choice Zimmer’s Hole were forced to pull out at the last minute, melodic death heads One Way Mirror have the chance to show UK audiences why French metal doesn’t stop at Gojira. Soundshock met with lead singer Guillaume Bideau (also of Mnemic fame) to discuss politics, French metal and why heaviness will never be a substitute for good ol’ fashioned melody. Let’s get continental…

Good afternoon sir! How’s the tour going?

Sounds very jolly. All the guys in One Way Mirror knew and had toured with each other before, how did the band actually form?

 
Have you heard the new GNR album? It ain’t half bad!
No I haven’t actually…

Fair enough…so you prefer the more melodic side of heavy metal?

You also brought in Tue Madsen (Dark Tranquillity, Mnemic) for production duties. What did you feel his experience brought to the table?

Well the idea when I called the guys up to do the album was to record and produce it all together. We thought that the best guy to record the drums for us was Daniel Bergström – he had just produced with In Flames and Soilwork on their latest albums and had worked with Dirk [Verbeuren, drums] and I before, so he was a natural choice. We did a lot of the recording in my home studio and took all our gear into the same house, so then the logical step was to go to Tue Madsen because he was a good friend of mine and had worked with Mnemic, and he uses Pro-Tools and is so good at getting into the music. You literally just describe the mood that you want and he’ll create it, so he was the cherry on the cake for us.

So what was the mood you were looking for?
Just something that was heavy and a bit catchy, with a bit of an industrial influence.

Nice. The band is predominantly based in France, whose metal scene has been criminally overlooked for many years now. How did you find it growing up there as a metal fan and then later putting a band together?
Well it’s getting way better now than it was before, as it used to be very unprofessional over there. Now you have more bands coming over like Dagoba, Gojira and many more, so it’s improving a lot. It’s a shame really as so few French metal bands speak English, and so it’s pretty much impossible for them to promote themselves. It’s like “OK so we do cool music, but we can’t sell any of it!”

So did you consciously learn English yourself as you wanted to put your music across, or did you just learn it growing up?
Oh I’ve been a fan of English music since I was like 4 – to be honest, I’ve always hated French vocals! Obviously I’ve been surrounded by English-speaking guys in Mnemic for a while now as well, so I can speak it a lot better than before. It really helps actually, as in only three years with Mnemic I can tell that I’ve improved so much!

Do you think that growing up in France has given you any particular perspective on your music that other nationalities might not?
No not at all! Certainly not with metal…well not yet any way.

Fair enough! This isn’t your first time on UK shores, how do you find touring over here?
Yeah it’s cool, like other countries it’s not the best and it’s not the worst, it ranges from venue to venue really. One thing is that you’re not well-treated by the venues, they don’t give you much to eat and shit. It’s something that is quite famous among musicians – if you’re an opening band, it’s like “yeah whatever, you’re shit we don’t care.” Today wasn’t too bad actually, but in general Europe is way better for looking after the bands. I love full English breakfasts though.

Who doesn’t! With Zimmer’s Hole pulling out of the lineup, you’ve been moved up a spot on the bill…
Well unfortunately Gene [Hoglan, drums]’s mother passed away and Byron [Stroud, bass] had broken his ankle, so they had to cancel and we jumped to second place. They added Anatata to the bill as well, who are another French band that I mastered for.

So you put them on the tour yourself?
Yeah basically! Well, obviously we didn’t actually add them but I proposed them and everyone seemed into it. I usually don’t do that, but they were in the right place at the right moment. We got the news through that there was a spare spot going, so I rang them and told them and it all went through!

Nice one. So presumably you’ll now get a longer set?
Yeah we’ll get to play longer now as we were originally supposed to be first one, but it’s still too bad as the dudes from Zimmer’s Hole [Stroud and Jed Simon] are also from Strapping Young Lad, so a few of us know them pretty well and it would have meant even more friends on the road.

Speaking of friends, Dirk will be pulling double duty tonight as drummer for both yourselves and Soilwork, how has he been finding that so far?
Oh yeah totally fine! Even the Soilwork stuff is easy for him to play as he’s an excellent drummer. Some of his other stuff is like a war on drums or something, so playing for both us and Soilwork is not a problem for him. I thought he might get a bit frazzled on the road, but he’s not drinking or smoking anymore – I mean he never smoked really but he’s cut out the drink as well – so he’s really fit and healthy as well. He never really drank a LOT, it was just that after four or five beers he could get wasted, and he hated having to drum after going out the day before. I don’t think he misses it.

What about future schedule conflicts that might arise?
Well obviously if Dirk has stuff scheduled with Soilwork then we can’t ask him to come in and work for us, so we’d have to get in a session drummer. He gets very little time off as well so we have to respect that and just tell him to go back home and see his family.

That sounds fair enough. What about the future for One Way Mirror, you have a few months worth of touring to get through…
We’ll see, we have some tours to do in 2009, but after that it will be time for the next Mnemic release and I think we’ll all go back to focus our other bands for a while.

To go off topic, as a French citizen your no stranger to politics making headlines, not least thanks to a few odd controversies created by President Sarkozy. Did you follow the US elections?
Yeah I’m very happy about Obama! I have a few American friends who are all really cool, but they’ve said in the past that they really like George W. Bush and I was like “what the fuck is wrong with you?” It’s amazing how blind people can be - I mean the guy got into office twice! Of course Obama getting in doesn’t mean everything is going to change, but I’m really happy for black people because they finally now have some recognition. Americans can now accept that the boss is a black guy, which is so fucking cool. I also think that the Democrats are so much better than the Conservative guys, as a little conservatism can be cool but too much sucks.

Would you like to see a more liberal government get back into power in France?
Well honestly I’m ok with Sarkozy, as I guess I’m more from the right. In France it’s like you have to choose left if you want to be social or right if you want to make any money, but I only really chose right because you have to choose! I’m more in between if anything, but in France you can’t be in between.

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