Heartland

The first (of hopefully many) before the forthcoming festival.
http://www.yc.rs/sr/magazine/intervjui/ ... Mercy.html

The same old stuff basically - here's what Google Translate came up with :


The British band Sisters of Mercy will perform at the 29th UÅ¡ću June in the first edition of the festival Belgrade Calling. In an interview with Yellow Cab they talk about future plans, recall of past performance in Belgrade, but also reveal how they live when not on stage and touring.





Yellow Cab: Did you come to Belgrade as a band or any other "package"?
Sisters of Mercy: We act solely as a band, and that means Andrew Eldritch on vocals, Chris Catalyst and Ben Christo on guitars, Doktor Avalanche on bass.

YC: What can we expect from your gig in Belgrade?
SoM: bright lights, lots of smoke, a well known song Sisters of Mercy, which will run in the classic manner and an occasional leap into another dimension.

YC: You have already several times been in Serbia, the last couple of years ago, when you have a concert to remember. What are your memories of this concert, the audience and the city itself?
SoM: We played in an incredible amphitheater, in the hot sun. There was something we did not like. We do not expect anything less this time either.

YC: Who is the most influenced your music and what you love to listen to these days?
SoM: Our musical idols were, and others, The Stooges, Motorhead, Ramones and Suicide. Do not just listen to music too, reminds us of the work. We prefer to read books and watch good movies. However, Chris is excited to see Faith No More at the festival in Belgrade, and I hope that we will arrive in time to hear Public Enemy.

YC: What would you say to someone who is new and wants to be doing music?
SoM: message would be: you do something else. If you can not get, you try to be very, very good at what you do.

YC: A lot of your fans expect a new album Sisters of Mercy or something you could hold in their hands, and that has your name on it. Are you planning a new release?
SoM: No, at this point.

YC: What do you think about the digital age in which we live, which is pretty up the music industry? Do you see it as something good or not?
SoM: Nothing will change, so it is pointless to think about. This means that gone are the days where we were given an advance to record a good record, which means that the days of good albums, and somewhat over.

YC: Do you still enjoy whilst on tour?
SoM: I enjoy to go to new and interesting places, it is definitely. The last few tours we gave ourselves the task of management to play only at places that give us the best conditions to make our concert sounded and looked good. This is our main criterion when we go on tour.

YC: The name of the festival at which you perform in Serbia, says Belgrade Calling. Did you hear the voice that calls to return to Belgrade?
SoM: We love to play in your part of the world. We want to go back, especially love the summer in Belgrade.

YC: This is an opportunity to order something to their fans in Serbia.
SoM: We are looking forward to see you again at the festival. Come again to create moments to remember.

It's just occurred to me that perhaps the reason all of these interviews end up being the same old stuff is because there are no more questions left to ask. I don't mean that everything's been answered - as fans there are lots of things that we want answered - but, for a general interview for the general public, what would we expect to be asked of a band that has no new product, much the same show as last time and has essentially been repeating itself for the last twenty years? The interviews are repetitive because the band's repetitive.

Nah, it's because the interviews are just fluff pieces for local mags, radio or tv stations: "Look! The Sisters are coming to town! Let's do an interview..."

It's like the "2 minute interview" thing they run in The Metro paper.

The interview always covers the same topics:

- band's past
- current lineup
- recent and current touring schedule
- why no new album (and associated discussion about the state of the record industry)
- do you like our city?

It's just the nature of these kind of interviews. Check out Depeche Mode's 101 video from the mid-late 80s - they give a dozen or so radio interviews to stations across the US and they all ask the same questions.

Your average wannabe-VJ from Lithuania isn't going to ask Andrew about his opinion of the Baltic states, the current unrest in Syria, the impact that China's strive for economic and industrial growth at the expense of the environment and it's people's human rights, or the state of the Euro and the effect that is having on countries like Greece... all of which I'm sure Andrew would have an answer for.

Also, it's only because we're slavishly following the media coverage that we notice the repetition.

Yeah but usually those same questions are "tell us about the new album" etc and then there's actually something new to say. In any particular round of interviews over say a couple of months, the questions and answers will be roughly the same but at the next round the answers at least will be different and so might some of the questions because something new might have happened. Sisters interviews have been identical for twenty years.

stufarq wrote:In any particular round of interviews over say a couple of months, the questions and answers will be roughly the same but at the next round the answers at least will be different and so might some of the questions because something new might have happened

aye, fair point

Quiff Boy wrote:Nah, it's because the interviews are just fluff pieces for local mags, radio or tv stations: "Look! The Sisters are coming to town! Let's do an interview..."

It's like the "2 minute interview" thing they run in The Metro paper.

The interview always covers the same topics:

- band's past
- current lineup
- recent and current touring schedule
- why no new album (and associated discussion about the state of the record industry)
- do you like our city?

It's just the nature of these kind of interviews. Check out Depeche Mode's 101 video from the mid-late 80s - they give a dozen or so radio interviews to stations across the US and they all ask the same questions.

Your average wannabe-VJ from Lithuania isn't going to ask Andrew about his opinion of the Baltic states, the current unrest in Syria, the impact that China's strive for economic and industrial growth at the expense of the environment and it's people's human rights, or the state of the Euro and the effect that is having on countries like Greece... all of which I'm sure Andrew would have an answer for.

Also, it's only because we're slavishly following the media coverage that we notice the repetition.

It would seem that Mr Catalyst shares (y)our frustration about the repetitious nature of most Sisters interviews, as someone has asked him on Formspring if he finds it boring that it's always the same old questions, to which he replies :

"I'm lucky in one sense that not that many of the interviews really want to interview me, which is absolutely fine by me. Interviews (particularly Sisters ones) tend to be mostly very boring. I find it a bit offensive being asked 'where did you get the name of the band?' primarily because that question has been posed and answered on several trillion documented occasions, and secondarily because when the band got the name, I was 6 months old. "